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#please reblog!! I worked so hard on this
ariesbilly · 1 month
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-stranger things vr game
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1000fingers · 2 months
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Who’s solitary lights in an empty city NOW, huh??
this took me SO LONG i spent from 11:20 AM until 4:00 PM and i took like two breaks to eat and thats it
Edit: actually that statement was FALSE, i started at TEN twenty not eleven :,)
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tobytost · 8 months
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THE Ezra brainrot edit, enjoy :)
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sweetie-peaches · 6 months
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Hey guys,,,,I have a drawing and I really hope I wasn’t hit by Apollos big balls of prophecy
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“The death of a saint”
Praying this art is not correct, very uncanon
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lalalychee · 1 year
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are you more bad than good? 🔪
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just another painting that took me too long. hope y'all like it! please be sure to zoom in and look at all the little details i worked so so hard on!
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demigod-of-the-agni · 6 months
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A DEVIL REBORN
Happy Halloween!!! A detailed ID will be placed under the cut (it's close to being 1K i could literally post this to Ao3)
p1. ड्याम्म (dyamma) - Nepali for "(feeling) full", "hitting something"
p3. Chutiya - Hindi for "idiot", "moron" and other related insults
p5. க்ரீச் (kreech) - Tamil onomatopoeia describing scraping/screeching sounds
[Extended Image ID: DYAMMA! Slamming his hands on a table, Achanba Okram finds himself in the darkness of his laboratory. He is wearing black clothes and a white lab coat on top, and has a bowl cut with rectangular glasses.
His thoughts whirl within boxes that are coloured gold and are outlined with red; they put a voice to the uneasy feelings Okram knows are stirring inside of him. The thought boxes read:
With Pavitr gone, I finally have time to string my thoughts together. Half-drowned answers bleed out of my pores. Coalescing like some great, abysmal creature of unknown origin.
Bracing his hands against the table, Okram is acutely aware of his body, of the gaping holes in his back that bubble with demonic energy. His thoughts narrate, My body quakes when I begin to question, wracked with paranoia. With dread, as if the idea of what I had to face was unbearable.
The holes in back — four of them, spaced evenly from each other — begin to ooze golden liquid, hot like fire and viscous like tar.
And yet, Okram thinks, I felt it all the same: that crawling, scintillating horror of my reality. Of my tainted flesh and blood. My being here is the work of demonic forces.
Golden arms, fluid yet bony, powered by some otherworldly thing, unravel from the void in his back. They flounder and expand around him, filling the lab with a cold glow. The fingers are tipped with talons, and, if he looked hard enough, Okram swears they are edged with blood.
I died years ago, Okram thinks. I lost my humanity to the fire of the devil's madness. Thus, the question remains: what is the future of Achanba Okram, a DEVIL REBORN?
The lights of the lab suddenly brighten, and Okram hears him before he sees him. His arms register the presence of the other person, immediately unraveling and slipping out of reality. Just outside, Pavitr Prabhakar's voice calls, "HEY, DOCTOR OKRAM! Sorry I'm late! Traffic was abysmal today."
Pavitr's entrance catches Okram by surprise, and he stutters out, "PAVITR?! You- ah- you have one of your shifts today?"
His thoughts reprimand him, You CHUTIYA! Pavitr always has his shifts on Tuesdays!
Pavitr is unaware of Okram's turmoil, sauntering into the laboratory while hefting up a white plastic bag. He's wearing a black and white flannel shirt, and he has circular earrings. Pavitr's eyes are trained on the bag in his hand. He answers Okram's question with, "Yeah, I do. I, uh, got a little hungry along the way (I'm always so hungry)." Pavitr whispers the last part as he lifts the bag up. He continues, "so I went and bought some vada pav, and—"
He suddenly pauses, his eyes locking onto Okram. He can't tell what is going beyond Pavitr's eyes, but the other man's analysing gaze unnerves Okram to a degree beyond description.
(In Pavitr's POV: his Spider-Sense was just triggered. Red and gold squiggly lines emanate from and surround his head in a halo.)
Pavitr lowers the bag slightly in concern. "Uhm," Pavitr says "are you okay, Doctor?"
Dread and fear floods Okram's system. Suddenly he is hyperaware of everything in the room, including the golden arm that has sprouted from his back and was lying on the workbench behind him, right in Pavitr's line of sight.
Play dumb! Okram's mind screams at him. Accordingly, Okram replies, a tad too tightly, "Of course I am, Pavitr! Why wouldn't I be?"
KREECH. The golden arm scrapes its taloned fingers across the table, no doubt giving away its location.
Okram chuckles nervously, sweating almost immediately, at which his mind howls, Not that dumb!
Pavitr narrows his eyes at Okram and at the golden arm on the workbench. "Are those...demonic arms?" he asks Okram, a shadow crossing his face.
(In Pavitr's POV: In the back of his mind, Pavitr sees a vague and faded image forming in response to seeing the arms. He remembers Doctor Octopus, the man with two extra sets of arms who had attacked him many years ago; he was one of the first villains Pavitr fought as Spider-Man. But... Doctor Octopus died a long time ago. Perhaps...?)
"Oh, Doctor..."
Pavitr's gaze softens as he asks, "Are you being haunted by demons? Have you been attacked by them? Why didn't you tell me? I'm so sorry this has been happening to you. I can't imagine how stressful this is for you." A moment, and then, "Do you want to talk about?"
Okram hides his face in his hands, quickly responding, "No, I'm alright, Pavitr."
Pavitr walks forward, placing his bag down and reaching down to place a reassuring hand on Okram's shoulder. "But, Doctor, men of your generation have ignored their mental health for too long."
"Yes, I know," Okram sighs.
"It'll be okay, Doctor," Pavitr promises, "we can figure something out!"
"And what?" Okram asks somewhat sarcastically. "You will be here with me 'every step of the way'?"
"One hundred percent!" Pavitr says.
Behind them, one of Okram's demonic arms reaches out to peer at Pavitr and Okram; if an arm could be happy, it certainly was. The arm is seemingly pleased with Pavitr's helpful and understanding nature. /.End ID]
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inazumaneko · 9 months
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“With the upcoming NTFL season on the rise, let’s interview the R.E.D support trio on the legacy they carry!”
Whoo! Finally finished this, I really wanted to make a magazine cover. It’s surprisingly harder than it looks LMAO
I know they’re finalized designs aren’t out yet but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been a bit slow getting the sponsorships and logos put on, so in the meantime I may just make stuff like this as I avoid the things that actually need to be done for this au
Image without edits:
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lestatslestits · 7 months
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After approximately 2.5 weeks of work, I’m excited to share my little passion project. I don’t tend to sew for myself, but I couldn’t get the thought of making these out of my head, and here is the end result
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Some fun facts about these dolls:
I patterned, cut, and sewed every single piece by hand
Aziraphale’s hair is yarn, and I sewed in and tied off every single piece individually. His hair alone took me upwards of ten hours
I could only find white sunglasses at the craft store, so Crowley’s glasses are hand painted by me
Aziraphale’s pocket watch is an actual functional mini pocket watch. It keeps time!
I had originally planned to use four-hole buttons for Aziraphale’s eyes, but I couldn’t find the exact ones that I needed, so I went with two-hole buttons, which I rotated in order to differentiate Aziraphale’s eyes from Crowley’s. The result is that Aziraphale now has goat eyes. Which feels appropriate somehow. Bless the ineffability of happy accidents.
In conclusion: I am incredibly proud of these man-shaped beings and I hope you enjoy them too!
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hazellevessque · 3 months
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TPQ X PJO AU
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i. aru shah, daughter of zeus
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ii. yamini kapoor-mercado-lopez, daughter of hades
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iii. brynne rao, daughter of zeus
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iv. aiden acharya, son of aphrodite
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v. prince rudra of naga-loka, son of apollo
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vi. kara shah, daughter of athena
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vii. sheela jagan, daughter of hermes
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viii. nikita jagan, daughter of demeter
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ix. hira, daughter of ares
[ concept / inspo ]
reblogs > likes
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amalgamationss · 4 months
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this festival sucks
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astronomodome · 9 months
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Tumblr Poll Tournaments & MCYT
So a while ago I made a post expressing my frustration with the way a lot of tumblr poll tournaments seem to exclude mcyt characters- or if they are included, people in the notes are rude about it. The first situation of these- the poll organizer including rules against submitting characters from mcyt- is something I can easily quantify. I've crunched some numbers in order to find out two things:
How common is this phenomenon, really?
Why does this happen in the first place?
A note before I start: I'm not blaming the poll organizers for this, and I don't want anyone to get angry at them for excluding mcyt. At the end of the day, it's up to them to curate what they want their poll to be, and if they don't want to deal with the toxicity that often comes with letting mcyt characters run (or if they just don't like it for whatever reason), that's their decision. Trust me- poll organizers have to put up with a lot of shit already, and I don't want to add to it, regardless of their opinions on mcyt. If any poll organizers recognize their own words in the later part of this overview, they can contact me and I'll remove it. This is also why I have chosen not to identify the blogs from which I took the examples- I mean no harm to any poll organizer. They are a symptom of a much larger problem and they haven't done anything wrong except be a little misinformed at worst.
Excluding mcyt characters from poll tournaments really isn't that big of a deal on its own- though it is frustrating- but it does speak to the larger attitude of the general tumblr population towards mcyt. While not without its flaws, this can be used as a metric to measure the extent of this attitude and maybe get a hint of why it exists.
...Please note, also, that most of these polls date back to around March-June 2023, when poll tournaments were a big thing on Tumblr. Not super outdated, but I still should note that opinions might have changed since then.
Also also, be warned that there are examples below of some organizers being pretty toxic! It's not a whole lot, but if you don't want to expose yourself to that, maybe pass on this post!
With that out of the way, let's get started.
Part One: The Numbers
The first thing I decided to do was figure out a rough percentage of how many poll tournaments have a rule that excludes mcyt characters from being submitted. To get a sample batch of poll blogs, I used one of the blogs that pits the winners of tournaments against each other and checked each blog included in that. This ended up being a more tedious process than I had thought, since there's a lot of variation in the way poll organizers, well, organize. I ended up with 123 blogs sorted into three categories.
The first category included tournaments where a rule for or against mcyt characters wouldn't really make sense, for a variety of reasons. Most commonly, the tournament was between letters of the alphabet or animo acids or government agencies, not fictional characters, so I counted them out. There were also a handful of blogs where the contestants were determined by the organizer, not by nomination at all. Combined, blogs that did not fit my criteria made up 60/123 of my samples.
The second and third categories were the blogs that either had a rule against mcyt characters, or didn't. Most of the blogs I looked through had rules I could find, and some were more thorough about it than others. For my purposes, I counted the blog as a no only if they explicitly had a rule against mcyt characters, or clarified later that they weren't allowed. Most poll blogs didn't mention mcyt at all. (This will become relevant later.)
Of the 63 blogs that fit my criteria, 11 (17.5%) of them had a rule against mcyt characters, while the remaining 52 (82.5%) did not.
To me, this seems like pretty good news! I had honestly expected the percentage of blogs that excluded mcyt to be much higher. This is definitely a good sign! But I wouldn't really jump to assuming that mcyt characters would actually be accepted in all of these blogs. I will explain this in the next part of my research.
Part Two: The Examples
The second thing I wanted to find out with this research was why organizers end up having rules against mcyt in the first place. Is it just the bad reputation the mcyt space has (largely a result of one green man in particular)? Let's look at a few examples of poll rules against mcyt characters. Some of them are from my sample blogs and some of them aren't.
Type 1: Not understanding the difference between real people and characters in mcyt
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The majority of the rules against mcyt I saw were of this type, and honestly, it's pretty reasonable. It's a pretty major debate in the mcyt community over whether mcyts' characters are separate enough from their content creators to count as fictional. However, there are a considerable number of mcyt characters who are explicitly stated to be different from their cc in the same way as a character in a movie played by an actor is different from the actor playing them. Excluding all mcyt characters for being 'real people' is just incorrect, though I can kinda understand where the organizers were coming from with this one.
It should also be noted that the vast majority of poll blogs had a rule against submitting real people. There's a possibility that some poll organizers might have lumped mcyt characters as real people even if they didn't specify it explicitly. Therefore, an attempt to actually submit an mcyt character into one of these tournaments might be against the rules based on what the organizer thinks. I have no way to quantify this, which is why I said earlier that the results of my initial test might not be accurate.
Type 2: 'Problematic fandom' (toxicity warning for some of these)
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This type of rule is usually broader than just mcyt, but lumps it in with other fandoms known for being associated with bigotry (often hp, which is... yeah i'm definitely not going to argue in favor of harry potter but yikes. really? we're as bad as terfy potter? really.) At least one of them let dsmp characters in with the exception of dream, which is a lot fairer than... some of the others.
If we want to give the organizers benefit of the doubt here, we can say that these rules are made to keep the poll less toxic than it would be otherwise... but to be perfectly honest, some of these might be more about that phenomenon of purity culture that has had a habit of popping up in fandom spaces since forever. That's a whole other conversation I'm not ready to have now, but it comes as no surprise to me that mcyt has become a little taboo in some places (likely to a large extent because of dream and all the drama he's generated). There's also no telling whether the poll organizers in these cases even know that there are other smps besides dsmp... but that's besides the point, since there are other dsmp characters that aren't associated with dream at all. Excluding them reveals a misconception about the mcyt genre anyway. And of course, I think we can all agree that some of these are just pretty rude.
Which brings us to our conclusion.
I feel like a lot of the toxicity towards mcyt as a genre and mcyt characters boils down to people either not really understanding what mcyt is (i.e. mcyt -> minecraft youtubers -> real people) or hearing stuff about dream and assuming the entire mcyt space is reflective of that. Of course, it's a frustrating issue that some people think this way. I think it's nice to be reminded, though, that this sort of thing isn't very widespread. Alongside the bad examples, I saw a lot of organizers confronting their preconceived notions: one organizer let in an mcyt character after admitting their 'unfamiliarity with the source material', another allowed mcyt characters 'on the condition that you can explain how they are a separate character' and a few others fiercely defended mcyt characters against toxicity in their polls. Every day we grow as a community and we can't let a few people with misguided notions of what we are keep us down. Keep watching, keep creating, and as Zedaph once said, It's okay to be silly!
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stiltonbasket · 1 year
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Vampire WWX/Fae LWJ: What is their first time sleeping in the same room like? Their first breakfast? Or when WWX notices that LWJ is softer with bunnies?
part 1
On the morning after his arrival at the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian opens his eyes to find Lan Zhan's moon-white face hovering less than an inch above his.
"I am going out to fetch breakfast for us," Lan Zhan says stiffly. "What do vampires eat when they cannot get human blood?"
So rude, Lan Zhan! Wei Wuxian laments to himself, rolling a sleeping A-Yuan onto his back. You could have at least wished me a good morning first, couldn't you?
But then, he had woken Wei Wuxian to ask what he wanted for breakfast, so perhaps this is just what Lan Zhan is like when he tries to be kind.
"Meat, mostly," Wei Wuxian replies, watching as his husband grimaces in distaste. "But half-blooded xuemo can survive without it, so you needn't hunt for me. I'd be grateful for a bit of the porridge you and your brother like as long as you give me permission to eat it."
He winks, making Lan Zhan blush all the way up to his ears. "You will give me permission, won't you?"
"I will, but that is beside the point. By the laws of your people, I am your husband, so it is my duty to provide the nourishment you need." The faerie takes a deep breath. "If you require meat, I will bring you some suitable creature to kill and eat as you see fit. I cannot do the killing myself, but fetching the animal—that I can do."
Wei Wuxian's heart melts; for all faeries hate to do harm to living creatures, and yet his Lan Zhan is willing to do most of the hunting work on Wei Wuxian's behalf.
"There's no need for that," he says gently. Lan Zhan opens his mouth to protest, clearly not liking the look of Wei Wuxian's thin wrists and sallow face; but Wei Wuxian only motions toward the south side of the cave, where he can hear the river gurgling through the trees on the other side of the wall. "You go out and buy some rice and vegetables, and I'll catch some fish for myself while you're away."
Lan Zhan inclines his head and departs, taking his money purse with him; for while the Lan faeries grow their own vegetables in the wood, they have to buy rice and dried spices from the human settlement to the north.
No wonder their food is so bland, Wei Wuxian thinks wryly, as he makes his way towards the river with A-Yuan in his arms. Lan Zhan doesn't have a single herb in his kitchen, except for that old lump of ginger.
He plants A-Yuan in the soft ground near the water, as he usually does at this time of morning. Wei Wuxian helps him dig his little legs as far into the ground as they can go, looking on in satisfaction as the three long leaves on the baby's head unfurl and reach up towards the sun; and then he lays a fish trap in the shallows and splashes across the river, keeping A-Yuan in his field of sight as he searches for kindling seasonings.
He manages to find wild cloves and garlic growing on the far bank of the stream; and by the time he goes back to examine his fish trap, A-Yuan has finished sunning his leaves and soaking his little body in the mud.
"I don't know if you're old enough to eat food," Wei Wuxian muses, marching back to the cave with A-Yuan wriggling under one arm and the laden trap under the other. "You need to be sunned and watered like a plant, so eating fish might make you sick. We'd better not risk it."
A-Yuan squeals and looks up at Wei Wuxian with wet, reproving eyes. "So you do want to eat fish!" Wei Wuxian says accusingly, making A-Yuan shriek with laughter. "But you don't have any teeth. I don't know very much about babies, Yuan'er, but I do know that the women in Jieyu Village never started weaning theirs before the babies cut a first tooth."
The baby looks more wronged than ever. "Bu!"
"Perhaps we should boil the rice into porridge, and put pieces of the fish inside," says a deep voice from behind them. "That way, the rice will be soft enough for A-Yuan to swallow without chewing."
"Oh!" Wei Wuxian turns around and nearly jumps out of his shoes at the sight of Lan Zhan, standing at the mouth of the cave with a bag of rice slung over his shoulder. "Lan Zhan, don't be so quiet when you're walking. I nearly dropped A-Yuan."
Lan Zhan shakes his head. "I doubt you could ever do such a thing. But in the future, I will endeavor to make more noise when you are close by."
He lowers his eyes to Wei Wuxian's fish trap. "Did you catch anything?"
"A pair of grass carps," Wei Wuxian tells him, extracting the fish from their prison and holding them up for Lan Zhan to see. "Now, go light the fire and fetch some water from the well. I need hot water for A-Yuan's bath, and it's past time for breakfast."
So Lan Zhan lights the fire in the little courtyard; and there is a courtyard, much to Wei Wuxian's relief, because Lan Zhan built his small refuge after the fashion of most human dwellings, so that Wei Wuxian could almost forget that his cave was a cave and not a wooden house. After that, he sets off for the nearby well with a yoke fitted about his neck and shoulders, returning scarcely ten minutes later with enough water for both breakfast and A-Yuan's bath.
"I will bathe A-Yuan while you fry the fish," Lan Zhan says, dropping the pails and taking the baby from Wei Wuxian's arms. "There is oil in the bag of groceries I brought, if you need it."
"You didn't have oil in your kitchen?"
His husband sighs. "I used the last of it for yesterday's dinner. Now go."
Wei Wuxian nods and makes his way outside, where he finds a strange contraption for grilling set up in the middle of the courtyard. It looks strong enough to support a hook and pan; but the fish will cook faster in the coals of the fire, so he spears the two carps and roasts them with his foraged seasonings until the skins are burned black.
"Is the rice ready?" he calls, ducking back into the cave. "And what about A-Yuan?"
"A-Yuan is ready. The rice is not," is his husband's laconic answer. "Come take him, and I will bring the rice out to you when it is cooked."
In the end, it takes another quarter-hour before the rice porridge is cooked through and made cool enough to eat. Wei Wuxian feeds some of it to A-Yuan and tries a little himself, after which he puts down his spoon to scold Lan Zhan for being so miserly with the salt and ginger.
Lan Zhan looks oddly pleased for a faerie being scolded about his cooking, though Wei Wuxian can't begin to imagine why.
Stranger still, that breakfast is one of the best Wei Wuxian has ever had; and he doesn't understand that, either.
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arrowsperpetualcringe · 8 months
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OLD MAN YAOI REAL....
(Click for better quality, alt vers under the cut)
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mansionfreaks · 1 year
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Hi Nina slender told me to tell you that you left the stove on and now the house is on fire :)
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top ten weirdest experiences: getting back home to see someone rping the fuck whose been waiting for you in the kitchen all night.
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fwoosheye · 6 months
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*sighs* Not again
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Okay so it's another LU idea and can someone please adopt it so it will leave me alone? Anyone? I have too many projects already. Someone please save me!
Anyway. This is a "Legend is the last one to join the chain" idea. He was practically raised by Fi after he pulled the Master Sword for the first time (was it @bokettochild who came up with that? I know I've read some really good fics with that but I'm not sure I remember by who correctly. Please correct me if I've mixed people up), and it takes place on Lorule's Death Mountain. Link is a regular at the Treacherous Tower, because it's an easy way to earn money and with the Triforce restored the monsters aren't as mindless as before so he actually befriends them (though I hc the monsters in the T-Tower were the least mindless to begin with (at least the ones in the audience, maybe the ones one fights were caught mindless ones), probably around the level of Blind the Ex-Sage the Thief, and that they just became more "stable" and better att communicating when the Triforce was restored). Anyway when the story takes place, Link is actually filling in for the final boss because the Purple Moldorm is sick and their new Union demands sick time or something.
When the chain appears in Lorule it's fairly near the T-Tower and when they ask the Devilish Girl about the Hero and learn he's the final boss, they realize someone will have to get up there and defeat him for his shift to end. She will only let one of them enter, so Sky, Warriors or Wild traverse the Tower with the Master Sword in hand (and I'd pick one of those three because they're aware of Fi's presence. Wild might be post-TotK Wild).
When Sky/Wars/Wild finally makes it to Legend there's some brief chatting, and when they attempt to attack each other they simultaneously get their hands burned and Legend accidentally hisses an undignified "Mom!" at Fi making the other Hero realise this teen was practically raised by a sword (and yes this is the scene that gives me the urge to write this, please save me). It becomes a sword-less battle, because Legend shift won't end if he's not defeated and his (magical?) contract don't permit him to hold back more than making it non-leathal. Tri-Force Heroes might've taken place before ALBW for this fic so Legend actually can use doppels/doppel medallion/etc so there 3v1 for a bit. Surprising move from Sky/Wars/Wild eventually sees Legend defeated and he meets the rest of the chain. He probably offers to guide them to the Castle to talk with Princess Hilda, if it doesn't turn out they've managed to get the information they want from the monsters on the audience while they watched. Maybe the chain are chatting about different friendly/civil monsters they've met during their adventures while descending the mountain. And/or Sky/Wars/Wild asks Legend why he addressed his sword as mom.
And because I am utterly incapable of keeping a story idea short, I was also considering to make it so Link is stuck in Lorule because the bracelet only had enough power left to send one of them home to Hyrule and both Link and Princess Hilda agreed Princess Zelda should be the one to return. Ravio would in that case likewise be stuck in Hyrule because he didn't have enough magic. He had probably managed to sneak into Hyrule's Sacred Realm trying to go home and met Zelda as she came back so he knew Link had won, though he might've left before Zelda made her wish (or even woke up?) and thinks Lorule and Link is gone. Maybe. It has some sweet juicy angst potential to let Ravio think his home and hero are destroyed. But also including this would for sure make it a longer fic...
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daz4i · 1 year
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oh wait i did promise a full dazai and nikolai comparison post didn’t i. time to deliver. no keep reading button, we’re clogging everyone’s dashboards like men. enjoy
clowning
so. i doubt i need to elaborate much on nikolai’s clowning - it’s very plainly put in the text, he along with other characters constantly call him a clown, and he obviously takes on a clown persona.
nikolai’s method of clowning is to take it to the extreme - everything he says sounds like a joke or pure nonsense, making you doubt everything that comes out of his mouth immediately, even when he’s saying the truth.
dazai’s is only slightly more subtle. i’m basing this on no longer human, given that so much of his character is based on yozo. dazai puts on a mask of a carefree, funny, lazy guy, especially to the agency, just like yozo does
his method of clowning is to seem genuine. pepper in just enough truth to make others believe him. seem reliable enough to make others trust him. but never showing his full self, so you should doubt everything he says
ultimately, the same outcome, done with different methods
so, we all agree they both do it. now, let’s analyze why. dazai’s is more obvious imo, so let’s start with him. 
with the agency specifically, it makes sense, gotta appear nonthreatening n all, seem like a normal guy with absolutely no past in the mafia (at least at first). i’d also say it can be used to make his enemies underestimate him - no one expects the goofy silly guy to pull a knife on them, after all, and you definitely don’t expect him to be a mastermind.
on a deeper level, if we go back to the yozo train of thought, it’s also to protect himself. no one can leave you, hurt the deeper parts of your soul, attack you personally if they can’t figure out who you are. no one can get close enough to matter to you then get taken away, the way oda was.
nikolai’s reasoning is less grounded in canon or external works (that i know of), so feel free to disagree with that part (with any part of this post tbh.) but in my interpretation, he does it for multiple reasons:
same as dazai, not letting anyone close enough to get him to care. nikolai sees bonds as something chaining him down - he cares about fyodor and sees him as a friend, and that’s why he wants to kill him. if you see him, he will care about you, and he can’t have that. better to have the self inflicted cage of a mask than have the key in someone else’s hands, if you wanna be poetic about it.
chaos! a lot of what nikolai does is to subvert expectations, be illogical, to prove the existence of his free will. nothing more chaotic than a clown
to contrast dazai, rather than make his enemies underestimate him, nikolai’s intention is to make his teammates underestimate him. he’s trying to throw their suspicions off him - oh, he defied the plan fyodor set up? well, can’t blame him, he always does silly shit like that. look how crazy that guy is, obviously he can’t follow orders - so he can freely do what he wants and only have them catch up way later.
already, we see a lot of similarities, as well as opposites-within-the-same-action. let’s continue
death
tldr: both are supposedly willing to die, yet still avoid death.
dazai sure managed to survive a lot of suicide attempts, huh! weird how all of his on screen attempts - especially since oda’s death - have been using methods that are easily to survive, like drowning. that’s so strange guys i wonder why’s that (psst i wrote a whole post just about that already)
and nikolai sure did give a dramatic speech about how dying will set him free, very convincing! weird that he faked his death, then. hmmm.
granted, nikolai’s speech might’ve been The Page’s work, but tbf it does align with his views on this topic so i’d like to believe there was some truth there, just like there’s some truth in dazai’s suicide attempts - yes, they want to die, but... there’s more to be done first.
both of them seem to hold a high value in the act of dying, and both see it as being set free. both feel trapped in their own life - nikolai outright says so, that he feels caged inside his own head, and if you dig into dazai’s character song you see him describe life as a “never-ending today”. both see death as salvation from their situation, but won’t get down to achieving it.
this is actually a good place to transition to our next topic,
meaning
since i mentioned dazai’s character song, one thing he seems to focus on there is looking for meaning, or rather being frustrated that he hasn’t found one yet (he also brings up this internal conflict in the dark era, but the song solidifies it as relevant even in his current state). dazai tries so hard to find meaning, but can’t.
nikolai’s fixation on free will, i’d argue, is not quite a search for meaning, but rather a struggle to prove there is no greater meaning in life, in order to ease his own guilt. none of his murders matter at the end of the day... right? then why does he still feel this way?
ironically, both can find meaning in their bonds - dazai has many at this point, with oda being the main one he might’ve found meaning in before, and nikolai has fyodor - but this is scary. they’re not used to having meaning, to caring. and so we circle back to the clowning, to pushing people away, to wanting to kill fyodor, to the comfort and familiarity of no meaning. 
guilt
like onions and ogres, clowns have layers. bear with me here.
on the surface, you’d expect them both to feel guilt for their horrendous acts. peel a layer, and it seems neither of them particularly does, otherwise they would stop doing it, you’d assume. peel back another layer, and... honestly, i think they do, but are just repressing it.
this is smth i get less from the text and more from their real life counterparts, tbh. going back to the yozo comparisons, he does outright say “i’ve lived a life filled with guilt” which. is very fair to expect to hear from our dazai. meanwhile the real life gogol straight up died because of his guilt. i don’t think asagiri would overlook stuff like that when turning them into characters.
nikolai also does outright tell atsushi he feels guilty for the atrocities he committed - though, pretends he didn’t mean it immediately after, putting back one of those layers we tried to peel.
going back to dazai’s song, it’s the “the tainted past, too, begone!” line that i feel is nodding to it. dazai obviously knows the things he’s done while in the mafia are wrong, seems like he knew while being in the mafia as well given his conversations with oda during the dark era. but this really does make it seem like he regrets it, imo.
they’re both repressing their guilt for the same reason they won’t die. there’s more important shit going on. dazai outright tells atsushi that wallowing in guilt is pointless, and we see him move forward and execute plans even if he’s still feeling guilty throughout, and even when he needs to do some dirty work to make them happen. nikolai is the same in that regard - he’s just hyperfocused on this goal of proving his free will, and guilt is another thing that’s keeping him caged, so he must break free from it. wallowing in it will simply be counterproductive.
sorry i gotta talk abt fyodor now
but it’s gonna be short i promise
so we’ve got this all knowing, unbeatable, super smart guy, right? anyway what if the only people we see outsmart him were 2 suicidal clowns. wouldn’t that be funny
so, it’s a bit tricky to call it “outsmarting” with dazai considering how their whole Thing is give and take that’s not going to end any time soon, but fyodor obviously views him as someone on his level so i’m counting that. he wouldn’t put this much effort into someone he didn’t think was less smart than him. and, he calls him a worthy chess opponent for a reason
nikolai did outsmart him, though. nikolai was supposed to die. nikolai wasn’t meant to survive the plan, let alone come to meursault and put fyodor in a death game when he could’ve escaped using the vampiric guard he planted in the prison instead. nikolai is throwing an unpredictable wrench in the plan of the guy who knows how everything is gonna turn out because humans are so predictable.
clearly they both affect him a lot, more than we see others have. both of them are the only ones so far we’ve seen get on the same level as fyodor
and, both of them are seen by fyodor. nikolai explicitly says fyodor is the only person who sees him, and dazai is seen because they are the same, on a certain level. fyodor understands them, which is why it’s even more impressive that they can outsmart him, imo
in conclusion
asagiri i am on my knees begging. make them interact properly please please please
fr tho, i’m curious if this means something. because this is a huge amount of similarities, especially when they’re not really related in any way and barely ever talked. does it mean anything?? how about nikolai being able to use his ability on dazai, does that mean anything????? asagiri please give me some answers i am asking so nicely
anyway. thank you for reading! lmk if i missed anything, or reblog with your own additions and analysis. if you disagree with anything i said, feel free to express that as well, just be respectful. hope i managed to infect you with my brainrot as well. have a great day :3!
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