#break your limits

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Your beats make me sick

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[sunlitpath]

Apollo, god of knowledge

Thank you for holding me accountable

Thank you for pushing me to be better

[beccawise7]

Traveling opens your mind.

Heals your aching heart & calms the soul.

Never be afraid to move outside your comfort zone. ✌️

~beccawise7💜🖤

[cupcakemyducktape]

Fellas

[beemoboppin]

Was anyone else BAFFLED by the fact that Etho suggested, went through with, AND offered to repeat a pvp battle in the life series??

I’m just so stunned bc he’s normally so protective of his lives and to him, no deal is worth a life. But something’s entirely different this season bc he didn’t even think twice about “let’s do one every episode”

It goes to show his excitement about Minecraft mechanics, but I wonder how much that mindset will affect his investment in the actual survival game they’re playing

[iandarling]

[hoovesandfloorpaws]

Louis' rocky path to his first album

..and how it might have been the reason/one of the reasons why Louis shared Always You with us the way that he did.

I don't want to saddle this amazing post about the Always You snippet and little scavenger hunt Louis took us on on Aug 24, 2017 with a too-long derail, so i'm gonna make this separate post. But please definitely read that post, too, it's so good! It'll make you shake your fist and go "LOUIS!!" (affectionately) 💙💚

-

This is for possible context re: him saying he was "pissed off about industry shit" and it resulting in him sharing the snippet in August 2017 and what long breath Louis had to have in order to finally get to release his debut solo album. Disclaimer: obviously there was much more going on in Louis' life during those 3 years - lots of yucky stunting that left Louis looking dead behind the eyes (esp. because on top of it he was also still grieving heavily), Harry releasing his first album, starring in his first Hollywood film, and going on worldwide tours. Louis obviously not being able to accompany him publicly to premieres or to all the shows - in combination it likely resulting in a lot more physical separation than they were ever used to, possible rough patches between them as a couple, Louis' sister unexpectedly passing away and the subsequent massive grief after already having lost his beloved Mum just 2.5 years prior, weekly appearances on TV with the giant asshole who iron-closeted him and his spider mouse ever since they were teenagers, a few public slip ups/outings from within their work circles, Harry turning into a horse on live radio despite being able to yell NO when he wanted to, Louis beaming with pride every single time he was asked about his Harry - and much more. His/their life is complex and busy and I'm only shining light on a couple of things here.

We know Louis had wanted to finally record his album in 2017 and release it in 2018. He said it again and again in his tweets and I personally don't think he was lying or stalling. (additionally, a plan for a 2018 album release + tour for 'a managed artist' was mentioned in a strategic report of the 1D company One Mode Productions Ltd., but by that point it was directed purely by 3 big players from Modest! Mgmt and that plan could've been BS from the start and could have still been an old remnant of the original plans Modest had for 1D after their hiatus; it never happened and the company was acquired by Universal Music in July 2020. Exact detail about that will be/are in my H&L companies masterpost)

In June 2017 Louis had been finally supposed to be signed with a new label under Sony, RSA...

(tweet)

...but then an exec from Epic Records campaigned to get Louis to them instead, because she had loved Just Hold On, so he signed with Epic in July 2017.

(tweet)

It needs to be said that the reason for Epic wanting to sign Louis based on that collab with Steve Aoki potentially meant they were hoping he was going to make more of that kind of music. -- which he never did, so he possibly also never wanted to in the first place (quite the recipe for disaster). And Louis was lagging behind to the public eye; he was the only member of 1D who hadn't released more than 1 single since the start of the hiatus. Zayn and Harry had already released an album by that point, Liam had had 2 pretty successful singles, and Niall had his first album set to be released in October that year. Louis being at a disadvantage wasn't his fault or within his control at all, though, with having lost his Mum 8 months prior. Syco and Sony faffing about with the record deals for him is certainly not something a grieving (and closeted & stunt-riddled) first-time solo musician needs when they just want to focus on finally releasing their first album and wanting to focus on that. During that time, it's especially essential to have a record label on board which understands and shares the same vision of the album, so concepts can be discussed, demos sent and given feedback on, timelines for PR and marketing coordinated, release dates planned, etc.

Within the same month, on July 21, 2017, Louis did release Back To You on via his own label, 78 Productions. (78 Productions Ltd. is also one of his companies) and Epic Records. Syco helped with promo in the UK. Back To You wasn't a first single of the album, though! Like with Just Hold On, Back To You's genre was vastly different from the albums Louis would later come to release, so it leads me to believe it was a fun filler project for him to work on with Bebe Rexha and Digital Farm Animals and vice versa, and to finally put out some music that year and also do a few live performances.

A month later, he tweeted this:

(tweet)

4 days later, Louis gets pissed off "about some music industry shit" and a day later, he tweets:

(tweet) - and this is when he drops the snippet of Always You right at the part with the "I went to Amsterdam without you, all I could do was think about you". part and he keeps dropping hint after hint and we figure it out 💙💚 - and ends up putting that song on his debut album.

(1 month later, Harry leaves to start his first ever solo world tour in San Francisco, USA on Sep 25, 2017)

Months pass and still no album single incoming.

On Oct 11, 2017, Louis announces his next single will be postponed, but also drops Just Like You out of the blue:

(tweet) / (tweet) - although Louis says the song is "from the album", Just Like You never ends up on his first 2 albums.

Months pass again.. the single he said would come "later this year" turns out to be Miss You, released on Dec 1, 2017. The song doesn't end up on the regular album, only appears as a bonus track on the Japanese Edition.

(On Dec 8, 2017, Harry finishes his world tour in Tokyo, Japan)

The year turns into 2018... and Louis seems to become increasingly more frustrated:

(tweet)

3 more months pass..

(Harry leaves to start his 2nd solo world tour in Basel, Switzerland on March 11, 2018)

Another month passes..

(tweet)

3 months later, and as a first step into a hopefully better direction, on July 19, 2018, it is announced that Louis has switched management and is now with Matt Vines from 7 Seven Management.

In July 2018 it's announced that Louis will appear on X-Factor as a judge that year.

(Coincidentally, Harry finishes his world tour on July 22, 2018 in New York City, USA)

Louis' X-Factor filming takes place (with breaks in between) from July 28 until Dec 2, 2018. (together with Simon Cowbell, so that must have been quite unpleasant at times, but Louis' contestant won! HA!)

Most importantly: no music at all gets released for Louis in all 2018!

(Harry leaves to start a very short tour in Singapore on Nov 23, 2018 and already finishes on Dec 7, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan)

The year turns into 2019...

And then fucking finally, in Feb 2019, it is announced that Louis has signed with Arista, who also belong to Sony. Louis can finally really start working on the album now!

On March 7, 2019, he releases Two Of Us - the first proper single of the upcoming album and a beautiful song he wrote for his Mum. But the joy doesn't last long -- sadly only 1 week later, on March 13, 2019, Louis' sister Félicité unexpectedly passes away and this completely throws life off its hinges again :( 🖤

(Harry plays only 2 shows on March 28 + 29, 2019 in New York City, USA, because he inducts beloved Stevie Nicks into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame - but he doesn't tour again until October; is also in the process of finishing the recording of his 2nd album, Fine Line)

4 months later, Louis tweets this:

(tweet)

Things finally go according to (an obviously existing) plan now and it's clear that there's a proper release schedule at work. The single and music video releases are firing on all cylinders. Starting from September, there's basically a new Louis release every month. There's concepts for all music videos, as they all tell a multiple-part continuous story. Kill My Mind is released on Sep 5, 2019 We Made It follows up on Oct 24, 2019 Don't Let It Break Your Heart on Nov 23, 2019 then there's the usual Christmas break (X-mas is mostly for album releases, case in point: Harry's Fine Line's released on Dec 13, 2019) Walls, the album title single, is released on Jan 17, 2020 -- 2 weeks before the album release.

When asked what's his favorite song on the album, he replies with this:

(tweet) And on Jan 31, 2020 Louis' finally gets to release his debut solo album Walls! 🙌🏼

3 years in the active making and a frustrating 2 years later than he'd hoped for.

Because within just 3 years, Simon tried/succeeded to sign Louis to three different Sony-owned record labels! Possibly also because Louis made it clear he was not going to release his album with Syco alone, but that's just speculation on me part. (I also need to mention that Simon had already sold 50% of his shares in Syco Music to Sony in July 2015, leaving him with only 20% and he never re-acquired them, meaning since 2015 Simon was already 75% out of the door back then. Guess what he already knew would happen since the beginning of 2015, hmmmm?)

Personal thoughts: To me, that’s all absolutely wild behaviour to treat an artist like that. Someone who's made you such a fuckton of money already, too. (because let's be honest, the money's all people like Simon Cowbell and his Modest! minions care about) Simon's never had an ounce of integrity or loyalty in his body. To treat an artist, who to the public he claimed he was 'so close' to like this and to then see him struggle and still try to manipulate or bribe him into your own plans (the girlband, the management company, the DOA Triple Strings label) instead of finally letting him pursue what he so clearly wanted.. it's classic and disgusting. From my own professional experience of 15 years as an artist & tour manager, it is not surprising to me that Louis wasn’t able to establish any consistency within his career for the first 4 years. (And we probably only know half of the contractual shit Louis has had to deal with.) You'd usually need at least good management that you trust, that's ready to take the brunt of forces, but also makes sure you don't make certain mistakes (again), and that's ready to work with & for you in this. Record labels come second, especially since it's become easier nowadays to release shit indie and it's not like Louis' (and Harry's) household didn't have some funds-- but yeah, proper management is key! They're the junction where everything leads together. I have no idea what the James Grant Group thought they were doing with Louis, but it was complete weak sauce.

And although I'm also not a fan of Matt Vines and 7 Seven Management, they're definitely some kind of improvement. I understand Louis in preferring to work with people he's become close with and who he's already trusting, rather than taking the risk and choosing someone new - especially given Louis' very awful prior experiences with management. I hope Matt Vines steps up his game in the future, but from what I have learned in the past months, sadly I don't think 7 Seven Management have a good grasp on Louis' target group and fanbase and I'm not sure how much use they're making of proper market research. For an artist of Louis' caliber, they're doing too little.

Anyway, back to Syco, I think nobody is surprised that Louis had enough of it 1.5 years after Walls was released and finally ended things with Syco on July 11, 2020.

Now I want to end on saying that i'm only speculating something about his own record label / album delaying situation could've been the reason for him being pissed off. It also could've been something to do with the music industry in itself, something to do with Harry and him, something closeting- or stunt-related. I mean he did release a snippet of a song that's obviously about Harry and him. But he also released a snippet of a song that was supposed to be on his album. So yeah, the reason could've been a mix of both.

But even though we can't say that for sure, it was valid as hell that he was pissed. And he got to share the Always You snippet with us for it, such an incredibly special song; so clearly about Harry & him and he didn't give a fuck that night. And I think that's beautiful.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

…. could you talk more about the document leak in pez? if you can’t talk about it in the fic, because of how unrelated it is to the main plot, would you be cool with talking about it on tumblr a la battle of yokohama? your world building is so fantastic, i always want to know more, even if it’s not technically necessary

I’m fine talking about it here because it truly will have little to no function in pez itself. The most it does in the actual fic is add to the reasons why the entirety of Japan is so unreasonably fixated on Izuku. It will barely have any mention in the fic itself.

Dabi in the background of pez is fumbling his way through a redemption arc. he and the league are bitter fucking divorcees who still blame the other's in law for the break up. its messy and complicated between them right now okay. everyone's crying and refusing to admit that they're crying. societal collapse is being delayed because shigaraki won't stop crashing out over his ex with the piercings and the scars. dabi refuses to fucking admit he misses them (he fucking misses them)

Effectively, one day, Dabi donned his shitty fucking Matrix coat and went out to get a strawberry danish and listened to some lady sobbing to her mother on the phone about how she was scared to let the kids go to school and scared to go outside now because of how bad it was getting, about how she knew three people who had been attacked by villains in the last month when she used to not know any, and how afraid she was every single day that she'd be the next one. Money was tight, they'd lose everything if she ended up hospitalized or worse, the baby was sick and she couldn't get her to a doctor because the entire street got shut down for another goddamn villain attack, and she's scared every day.

And he didn't feel good about it. He didn't feel good about it at all.

In fact, it reminded him a lot of being five years old and being afraid to wake up every morning because he didn't know what his dad would do to him that day. It reminded him a lot of hiding in his closet with his hand clamped over his own mouth, listening to the creaks in the house to try and figure out if his father was angry.

Anyway, it was an intolerable amount of self reflection. couldn't recommend it less.

It ended up making him go back to the league and being like "okay are we really being true to stain's message" to see if maybe they should do a bit of a rebrand.

Except they all have the communication skills of a half-deaf wolverine with a hormonal imbalance, so it quickly devolved into a lot of "fuck you and your daddy complex" on both sides and "you just wish stain fucked you huh" weirdly also on both sides and spinner ended up crying in the back room because it reminded him of his parents divorcing. shigaraki's been listening to a weird amount of taylor swift since and all for one just isn't sure what to do with. that.

Now Dabi Is Rebranding And He's Going To Be Like The Cooler Stain Stain 2.0 The Stain That Kills His Fucking Dad. No He Doesn't Just Wish Stain Fucked Him Shut The Fuck Up Shigaraki.

He has admittedly suffered some setbacks. His own sister kidnapping him was not ideal. The fact that he can't go a week without getting in a public and embarrassing screaming match with the rest of the league that usually involves at least one person crying is also not ideal. That one time he accidentally got caught up in some mission involving Quirkless Tin Tin and his baby brother's pet psychopath and now they keep insisting that he's their CI now and he keeps telling them to fuck off before he kills them because he's not going to be their fucking CI and he made the mistake of complaining about it to fuyumi and now she won't stop crying tears of joy because he's bonding with the boyfriend shouto hasn't figured out he has yet?

So not fucking ideal.

But after much trial, much error, he managed to get this fucking rebrand on the rails. He found a computer nerd for the HPSC who had the right kind of dirt on him to make blackmail a dream and threw in a "i'm going to set you on fire if you don't do what i say" for good measure and He Fucking Did It He Got It Stuff To Strike At The Heart of This Society's Corruption Fuck You Shigaraki He Is Not A Washed Up Wannabe With Daddy Issues Shigaraki's The Washed Up Wannabe With Daddy Issues He Doesn't Miss Them Every Day Fuck Off.

He was hoping for shit on his dad but the computer nerd mostly got him all the shit about the HPSC buying boy slaves or whatever which was ultimately disappointing so he made a bunch of copies of the data at a shitty gamer cafe that he did not run into shigaraki at absolutely not no one cried at all and then mailed a flash drive to every single major and minor news network and called it a fucking day.

he uh.

the package.

he forgot to sign it.

so the credit. he didn't. get it. exactly.

And he could make an announcement that it was totally him but 1) like 97 different villains and criminal organizations and vague dissidents living in their moms' basements who didn't put in the fucking work immediately took credit and 2) how the fuck does he like. take credit for things. does he make a twitter account. does he tweet it. there are 17 fake twitter accounts pretending to be him how does he even authenticate this shit.

he immediately started lying to himself about how he was planning to do this anonymously from the start and called it a fucking day. great job, dabi, 100% according to plan, he's killing this anti-hero thing.

Hawks woke up one morning and oh, look at that, his entire life was ruined. It was already on the rocks and now it's at the bottom of the sea. Funny how he missed that bit.

The computer nerd had grabbed a fuck ton of HPSC's worst and most corrupt things that they'd ever done and, haha, a lot of them were done to him. So. So fun. That.

As it turns out, the press has Multiple Field Days when they get their hands on the invoice for the actual government buying you. That time they hired a therapist to literally gaslight him because he started to question his training? Haha, there. All those times he was hospitalized while being raised as their boy slave?

Haha. There.

He knows this is his situationship's fault he fucking knows it dabi you son of a bitch--

It's not all about him. There's a bunch of scattered bullshit bad things the HPSC had done. But, weirdly enough, the other guy that featured prominently in this data dump was All Might.

The HPSC had apparently set a standard of backing the fuck off of anything All Might so much as looked at. There's a weird number of memos over the years hurriedly canceling whatever shady project they were involved in and making sure every single thing was above board if All Might so much as sneezed in the direction of something. The HPSC had set a policy of ducking for fucking cover every single time All Might became more than passively aware of their existence.

Because All Might was the kind of guy who could go up against the system and win.

The HPSC had only grown as powerful as it was because of All Might, in a way. They rode his fucking coattails the entire path up to relevance. All Might's career revolutionized modern heroics, and well. If you have a revitalized heroics system, then you need to give more power to the agency watching it, right?

The HPSC was disturbingly aware of the fact that All Might had, in a way, brought them into the world and could take them out of it again. They were afraid of him in a way they were not afraid of any other hero alive.

Because they had nothing on him.

The man was a fucking ghost. He was legally required to give them his real information and that still gave them fucking nothing to work with. They could find no scandals attached to his name. They could dig up absolutely no personal ties or links. Yagi Toshinori had no family, no social media, and had barely any paper records associated with him outside of his schooling. He was as squeaky clean as he appeared, maybe, or maybe he was just good at hiding dirt. The HPSC found out that he was injured at the same time as everyone else, and that fucking terrified them. They had nothing to keep him in line with, and they couldn't figure out if it didn't exist or if he was just better at the game than they were.

So they watched themselves if All Might took more than a passing glance their way.

They got scared.

Hawks learned, for the first time, that he was a little bit of an answer to All Might. Which was a weird revelation this late in the game. He thought he'd managed to dig up most of what the HPSC had on him, but apparently not. He wasn't exactly designed to replace All Might or beat all might. He was meant to do what All Might did, just for the HPSC.

They made him to be a young, popular, attractive hero. They could have raised him to operate from the shadows and have more freedom and less scrutiny, but they pushed him into the spotlight early, and they did it to try and replicate the threat that All Might posed to them.

All Might was so dangerous because the public loved him. The public trusted him. The public would tear down the government if he gave the word. So if they were able to manufacture a hero that the public loved, then maybe the public would protect the HPSC at that hero's word.

Hawks found out some things about himself from that data dump right at the same time as the rest of the world. He wasn't thrilled by it.

Anyway he woke up after a sixteen hour shift to 732 emails and the police at his front door.

The Japanese government freaked out, see, because press had been sort of shit since All Might retired, and society had sort of been on the verge of chaos for a while, and quite literally the biggest thing standing between them and the total collapse of the yen for the past year and change has been the fact that the entire world developed a parasocial relationship with twenty random fucking japanese teenagers. And those twenty teenagers were borderline inaccessible because their teacher threatened to bomb government buildings if anyone so much as suggested allowing a camera to exist in their vicinity. And they can't fucking push their luck with it either. One of the kids is all might's secret son. All Might will look at them.

So instead, the Japanese Government said, "WE ARE TAKING THE BOY SLAVE ALLEGATIONS VERY SERIOUSLY. WE THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT ARE AGAINST BOY SLAVES AND DO NOT HAVE ANY. HERE IS A GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG PANEL WE ARE ASSEMBLING TO INVESTIGATE THE BOY SLAVE CLAIMS."

And the HPSC said, "WE ARE FULLY COOPERATING WITH THE BOY SLAVE INVESTIGATION. WE DO NOT HAVE ANY BOY SLAVES. THAT IS CRAZY TALK. THESE ARE OBVIOUSLY FABRICATED FILES. WHY WOULD WE HAVE 2398 TOP SECRET MEMOS TALKING ABOUT HOW AFRAID WE ARE OF ALL MIGHT SEEING WHAT WE'RE DOING. WE LOVE ALL MIGHT. HUGE FAN OF HIM AND HIS SECRET SON. LOOK THE PERSON WHO DID THIS DIDN'T EVEN SIGN IT. OBVIOUSLY FAKE NEWS."

And then they went to Hawks, their boy slave, and they said, "you better fucking tell that government watchdog that you aren't our boy slave"

And Hawks stared at the ceiling for an extraordinarily long time.

When he was done, Hawks said to the government watchdog, "I'm not their boy slave," But He Was.

And the government watchdog said, "We have 827 pages of reports that are just the team of psychiatrists they hired trying to figure out the best way to make sure you would say that if anyone ever asked and frankly some of the methods they were using violate the Geneva convention so we low key can't believe you"

And Hawks, who knew that happened, because it happened to him, said, "That never happened."

And the government watchdog said, "We can't believe you about that either."

And Hawks said "that's fair" and went home to scream into his pillow.

And the government watch dog had told the HPSC, "please do not talk to hawks for the duration of this investigation" and the HPSC said to them "of course we would NEVER" and then they immediately texted Hawks 73 times about how he better fucking make this government watchdog investigation go the fuck away.

Hawks doesn't actually believe this is going to save him. He's not going to inspect whether or not that belief is the product of the years and years of careful manipulation and abuse that were apparently religiously documented and are now archived on the fucking new york times website.

The thing is that He Had A Plan To Stop Being A Boy Slave. It Had 923 Steps. He Was Going To Fucking Do It Okay. He Was Going To Get Out And Go Be A Fisherman Or Herd Sheep Or Whatever The Fuck Former Government Boy Slaves Did After Attaining Freedom. It involved an extraordinary amount of blackmail and political maneuvering and he was going to fucking manage it, okay? And--and this is fucking key--it did not involve his tragic backstory becoming publicly available information.

He is in hell right now. The HPSC won't stop blowing up his phone. The government watchdog people won't stop asking him if the HPSC is blowing up his phone, which they told them not to do. they keep trying to send him a government therapist to try and unpack what, if anything, happened to him, and he has a profound distrust for therapists and particularly government therapists for No Particular Reason. Teenage girls won't stop making sad edits of him on tiktok. Podcasts are now dedicated to him. Not that he's a topic covered by the podcast in an episode or even a season--entire podcasts are dedicated to going through and unpacking government records discussing how they should better torture and condition him, their boy slave, to do exactly as they say. Too many people have his medical documents about all those times the real life government gaslit him in childhood to think it was normal to have the real life government beat you. Fucking Buzzfeed wrote some article about him and some American government heroics training program fuck up and it was still the number one trending article 24 hours after Midoriya Izuku's cosmically bad luck kicked in and landed him on the globally trending page of twitter. All Might's secret son trended twice and separately in like a thirteen minute span and it was still not enough to dethrone that fucking article.

Anyway this has been going on for like a month and a half, two months in pez and Hawks is fucking miserable. Izuku and Tokoyami actually have little to no idea what is in the HPSC document dump out of respect for Hawks, because they both have violently confronted their own fame on multiple occasions and determined that they hated it. They were not going to read another man's medical records, especially not one that they knew.

This came out when they and Miruko ended up at Hawks' apartment in the immediate aftermath, eating takeout and listening to Tokoyami's halloween ambiance playlist, because Hawks has no other friends. Following a profoundly uncomfortable three hours and Mr. Aizawa texting them multiple times to confirm if they were actually engaging in approved activities under the UA internship guidelines (he refused to believed that Izuku was able to exist outside as long as he had without causing massive property damage or ending up on the news and also was under the correct impression that Hawks was on leave to deal with the fallout so what the fuck was tokoyami interning for), Izuku and Tokoyami confirmed for Hawks that they had no goddamn clue what happened because they had decided to avoid it unless Hawks told them otherwise. They set up filters on their social media accounts wherever they could and just didn't click on any goddamn links. This made Hawks cry and once again confirm that Izuku and Tokoyami were some of his best (only) friends.

The weird side effect of all of this has been an added focus on Izuku, strangely enough.

Because society doesn't want to deal with the mess that is reforming the HPSC. They want a return to normal. They want All Might back. All Might apparently had the HPSC diving for fucking cover with a glance, and so surely, Deku can manage the same.

He's the next All Might, after all.

[bixels]

While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.

Bye.

[nenoname]

it really does seem like bill's version of possessing bodies requires the host soul to be either unconscious (ie ford and blendin) or gone (him kicking dipper out of his own body, possessing silas and other corpses), but honestly the type of possession that has the victim aware and trapped in their own body is probably the scariest to me

[riddlemearose]

Linked Universe Combat Guide (part 1)

Lmao I have been casually sitting on this for like two months now and since I'm procrastinating writing an essay, I've decided to post it.

Anyway, this came from my bajillion notes about the Chain's equipment so I could have fight scenes that involved more than "he swings his sword" x9. I also wanted to identify all the weird weapons the Links would have too bc I know they exist. And since adhd is the shark disorder and I need to do something bc I stop moving I die, I've made my notes coherent enough to inflict upon tumblr.

General Notes:

In terms of additional weapons/equipment, I’m not including the traditional bombs/bow + arrows/boomerangs bc basically everyone has a variant of these. All I'm doing is looking at the possible items collected on the quests and being like "yeah I could probably work out a way to kill monsters with that".

Also they all have one-handed sword and shield proficiency, so I'm not including that for each Link. However any other canonical or possible weapon proficiencies will be listed.

7 out of 9 Links are predominantly lefties. Generally, left-handed swordfighters are used to fighting right-handed swordfighters, but the same is not true vice versa, so they will have an advantage against most human enemies. -> any ambidextrous fighters in the group is largely a headcanon but go nuts w/ it.

Researched to the best of my ability (limited only by search terms and my own waning hyperfixation), but pls be aware I literally only played my first Zelda game ever in February 2024 so there’s a lot I don’t know and games I haven’t played. Both parts are open to peer review and active fact checking lmao

Half of this is canonical abilities and half is presumed abilities based off of said canon + other logical conclusions. I'm doing this from a lore-accurate sense, rather than a straight pull from the LU comics, simply bc that allows for a broader analysis of what they're technically all capable of. I've tried my best to keep my personal headcanons out of this either way.

This part covers Four, Hyrule, Legend and Wind, whose games I have not played, so my apologies if anything is missing or incorrect.

Updated 9 March 2025 with new info provided by @thejolteonmastertj who's a literal godsend for their info about Legend and Hyrule's combat skills🙏, and @respheal who added on and emphasised just how important Legend's spin attack is. I love you both <3

Updated again 2 May 2025 with info for everyone here provided by @interlink-au.

Four

I am actively making the argument that Four probably has knowledge about other fighting styles due to his trade as a black/weaponsmith. I do not have any specifics in mind bc I do not have the spoons for that deep-dive, but feel free to run with this however you want.

Sword techniques: -> spin attack + variants    -> great spin attack (repeated spins. interlink-au emphasises that it's very OP bc there's no dizziness/stamina involved so it can be spammed)    -> hurricane spin (same as above but temporarily induces dizziness) -> dash attack (requires pegasus boots) -> peril beam (only works when he's got 1 heart left) -> sword beam when at full hearts -> roll attack -> down thrust (requires Roc’s cape)

Obviously, Four's greatest strength is team combat w/ the Colours. By splitting, he's able to coordinate combat with easy tag-team attacks with a much lower risk of friendly fire compared to when fighting alongside members of the Chain. Group combat, quite obviously, is actually kinda hard bc it requires an increased amount of situational awareness that is often overridden by adrenaline. Thankfully, since Four and the Colours are literally the same person, this is mitigated by a LOT.

Seriously do not discount how Four's height is an advantage in combat. Being smaller/shorter means you have less body mass to speed up and slow down, so you have greater agility and speed. You're also harder to hit and better at close combat (short limbs take less time to block, attack, etc.)

Genuinely don't know if he's proficient in combat while on horseback. I've heard at least one of Four's games has an Epona, but I don't know if there's any mounted combat.

Additional Weapons/Equipment: -> power bracelets -> gust jar -> Cane of Pacci -> magnetic glove -> fire rod -> magic hammer (hammer is capable of producing shockwaves and causing earth tremors) -> pegasus boots -> Roc’s cape -> shovel (do not under any circumstances discount mundane weapons) -> slingshot

Hyrule

To start off, the most important thing to know about Hyrule is that he's a self-taught fighter.

No, seriously this is more important than you think but not for the reasons you may think. Self-taught fighters are scrappy as shit. Out of the entire Chain, Hyrule will be the first one to resort to fighting dirty. Have him clawing at people’s eyes, throwing dirt, and biting. When you grow up in a situation where survival is a thin line you don't want to cross, you’ll do anything to stay alive when you have to.

Spells*: -> Shield: reduces damage by half -> Jump: self-explanatory -> Life: recovers health -> Fairy: shapeshifts into a fairy -> Fire: shoots fireballs from the end of his sword. (an aside, but this scene from the comic may be a variant of Fire? Fact check again lmao) -> Reflect: reflects magic attacks and strengthens his shield to temporarily block some physical attacks and most magical attacks -> Spell: can turn most enemies into Bots -> Thunder: summons lightning *be aware Hyrule has a magic meter. I haven't included how it functions here because it cluttered this section up horribly, but here's a link to it.

Hyrule actually gained the ability to use magic in his second quest, so while he's probably well adapted to using it now and may default to using it when backed into a corner, he's still a capable swordsman without it. -> Update: while the spells I listed above came about in Hyrule's second quest, thejolteonmastertj points out that Hyrule is straight up slinging sword beams with the random sword he gets given at the start of his first adventure, and that it's an important technique for the game.

He can canonically use Jump to perform a down thrust (like Four's) and a jump thrust (think Mario hitting bricks lmao),but there are so many ways to utilise this spell. Someone should teach Hyrule the Helm Splitter.

Additional Weapons/Equipment: -> power bracelets -> hammer -> this will sound stupid but ladder (again, never underestimate weird and mundane weapons.) -> magic rod (w/ accompanying fire upgrade) -> magic recorder (used in-game for fast travel but thejolteonmastertj also says it summons a tornado and if you can't find a way to use that in combat, I'm going to eat my hat)

Legend

Legend gave me so much trouble, solely bc sir has too many games. Jesus Christ man.

I am once again happily arguing that due to Legend’s sheer experience, he probably has other weapon proficiencies outside of a one-handed sword + shield combo, but that’s entirely up to personal headcanons. -> update provided by interlink-au: Legend is capable of dual-wielding his sword and a magic rod/cane, a boomerang, a hook-shot, etc etc. He will also parry with his sword if he's charging a spin attack (and can hurt them by walking into them, unless they're also holding a sword which will mitigate the blow).

Sword techniques (provided by interlink-au): -> spin attack (see above) -> dash attack (needs pegasus boots) -> sword beam -> hurricane spin (drains magic and induces dizziness) -> great spin (separate to a spin attack. increases range of normal attacks)

Once again for the class lmao, Legend has the most questing experience. While his section may seem small bc I don't want to rehash stuff I've already said, it's entirely on-brand for him to have tweaked a lot of this. Headcanons abound.

Updating the above points: again provided by thejolteonmastertj, Legend's officially getting smacked with another label, and this is "Most OP Spin Attack". This has been pointed out to be a core aspect of combat for ALTTP (Legend's first adventure). directly quoting their reblog bc I can't summarise it any better than it's already been said: -> "Legend’s charged spin attack as reactive crowd control is foundational & central to his entire battle style. It’s extremely difficult to land a hit otherwise! You gotta either run, button mash to parry with ur back against a wall till something hits… … or you play it smart, watch everything in the room & plan your charged spins accordingly. Legend would be particularly adept at being outnumbered in an enclosed space. He can also throw pots, even shrubbery if he so desires, but well-timed spin-attacks are what truly carries him through his first few dungeons."

respheal also points out that some of Legend's enemies can only be damaged by the spin attack, making it a cruical technique that he's more than likely put time into developing more than the others may have.

interlink-au adds on to both of the above and mentions that, with the roc feather/cape, Legend is able to do a jumping spin attack.

Sword techinques (provided by interlink-au): -> spin attack (see above) -> dash attack (needs pegasus boots) -> sword beam -> hurricane spin (drains magic and induces dizziness) -> great spin (separate to a spin attack. increases range of normal attacks)

Can't believe I didn't mention Legend's own tactical prowess smh

interlink-au also has informed me that two of Legend's rings let him punch, so congratulations, he now probably knows some brawling/boxing techniques. The Expert Ring can let him punch so hard, he does the same amount of damage as he can do with the Noble Sword.

Additional Weapons/Equipment (Warning: brace yourself): -> literally the entire contents of his ring box. I'm not listing them. I don't even know what's in it, nor do I want to at this point. A link to the Everything in his ring box can be found here -> power bracelets/power glove/titan’s mitt -> hammer(s) -> pegasus boots -> Cane of Byrna -> Cane of Somaria -> hookshots -> switch hook(quoting interlink-au: "swaps you for whatever you hit it with, objects and enemies, which you can use to cross gaps.") -> long hook (upgraded version of the switch hook) -> seed shooter (+ ember seeds, scent seeds, mystery seeds, gale seeds, & pegasus seeds) -> hyper slingshot (interlink-au says it can shoot 3 mysterious seeds at a time, which have different elemental effects). -> fire rod -> ice rod -> Rod of Seasons -> tornado rod -> sand rod -> Bombos medallion -> Ether Medallion -> Quake medallion -> magic powder -> shovel -> super net -> alternative tunics (attack or defensive enhancements) -> red shield (fire defence) -> Roc’s feather & cape -> mermaid suit (allows Legend to use items underwater) -> magnetic gloves -> super lantern (I've discovered this is as strong as Legend's second Master Sword upgrade in ALBW) -> magic cape (makes Legend invincible)

Breaking my own rules to list a few of Legend's 5 boomerangs, as they all have different abilities (info provided by interlink-au) 1. Magical boomerang -> can be controlled with his mind. 2. Magic boomerang (different object) -> further range 3. Nice boomerang -> sends out three boomerangs for the price of one

Wind

Arguably has the best balance and proprioception of the group, which is extremely useful in many situations.

Once again, do not be afraid to use Wind’s height to his advantage. He has a slight detriment bc he’s still getting taller and going through puberty does screw up your proprioception, but I think if you’re using a sword that much, both against enemies and in sparring matches, he's probably still got a decent sense of his own balance and body.

Updated info provided by interlink-au: Wind has a great spin/hurricane attack, which does induce dizziness and use magic.

I genuinely don’t know how the Phantom Sword works, sorry. I know it has some potential to slow time, but I’m not entirely sure about the mechanics behind that, nor if it’s still capable of such magic. From interlink-au: apparently the Phantom Sword currently doesn't work bc it doesn't have any magic leftover. There may be a comic out there made by Jojo that features Time and Wind talking about the sword, so if anyone knows of it, pls let me know.

Wind’s Parry Attack:   Hmm this thing. It’s interesting. Note: no actual parrying with a shield is needed, which means it's kinda like BOTW's perfect dodge mechanic. -> Wind’s parry attack is like the Helm Splitter and Back Slice combined into one. If the attack is vertical, he does a Back Slice-esque attack. If the attack is horizontal, it’s a Helm Splitter. -> Additionally he has an ending blow like Twilight and Sky, which has a specific trigger.

Mild note from interlink-au: Wind can use three different items at the same time, unlike the others who generally use two, and he's very quick when he uses said items. Topically, I keep forgetting that Wind has magic which he uses to empower some of his arrows with fire or ice.

Additional Weapons/Equipment: -> power bracelets -> deku leaf (requires magic to be used) -> skull hammer -> grappling hook (!!!!! any rope dart combat video would make this brutal) -> shovel -> hookshot -> Wind’s weird magic armour spell -> Hyoi pears if you feel like world-building

Part 2: Sky, Time, Twi, Wars and Wild

[fefairys]

so ive been playing the L death note ds game and the L communicator mode is so funny. Literally all you can do is feed him treats and make him say random lines at you. to restock treats you have to wait on the blank menu screen for five minutes at a time for watari to bring more food.

konami said u will keep your ds open on this blank screen for hours just to feed a fake L death note treats so that he'll tell you he loves you.

and you know what i am. i had to pause in the middle of writing this because watari came back with more food.

[reminiscentrainclouds]

They infect my art history notes once more.

[cyb-by-lang]

One of the consequences of Obito's usage of Kamui in CYB-adjacent stories is that he tends to have a lot of stuff in there. Like, sure, furniture he forgot about and most of the things Rin has ever asked him to keep track of (to be retrieved on command), but also some stuff that's actively dangerous.

Like Kei's excess explosives.

What I'm saying is that while Obito didn't trick Dabi into detonating two tons of TNT in his own face in Shell Game, it wasn't because he couldn't.

[holsten-from-hasa]

I'm always thinking about being a Shaman player.

Cause, canonically there are no true shaman heroes for the people of Wynn. Sure there's Slykaar, but he's more of a horror story than a hero.

But I think because of Slykaar a Shaman would have more issues in Troms. A random outsider walking in? Looking to help? How many children will this one ask for?

Sure you're a Ragni Guard. But that won't stop the stares, the whispers, the worries.

And without a legend like Bob or the Twains to give people hope that you can have the power to save them? Building a reputation would be harder.

Because sure, it's possible to be a blinding star of hope. But such a star burns brighter when next to another.

[artashipatrick]

“With Tashi, every time she does something that could be read as cruel or manipulative or playing a sort of game,”

“I do think it’s always also coming from a place of her trying to get not just what she needs, but what she thinks these other two people need too—and to take care of them in a way that she feels resentful for having to.”

“But she’s not shirking her responsibility, she’s taking her responsibility of taking care of them very seriously.”

“She has entered into this dynamic somewhat willingly. It’s never the case that someone is doing something for just one reason.” (Justin Kuritzkes on Tashi’s motivations)