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Mells

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posting this so at least one of you gets flashbanged in front of extended family today

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🎀 𝑴𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔 🔔

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健やかなクリスマス

🎄😑🐍🎁✨

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This is INCREDIBLY self-indulgent Meronia art, drawn at the end of 2024, based on a particular AU!Mello and AU!Near that my friend and I played together in a panfandom supernatural survivor horror LJ RP back in 2009. TWO THOUSAND AND NINE-!!!

Anyway, peek under the cut for a hella long explanation of these two and their whole business:

AU!Mello's original world setting is as follows: A basic Canon Divergence situation. In his universe, L defeated Kira by writing his own name in the Death Note, & during the days he had left to live, L sent word back to England that he wanted Mello & Near to succeed him together, as a pair. While Mello wanted to respect L's decree, he was still too psychosexually hostile towards Near to accept that, & he therefore elected to split L's inheritance, taking up his Erald Coil alias so that he could defeat L-Near by becoming the World's Greatest Detective on his own terms. By the point on his timeline where he was 'extracted' for the panfandom RP, Erald-Mello is 22 years old, & years of working as a detective has calmed & seasoned him into a shrewd, pragmatic, responsible person. Further, getting betrayed by a subordinate & blowing himself up to escape from an undercover situation involving the LA Mafia has both given him his iconic scar, & a renewed desperation & thirst for proving himself as the Best.

AU!Near's original setting is as follows: Plain & simple. He came from a world where L & the succession system had never existed, & as such, he was just a brilliant orphan whose potential was squandered in the foster care system. He was spawned into the RP as a quiet, isolated 16 year old orphan.

After being brought to Nihil [the panfandom RP setting] & meeting/hearing about the alternate realities that his peers came from, AU!Near quickly became fascinated with the fact that every other version of Near or Mello was so brilliant & driven, whereas his world seemed to have given him & HIS Mello back home no purpose. At first, he became resigned to this, & chose to sleepily dissociate from the high-stakes survival situation they had all ended up in. However, my Mello - driven, responsible, a bit egotistical - had taken it upon himself to lead & look after the other people stuck in the survival horror setting, & took a special interest in this frustratingly resigned, helpless Near. Mello was both annoyed with Near for being so useless in the situation, & like... oddly fixated, from very early on. He KNEW Near could be better than this. He respected Near, after all, & alternate universe or not, Near is brilliant. In a way, he felt driven to 'fix' this directionless & squandered Near by pushing him to think, to act, even to collaborate. With all this extremely personal pushing, Near's interest was piqued, & he became infatuated with my Erald-Mello in what would eventually become a kind of yandere way, where if Mello really thought that he had it in him, he wanted to become HIS Near & to earn his respect & hatred as a rival.

Key to their dynamic by the end [where this image is set, after they've broken free of Nihil & ended up in Mello's universe together] is that Mello is still a hornet's nest of conflicting emotions about all of the fucked-up things that have happened between them [Near killing himself to save him, Mello resurrecting Near in a gory ritual where he had to crack open his ribcage with garden shears & his bare hands, the two of them sharing a single pulse after that, Near killing them both in a deliberate bid to break them out of Nihil- a LOT lot lot], & the fact that he was ultimately circuitously seduced by teenager who is a doppelganger of his lifelong nemesis. But the thing is, he's been through hell with this Near, & ultimately chosen to accept his twisted, relentless love as something that he actually desires- something at first thrust upon him, that he now wants to hoard for himself with all of the grim determination of a man who's finally willing to admit that they've twisted & bent themselves into corresponding shapes that have no choice but to fit together. Meanwhile, Near is taking the biggest victory lap of his life & is comfortably smug about it, because after developing a quiet but intense complex about being the least impressive Near, practically unworthy of sharing their name or face, to his mind he has now become the BEST Near, because he is now the chosen rival & PARTNER of a Mello who is, again to his mind, the best & most impressive Mello.

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My friends in the friend server said 'they both look so possessive, in completely different ways' and that makes me so, so happy

WIP of a piece of very specific RP-related Death Note fanart, featuring Near and Mello from two different AUs that a friend and I played in a panfandom supernatural survival horror game on LiveJournal. 22 year old Erald Coil [Mello] and 16 year old Nate River [Near] had an especially weird relationship, and I love them forever.

[Ignore Mello's fat fitties, he's getting a breast reduction after my laptop finishes recharging]

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Turned off the 'LIGHT' layer to start working on shadows and I must say, there's something extra horny about how Near looks without the light in his eyes

WIP of a piece of very specific RP-related Death Note fanart, featuring Near and Mello from two different AUs that a friend and I played in a panfandom supernatural survival horror game on LiveJournal. 22 year old Erald Coil [Mello] and 16 year old Nate River [Near] had an especially weird relationship, and I love them forever.

[Ignore Mello's fat fitties, he's getting a breast reduction after my laptop finishes recharging]

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𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂 :🍪🥛

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@chupacabrafritz HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HE ARRIVED HE IS HILARIOUS HE IS EVERYTHING TO ME

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Lips touching.

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WIP of a piece of very specific RP-related Death Note fanart, featuring Near and Mello from two different AUs that a friend and I played in a panfandom supernatural survival horror game on LiveJournal. 22 year old Erald Coil [Mello] and 16 year old Nate River [Near] had an especially weird relationship, and I love them forever.

[Ignore Mello's fat fitties, he's getting a breast reduction after my laptop finishes recharging]

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AZUMAAA, 2, 4, 13, 14, 21 and 26!!

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

I LOVE that he's literally the only person besides Yuuma, the actual child soldier, who is so calm and detached in battle that he doesn't trigger Kageura's side effect. That's insane. And I swear you can see it in his eyes when he's shooting, too.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

In general I think he'd be an INCREDIBLE character for any kind of survival horror setting. He's got a lot of the skills that would keep him alive in that kind of story, but he's also so much softer than the typical gun-toting, hard-edged, lone badass survivor archetype. Even if he was surviving in isolation for a while, I think he'd be more just... quietly traumatized, and quick to show warmth to other (especially younger) survivors he encountered even if he's still savvy enough not to trust too quickly.

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

HM that's a tough one, I don't think he'd use emojis too much aside from the occasional ^^ or :) (etc) to convey tone. One time he drops a ":3" and the entire sniper groupchat collectively loses their minds for a week

For just one that reminds me of him, though, it's gotta be the Man Feeding Baby👨🏻‍🍼 like come on

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

Azuma is so poised and dignified and mature that I really enjoy putting him in situations to utterly overwhelm him and strip away that sense of calm. Obviously true for whump - Azuma Endures Terrible Suffering With Dignity is something I come back to again and again for good reason - but also useful in lighter fics, especially when it's his POV, or when it's to give one of the kids a "oh, he's NOT an invincible badass who can do anything, he's actually got limits" moment about their mentor. I don't like to subvert expectations with him to the point that he's not actually kind or humble or competent, but I also think he's the sort to internalize his flaws and hide his problems (ESPECIALLY in a setting like Border, where he's in a position of authority and doesn't want personal problems to get in the way of his work), so it's easy for him to appear more perfect than he is until you get closer or see him from another angle. I really like the idea that he's prone to over-extending himself, and that he's rather like Osamu in the way that he prioritizes others to the point of not considering himself. (takes one to know one!)

26. What's something the character has done you can't get over? Be it something funny, bad, good, serious, whatever?

Azuma unflinchingly, without hesitating, shooting Koarai in the head to save him from the Rabbit. That whole scene, especially with Koarai just immediately screaming for Azuma when he's in real danger, lives rent free in my brain and I will never forgive s1 for ruining it. However much he's used to working with Trigger weapons and even taking down his own former students in Rank Wars, that has to have fucked with him, even if it only really hit him later when the crisis was over. He's sooo calm and collected under pressure and it's honestly scary if you think about it... Azuma could do a lot of damage if he was a worse kind of person.

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[WT × The Magnus Archives]

the thickest bits of fog sit over the wounds he has on his original body 😶‍🌫️

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For the character asks! Azuma: 4, 8, 9, 20, 24 / Shimazaki: 1, 2, 12, 25, 26

Thank you so much for answering my need for memes, Elcie-! /;0; AZUMA: 4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

I would ABSOLUTELY fuck with a manga side story about how Azuma first found out about and then pushed to join Border. YES tell me more about him! I wanna know how his education in military history made him an ideal candidate for recruitment! I wanna know how Sniper technology was developed and furthered while he was there! 8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I don't know about 'despise,' when it comes to World Trigger fandom... the ENG fanbase is small enough that the antis are easy to avoid, and I don't think the antis care enough about 25-year-old Azuma Haruaki to have opinions about him that I can really hate [especially since he's one of the VERY few 20-something anime men about whom I DO have 'he's a single mother' feelings]. I guess the closest I can get is like... not vibing at all with Azuma as a top, especially a predatory top? He's so gentle and nurturing and innately yonic to me. 9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Y'know, REALISTICALLY... probably no? I think Azuma is probably a REALLY good roomie, honestly, probably very tidy and keeps to himself and pays the bills on time. But he's also a 25 year old professional Mom Friend, and that's a category of human being that I'm historically INCAPABLE of handling in my space for too long. 20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Ohh, the ideal best friend... :0c I dunno! I would love to see him interact more with Izumi under friendly, we're-both-dating-Beltiston-Boys circumstances, and I would LOVE to read more fic scenarios where he has extensive personal conversations with Hyrein, also in your-brother-is-in-love-with-me circumstances. But that's pure fanon for me. Overall I think it'd be fun to see more on-screen canon interaction between Azuma and the mahjong squad. 24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

Azuma's pretty singular, I think, especially for a male character! His poised, serene, nurturing and supportive character archetype is such that he's more similar to female Yamato Nadeshiko characters in any other manga or anime setting, and unfortunately, not a lot of those women are permitted the nuance to ALSO be coldly pragmatic, tactically minded to the point of being manipulative, and capable of shutting off their emotions so completely in battle.

SHIMAZAKI:

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

Asking me this feels like asking me why I like autumn, or the smell of amber, or why cyan is a favourite colour of mine. He's just a character I like deeply, because he's fun and cool and sexy and interesting and great! 2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

His way of speaking in the original Japanese! He has a habit of speaking very politely, while also sprinkling in very deliberate and precise use of impolite words and forms of address, even down to something as simple and subtle as switching-to-katakana when he refers to Teru as 'kimi.' It's SUCH a fun detail and adds so much richness to him as a character, that he's so casual and not at all uncomfortable being polite and even complimentary towards his opponents, even if he's ALSO very comfortable making it clear when he's annoyed with, amused by, or doesn't respect them. 12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

I've always enjoyed fanfics from Shimazaki's POV, where he describes the way that he perceives his own powers and the powers of other espers. One headcanon that I've taken on through inspiration by fanfic is that, while Teru's aura and energy is dense and bright, Shimazaki's is extremely elastic and essentially clear - I just like the idea that, while he cannot condense his power and use it to physically annihilate things the way that a telekinetic like Teruki can, the fine grain and flexibility of his power allows him to do things that Teruki cannot [teleportation, sensing subtle and minute energy without getting drowned out by what is essentially the energetic light pollution of his own aura, etc]. 25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Oh, I loved him the instant I first saw him, and I love him still! I don't think my feelings about Shimazaki have changed all that much, so much as they've deepened as I've gotten more insane about him over time 26. What's something the character has done you can't get over? Be it something funny, bad, good, serious, whatever?

Honestly, the omake where Minegishi is bullying Serizawa so hard on his first day with Claw that Shimazaki has to say 'hey man, chill' lives rent free in my mind. SHIMAZAKI being the adult in a situation and telling someone that they've gone too far is just wildly funny to me.

BONUS ANSWER FOR SHIMAZAKI, SINCE I ACCIDENTALLY ANSWERED IT WITH HIM FOR THE FIRST AZUMA QUESTION: 4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

This is kind of a tough one, because I'm not by my nature a videogame player, but I think it'd be REALLY fun if Shimazaki showed up as a Special character in videogames, like one of those 'we're collaborating with X anime, so here's Blorbo in fully rendered art style and quality 3D game animation, available as a log-in bonus or gacha pull for a limited time!' situations. Mostly because I'd love to see his cutscene animations, in-game dialogue, and all the fanart that would spring forth from another officially endorsed AU scenario.