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skyloftian-nutcase · 28 days

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TotK DLC idea!

The screen is black. You don’t hear anything for a long time. Then, faintly, in the distance, you can hear it.

Link. Link. Open your eyes.

While the line echoes familiarity, the voice does not.

Or. Well. It does. Because while it isn’t Zelda, it’s a familiar man’s voice speaking gently, so gently you almost don’t recognize it because there’s no way he ever spoke like this in the main game.

But he is now. And instead of a golden light being the first image you see before the screen shows Link awakening… you see gloom floating in the air. The image cuts to a Hylian waking up who… doesn’t look like Link from TotK?? He’s different, still small in stature, with slightly tanner skin, platinum light blonde hair, and red eyes. But… something’s wrong with his forehead. There’s a weird line on it.

This new character you apparently are gonna be playing in the DLC blearily blinks his eyes open, clearly groggy and too weak to really move. But then that line on his forehead moves a hair, it splits apart, and you realize it’s a freaking eye, red and yellow and it’s like the ones on gloom hands and oh gosh what the hell is it doing on his forehead—

Link realizes something is off and his eyes blow wide, his hands reach for his forehead and he screams in agony and terror, only for someone to scoop him into a hug to soothe him.

And suddenly you realize why that voice was eerily familiar.

It’s Ganondorf. He resurrected you from the era of the Imprisoning War. You, who have a history with him and his family. You, who he wants to protect, who he views as his kid, who he calls a prince and says he’ll keep you safe by controlling your body with his dark magic if he has to.

Welcome to Tears of the Kingdom: Hero’s Shadow.

You have to play a long gone Hero who was resurrected. Ganondorf, who is still recovering his strength in preparation for killing the current Hero, tasks you with finding your betrothed, his daughter, as well as his wife. They’re buried somewhere in the Depths like you were. He wants you to find their burial sites so he can use his secret stone to resurrect them like he did you, and control them as well. Which is doubly bad when you realize his wife was the original Sage of Lightning. He gives you free reign to wander once you go through a tutorial (he tests you to see if you’ve recovered enough strength), because he knows you love wandering and collecting things. Your own personal objective, however, is trying to help Hyrule from the Depths, to break free from Ganondorf’s control, because Link would rather set himself on fire than let Ganondorf resurrect and control the love of his life and his mother-in-law. Your best hope is to find shards of the shattered Master Sword to try and stab the eye on Dark Link’s forehead and break the control Ganondorf has on you. Until you can, though, the monsters are your allies, you can teleport across the Depths by manifesting out of the gloom created by gloom hands (just like what Phantom Ganon does), and the world below is your oyster. If you get too close to sword shards when gloom hands are nearby, Ganondorf can see your attempt and immediately takes control of your body, and no matter what button you press Link just walks back to Ganondorf’s location and stays there until you get a chance to try again.

You start with three hearts, all empty looking like when gloom hurts you, and if you get injured they just shatter. Whenever they all shatter, you respawn at Ganondorf’s location because his gloom hands came and rescued you from dying. The only way you can get more hearts is by collecting poes and offering them to the statues in the Depths. You can communicate with the spirits of soldiers, who may give you combat tips or info about the area. If you gain enough of Ganondorf’s trust, he’ll let you command monsters, and he might even let you wander the Surface (under his supervision) during a blood moon.

You learn of Link’s and Ganondorf’s history through discovering ancient relics/texts that trigger memories. This connection between you and Ganondorf stems back to time before the war, well over ten thousand years ago. Link was engaged to Ganondorf’s daughter, but during the Imprisoning War the family fought against the demon king. Ganondorf did love his family, but he loved power more. Link sacrificed himself, letting himself get mortally wounded to save Rauru from a killing blow. Gan held him as he died, and it allowed Link to both beg him to stop and stab him in the heart with a light shard. The shard didn’t kill him, but it was what Rauru connected with when he hit him in the chest, allowing him to seal Ganondorf away. Ganondorf still wants the world, but his love for his family is still present, though now twisted, so he thinks he can control Link and everyone else with his dark magic in order to keep them safe and in line. Once the threat of the current Hero is eliminated, the world will be his, and his family will be safe. As such, he treats you, Link, the player, like a stubborn child, reeling you in, but does so in a horrific way, torturing Link by controlling him.

You have to break free of this and stop him, and the only hope you have is the distant call of a sword spirit…

#tears of the kingdom #totk #I think it would be pretty neat to play someone who is “allies” with the bad guy #but you still have the objective of stopping evil #But you have to manipulate Ganondorf and work around his watch #So you get to play double agent #And possibly see a more complex Ganondorf #Like the dude is still being evil; he’s using his love for Link as an excuse to control him #He does care about him but he’s expressing it in the worst way #and he wants to do the same to his wife and daughter #So still a bad guy but a far more interesting one #One day you’re on the Surface with him and you see the Light Dragon and you’re not sure who it is #Because Link died before Zelda ate the secret stone #But Link can kind of guess #And Ganondorf almost noticed her so Link has to hug him or say something to get his attention #You have to manipulate Gan as best you can #idk how it would end #Like once you break free what do you do #But the idea tickled my mind so I wanted to write it down #Yes I’m just playing with my Imprisoning War blorbos #no I don’t care #legend of zelda #skye time travels through the queue #hero of shadow

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princess-serah · 13 days

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Not to undermine the narrative too much, but I don't think finding out that my society was designed to produce perfect business managers would be enough to make me kill everyone including myself and paint messages on the walls in our blood

#fallout show #fallout #fallout show spoilers #vault 33 #vault 32 #vault 31 #like yes I have technically been lied to but it's a very mundane kind of manipulation #oh woe is me I'm part of a secret plot to create junior executives. Truly this is the worst

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furiousgoldfish · 10 months

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me: going about my business

my brain: yeah but what would those piece of shit abusers think about you right now?? what would they judge you for? what kind of flaw would they point out?? would they approve anything about you?? how about you think about THAT for the next hour???

#its like being worried what the worst people on earth might think if they saw you #like who even cares their sins outnumber yours by millions #their opinions are worse than worthless they're self serving and manipulative and controlling #not to mention biased stupid unsourced bigoted shallow and incorrect #i should be thrilled they would think low of me #and yet my brain is like 'BUT WOULD THEY LIKE ME NOW???'#of course they wouldn't #they didn't like you when you were a toddler and they wont like you until the day they die lol #we don't need to be liked by monsters #we need to stay away from them #ugh #growing up around this kind of scrutiny really does a number on the brain

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eerna · 1 year

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every time I see people cheering for PJO to become the Most Influential Franchise once the show drops I wanna punch something because it just means Disney's monopoly would get even bigger and more dangerous

#hp will die on its own dont worry we don't need to call in a hungry evil giant to stamp it out #i hate disney so much with every passing day. i hate it from the bottom of my heart.#can we already figure out that no franchise should have that kind of power. we're celebrating the worst of consumerism. pls #pjo liveblog #''i hate disney but i wanna help them remove hp'' hate to break it to you but that is exactly what they want you to think it's manipulation #they are evil liars who lie and don't care about humanity at all this is some president snow president coin shit

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greensaplinggrace · 8 months

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🔥🔥 Zoya Nazyalensky unpopular opinions

okay I don't really engage with her character enough to bring out the big guns, so I'll go with the only two opinions I really have on her at all (which by the way I know fandom loves to blorbofy her so please spare me from any hate for this 😭)

my first opinion is that zoya's character arc throughout the entire nikolai duology felt ridiculously overblown - like a child playing at dolls. aside from the terrible implications lb tried to hammer home about grisha powers that actually somehow made things more racist, zoya's pov itself was incredibly obtuse. the only way to get through it is to view it as a study in unreliable narration, because otherwise you have to deal with the fact that this is just a self insert for lb at this point, and zoya's real character has practically been erased.

also I'm not even going to get into how offensive zoya's rise to power is, especially the way she keeps control.

my second unpopular opinion is that fandom has such a hate boner for the darkling that they forget everything zoya builds is off the back of the darkling's 400+ years of sacrifice. which is to say that the darkling does 99% of it, zoya takes all of that effort and claims it for herself and alina completely, and then there's a deus ex machina that saves them from the consequences of somehow ruining the most important 30% of it and making things worse for the grisha.

all in all, the nikolai duology is a performative piece of garbage where lb is basically the main character and the realism that even fantasy worlds sometimes need is gone. most of it seems to be an attempt at justifying the choices made in sab, yet with worse writing that actually destroys the already spotty lore incorporated previously and makes all of the choices seem less justified. the only way to get through it is to think zoya is hallucinating or braindead, because otherwise she looks ridiculous, and I actually like her character when she's not badly written.

send me a 🔥 for an unpopular opinion (x)

#shadow and bone #grishaverse #sab salt #sab discourse #ask games #sab negativity #anti sab #anti zoya nazyalensky #i know some of my followers like her so don't take this the wrong way btw #no hate to you or anything #zoya nazyalensky critical #i like her character sometimes #but not in the nikolai duology #because reading it is like experiencing the worst kind of acid trip (the delusional anti kind)#i still cant believe she thought the darkling manipulated elizaveta from beyond the grave #that is 100% lb trying to push something at that point because the only other alternative is that zoya is fucking stupid #which would make sense i guess if she thinks changing the minds of bigots just requires a big power show...#when that's why they hate your kind so much in the first place #sure lmfao #asks and answers #fandomcourse #myramblings #anon #ty for the as nonny!

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wackyscreamswithraisin · 6 months

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Instagram sketches^, more intense stuff under cut

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labyrynth · 6 months

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so…somehow topaz is not only managing to embody “rampant capitalist” but also “insidious colonizer”???

like babe maybe try not launching an armed alien invasion of their home threatening to extract every single resource of potential value. or like. dumping a 700yr old debt on a planet that has been entirely isolated for most of that.

hey speaking of how it’s been 700 years since this supposed loan was made—why are you sweeping in to demand hundreds of years of interest on a loan you didn’t care enough to collect more than 400 years ago…conveniently AFTER you decided that maybe there was something to exploit here after all?

like goddamn when they announced “topaz and numby” i thought the pig was supposed to be NUMBY and yet Here We Are

#moi #hsr #honkai star rail #hsr topaz #topaz & numby #capitalism is capitalism i guess #the worst part is i can’t even tell if they meant for her to come off like such a straight up cunt?#like it feels like they’re trying to spin it like ‘oh well she’s just doing her job and trying to help—‘ uhh no #one does not waltz in after not lifting a finger to help just to extract what little wealth this planet has #‘the IPC may seem heartless and cruel’ YEAH BECAUSE IT IS. ITS LITERALLY A HEARTLESS CORPORATION #THAT HAS CANONICALLY ENGAGED IN UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES #‘oh well oh my home planet outside corporations fucked up the environment massively and people were suffering—#BUT THEN THE IPC SAVED THE DAY! and all it cost was signing your life over to a faceless corporation that doesn’t give a shit about you :)’#WHO DO YOU THINK FUCKED UP THE ENVIRONMENT TO BEGIN WITH?????#‘so i’ve decided to be gracious and kind and FORGIVE your planets (cough supposed) debts…#…provided you sign your entire planet’s population to my glorious corporation.’#‘(and if you don’t agree to these terms then we will take your planet by force and extract every ounce of wealth)’#like HELLO???????#this whole situation is manipulative as hell

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honorthysalad · 1 year

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Mustang is the kind of guy who would buy a kid alcohol if they asked him to and probably would even if they didn’t

#The worst kind on enabler #fullmetal alchemist #Fma #fullmetal alchemist 2003 #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #roy mustang #Seriously though why did he want Edward in the military so bad?#I know he wanted to bring someone possibly influential into the military #But like c’mon mustang. A 12 year old??#There was literally no one else in the whole country you could pick?#The only thing I can think of is that he knew a child would be the easiest thing to manipulate and that’s what he really wanted #The perfect prize pony to show off and lead around by the mouth

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theokusgallery · 5 months

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I freaking love your au and your latest comic because MAN

I FELT THOSE LAST WORDS AND I WAS LIKE "OH FUCK"

First panel was already a bit unsettling itself - like you get it's just intimate manners as you do as a couple but he felt so possessive already and

Sunny's inner thoughts

I'm sure 100% his abandonment anxiety will increase drastically the more he stays with nick and honestly slay

I mean it's kinda obvious

But like I felt that

Yeah

Nick is unhinged

Nick is crazy

Y'all are gay for him

Good 😵💥

Sunny has soooo many issues. So many of them. He's so vulnerable and he makes himself vulnerable to Nick while still being intimidated by him, it's... Dude's got some problems.

#ive talked about mental illness and nick before but not sunny...#well. only a bit. ive said sunny's autistic #but he's also got other problems-- such as abandonment issues as you said #sunny's very insecure in relationships - partly because he has a very limited experience with them #and partly because he has self image issues.#when you grow up as an undiagnosed autistic kid you tend to be very aware you're different while not knowing how to change it #everyone thinks and says you're weird but you have no idea what's weird about you so you can't even try to fit in #a friend of mine told me once that she thought i was so brave for not being scared of being different in middle school #i wasn't. i wasn't brave. i just had no idea why people thought i was weird #sunny in this au knows how deeply different he is from other people but he doesn't know /what/ makes him different or how to change it #and as a result he just doesn't open up very much. he's very reserved and doesnt talk to many people. he has like two friends total #which also conviently makes him easy for nick to isolate #sunny also has bpd! and he gets deeply attached to people who show him any kind of affection very easily #as i mentioned before he also tends to fall for people who intimidate or scare him -- people he sees as mentally superior to him #his self image is constantly oscilliating between 'im the greatest person to have ever lived' and 'im the worst thing to have ever existed'#he's extremely unstable. he has mood swings. he gets obsessive easily. he seeks out relationships with mostly toxic or older people #he doesn't have a good support system. he's socially anxious and an introvert. he's openly trans. most people think he's weird.#he has no stable sense of self. he has panic attacks. he's both hypervigilant and oblivious to lies and attempts at manipulation #all of this makes him a very easy target for someone like nick.#at least- at /least/-- nick genuinely loves him.#ask #tosteur-gluteal #rant #arsenic #i start talking about psychology and i get lost. my apologies

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here-there-were-dragons · 9 days

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every time i think the "staff can do no wrong and any form of complaining or expressing literally anything other than "yaaay love it <3" with no further comments is bashing and literally evil we should never say anything that could even potentially be interpreted as mildly critical ever because ~some artist who worked hard on this is probably reading the forums and might feel bad if we ever express anything but praise~ also we must be constantly positive at all times unless we're passive-aggressively shaming someone for having an extremely polite and apologetically worded criticism and if you ask the staff for literally anything you had better be prepared to preface it with 3 paragraphs of apologizing for breathing air" attitude is bad on tumblr, i take one look at the forums, and holy fucking hell is it SO much worse on site

#i go for years at a time without ever bothering to look at fr forums #and then every time i do i remember why i stopped #it feels like a goddamned cult on there and every time i dip my toes i come out feeling slimy and sick #as if i just spent an hour being aggressively gaslit by my extremely manipulative grandmother #what the fuck is wrong with everyone #i'm glad i decided to keep this creepy fucking fandom at arm's length and mostly just lurk years ago #that place is not a healthy environment for anyone to be in #flight rising #legitimately the single worst fandom i've ever had the misfortune of being adjacent to #and in such a creepy and insidious way too #they'll call you an entitled whiny baby to your face and then convince you it's your fault and you're a horrible person for feeling offende #it feels like being neck deep in the absolute worst kind of preformative sj spaces #you know the ones where everyone interacts primarily via callout posts and there's discourse over if crossdressing is cultural appropriatio #that kind of toxic sj space type energy #but somehow combined with like this weird feeling of being in a mormon church in a deep south town #where all the “nice grandmas” will try to put poison in your food if they find out you're gay or voted blue even one time #and it's somehow gotten SO much worse since the last time i looked on there #they've got people literally apologizing for existing what the fuck how is this normal to any of you people #this is so far beyond toxic positivity it's like. crossbred with passive-aggression and shaming and metastatized into something new entirel #it's terrifying. i hope flight rising never shuts down just so that whatever the fuck this is can stay semi-contained.#pro tip: the more a fandom is universally convinced it's Wonderful and Welcoming the faster you should run the other way #actually good fandoms don't have to constantly reassure themselves and everyone that they're great and perfect and toxicity-free #nor do they react with immediate borderline violence to the slightest suggestion there might be anything wrong with the fandom culture #anything wrong other than “people like you who think there's something wrong with our perfect community” anyway #on that note also any fandom that insistently calls itself a “community” just. yeah. no.#get out while you still can.#fandoms work on corporate logic if they're trying to convince you they're your family or friend that's not just a red flag #that's a whole damn red fabric store

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arthur-r · 18 days

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as usual i am up late into the night planning my future when i should be: getting a good nights sleep so that i even have a future!!

#i have work in seven and a half hours. so i should really be getting to bed #BUT i officially made my final definitive degree plan!!!! i mean not the actual classes but all the requirements i have to meet and how!!#(in order to earn: history and information science double major. with certificates in material culture and classics)#and i’m genuinely excited for every single class i have to take except for human-computer interaction #just cause i know it’s gonna get overly technical in ways that won’t quite apply to my future #anyway every single other thing i’m gonna do is very cool and exciting. so everything is good really #but i should be sleeping. and i’m not. as usual 🤧#idk wish me luck!!!! i’m so hyped about my degree plan though #i’ll go into more detail another time. i’m very excited #ANYWAY goodnight!!!! can’t be so busy planning my future in library science that i DONT GO TO MY SHELVING JOB #kind of important to actually go to work for the library that employs me….#and then i might go see a first-printing roget’s thesaurus!!!! or i’ll sleep. we’ll see #followed by lunch with GUY WHO IS THE WORST KILL HIM WITH HAMMERS #(there is nothing really wrong with me he just keeps kind of being mean to me and also expecting me to fall in love with him. but like #extremely passively and not manipulatively it’s just like. hey buddy you’re doing this friendship wrong….)#anyway then i have a class and after that i have an hour to rest. and then a phone call and then a lot of homework #(ten page paper draft due in a week and a half!! so it’s time to start writing the actual body of it)#and then i sleep for a LONG time and then work again on saturday. and then sleepover with somebody i have a crush on??#and then be normal all day on sunday and do a little more paper writing. and programming homework. and whatever else #and then keep up with the slog for three weeks!!!! and all of a sudden it’s summer!!!!#projects left this year: material culture paper (entirely unstarted. but may research the thesaurus and just win!!!!)#history project (draft due the monday after next and real paper due a week after classes end)#one more programming assignment where i adapt my recipe doubler project (probably. it’s getting stupid at this point but it’s what i got!!)#and a programming test in two weeks and then the final a week after that. then no more programming #and then i just have my weekly latin tests and a latin final on may 5th. and then EVERYTHING IS DONE #ok i got this. sorry for walking through my schedule in the tags it’s how i remember what’s real #can’t believe my fucking partner just kind of walked out on me there hello???? like. we should be powering through finals together #but i’m genuinely better off without him so i guess it’s just whatever. trash took itself out or something??#anyway. i’m so regular. and i have work in the morning. and i’m going to sleep #thank you world. goodnight

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turtletoria · 1 year

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...

#hi sorry for bein a downer but i just want to make clear that im blocking mcyt blogs on sight bc i curate my own online experience and i -#Do Not want to see that ever. theres been an uptick in ppl rebloggin my old mcyt art and while i very much appreciate that i rlly dont #want to see that shit ever!!!! i hate all my art from that era for real for real!! ive never felt so Bad!#i just really dont like the mainstream mcyters and i just remember feeling very manipulated and hurt by both the mcyters and the fanbase #i think their content is immature at best and downright hurtful at worst #so sorry if you got blocked dont take it personally i just dont want my notifs covered with art of ppl i parasocially despise #sorry i could go on and on abt how much i rlly dont like these ppl but u didnt come here to get a moral lecture from me so i'll just stop #i love the block button so if u r a mcyt blog run while u still can and please stop rbing my old mcyt art #and also. when i say downright hurtful i mean it in the harshest way. to the point my younger siblings (who r in the target demographic for #this kind of media btw) felt uncomfortable watching them. like honestly that boils my blood a little #theres fun cringe and then theres bullying cringe and i put mcyt in the latter. thanks for reading #and blah blah i know theyre not all bad every fanbase has good and bad eggs whatever man. i dont want to engage with that so i am kindly #telling yall to get out.#sliding them onto a paper with a cup and releasing them (derogatory)

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firendgold · 9 months

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If you're still doing the choose violence ask game: 2 (👀), 9, 10, 22 ?

I got such a rush from finally answering the first ask that I'm doing this for as long as people send me questions. So here we go again!

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

anon, I'm at work. I'm seeing this at work. :'D

Okay, serious face. Albus Dumbledore is probably my fave if I have to choose between him and Harry on this blog. I just have to figure out why he would never...

Bottom. Albus would never, I'm sorry. He won't. He can't. Like, maybe when he was having his whirlwind summer romance with Gellert, he bottomed every single time they fucked because he was so in love and this was his equal and his partner and so what if he was a little rough and distant sometimes in the bedroom, and always wanted to top and tug his hair and hiss out orders? This was The Man The Universe Had Crafted For Him, and he would absolutely bottom for him every time... and then the summer of 1899 ends. And Ariana dies. And Aberforth breaks Albus' nose. And Gellert fucks off to go be a fascist.

And Albus, alone and heartbroken, resolves to never trust someone that completely again, never love someone that same way, and never let anyone get into a position of power over him where they might be able to use his knowledge and talents for ill. That means physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically... carnally. So he has sex with plenty of other people, and even falls in love with a few of them, but he is in control at all times. He never bottoms again.

That's all I've got for that one.

9. worst part of canon

So the first answer that came to mind is posted here, but for fairness' sake I'll try to come up with another worst thing. (That's not related to ships, because I'm trying really hard not to be THAT violent on the violence ask game.)

I think... that if That Woman was going to introduce international schools, students and characters in the middle book of the series, she should have done more with them than having them vanish after Goblet of Fire, only to come back for either fake romantic tension and one line of exposition about the Hitler allegory Dark Lord of the Before-Times (Krum, Deathly Hallows) or to be married off to a Weasley for an aesop of It's Not About His Looks Now That They're Jacked Up (Fleur, Half-Blood Prince). I'm not saying Fleur and Viktor HAD to be best buddies forever with Harry, but it is weird that they have this unique bond that no other young students have had with each other in hundreds of years, they even lost one of their fellow champions, Dumbledore gives this very moving speech about remaining connected and not letting darkness and prejudice sever new ties, and then... nothing. No side adventures in France or wherever Durmstrang is, no communication from either side, nothing.

Feels like a huge letdown in hindsight.

10. worst part of fanon

Oh, no. That's not fair. There's just so many.

If I had to consolidate what I currently don't like about the HP fandom/fanon into a few lines, I think I would say that I hate the pureblood/Dark side apologism. I do believe in nuance in characters. I do believe redemption and/or walking different paths is an important theme in Harry Potter, and I think it's fascinating to explore that with any and every character you can think of, even characters I may not personally like. But I really, really hate the way the fandom has taken that and twisted it into this idea that we were sold a lie at the start: that the British magical government was fine the way it was, and so was the society around it; that Dark magic Isn't All That Bad, Really, and there are actually Good and non-prejudiced things about a few rich bitches passing down their knowledge and secrets and slurs for generations within the Family, and keeping the Family "Pure" is cool actually, and none of this has any relation to real life ideas about miscegenation and classism and racism and eugenics, what are you talking about?

It's just so worrying. As a minority, when I see people on tumblr/twitter/AO3 gleefully agreeing that we need to eat the rich and fix society and eradicate all the horrid -isms and -archys ruining all our lives, then watch them turn around and write a 200k epic where Dumbledore was the evil one for locking the Horcrux books away and championing marginalized members of society, Hermione is just uppity for wanting to make necessary changes to the darker parts of magical society that That Woman was literally pointing out for a reason, and Tom Riddle is only bad because he took the good segregationist pureblood ideas and added murder to them... and when that fic gets thousands of comments agreeing with them full stop with no examination of any of that... it makes me anxious, at a minimum. The same thing is happening now with Grindelwald now that he's actually a figure on the screen and not just some dude mentioned a few times in the book series: same apologism, same justification of atrocities, same good-guy-blame-games, same blorbofication even.

On the one hand... fiction doesn't always directly reflect or affect reality. On the other... this unironic pro-pureblood meta is a pervasive concept that has popped up in thousands of fics written by thousands of fanfic writers. It's happened for years, and it keeps happening, and I see very few fans speaking out against it or even acknowledging it as a problem. So that makes me ask myself, who actually is willing and able to examine the injustices of our society and build a better imaginary society through the lens of HP fanfiction, and who's okay with the prejudice in the HP world as long as it's coming from the faves they're attracted to?

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Happily, this is a harder question to answer because I've been finding so many like minds in the past 5 years who go feral over the same 20 HP scenes as I do. ^^ But give me a sec, I'll think of something.

...

Okay. Got it.

In order to answer this question, I have to go back to the first time I, young teenager, avid reader, recent reader of the HP series once book 5 was out, realized that Harry and Dumbledore had a much deeper relationship than just headmaster and student. The thing that made me latch on to them and project like crazy, basically.

It's the scene in Goblet of Fire chapter 36 where Harry has been rescued from Fake Moody and he's in Dumbledore's office with Dumbledore and Sirius. Dumbledore asks Harry to relay everything that happened to him once he touched the Portkey in the maze—and immediately Sirius tries to protect Harry from having to relive it now, so soon after it's happened. And then this scene happens.

Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Harry, behind his desk. He was looking at Harry, who avoided his eyes. Dumbledore was going to question him. He was going to make Harry relive everything. “I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry,” said Dumbledore. “We can leave that till morning, can’t we, Dumbledore?” said Sirius harshly. He had put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Let him have a sleep. Let him rest.” Harry felt a rush of gratitude toward Sirius, but Dumbledore took no notice of Sirius’s words. He leaned forward toward Harry. Very unwillingly, Harry raised his head and looked into those blue eyes. “If I thought I could help you,” Dumbledore said gently, “by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened.” The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note. It shivered in the air, and Harry felt as though a drop of hot liquid had slipped down his throat into his stomach, warming him, and strengthening him. He took a deep breath and began to tell them. As he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed to rise before his eyes; he saw the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; he saw the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; he saw Cedric’s body, lying on the ground beside the cup. Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, his hand still tight on Harry’s shoulder, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, and Harry was glad of this, because it was easier to keep going now he had started. It was even a relief; he felt almost as though something poisonous were being extracted from him. It was costing him every bit of determination he had to keep talking, yet he sensed that once he had finished, he would feel better.

This is one of the best scenes in the entire book, the entire series. It completely refutes the fanon Dumbledore who is often cold, cruel, inflexible and unrelenting in his quest for whatever the author wants him to be inflexible and cruel about at the time. It shows that Dumbledore, the real Albus Dumbledore, is one of the few people who understands what Harry needs and is able to provide it to him, even when others who also care for Harry would rather protect him or shield him from what he needs.

Kid me was particularly taken by how gentle Dumbledore is with Harry here. It made me look back and see how in some ways this scene, this closeness, is the culmination of all the times they've met and spoken before.

(You can imagine how painful it was reading Order of the Phoenix right after this.)

But yeah, that's probably one of my favorite scenes that other people ignore or haven't talked about/drawn/written about much. Which is ironic, because the scene right after that where Harry talks about Voldemort taking his blood and Dumbledore's eyes do the triumphant "lol Voldemort just fucked up" gleam is probably one of THE most talked-about scenes in the fandom (even though to this fucking day in 2023 people still don't realize what the gleam meant, when even That Woman has clarified what it meant in INTERVIEWS).

...And for me, safely at the end of the questions, that's all she wrote.

#fireandgoldposts #thanks for the ask!#choose violence ask game #Albus Dumbledore #not y'all making me put more gr*ndeld*re on this blog :') I forgive you tho #it's my own fault for having that headcanon. and to think I didn't think I'd be able to answer that question #I'm poking a real bear by finally talking about how much I hate the pureblood politics/pureblood supremacy/misunderstood bad guys trifecta #another thing that was perhaps interesting 20 years ago when people first started doing it but is now stale and infuriating #since it's now seen as fact and not fiction #the fiction of fiction even #I can't believe I didn't just write ''the worst part of fanon is every independent!Harry/manipulative!Dumbledore fanfic ever written #that's growth for me #oh god the worst part about no expanded roles for Fleur and Krum is that most fans only give Fleur an extended role #when they're SHIPPING HER WITH HARRY as some kind of ''ooh foreign beauty'' thing where he naturally resists her allure #and oh my god here comes the nausea again because flowerpot is another ship that's been done to death the very same way haphne/wolfstar has #and I love Krum/Hermione as much as the next person but fanon Krum is like NEVER allowed to move on from Hermione unless he's gay/bi #which is VERY rare to see. like please give me Harry/Krum fanfic recs if you have them #or Ron/Krum because that is so narratively satisfying #honorable mention for question 22 would probably go to the scene where Hermione and Ron try to get Harry to go to Dumbledore in year 5 #after they find out what Umbridge is doing to him in detention and Harry just. CAN'T. properly explain why he doesn't want to go #but he's thinking about how Dumbledore has ''ignored him since last June'' and it's one of the few times we see him acknowledge that hurts #he mentions it several times throughout the book in his thoughts but that's one of the first times he refuses help from Albus #even though Albus would help him in a heartbeat oh my GOD it's been like 20 years since that book came out and I'm still feral about those #Goblet of Fire #Fleur Delacour #Viktor Krum #pureblood propaganda #and how much I am anti-that lmao #not fireandgold #oh my god having to reformat this every 3 hours because the bolds and italics won't stick is a fucking NIGHTMARE

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