lifesver

[lifesver]

rae made me sad and also specifically i'm sad about leland in dusk. how to begin with, he is someone who will make the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate act of love, to try to give his friends just a handful of precious seconds to get away. no guarantee they'll be safe, but he'll give up if he can give them a better shot. that's his job, that was his only job. and he will watch them disappear down the road, or across an overflowing river, and think that the last thing he will do will be love them, and protect them, because he loves them. that's worth something. that's not a bad way to die.

but he doesn't die, and he loves them like that only to have that love rot, fade, change shape, change meaning over time. only to forget, how much he loved them, and that they loved him too. forgetting that anyone else at all loves him and wishes he'd come home. forgetting there's much else but the family's love, the walls of the basement cells, the fences around the property. love and longing for love as something that guides his every move, love as something that defeats him, will always, every time, doom him. love as something that he will always lean toward the touch of, even when it is a cold hand. this got off-track, but i think it's important that his heart is both his best quality and his worst flaw and i hope that always comes across.

[lifesver]

have you seen him?

now you have

[lifesver]

on one hand, verse where leland is a baby angel cast down into a sunflower field like a burning comet because he's little mermaid coded and longs to experience the human world but of course he doesn't understand why and thinks there must be something wrong with him or that god doesn't love him. but he gets to experience human things like music and flower fields and old movies.

on the other hand? sort of supernatural style angel who comes down to find a scared boy bleeding out in the sunflowers and offering him the choice to become a vessel, to save him from dying. both of them are him but also yk... something about never being able to go home in two different ways

[lifesver]

every so often i get on here and start picking at some of the most upsetting drafts in the world

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a little amv i put together for my friends for our bg3 campaign. <3

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RENEE MADE ME A BG3 LELAND AMV 😭💗💗💗

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the left one is fantasy bellbottoms if u think about it.

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he's sort of a barbie to me in this game

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mhw just has nongendered body types and sometimes i just nod and go 'leland trans'

[lifesver]

he's a silly guy and a dweeb. if u even care

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we had to do the raphael fight tn in bg3 and lets just say we aggro'd the entire house of hope-- (we beat it im proud of us) and leland was dragging his feet and his angel wings all miserable the entire time bc the enemies all had protection from radiant damage but unfortunately the imagery of an angel surrounded by a bunch of devils did go hard as hell

[lifesver]

rae’s right though we should just take tcsm out of our pinned posts like wym this is my oc that i raised as a hardworking single mother,

[lifesver]

@t4mpered said: two bleeding hands, a crest of suffering. danny takes in the carved image of ilmater on the worn book beside them. amongst leland's backpack of scrolls and trinkets. one of the clerics had slipped it into danny's hands, not unkind when they said he looked as though he needed ilmater. in turn, he'd given the book to leland. curious, idle, his fingers graze over the insignia now. leland's quiet god. whatever answer he thinks he knows, danny reaches that same hand to brush hair from leland's cheek and asks: "you believe you're worth more than just suffering for others, don't you?"

a hum, and leland turns his cheek closer into danny's palm, gentle warmth to his eyes.

❝ it's... my duty, ❞ he says. his ilmatari paladin answer. how could he possibly explain that taking his oath — shedding his identity as some sheltered prince — has been the only choice that has ever mattered. the one that has led him here, to him. to connie, and maria, all of their companions. his eyes lower; ❝ my... gift. ❞ he continues, more quietly. that's what his mother called it. ever since he was very young, healing birds and field mice in his palms.

standing across from the portraits of ilmatari saints, a cleric of the church had once told him he was meant for this path. fated. that his hands could do true good in this difficult world. it felt like an impossible pressure coming down on his shoulders. but it felt important. it felt good, when he thought he knew the way forward. his path.

as he looks around the streets of rivington — the displaced refugees, the beggars in the alleys of baldurs gate — he can’t help but feel their pain. their loss. if he were to take each bruise and blister, how much of their pain could he withstand? could he alleviate enough suffering for it to matter?

he remembers staring at the open wounds in his palms as the bird flew away. it had mattered, hadn't it?

maybe once, he had thought himself, or willed himself, to be the perfect example of his oath. the divine sword and shield of justice. and when that divinity — that meaning — was stripped away, his friends had taught him what he was without it.

they put their trust in him. they did not think less of a paladin with a broken oath. they gathered gold without understanding his commitment to his god's silence. they remade his oath, reformed its meaning. he knows danny does not always understand him. and despite it, he still listened. placed his selune necklace in leland's hands, when ilmater’s absence left him feeling cold and abandoned.

tells him now, how he is more than what he can do for others.

❝ i know, i do. but... ❞ leland takes a measured breath.

then, he takes danny’s hand gently, brings it to rest over the place at the center of his chest — where he bore danny’s scar. from the spear. from withers’ magic. from a worthwhile trade. one he would make again, and again.

❝ … believe me when i say it is my greatest honour. ❞ he smiles, eyes crinkling gently at the corners. protecting you, protecting all of you.

[lifesver]

@fcused said: ❛ do you trust me ? ❜

it seems like just yesterday that they had made camp on the steep cliffs, baldurs gate sprawled out before them; its familiar pillars rising through the misty trees below. distant little speckles of light — of home — blinking in the night. the quiet glimmer of hope, maybe, finally. leland thinks about everything that’s happened since — how much further, still, they have to go.

they have been watching the still surface of the pond for some time now, in silence. by the edge of camp, feet in shallows. minnows swirl in the reeds, between their bare ankles. connie feels tense at the small point where their elbows brush, and leland’s brows knit in quiet concern when she finally speaks. he turns his head slightly to answer her;

❝ you're my friend. of course i do. ❞

this answer comes easily. naturally. she turns her eyes to him with a soft frown.

“ that’s not what i meant. ” she drops her eyes, “ our… promise. ”

leland looks away, looks out beyond the treeline, gives a hum of acknowledgement.

❝ i remember. ❞

he can guess that she’s going over the events of the day. thinking of the emperor and the dragon — an ill-fated love story, and its cruel end. seeming proof of what they all secretly feared. that everything — all they have been through together, will end in tragedy. that love will not be enough, one of these times.

none of them had felt good after what they’d seen in the prism. what they’d agreed to do. as though there was even another choice but to be complicit. to learn that there was no power of will. no reason they were special. instead, a prince, chained within a lonely plane, used for his magic. the real reason their minds had not succumbed to the tadpoles wriggling in their heads. the emperor had spoken of inevitability. of evolution. and leland watched connie’s face twist with pain as she fought the influence of the astral tadpole. he had felt it, too. maybe less — but it was there. that pulling sensation, at the fraying threads of his mind. that sick feeling — when he threw the horrible thing into the dark void below. it had made his chest squeeze.

he understands connie’s sentiment, now. her uncertainty, and deep-seated fears. and he had made her a promise, after the prism, after the astral plane;

that if it came to it, he would make sure she would not hurt anyone. he would do what had to be done.

he can still see the grymforge. after they lost danny. connie’s eyes, alight with cold anger, sawing, and sawing against nere’s throat. horrible sound of knife against bone and sinew and muscle. until head severed from neck.

then — was it so different from the countless enemies struck down by his hand? cleaved, screaming horribly by searing light of holy blade, eviscerated by violent, radiant fire — not the wrath of the gods, but his own. how much more blood had to spill for this to end? weren’t they still doing the right thing?

mindflayer. monster. you’ll kill everyone you hold dear.

you have a violent heart.

it’s your nature. it’s evolution.

no — leland would not believe it. if he did, what would be left? they have not come this far to give up on their humanity.

❝ it won’t come to that. ❞ he says, suddenly. quiet, and sober in his conviction. leland meets her sharp green eyes with certainty in his own.

because — when he looks at connie, he sees only their unfaltering ranger. bringing to mind a powerful swirling mass of black hole that ripped to shreds anything in its vicinity — but not him. never him. a volley of arrows that struck down the monsters surrounding him on all sides. precise and deadly. her hand reaching out through the dark corners of his vision to help him to his feet — keep fighting, i’m with you.

their steady, calculating protector on high. their strange, prickly girl from the wilds. the girl who speaks to pigeons — and would likely pickpocket the gods, if given the chance.

their friend. their connie.

how could he ever not trust her?

❝ … i just know... you’re not like him, con. you will never be like him. ❞ he bumps her shoulder with his wing gently. a soft, fond look. ❝ you’re not alone, you have us. whatever we face, we face it together, right? ❞ he glances down at the water again, smile fading just a touch. he feels more clarity than before. ❝ and, if… if we win, or if we lose. hells — if we… turn into mindflayers. i’ll be with you, until the very end. i promise. ❞

[lifesver]

thinking about leland's love for his friends today. thinking about his scars being the roadmap of his devotion to them. how his healing powers so often come at a cost to himself, but to take on half of his friends' pain is to love them and protect them. and that is the most important thing in the world to him.

[lifesver]

why are you so baby. why are you kicked puppy coded