It is very important to me that everyone knows that, while Vio was the first color to care for Shadow, if you were to split Forge during his time with Shadow post-FSA, Vio would have been the last to fall in love. As for the first color to fall in love… it would be unfair to not say Red, right?
Link and Malon (as mermaids) from @mrsmusica 's epic fic, Father of Time! It's not something I'm currently reading but I've heard from trusted sources that it's wonderful.
As some of you may know, I'm the person behind the LU AU Directory, which is a list of major AUs for the Linked Universe fandom. (It's basically a really, really long fic rec list.)
Normally, in May, I spend several hours scouring Ao3 for new AUs that have been posted over the last year. (In this case it would be 2025-2026.) However, I don't have the time to manually sort through that many fics on Ao3 because I'm moving 1,700 miles in a month.
So I'm asking for a little help for the 3rd edition of the directory.
If you know of an AU that's been posted on Ao3 that you think deserves a spot in the directory, please let me know by sending me an ask! Anon is on so you don't have to worry about giving away your main blog.
Rules/FAQ:
The AU has to be posted on Ao3.
The AU has to affect all characters (ex: a mer AU has everyone be a mer, not just Legend).
You can suggest your own AUs.
Submissions are open until July 1st, EDT.
Please provide a link to the AU, not just the title.
You can leave commentary on why you like an AU or a silly award/superlative you think it deserves.
Feel free to reblog this post to spread awareness.
My own Trophy Room, first posted 10/25 and ongoing!
My own Pathfinder AU, first posted 02/25 and ongoing.
There are also 13 new fics from the LU New AU gift exchange, held in 01/26. I'm not sure if all of them fit your requirements, but I do believe that my own (a Percy Jackson crossover) and The Fae and the Great Sea do!
Anyone else know of any? (I'll send an ask in a minute!!)
9. start to finish, how long did it take you to write the last fic you posted?
I guess Azure Sky counts! I wrote it in like an hour and a half, maybe two. I just wanted to do a quick fill for Retrowrimay's vampire AU prompt and let the thing go where it would!
12. a trope you’re really into right now
Other than just my general whump preferences? Hm, I'm not sure! I haven't been reading or writing as much as usual (I got a busy job) so nothing is really coming to mind! I've been scheming for more Trophy Room, though, and I'm usually coming up with comfort scenarios over the hurt ones :P
Couldn’t let Mermay pass me by without a contribution ✨
And these two wouldn’t leave me be anyway! I’m more confident in how I want Legend’s merform to ultimately look, a few more tweaks will happen here and there as usual but I really like where it’s going. Rulie’s is, of course, perfection ✨
I do have plans for the other guys, they’ll just have to wait their turn!
But, one issue that has remained unaddressed throughout the entirety of the LOZ canon and apocrypha is the lack of a royal mint.
This implies that rupees are a commodity (a physical material that has value) rather than a fiat currency (a currency not backed by a commodity but by faith in a specific government that ensure it's value).
Most modern governments use Fiat currencies because:
"Fiat money isn't a scarce or fixed resource like gold so central banks have much greater control over its supply. This gives them the power to manage economic variables such as credit supply, liquidity, interest rates, and money velocity." [1]
We can see evidence of Hyrulean government's failure to manage their economy during the runaway inflation of Wind's era
This graph depicts the price to buy an arrow in each specific era of the Legend of Zelda games. The price of arrows between Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass jumped by two rupees and arrow, indicating inflation.
The Origin of Rupees
So if Hyrule's Royal Family isn't minting rupees, where do they come from?
The Hyrule Compendium entry for blupees mentions that "these peculiar little things have a penchant for collecting rupees" but the identity of the compendium's author is unverified and so is their research.
The unregulated nature of Hyrule's commodities-based currency becomes a problem in Tears of the Kingdom, when Koltin asks Link to slaughter all 167 bubbelfrogs.
The life cycle of blupees, bubbelfrogs, and the King of the Mountain requires further study but it is evident that when a blubbelfrog is killed, a blupee is generated. So Link's quest to collect bubbelgems introduces 167 more blupees into Hyrule's ecosystem. These 167 extra blupees eat, drink, and more importantly to us, shit.
So how much did this quest impact Hyrule's economy? To answer that question, some math is required.
The first number we need is the average amount of rupees that blupees shit. To determine this, I shot 30 blupees and fitted the resulting data to a standard distribution.
Blupees Moneybags Georg who shat 51 rupees was an outlier who should not be counted and thus was removed from the dataset.
Multiplying that average amount of rupees that blupees shit by the blupee population [2], gives us the amount of rupees being shat in hyrule.
As you can see, a lot more rupees are being generated during the events of Tears of the Kingdom than in Breath of the Wild. How big of a problem is this? Well, to answer that, we need to know the size of Hyrule's economy.
The Size of Hyrule's Economy
I deciding to determine the size of economy by collecting the prices of every item sold in Hyrule by every merchant (except Ramella, I forgot Ramella).
With the collected price data, we are able to estimate the amount of currency changing hands among the people of Hyrule every year.
So after all this, we can see that the amount of rupees being shat per year should cause significant inflation. And yet, you may recall from our first graph, the price of arrows hasn't significantly changed and neither has the cost of most goods and services across Hyrule with some limited exceptions.
So why aren't prices skyrocketing?
Because the Great Fairies act as the Federal Reserve. They regulate the economy by removing varying amounts of money from circulation via their enchanting services.
In Breath of the Wild, the Great Fairies collectively charge Link 11,600 rupees to wake all 4 great fairies.
In Tears of the Kingdom, they charge Link per individual item of clothing enchanted. This, in total, costs 78,280 rupees.
Accounting for a target 2% rate of inflation, the Great Fairies remove 3.28% of all rupees shat during Breath of the Wild. In Tears of the Kingdom, their rupee removal rate is 5.17% of all rupees being shat.
The Great Fairies are definitely removing less rupees than are being shat but most blupees inhabit far-flung locations that most Hyruleans are not venturing to in these chaotic times. I have confidence that the Great Fairies can adjust their rate of currency removal should the need arise.
But who is attempting to cause this inflation and why?
One thing has always bugged me about Tears of the Kingdom, it wasn't the emptiness of the depths, or the fact that it was easy to miss out on the paraglider, or even the fact that that one cutscene kept being repeated after every temple. It was that Koltin asks you, Link, to go on a rampage of ecological destruction, to hunt the species of Bubbelfrogs to Extinction.
Koltin is clearly passionate about his quest to become a Satori, but he also has a secondary motive, to help out his brother: Kilton.
Kilton started his own currency that competes directly with the rupee and admits as much.
Kolton recruits Link under false pretenses in order to destroy the Bubbelfrog population, increase the amount of blupees, and cause skyrocketing inflation. This would devalue the rupee and incentivize the adoption of mon as a currency.
In the end, Koltins crimes caught up with him and Link helped the Great Fairies stabilize the economy, but Kilton is still out there and who knows what he has planned next.
G | Linked Universe | @retrowrimay 2026 day 24: Vampire AU | 666 words | Twilight & Warriors
(with shippy tones of Twi/Wars if you want to read it that way) (I also folded in a Werewolf AU! :D)
AO3 Link
Full text below:
From his spot in the branches of an old, tall tree, Warriors watched the rounded moon slip beneath the faraway mountain silhouettes. The azure sky stretched peacefully above him while the stars winked out, one by one.
At least the tumultuous night had calmed. Now that it had passed, he could breathe easier.
Warriors picked his way toward the end of the branch on which he perched, four paws on smooth bark, two ears perked up at the crown of his head, one tail poised in elegant balance. On the forest floor below him, an exhausted, huge wolf whined as it shuddered.
Before the detransformation concluded, Warriors leaped down from the branches and made his way over to the outline left in the crushed clover, and the man curled up in the center.
Twilight’s bare, glowing skin gave off warmth that Warriors impulsively decided to indulge in. He crept up silently and picked a spot beneath Twilight’s scarred chin, unafraid. Any danger Twilight may have posed to him through the night had waned with the setting of the moon. Content to sit and wait just a little while longer, Warriors wiggled his way beneath an arm, curled up, and soaked in the heat.
It took several minutes before Twilight’s eyelashes fluttered. His breathing sharpened, and he scrunched up his nose before gradually opening his eyes. The arm over Warriors bent to pull him closer, though when Twilight’s eyes cleared and shone in true wakefulness, he frowned.
“What are you doing here? You're supposed to be back at the house, Wars,” he muttered in clear disapproval, though his fingers stroked Warriors’s head in bright contrast to his words.
And that was why Warriors had come. No matter the threat of a rogue werewolf on the brightest night of a full moon cycle, Twilight never turned down a friendly presence in the morning. Besides, he always complained about aches and pains these mornings, and Warriors had read that purrs from a cat were healing.
“Don't tell me you followed me all night.” Twilight lifted himself to one elbow and ran a hand through his hair. Bits of clover fell to the ground. “Idiot.”
Warriors responded by bumping Twilight with his nose before moving away to shift back to humanoid, himself, sitting in the clover. Unlike Twilight, Warriors kept most of his things with him during a transformation.
“Anybody else follow you? Me?” Twilight asked. His face flushed in some kind of emotion as he glanced at the sky.
“Just me, and I'm absolutely fine.” Warriors smiled and removed the old tunic he'd pulled on over his own to toss at Twilight’s head. He retrieved a pair of trousers from a bag on his back, too, and threw those when Twilight pulled the tunic off his face.
Twilight spluttered in offense, but tugged on the clothes, and Warriors laughed.
“It’s getting bright,” Twilight observed as he buttoned up the shirt. “You need to get back inside. And don't tell me I'm smelling what I think I am.”
“Bergamot?” Warriors asked, standing. He was fully aware he'd not applied any scents earlier tonight, in too much of a rush to get out to Twilight and make sure he didn't run into any trouble while wandering the forest outside town.
Twilight eyed him, and didn't have to say anything. He stood shorter than Warriors, though he weighed far more in muscle, so he had to look up a bit.
“Fine, fine.” Warriors waved a hand. “There is a small village on the way back home. I'm willing to bet there's some drunkard out late that I can bleed.”
“Oh, classy,” Twilight teased. He stared at the sky again, raising a hand to measure stars, then started off in one direction. “A drunkard. You deserve better.”
“Would you rather it be someone else?” Warriors asked innocently.
Twilight snorted and kept walking, Warriors right beside him. Spiny twigs snapped. They left behind strands of wolf fur and a recovering, crushed patch of clover.
Hello the Father of Time brainrot continues. Here is the Heroine of Sands, from @mrsmusica's very fun story! I had a lot of fun designing the outfit and translating their picrew into my style and coming up with fun armour. The green cloak works like a chador, so if she's cranky with someone they can lose "Seeing-my-face" privileges.
