i think you’re pretty — trent alexander-arnold ₊˚ෆ
🍓 hana’s notes: in ma feels again (shocker) haven’t written anything in a while so please be nice <3
disclaimers: lil drabble, cliffhanger (you have been warned!) reader is a little insecure, but reader can pull girls and guys, childhood bestfriends my beloved trope 🫶 || main masterlist
“Wait, actually? You don’t think people think you’re pretty?”
You don’t even know how the conversation ended up on this topic. Sitting at the balcony catching up with Trent after you moved away. Now, he’s a big shot footballer and you’re working to get your degree.
Fifteen year old you guys would be proud.
You shook your head, it's not a new thought for you, “Nah, but that’s okay though. I think I’m pretty, but I don’t know if I am someone’s hallway crush or people just look at me and think — Wow, pretty.”
This is the type of stuff that you only spill on your diary, but it’s Trent, and he knows more about you than you do yourself.
It’s not something new you have come to terms with, after seeing most of your friends' getting crushes, getting hit on, going on dates and having relationships except you, you have made peace with it.
Trent’s forehead creases, as if the statement offended him more than you, “That’s crazy, tha’” Trent could not believe what you just said. You? Not pretty? Are you insane?
Turning your head to face him, you warmly smiled, “Don’t pretend, T.” and when you look at Trent, taking in his features, now this is pretty. “You’re pretty. People think you’re pretty.”
You didn’t know why you decided to say that. Maybe because the moonlight illuminates his skin and eyes, making him shine a little bit brighter. Butterflies swarm your belly, as your hand sweats.
Trent’s cheeks went warm, he thinks he’s the luckiest person ever to get compliment from you. His heart aches for you, but he decided to focus on the task at hand first.
"That's stupid." he spat out, making your eyebrows shoot up.
You lightly chuckled, "Excuse you? I just gave you a compliment."
"Not that." he sighed, turning his body around so that it would be face to face with yours. You noticed the disturbed look in his eyes, as you straightened your back before meeting his gaze.
"It's not that serious T, I'm fine." you assured him, an awkward laugh bubbling out. This took a serious turn, and you have no idea why.
"Do you remember James? In 8th grade?"
You furrowed your eyebrows, "The one that gave me chocolate? Yeah, what about him?"
He took a deep breath, "He said, and I quote, that when you laugh, he can honestly melt because you look so pretty.”
"We were kids, sometimes kids just say stuff-"
"And I agreed with him, and I said that making you laugh is probably one of the most rewarding things I can do because I love seeing you smile so much. You look so pretty when you laugh like nobody's around."
Your heart stuttered, but before you said anything else he continued, "And remember the girl that you worked with at the cafe down the road? The one with curly hair?"
You nodded your head.
"When I was waiting for you to finish your shift, she noticed how much I was looking at you, and she said that she gets it, and that it's sometimes hard to focus on making the drinks because you would look so pretty smiling while taking people's orders."
You cleared your throat, “That’s- That’s very nice of her.” avoiding the words that makes you question you and Trent’s friendship.
His tongue pokes out to lick his lips, making your eyes focus on it, “Sometimes I look at you and I go blank because of how pretty you are.”
What the fuck? What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.
Your eyes searched for his, but he pointedly avoided it, choosing to stare down on his hands.
After finishing the story, Trent bellowed out a laugh, "You know how many people ask me for your number because they think that you're pretty?" he paused, "But they backed away because they 'know' that you're already someone's because of how I look at you."
Your mouth gaped open and close like a fish, slowly processing everything that he's telling you. "What?"
"They said that I look at you like I was smitten. Like I was in love." you were sure your pulse stopped for a second, hearing the guy that you had a crush on for years saying stuff you hear in songs.
Trent’s mouth was faster than his brain, he really should have stopped talking, but he couldn't. All of his words were all vomiting out of his mouth. He could feel his heart beating out of his chest.
"And then I said that if I was going to fall in love with anyone that I'd want it to be you."
hehe love yall <3
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Seeing as the Gerudo turned on Ganon, he might not have been that much better of a ruler.
First of all, we literally have no idea, because the only ancient Gerudo that we actually get to interact with is Ganondorf himself, and he has nothing to say about his own people. The ancient Gerudo sage doesn't count btw, she doesn't have a name, we never even see her face, and she has literally nothing to say except repeating the exact same dialogue as the sages for the other races. The narrative does not treat the ancient sages as people; they are four completely interchangable weapons that are owned by the royal family.
And secondly, I don't care how Ganon ruled them; the Gerudo only get one man every century, if their king sucks, they've obviously got their own system of government to fall back on. I have no idea what kind of authority the sages had among their own people, but honestly I'd say if the four of them were in charge of their respective people, then they were just puppet rulers appointed by Rauru, given that all four of them happily agreed that to sell their entire race into servitude the second Zelda asked them. Say what you will about Ganondorf, but I fucking know that if he was told the Gerudo people existed for the sole purpose of serving the glory of Hyrule, he'd drop kick Zelda into the fucking sun.
And don't get me started on the implications of the cultural differences we see between the independent Gerudo and the annexed Gerudo. The background Gerudo characters all have their own models, and we can clearly see that the ones siding with Ganon have their own unique looks - for example, the amazing lady with the mohawk that summons the molduga swarm in that one flashback. And men are never mentioned in these flashbacks at all, which implies that the Gerudo genuinely didn't care about settling down. Ganon even speaks derisively about marriage, implying that it's very rare for Gerudo women to make serious romantic commitments with men. It implies that their culture is more along the same line as their portrayal in OOT - they are a closed culture. Men trying to force their way into their areas are arrested, and mocked for being entitled dumbasses. Outsiders are only welcome if they can prove that they respect the Gerudo as people, and aren't just there to try and pick up chicks. It's never outright said, but OOT also makes it pretty clear that the Gerudo women just aren't interested in marrying outsiders - close relationships occur with other Gerudo, Hylian men are only considered useful for making babies.
Meanwhile the Gerudo we see serving Hyrule are all trying to measure up to Hylian beauty standards, and appeal to their men. Their one goal in life is to meet a man and get married. Men are welcome in their lands, and only kept out of the town itself... and even then, there's a small army of guys trying to force their way into the town anyways, which is brushed off as just haha, boys will be boys. No men allowed isn't even about independence, it's just a silly romantic tradition.
Of course this is just a fictional culture in a game world, but it's still really fucking uncomfortable that the 'evil' Gerudo are the ones that have independence, both politically and socially, and display a unique culture that refuses to tolerate disrespect from outsiders. Meanwhile the 'good' Gerudo are the ones that canonically exist to serve a kingdom where 95% of the population is light skinned (even setting aside the unfortunate implications, just saying one race exists to serve a different one is super fucked up), they have classes on how to be more appealing to Hylian's, and their entire social structure is built around finding a Hylian man to marry, making them all inherently dependent on the goodwill of outsiders. Even their biggest value of 'women only' is treated as a joke; men trying to trespass in BOTW are just shoved back out the door, letting them keep trying all day if they want. The crowds of men plotting to force their way in are laughed off as a joke. Nobody cares that there's a guy running laps around their city walls and trying to trick women into being alone with him. I mean for fucks sake, in TOTK we find that the creepy guy trying to lure women away has taken advantage of a massive disaster to get into the town, and he's still there once things return to normal. You can't kick him out, or alert anyone to his presence. And the Gerudo just tolerate Hylians blatantly ignoring their boundaries. For fucks sake, TOTK even reveals that the seven legendary heroines they've been revering the whole time were actually completely useless and unable to achieve anything... because they needed the eighth hero, a Hylian man to teach them basic tactics and do all the heavy lifting.
TOTK does not respect the Gerudo people in the slightest. It doesn't respect anyone who isn't Hylian or Zonai.
...This got a little off track, but the point I'm trying to make is, no, I don't consider the Gerudo turning on Ganon to mean anything. The entire game does not feel like the real story of what happened, it feels like the propaganda version of history meant to make Hyrule look as good as possible. I genuinely cannot believe that we're being told the real story about the Imprisoning War, because none of it feels real, and we don't get to know any details that might have made Hyrule look even slightly imperfect. We're told that Ganondorf is evil because he hates Hyrule, and he hates Hyrule because he's evil. The Gerudo people followed Ganondorf and saw him as a hero of their people, then suddenly he was their worst enemy. Hyrule is a perfect kingdom that has strong, equal alliances with the other races, but also all of the non-Hylian races exist for the sole purpose of serving Hyrule, and their leaders are expected to swear eternal loyalty and submission to the Hylian royal family. King Rauru and Queen Sonia united all of the races in peace and equality, which is why they're sitting on the world's supply of magical nuclear missiles, and every member of the Hylian royal family is allowed to walk around wearing them as cute accessories, but everyone else only gets them at the last second, and they all need to outright swear to only use that power to benefit Rauru and his descendants.
There's just so many fucked up contradictions, and so many hints of something more nuanced going on... but the story refuses to acknowledge any of it, and just keeps aggressively pushing the narrative that Hyrule is the ultimate good and couldn't possibly do anything wrong. I don't even believe that Ganon was a bad king honestly; we never hear why his people stopped following him. We also never even see if the Gerudo people turned on him at all; all we know is the ancient Gerudo sage wanted him dead, and given that she also happily sold her people into slavery, she's not exactly the most trustworthy source of information. All we know is that Ganondorf was a hero to his people, only one of his citizens is ever shown having an issue with him (and her motives are never explained), and then he lost the war and was sealed away, leaving his people open to be conquered by Zelda and annexed into Hyrule. By the time we see any Gerudo actually opposing Ganon (apart from the ancient sage), it's been ten thousand years since the war, and all anyone knows is the Hylian version of the story.
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