#option from that poll

[bitchfitch]

Once upon a time their forest home suffered an endless night. Their great dragon god was punishing them for the theft of something precious to him. No lavish festival nor offering of rich drink or hearty food would water his fury.

The fauns of then thought their home would be lost to his darkness forever, only for one of their to offer himself as tribute.

Tahir, a young shrine attendant, walked into the forest beyond their home to meet the dragon at the entrance of his den. He said to the dragon "If my people's gold and my temple's joy is not enough to sate you, then may my flesh be your cure. My people repent for the crime done to you, but they know not how to repay it. Punish me, kill me, in their stead."

He bowed his head and waited for death. No sweat on his brow nor did his heart race, for Tahir was kind and loved nothing more than his people and the god they worshipped. His death would be just. His life given more purpose than any could have dreamt of for themselves.

The dragon looked at the selfless young man who's beauty and love and kindness were without compare, and he said "I will have you, not as a feast, but as my only equal." for he had fallen deeply in love at the first sight of the man and wanted not his death, but his hand in eternal marriage.

The dragon gave the sun to Tahir, as he was the brightest and warmest source of joy in their forest. It was only right that he be who decided when it should shine. It was a power Tahir never once misused for he loved his people and wanted nothing more than to see them thrive.

The two ruled together for a time, the common man that was Tahir was transformed by the people's worship of him. His kindness grew, his blessings brought love and joy and bountiful families. His husband's adoration of him turned the once ferocious and fickle dragon into an equally doting and benevolent god. Their forest was warm with their love, the trees heavy with fruit made sweet by their joy, the frigid desert beyond their home kept distant by their devotion to each other and to their people.

Though tragedy loomed as such peace could not last when mortal hands carried out deeds best left to the gods.

The prize stolen from the great dragon's hoard was a sword forged by his own kin. It's blade made to slice deep through draconic flesh. It's purpose was always to be his death when he grew tired of the immortality he was born into. A gift to him from peers who had long chosen their own blades over another day.

The priests, the foolish, idiot, priests of yore had stolen the blade with intent to make their god a thing of the past. The dragon was temperamental and cruel when Tahir could not calm his raging storms. How long until their kind, golden god would be victim to the beast? Tahir who loved them all without question would protect them as their king better than he ever could as their dragon god's mate.

They believed in their heart of hearts, that to save themselves, they must liberate their sun from the dragon's clutches.

One struck out from their village on the first evening of truest winter, through their home and to the great dragon's den. At its center the priest found him slumbering in his bed.

Their sun, Tahir, at his side. He begged for his husband's life but the priest was deaf to his pleads. Tahir didn't know what was best for them all, the priest thought as he lunged.

The blade cut deep into softest flesh. Tahir, kind and beautiful, had put himself between the priest and his love. His pained sob was what finally woke the beast from its truest winter sleep.

The priest escaped as the dragon chose to remain by his dying lovers side to the very end. For the dragon never cared about the fauns or their priests, only for their worship, and only then until he had found warmth so much deeper in the embrace of selfless, kind Tahir.

It is said that with Tahir's dying breaths he made his love promise him that he would not snuff the sun again.

Their people so beloved by him were foolish, but they did not deserve such punishment. He was always the one meant to suffer for them, not the one they were to suffer for.

The dragon agreed, and held kind Tahir until his warmth was gone from the forest he had adored so deeply.

Tahir's sun, the one that sat near and gave their home joyful warmth even when the distant sun set behind the horizon for months at a time, dimmed and shone as it always had under his care. The dragon, fickle as he was, would never betray a promise made to his husband.

Though, the fauns of the forest never saw it's glow again. The storms brewed with Tahir's dying breaths. The dragon cloaked his sun in thick storm clouds to selfishly hide it's light. He would not snuff it, but his sun, Tahir, had been taken from him, and he would not let another know the sun's warmth until his own was returned.

The storms had raged across the whole forest ever since.

Tahir knew the legend well. It was his story after all.

The thick mud sucked his aching legs down with every step, the heavy rain beat against his back, the winds tangled his loose and wild hair about his wedding dress's skirts. The ice of the storm was beat out by his burning fury.

The Distant Sun would soon rise for the first time in months. It's meager light wouldn't cut through the storm or the twisted boughs of the trees, but it's return was chosen to be the symbol of his union to the monster at the heart of this forest.

Tahir was dead. He had been for so long that not a single soul remembered what the Near Sun felt like.

Tahir was new and alive. A supposed reincarnation meant to be given as offering and apology to the Great Dragon.

He marched onward, the sword that killed the Sun gripped in his hands. It's heavy blade dragged in the soil. His shoulders burned from the effort of pulling it's massive weight.

The dragon had slayed each and every one of the brides sent to replace his Sun. Their bodies desecrated by his carnivorous teeth before their remains were dropped at the feet of Tahir's shrine. The blood still stained the grout when Tahir of the Rising Sun was raised into being their god.

He remembered asking the priests about the stains when he was just a boy. They said they were a sign of his husband's love for him. That the other brides were given to him as offerings so their blood may make him strong for his duty at his husband's side.

The clearing around the dragons den yawned before him, the eye of the storm a thick splotch of suffocated light as the concealed sun struggled to shine through the whirlpool clouds.

He would not be another rejected bride.

"Daeodon!" he called his husband's true name. He'd been hip height when the word was whispered into his ear for the first time. His hair had been braided with flowers, the barely there nubs of his horns painted, his robes decorated in so many beads he had trouble standing under their weight, before he was left in the dragon's shrine alone for a week of isolated prayer.

He called the name again, his mouth still open to demand the beast face him when the storm above ruptured.

The earth shook with the thunder of the great dragon god's landing. His mighty wings blotted the hidden sun's meager light. his tusks and horns glowed with lightning, his very breath fogged the rain saturated air with light.

His eyes, pinpricks of silver against the thick black hide of his mighty countenance, landed on Tahir and the storm froze. It's howling winds stilling like they're been caught by their necks. The constant rumble of rain went silent.

"Tahir -" His voice sounded like a bass drum. It was felt more than heard. His head lowered, his wings folded, he took a step forward and on his animal face there was hope. "My Sunlight -"

Tahir had had his everyday decided for him from the moment he was born. His every second accounted for so that he may perfectly fill a dead man's place in a monster's bed. He had never known hope.

He swung the blade. The beast recoiled as a gash of dripping crimson cracked the side of his face.

"Speak that name again!" Tahir demanded, his throat already raw from screaming "See if your prayers are what will make him stop his rotting!"

He had never so much as twirled a staff, but his rage proved to be equal to any amount strength built through action. Again the sword cut the air between them. Again the idiot beast recoiled instead of ran. Those animal eyes filled with shock as though he had never once thought the man who preyed his hatred of him every morning would dare raise a weapon instead of just accepting his death.

The blade was heavier than anything he had ever been allowed to attempt to carry. It's tip failed to raise when Tahir tried once more to cut through the monsters neck. His every muscle burned. The weight of it pulled him to his knees in the disgusting mud.

Daeodon stepped to pin the sword that would be his death into the soil. His thick hoof bleeding where it cut into him as he leaned to close the space between them. His marred snout twisted in a snarl.

"What kind of beast are you?" he growled before finally charging.

The breath was beat from Tahir's chest, Daeodon's thick nose colliding with his ribs as the monster ripped him from the earth with nothing but the strength of his stout neck. His tusks pressed into Tahir's sides, panic made him scramble to dig his dulled nails into the wounds across Daeodon's face only for his efforts to be ignored like a fly on an elephants back in the seconds it took for Daeodon to pick a tree to charge.

Tahir had never felt the thorns of the plants that grew within the gardens dedicated to him. He felt the agony of his back colliding with the trunk of an ancient tree. It shocked through him. His every bone shook in its place as his ribs threatened to crack under the impact. His abdomen screamed with what would be dark bruising. His life saved from being crushed out of him only by merit of the monster's tusks becoming ensnared in the twisting wood. Daeodon thrashed to get free, his teeth grinding deep against the soft of Tahir's gut.

"Your tears will not work- What Are you!?" He demanded. He kicked at the tree, uncaring if he caught one of Tahir's legs beneath his hooves. "How Dare you use his face- How dare you cry with his voice."

Finally he ripped free, leaving Tahir to collapse once more. He couldn't breathe through his sobbing. He had wanted to die valorous, but he hadn't wanted this agony to accompany it. He could barely stand laying in the mud, his every inch ached like his bones would be ripping through his skin if he dared to look.

"Stop!" Daeodon demanded his hoof coming down close enough to Tahir's head for it to catch and yank in his hair.

He didn't mean to scream, he didn't know what else to do when all that came was more and more pain.

"I said Stop. Stop. Whatever prize you came her for you may have it just stop-" he tried to nose at Tahir's side, an animal attempt at defusing a situation neither of them were equipped to handle, only to react to Tahir flinching away from him in fear like it was another sword swing. "Please stop. I can't stand that sound. Cry with anyone else's voice. Please."

"I only have the one voice!" Tahir screamed at him, his fading strength being put into shoving away from the beast.

"It's not your voice-" he was shut up by a weak kick at his jaw, as though it had had a fraction of the force behind it that Daeodon had used to bodily throw him. "Please, just stop-"

He nuzzled Tahir's side where the bruising was already darkest. The press was agony, Tahir grabbed him by his tusks as he attempted escape only for one of those mighty hooves to come to pin his legs.

"Hold still, just hold still, please let me heal you. You know I can't stand the sound of your crying." Daeodon's might wavered in his tone, like he too was on the verge of collapse from their one sided battle.

"Just fucking kill me-"

"No. No. Tahir, never. Please just be quiet." he groveled like he didn't know who he was talking to anymore. "Please it will be all alright. You will be ok. Please just stop crying.

Tahir's response was lost to the bright shock that erupted through his chest. His battle for consciousness being lost along side it.

[composeregg]

edit (10/23/2024) now that the poll is over: Original version, with 10 questions, from April 2023 here

And, given that the original is from April 2023, that means I can very easily say:

No, this was not an ISAT reference!

Just because I use parentheses and 2nd person pov and love the same concepts of what a time loop can do to a person doesn't mean it's ISAT

(Yes, I like ISAT, the original poll is why I was recommended the game! But if you look at the original, you can see all the origins of the options to choose from, including what spurred me on with the moss option from the replies)

If I were going to make something for ISAT, I would never be so vague, you can simply look at my ao3 for proof of that

[pinkfey]

i saw a video where a woman’s husband said hello to her best friend (they touched cheeks with a short mwah) and so many people felt that this would be a personal boundary violation for them, so i’m curious what the consensus is!!

keeping it simple, no nuance + if u think ur ethnicity or culture has to do w your answer i would love to know!! 🫂😚💕💕

[smallboyonherbike]

i'm sure someone's already done this but now i want to! might do some matchups of the top winners might not

[agentravensong]

Some examples of media I like below the cut and where they fall (in my estimation) for reference (there will be vague spoilers for the media listed). I'd love to hear other people's examples in the notes! (That's the main reason I made this post actually)

UnderTale �� grief over what happened pre-loop. it's a ghost story. (1) (2) (literal academic essay about ut as a story about grief)

Outer Wilds — preemptive grief. if you know you know. any time loop story that's about a character trying to save a specific other character who dies in/during the loop also counts as this imo.

In Stars and Time — both. ("you were there all along, but still, you return home.")

Slay the Princess — both, depending on whose perspective you look at the story from. preemptive grief for the end of the world (all worlds), or grief for an existence that you can never return to.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead — it's a stretch for me, which is funny considering it's set in/around Hamlet, arguably The play about grief. you could maybe argue for "another kind of grief" in the sense of grief for the full lives they will never be able to experience because of the inherent nature of their situation? but i find that a label like "existential dread" is more applicable.

The Prince by Abigail Thorn — preemptive post-loop grief for Hotspur, pre-loop grief for Sam. Discord mutuals understand.

The Stanley Parable (Ultra Deluxe) — fuck if i know.

[mayasaura]

no matter who wins the latest character poll, I think we all really know in our hearts who deserves the crown. whose experiences and frame of reference we can definitely all easily understand, agree upon, and relate to. so in that spirit....

[clamsjams]

pls consider reblogging for a larger sample size

[front-facing-pokemon]

[thcbolter]

(No "see results" option because I find that more non-gifmakers than actual gifmakers will engage with the poll if there's an option like that. If you aren't a gifmaker, this poll is not for you.)

[z0mbi-dog]

data collection 2: electric boogaloo

[demi-romantics]

Feel free to tag your gender identity if you would like or if I forgot to list it!

[un-pearable]

wait wait wait i actually have a genuine research question i’ve been curious about for a while

we’re talking whichever wacky critter ORIGINALLY got you super stoked for the speedy hedgehog - whether it was five-year-old you or just recently, whoever lived in your head first i wanna know…. i’ve got a theory :]