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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12/APR/20XX
i think that was my goal.
remember? the one i was mentionin' about twenty nine pages ago? i'd said something like...
"and when i achieve it?"
"...guess i'll finally close this book for good."
so, i'll count that to be my goal.
therapist agrees, so you can't get on me about that.
sharing inner thoughts was never something i'm great at. so much so that you might've forgotten that's what this was for.
can you believe that? s'posed to be a thought journal. daily mental-state evaluation.
ended up talking about my friends instead.
wasn't for me, i suppose.
...after some amount of pages, huh? geez.
[This calls attention to the fact that the book is much thicker than it was when it started. Seems instead of switching to another one, his journal just... gained pages.]
point is.
seems to me like a good place to stop things at.
i'll give you a final update, and we'll call it. alright?
——
breaking the news went as smoothly as if we'd entered the room and broke a vase on the floor instead. (undyne about did just that.)
the second calamity was when mettaton and my bro show up kinda late
holding hands.
turns out my bro is much more decisive than i am.
apparently it was mettaton first, then paps who decided after a few serious dates.
congrats to 'em.
been deflecting questions best i can all day from the announcements, so i was thankful my bro showing up like that took enough of the heat off me n' tori.
i...
can't stop smiling.
well- alright, that's a given.
but i mean this doofy grin i haven't kept up this long in ages.
i'm not even trying for this one.
all this talk about relationships, i think undyne's gotten excited. talking about marriage and all that. alphys has gone beet red.
grillby and the bar gave me a hell of a lot of pats on the back. i'd be bruised if i weren't bones.
if it wasn't that which would've bruised me, it definitely would have been the punch flowey gave me. the comment that earned me it?
"so..."
"this makes me your dad, right?"
he didn't take it well.
despite the petal-haver's apparent hatred... i think he's secretly glad that toriel's happy.
my bro sure took the news well.
granted, since he already thought me and her were dating, he just was happy for the public announcement.
"WAIT."
"DOES THIS MAKE ME AN UNCLE?!?"
"Are we gonna get another sibling??"
"WAIT, are we gonna get a SKELE-sibling?!?"
"whoa, slow down-"
"Frisk, NO??"
"Do not encourage this BONEHEAD to-"
"I think that is quite enough."
tori puts her foot down on that conversation.
living situations shouldn't change much for now, but maybe we'll figure out something else in the future. (staying with my bro. don't panic.)
concerns about my health have slowed down, as i've gotten more used to daily magic usage. noticed way less bad days recently, right? papyrus still insists on teaching me to use attacks better, so i've got that to look forward to. there might still be ups n' downs health-wise, but i'm confident in getting through 'em now.
paps is noticeably still somewhat anxious about it, fidgeting whenever everything is brought up. which is fair, but. still.
i'll get him a therapist like i've been seeing. an in-person one'll work better for him, i think.
not sure what else'll change, really. everything feels mostly the same.
other than (gasp) public handholding. (scandalous.) every time we're beside one another, tori's finding some form of physical contact.
that's different.
...in a good way.
right now, it looks like the aftermath of a wild party. friends knocked out in random spots; dangling half-off the couch or sprawled across the floor. i think frisk and i are the only ones still awake, since they wanted to put blankets on everyone.
"(Psst. Is one blanket enough?)"
they raise a large blanket in gesture with a questioning look.
i speak extra softly so i don't disturb toriel laying at my side, with her head on my shoulder and an arm across my torso; hand met with mine.
"(yep.)"
"(Kk.)"
frisk lays a blanket over me and tori. they stare contemplatively before speaking.
"....."
"Goodnight, Dad."
"...'night, kid."
welp.
guess that's it, huh?
....
i'm happy.
caring is nice.
———★
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐃
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Marinette’s mascara was clumpy.
She meant to buy a new tube last week—it was on her mental to-do list, along with seventeen thousand other tasks that could probably wait until next week: washing her sheets, cleaning out her desk drawer, throwing out the pile of discarded fabric shreds from her last project.
As it always was in Marinette’s life, things had come up. Akumas, mostly.
She jammed the mascara wand back into the tube, over and over, but it stayed a thick goopy mess. She could either smear the tar-like substance onto her eyes and pretend it looked fine, or—well. Or nothing. She had thirty minutes to get downtown.
Thirty minutes until she needed to be seated for Alya’s award ceremony.
Thirty minutes until she had to be completely fine, chill, supportive.
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