🐛 caterpillar - the returning champion of the 2023 race at 41.6% of the votes
🐌 snail - runner up of the 2023 race at 38.3%, only 3.3% behind the caterpillar.
🪱 worm - placed last in 2023, with only 20.1% of votes
🪲 beetle, 🐞 ladybug, and 🐝 bee are new competitors!
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Thinking about how I really want the end of Book 7 not to end in a battle, even though it’d be so cool.
We’ve already seen that Malleus is incredibly powerful, and honestly as it is now, I don’t see a way for the students to be able to reasonably fight him and win. Yes, everyone at NRC is exceptionally powerful, but they’ve commented time and time again how Malleus is on a whole other level than anyone there. We’ve fought him a couple of times now, in and outside of dreams, and it has always ended in defeat.
So then how do we save him? The one way that no one would think of, except perhaps Diasomnia and definitely Yuu—the power of friendship making Malleus willingly stand down.
Malleus has been alone for the vast majority of his life. Now, even when he is attending NRC, constantly and perpetually surrounded by students and mages, nearly everyone is too afraid of him to approach him. Because of that, when the potential of one of the few people who are near to him leaving arises, he is so terribly scared and sad that he doesn’t know what to do besides force them to stay. He would rather have the people he knows live out their days in eternal slumber and only interact with them inside their dreams than watch them age and fade and eventually disappear from his life entirely. He is willing to be the sole person in the entirety of Twisted Wonderland awake, just so that he does not have to lose a single soul.
That is an incredibly lonely fate, to be the one person left not dreaming. Of course, he can enter their dreams, control them, see them and touch them and live out lives that can endlessly and eternally restart. But that is not the same as being with them in reality. Dreams are wonderful, but they are not real. Some part of Malleus must realize that—that his actions here are condemning him to a future that is so much more isolating than what he thought. And yet, what else can he do? If he restarts time, if he reawakens everyone, they will die. They might hate him. And worst of all—they will leave, given enough time. No matter how terrible it would be to be the only person left conscious in the world, Malleus must believe that that cannot compare to the fate of being left.
So what can we do to stop him? We can certainly try to fight him. We will probably fail if we do. The mages defending the rest of the world from eternal slumber’s reserves will run dry, while Malleus will continue to rule over his domain of dreams, which will only grow larger with every attack and eventual defeat that comes.
Or, perhaps, we can try to save him. Diasomnia, as is, is not doing so well in terms of magical prowess as other dorms are: Lilia’s magic is fading, Silver is spending himself transporting himself and others from dream to dream, and Sebek, while powerful, is still only a freshman. Similarly, Ramshackle can hardly even hold a candle to everyone else: Grim, as much as he boasts, does not seem to be notably powerful (yet), and Yuu has no magic to speak of at all.
Imagine how shocking it’d be then, if these people, so utterly weak in terms of magic, are the people who are able to take down one of the greatest mages in the world. And they don’t even do it through battle—they do it through understanding where Malleus is coming from and trying to calm his worries. They tell him that yes, people will go, and there is no way to stop it, no matter how much someone might wish for it to be so. But for every time someone leaves, someone will also come. Malleus’ world started with Lilia, and then Silver, then Sebek, and now finally Yuu. Lilia is leaving, and so might Yuu, but that does not mean that they will be gone forever. There will be memories and stories and dreams to last a lifetime, and, while their gaps will never be filled, more spaces will open up to accommodate more people. We’ve seen it through the way that Malleus has slowly come to know more of the student body—his ‘friendly’ fights with Leona, Cater perpetually trying to get pictures with him, learning a bit more about technology through Idia and Deuce…while these cannot quite be called friendships yet, there is something there that can’t be mistaken. And maybe, because the people telling him this are his first real friends and closer to him than anything, he’ll consider it.
Maybe Malleus won’t listen to reason. Maybe Book 7 will end with a breathtaking battle that encapsulates the world’s best mages to overthrow the fae prince—NRC, RSA, NBC, legends outside the schools, and more—and I would be okay with that. But I also think that Book 7 ending in peace, where Malleus takes the hand we offer and steps down from his reign of slumber without any more bloodshed, would be just as beautiful.
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Blaze in a cowboy AU-esue outfit? Idk, go wild with it. Only requirement is that she has a cowboy hat. Maybe with feathers sticking out of it like her headress?
I'm sorry, I failed the only requirement SKJFJSDF
I'm not sure if Blaze is canon to cowboy au yet, but if she is I'd imagine she comes from a wealthy family, one that owns a railroad company or smth. So she's not really a cowboy lol
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Harry was like the dark rain at the end of summer.
He rolled in like storm clouds on the horizon, a bright blue sky that faded slowly, then all at once to a dull dark grey. Harry walked into every room with a shade around him, dimming all the lights until he was the brightest source—a flash in the darkest dark—twisting, jagged just like that scar across his forehead.
Tom knew it the minute he laid his eyes on him, the moment that smell of ozone crept by, wafting and humid, sticking to him like a second skin.
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VOTE BLAZE FOR FHR TUMBLR SEXYMAN
now why on earth would i, a humble man, ask the people to vote for blaze over ricardo? what basis could i possibly have to convince you to consider him over (arguably) los diablos most eligible bachelor?? friends, i come to you with two simple arguments:
1. blaze shows a surprising amount of depth when you dive under the flashy exterior
2. i cannot stress enough how funny it would be to watch ortega lose in the first round
blaze is undeniably a suave, arrogant asshole who desperately needs somebody to kick his ass. hes a little prick to the puppet (if theyre male, if theyre female he switches his tune Damn Quick) and he somehow managed to fumble chen??? which is frankly embarrassing for him.
However. however. hes shown in both very small interactions when you meet him and during the actual fight to be a competent, strategic hero who cares about the people. as step points out, when the puppet stumbles over him his immediate reaction is to treat them like somebody who needed help. during the fight, he first takes the time to strategize, making sure to dial back his powers to make sure nobody gets hurt– to the point that he hinders himself. even chen says that blaze always had careful control, to the point where if you fry him in the meeting room, chen suspects somethings up.
hes also surprisingly reasonable about step, giving serious thought to what they say and do regardless of how cruel of a villain they are. yeah ok ortega has the 'sympathetic' villain relationship status but does that really do anything about his perceptions of them??? he still readily calls them a monster during the villain reveal. meanwhile it takes one(1) conversation with blaze to get him questioning his bosses, and it literally does not matter how many people youve killed, he ends up pestering alvarez about it anyway. i firmly believe that hes put a lot more thought about the problems in the system he works under, even if he puts more faith in it than he should.
anyway thats enough serious propaganda, heres the sillier ones: hes such a loser. like 24/7 nonstop. this man is utterly pathetic. i know i talked about how good he is as a hero but listen to me. he gets all dismissive about a step that has less than 55 infamy, but i have 9 steps (though i only talk about 4). i have lost to him by accident Once. i have to codedive so i can lose to him On Purpose for the achievement it is so bad. it is so funny watching all the ways he can eat shit during that fight. truly the pinnacle of bisexual failboy.
I ALMOST FORGOT THAT HE ACCIDENTALLY KINDA OUTS HIS CONNECTION WITH CHEN BECAUSE HE WAS BEING SALTY??? LIKE
POV YOU KEEP YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MARSHAL OF LOS DIABLOS SECRET FOR MONTHS ONLY TO POTENTIALLY EXPOSE IT TO A RANDO BCAUSE YOU WERE MAD ABOUT BEING EXES.
it has also come to my attention via @allens-chocolate-dreams that rat king can become his fan if step falls out the window again and this is extremely important to me.
can rat king be a fan of ortega??? no, because ortega is a loser whos immune to telepathy. very clear whos superior here imo. oh and im probably legally required to say that he has fire powers which makes him objectively hotter than ortega.
finally and most importantly,
if blaze wins i will draw ric dying in a glue trap.
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