#but also everything he says is true
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this is a long, stupid, rant about the emperor and shit that happens in act 3 of bg3. watch out.
i still don't fucking understand the timeline for balduran founding baldur's gate and him turning into a mindflayer. i think bg3 changed him into an elf from human? but even so, after turning into a mindflayer he should've died ages ago right??
okay, balduran erected the first wall of the city in the mid 1000s DR, so anywhere from 400-600 DR, and then vanished. wiki says it started to be known as baldur's gate in 446 but I haven't verified that by reading the source text. presumably he wasn't turned into a mindflayer RIGHT away after traveling to moonrise. so when the fuck did it happen?
lets, for a moment, take him at his word (since nothing in-game contradicts him here at all, and there isn't even a passive role to see if he's lying) and assume that moonrise towers was already in existence when he turned. lets also assume that the wiki is right in the sense it was built in the mid-1300s. which, eh, I don't think anything in the game says shit confirming its build-date, and there isn't really a ton of external stuff about it. it also feels older than that but I digress. balduran would've heard about the treasure and pursued it (again, taking the emperor's word) before the shadow curse which popped up in the 1390s.
it's unclear as to if he went there before or after ketheric turned to shar, so that puts it anywhere from 1350-1390. which is weird because he implies it was something cool he heard about and presumably was already abandoned. except moonrise was VERY much actively used by a lot of people until the shadow curse...but whatever. regardless, doesn't matter, because he'd be an ANCIENT elf by this point.
lets assume he's, max, 70 when he fucks off after building that wall around grey harbor. lets say he leaves in 450 DR. that puts him at 970 years old AT MINIMUM as of 1350. honestly, no matter what dates and age you choose that's in the ballpark of FR canon it's bad and unrealistic.
cool, sure, lets go with it and assume that he's that old because TECHNICALLY elves can live that long. despite the fact that they're typically community elders and/or weird hermits by that point if they haven't sailed west because their bodies are decrepit and they're not, you know, still adventurers. again, whatever. maybe he hung out in the astral for a few hundred years. no one fucking knows. for all we know he was sucking the cock of eternal youth for an extended period of time before getting bored and going to moonrise.
now, he gets captured and turned into a mindflayer. mindflayers live, on average, up to 125ish years. if he's 970 when he gets turned (which idk that they'd use someone that old for anything but food because that brain has GOT to be juicy and full of cool shit, but again: WHATEVER) in 1350 and was turned the same year, he would be a 142 year old mindflayer by the time of the game. which would be insane. he'd be in the illithid equivalent of hospice and it would be a bit weird for him to spend a bit of time in the astral considering the whole githyanki living there thing.
if we change it so he's turned at the tail end of when he could've been poking around moonrise, 1390, he'd be a 102 year old mindflayer which is old but not "you're on death's door" old. but that'd put his elf self over 1000 making all this even more unlikely. put him in a damn home either way. it makes more sense, imo, for him to have been turned AFTER the shadow curse is in effect but that contradicts the bullshit vision he gives you that isn't disputed anywhere in the game.
and also, WHEN does he escape? is it a short amount of time after he turns? before he turns (which would be insane since after a day or two you are not you anymore and it's too late for an extraction, also he'd be basically inert for the rest of his transformation)?
a lot of larian's timeline assumes that he's a Super Special Guy who, through the power of Sheer Determination and Will, overcame everything in his path, including retaining his entire mind and personality as a mindflayer without the help of netherese magic that altered the tadpole we were infected with in the game.
which, I guess you have to be something of a special guy in order to have a long term romantic relationship with a bronze dragon. so one point for balduran's gay ass, I suppose.
MY PROPOSITION TO FIX THIS CLUSTERFUCK OF DATES AND LARIAN'S WEIRD ATTEMPT AT SHOCKING THE PLAYER WITH A TWIST DURING WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE WYLL'S QUEST WHILE ALSO MAKING IT SO HE ISN'T COMPLETELY LYING ABOUT BEING BALDURAN
the illithid colony under moonrise is ancient. like, crazy ancient and has remained intact for an indescribably amount of time. maybe it's had a few different elder brains over the years. doesn't really matter. it's old and there's a lot of history there.
balduran can still be an elf, larian is allowed to still have that change because you know recorded history is kind of muddled anyway. lets say he gets captured and turned in the colony under moonrise way earlier on in the timeline. exact year doesn't matter.
so he's turned, and because he has terminal main character syndrome the sheer force of his will makes the illithid born from his corpse basically him personality and memory wise. mindflayers, historically, hate other mindflayers who keep even small unintentional habits from their hosts life - viewing them as defective. even trying to hide it, he would've been ostracized from the community very early on which is when he would've escape.
lets say, though, that he had a very big impact on the local mindflayer community causing more to leave once they're outside of the elder brain's range and seek him out. small elder-brain-less cult pops up. eventually they eat balduran-illithid's brain and inherit his memories etc, effectively passing along his "spirit". this continues for a good chunk of time, potentially diluting it over time. one of them (maybe even the emperor!) runs into ansur who tries to cure him, and it ends like it does in-game. the emperor then sets up shop in baldur's gate and runs the knights of the shield.
I like this specifically because it kind of ties into what squidlach says at the party as to how she's essentially become a graveyard of memories for people who were terminally ill and is a way for both karlach and all these people to keep living.
MY REAL PROPOSITION TO MAKE THIS ALL MAKE SENSE
the emperor is just lying and thought balduran was cool and wanted to get ansur on his side, and when you ask him about it he just lies to you again because he's embarrassed and thinks being balduran would make you like him
WHAT I WISH THEY DID INSTEAD
the emperor never met ansur pre-game and he's being weird about it in the tunnels because he genuinely thinks it's a waste of time.
balduran turned into a mindflayer ages ago and killed ansur, but it was long enough ago that his mindflayer-self is long dead. and then, being a revenant (WHICH THE GAME NEVER EXPLICITLY SAYS HE IS, BUT IT FITS TO A T) ansur smelled illithid shit and set his whole body to kill immediately.
also if I got dates or lore or whatever wrong and you read all this pls lmk
#p#bg3#baldur's gate 3#fuck my stupid baka life#the timeline shit in bg3 irks me to no end but this#THIS#pisses me the fuck off#to an unreasonable degree#all they had to do was not include this in the game#it does everything that pisses me off about twists like this:#1) makes no sense#2) has 0 foreshadowing#3) is clearly just for shock value#and then on top of that sidelines the singular black character in the main group in HIS OWN QUEST#like we aren't supposed to trust the emperor#but also everything he says is true#he's manipulating us? but everything ends up fine if you side with him over orpheus#the emperor is fucking bullshit in the game. another morally grey character they didn't do anything cool with.#they were so clearly leading up to him betraying you and trying to take over the brain himself but nooo we can't have obvious consequences#to our actions because they didn't want to make players backtrack the final battle and maybe more to free orpheus#i am like pengu sitting angrily with their hair in a towel
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At your side [End of Season 2]
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan wangji#wen ning#jin ling#wen qing#jiang yanli#a-yuan#It may have taken a year but we did it! The end of season 2!!!#(Granted: this season was nearly twice the length of season one.)#It's been a really fantastic season to draw for. So many iconic moments! It was a lot of work but I had a blast B*)#I also enjoyed experimenting more and more with my comic style. I'm growing as a comic artist bit by bit!#There is even a little bit of shadowing in this one for next season. As a treat. All the fun (and not heart breaking) scenes to come!#Comic talk time: Recently saw 12 angry men for first time and I love the coincidence of the themes aligning here.#They both touch upon the horror of judicial systems - in which the most persuasive argument wins and the truth is a nuisance.#All it takes is one person to stand against the crowd and say 'I do not know what is true. And that is reasonable doubt enough.'#When the majority is for condemning someone guilty - that in itself is persuasive enough.#One will set their mind to what the 'truth' is and refuse to see it any other way. That their perspective is the only correct one.#No one is born with a monopoly on the truth.#Everyone has biases and agendas. Some care not for the outcome - only that they can be on the convenient side.#Lan Wangji is putting everything on the line to say 'I'm not going to go with the majority vote.'#And that is a huge deal in a story that is so politically focused as MDZS is. Everything is a careful chess move to these sects -#and to not play the game is basically sacrificing everything you are and your families name. For some it is unthinkable.#And there is no doubt in LWJ's mind. He would stand there and lose everything if it means upholding justice.#More importantly - these two have each other's backs. The bond is unbreakable. This is the most ride or die I have seen two people be.
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Disgustingly messy and crusty sketch dump but I couldn't get my own terrible theory out of my head and ended up making a bunch of sketches about it. Also at the end a bonus dickbats and Damian doodle bc I was reading an issue of their Batman and Robin run (IDs in Alt)
#dc comics#dc#batfamily#batman#damian wayne#stephanie brown#tim drake#dick grayson#cassandra cain#duke thomas#anyway. zdarsky run sure is something huh?#its still so funny to me that half of 148 was leaked a few days before like someone has it OUT for that book over at bleeding cool ig#i don't necessarily think this theory will come true I'm just imagining how stupid it would be if it did#I'm not super happy with the dialogue in the cass+duke+dick comic but i felt my og dialogue might've read too fanon#mainly just bc cass' last sentence was originally shorter/just ellipses and duke said smthin like ''wait? villain arc?''#which you could easily find in wayne family adventures. even tho it would've been appropriate for this situation 😭#now the dialogue just sounds kind of generic (esp cass') and it's BOTHERING ME AUGHH. this is the comic book fandom panopticon /j#anyway Bruce is in the retirement home in this scenario /j#me n my friends were talking over discord and came up w the cursed scenario that jason is tims robin in this (apart of the 'redemption' arc#-that he's been nail gunned with in this run. god this run is so weird when it comes to jason. like it doesn't outright dislike him-#-like it clearly does damian and (more obviously) cass steph and duke) but the tone of everything w jason is still bizarre#god. anyway yeah i didn't draw him but please picture grown man tank Jason in the robin undies (ala tt 03 but dare i say better)#also the dick being silly sketch was bc the issue i was reading had damian refer to dick as 'jolly'#specifically like ''unreasonably jolly'' or something like that (god i love when ppl find dicks cheerfulness deeply unsettling hehehe)#and i thought it was so funny. bc damian met dick when we has going through his ''bruce is dead'' depression-#-and STILL thought that dick was extremely unserious. he sees happy dick and is like ''what is wrong w you. genuinely''#but at the same time he loves it#i need to stop reading their batman and robin run so scatteredly (or i can just reread nightwing must die...always a possibility)#anyway yeah 👍 bad sketches be upon you#mine
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taash said "they were doing it" and people ran with the interpretation of an npc that doesn't know solas or the history of the elvhenan even when bellara interjected and said, no, that's not right. that's not how it was for the elvhenan. they formed bonds before they had physical bodies. and people ran to doompost or create weird anti-solavellan shit even though mythal & solas refer to each other as old friends and when she releases him there is no tenderness or love in it. it is the act of unchaining a dog from his post, the stepping down of a general. but to each their own ig.
#let the record show i think love was there. do I personally perceive it as romantic / sexual? no.#mythal's perception of love & care is warped in and of itself#i think they loved each other. but she loved what she could take from him and what he could give in terms of service#not because she was romantically into him#also i wish we knew more about her & elgar'nan. her regret prison form says she holds no love for him anymore#and it makes me wonder when that love soured. was it when she was blighted? before that? was that love also born of duty and companionship?#this is the last post i'm gonna make ab this i think#bc i believe people are too caught up in the modern western ideas of love as thing we give solely to our romantic partners#and we literally have a character go ”our perception is warped bc of the age we live in” and some of you are still being purposefully obtuse#and i think trick saying it's up to interpretation is basically admitting EA had them dumb down the game anyway#if everything ab the rise and fall of the evanuris in game#was condensed to five 2min cutscenes it says enough that whatever the writers wanted#was swiftly cut down by corporate dept. basically saying it's in the fans' court now#also bc it's an easy cop out around new players & non solasmancers who are indifferent ab him / dislike him#as a way to appeal thru a more sympathetic lense of look!! he loved and was led astray#not to mention the clear justinia / leliana parallels#and leliana gets angry if you imply she was romantically involved / in love w justinia#and the romance descr when you remake your inq saying the dread wolf could not predict what it would mean to fall IN LOVE#implying he had never fallen in love before or at the very least experienced a romantic love#also him saying drinking from the well would make you a slave and he gets really upset#yet ive seen takes of ”hes doing this for her cus he dgaf ab lavellan” ?? he got mythal killed when he told her ab the blight#whatever feelings of admiration he had for her have rotted. he is literally burdened by his mistakes and his choice in joining her#i feel like if i were a spirit bound and twisted into a weapon i would need my creator to tell me i am Free. i would need that closure#like when cole says its not abuse to bind him if he asks and solas said thats not always true???#if you perceive her interaction w him in vg third act as#anything more than the way justinia released leliana in inq then im sorry maybe youre just obtuse#solavellan#mythal#dragon age meta
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why is lestat's turn of events more truthful than louis'?? like, no doubt about it that louis is an unreliable narrator. which he also does admit to himself, he is very aware that he is speaking from his perspective and he doesn't know everything and time does change memories and views of those memories.
but why do so many people in the fandom believe lestat over louis? why is he automatically more reliable and truthful than louis?
#i'm not just saying this because louis is my favourite. like yes he is unreliable that is true#but so is lestat and it's weird to not question HIS version of events#the show wants us to question the idea of memory and perspective and narrative and who is telling the story#just because the white character says something doesn't mean you should believe him and pity him#(also lestat is likely under mind control/tortured before the trial into condemning louis and claudia)#QUESTION EVERYTHING PLEASE#READ BOOKS AND ARTICLES ABOUT RACE IN GOTHIC LIT PLEASE#iwtv#interview with the vampire#amc iwtv s2 spoilers#amc iwtv season 2#tvc#louis de pointe du lac#lestat de lioncourt#amc iwtv#interview with the vampire season 2
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This quote is so funny but also like that is literally the most efficient summary of the difference between these books sdhfjhds
#i can't speak to bernard cornwell i have not read sharpe nor am i planning to (this is from his wikipedia page though lol)#but it certainly is true of the difference between the aubreyad and hornblower#anyways to each their own. this is the best introduction to the boat book fandom though#pick your poison shdjfhsdkf#perce rambles#aubreyad#hornblower#(also to be clear. he was so real for saying this. as he is for literally everything he said sdfhsjkdf)#percy yells at cecil scott#The Creative Endeavor and other aubreyad nonsense
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FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there, Dean.
[youtube with closed captions]
dean and his father. dean and his family. dean and how bad it is.
(via @closetoyou1970)
#spn#vid#mind the warnings on this one for real#woe! fruit of my rewatch be upon ye.#pallas calls this my 'deangirl coming out vid' which honestly. true. but those who paid attention know i've always been a deangirl.#also. after this no more deanwinchester rilo kiley amvs I Pwomise#anyway. i'm not gonna give a full commentary here but a big reason why i chose this song is that the narrator#is essentially dismissing her own problems and instead watching the problems of someone else#and i kind of wanted to play with that theme. this is the parallels show so let's do some parallels. lots of things happen to characters#that are Like Dean somehow. either in personality or circumstance. that we know or can infer happen to him. but we don't see it bc it's#not sayable. not speakable. so like for an easy one. we see meg being tortured in caged heat. she also talks about apprenticing under#alastair just like dean. so i show her being tortured [in a way that is sexualized and demon-specific] and reacting how she does#because i invite the audience to imagine or interpret that this has also happened to dean at some point. we just don't see it#so there are many dean parallels in this video. some obvious. some subtle but textual. some products of my twisted mind. but that's the way#i am using them to make my argument.#oh also: dean voice sam's eyes going black is JUST like when he used to fight with dad and wouldn't listen to me when i told him not to.#i guess also the point is that because it's unsayable. dean can't say it. dean can't even acknowledge it. and so it bleeds through#into everything in his life#that's why it's important that the song narrator doesn't take her own problems seriously. dean doesn't either.
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I think some people are way too willing to think of lestats pov as the truth and it's very confusing to me bc what about lestat as a character makes you think he's gonna be more truthful than louis-
#mia rambles#iwtv#interview with the vampire#this is not about wanting to see lestats pov bc its interesting how he saw things bc i also wanna see that! its gonna be super interesting!#but i just thinks its so wild how some people think like this bc the show never asks that of you#the closest you get is when louis says lestats version of turning claudia is the actual truth#but i also think thats a little wrapped up in louis' grief (i do genuinely think its fhe closest to what happened tho)#i swear i saw somewhere that sam even said that hes not coming in as the lestat pov as the true pov and to knock everything louis has said
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actually its kind of crazy how little we actually see the starblaster crew interact with each other. like other than tres horny boys and each of the pairs in that trio, and like, arguably lucretia and thb, barry and lup, and lup and taako, most of the relationships between the crew are only a few lines, if anything? like obviously in-universe they're all really close and griffin says that (time enough to grow indescribably close), but there's a lot we don't see. like, taako & barry, for example, have a handful of moments, lines we can point to that show they are really close (you're my family, taako, can i speak frankly?), but as far as actual screentime, there's really very little.
and even those i mentioned before, like, lup has more screentime with barry and taako than with anyone else, there's the whole little legato monologue about her and barry's relationship and she has (comparatively) a lot of scenes with taako, but also, as a character, she's only around for maybe a sixth of the show, so there's just not a lot of time to work with?
and that's not to mention the relationships we can figure were probably present in-universe, but literally never see, like lup & davenport. and on that note, i actually can't think of any other pairs who don't interact at least once, but still, very rarely. like now i'm considering davenport & barry. who we hardly see but there is the fact that barry cast command on him to drink the ichor. it's one line in the show and the implications are never really mentioned but there's a lot of significance to be wrung out of this one tiny interaction. barry condemns lucretia's methods of stealing agency from their family in the service of the greater good, but when he thinks it's best for davenport, does the same on a smaller scale? barry doesn't have the time to try to convince him to drink, he needs davenport back to himself now, because davenport is someone dependable, a leader, someone who barry knows will be capable and decisive and relieve him of the responsibility he's been shouldering by himself? that barry knows davenport won't begrudge his use of the spell, because he'll see it as pragmatic, necessary, assistance, and forgive him for it? none of that is necessarily supported in canon but it can be extrapolated from, again, kind of a throwaway line.
the non-thb crew have presence and are important to the narrative, but most of that comes from thematic significance rather than them as individuals, you know? we hardly see lup and barry and davenport (maybe arguably lucretia too, though we see more of her than them), but we see the echoes of their decisions and their goals and their love for the rest of their family and the way they shape the story.
but actually, even that's not entirely accurate, because as significant as they are in that way, their presence isn't only due to that, they're full characters too. they have personalities and depth and connection, they're not only plot devices. like, maybe griffin needed to explain why lup was missing, and that's why she became a lich, and her needing to be a lich is why she and barry had their romance, but also, if that were all there was to it, the legato monologue wouldn't exist, the best day ever wouldn't exist. those are scenes designed to build lup as a character through her connections to other characters and to the central themes of balance, not to fix plot holes. it's just that all of that character building takes place in a pretty small fraction of the show compared to tres horny boys, who have the entire thing. idk its interesting and impressive how some of the deepest characters and most profound relationships were developed in a very short amount of time
#mine#balance#taz#taz balance#analysis#and by profound relationships i DO mean the twins its still crazy to me that the mcelroys were able to make that work#introduce a new character who is absolutely fundamental to another established character's identity and have it make sense and feel right#in just the way that getting memories of lup back feels right to taako. like everything's slotted into place. like she was always there.#like we were missing her the whole time and didn't even know it. just like he was#but of course i also mean the whole crew together all seven birds#in a similar way. it just feels right that they're all together. it just feels right that they're a family.#when we find out it all feels like it was true the whole time#even when we don't see all the details of it the foundation is there. so when griffin says it's true we don't doubt it#anyway. all that to say. its funny how convinced griffin is at first that he'll be a terrible dm when he's actually a very good storyteller
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at one point i didn't like caduceus' epilogue, that he just stayed home for a long time and eventually travelled again and eventually calliope joined him too. but i think actually i love it. something so gentle about him returning home to a temple that was once empty and lonely but is now healing and full of family who he loves so much. and to not have anything particularly asked of him apart from tending the garden and his small routines. especially thinking about how tired and sad he is by the end of the campaign, compared to the beginning when hes so giddy to just be interacting with people and seeing things he's never seen before and to have guidance from the wildmother. and then later, after aeor and so many more horrible things have happened, he admits to calliope that its too much and the outside world is scary and big and he's so so tired and he keeps saying how tired he is. so basically ideal ending that he gets to go home and get better and heal enough to be excited when he heads out into the world again
#another one from the drafts. look at my good post boy#kiddo say#tbf i was also surrounded by other fandom people at the time who were super into the idea that his family was toxic#and like suffocating him and bad for him . so that mightve been why it felt bad at first but idk how much *i* actually thought That#probably not much. more like i was disappointed his epilogue was so simple and short . but like thats the correct vibe isnt it#like yea so true. of course . everything cad does is simple and good and looking out for his friends and family -#ok i tricked you this was just evidence that caaduceus is disabled and a spoonie he needed to go home to rest and regain his spoons before#he can go to the fantasy dnd supermarket again#ur brave king i believe in u you fought hivemind god you can fight the fluorescents in big tesco#(also once again western standards of thinking everyone needs to leave home blehbleh but ive talked abt that before)
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anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??
#okay incoming rant about this series#i read the first book when i was 10 or 11 and i was absolutely obssessed with it. i read it so many times i had the entire story memorized#the issue was that i could not find the rest of the series anywhere. it was either sold out or out of stock#and then i found out that only the first 3 books had been translated into my first language so at that point i kinda gave up on them#anyway#flashforward to a couple of weeks ago#i was re organizing my bookshelf and on the back i found LYKY (is this how y'all are abreviating it??)#and remembred how much i loved it#and since i'm now fluent in english and was stuck at home recovering from a surgery i decided to download the entire series and read it#to find out what the fuck happened afterwards#long story short i read all six books in 4 or 5 days#and i haven't stopped thinking about them since#it's actually so funny how little information we have in the first book#i went all of these years thinking it was mostly a silly series about a boarding school for spies when actually SO MUCH happens afterwards#i can't believe i went all of these years unaware of zach goode's existence#truly character of all time#but also i can't stop thinking about how interesting it would have been if zach had come to hate the circle and his mom during the series#rather than before#make it a true enemies to lovers#and have us witness that portion of his character developement in real time instead of being told about it#like him slowly realizing through cammie and his time at gallagher that maybe what they were doing is wrong#i think it would have been very interesting to read#although let's be real it took me until halfway through book four to trust him and he was fully one of the good guys so..#but yeah i have a lot more to say but these tags are long enough#gallagher girls#okay i just want to add another funny anecdote about my experience with this series#my copy of LYKY has an age warning in the back recomending that readers should be above 13 yo to read it#and i distinctly remember finishing it and thinking the warning was kind of dumb bcs besides a few mentions of death and other heavier topi#nothing really happened#and now i realize it was a warning for the rest of the series not just the first book because jesus fucking chirst everything after
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One day – as far-off as a century, as near as tomorrow – it will all be a grand old story.
The stories will speak of a handful of champions, rushing headlong against time and logic to save the world; the last Blades, the last Septim, and his hanger-on Hero, carving a bloody path to the Temple doors. The stories will tell of skies like burned blood, of fire and ash and uncountable legions of monsters – hundreds, thousands, millions, the quantity rising with each telling – the city streets cracked and quaking, every civilian locked up in their homes and businesses and praying for deliverance. The stories will tell of the appearance of Dagon, red-hot and roiling, a gory perversion of the sun; they’ll tell that when all seemed lost, Martin Septim sacrificed himself in a blaze of glory, calling down the avatar of Akatosh and casting Dagon and his ilk back whence he came. They’ll tell that the golden dragon threw back its head and roared, and the sky cleared and brightened at its word; they’ll tell how it petrified in place, a magnificent pillar of stone, a sacrosanct statue. A site of pilgrimage. A shrine, to the grace and glory of the gods, and the bravery and benevolence of the last Emperor, the best of men.
It will be a good story. All splendour and triumph, a bittersweet victory right out of the epics; the pages closed, the crisis done, the world saved in as golden a resolution as could be asked for. It doesn’t get better than this, a perfect saviour, a hallowed end.
What the stories won’t tell is how, under clear skies and sunlight, the Hero of Kvatch falls at the statue’s marbled feet and howls like the world is still ending.
“You fucking coward,” Pax is screaming, as best as she can. Her mouth tastes like smoke. Her voice is hoarse. “Stupid worm, fucking – selfish bastard – what’s wrong with you?”
His head is swimming, a bit; he shouldn’t have tried to stand, but he – but – he’s dragged himself up to the dais, just about, and managed to sprawl himself over the edge, a snail’s trail of blood smeared along the floor behind him. The copper tang of it is strong in his nostrils. The statue stands, proud and silent, one marble claw dug into the cracked stone of the rostrum. His whole body is beginning to ache – just because of a stupid stab wound in his side, he’d swear he’s had worse, it’s not that bad, it’s not that bad. His throat burns. He isn’t crying. He isn’t.
The sky is so fucking blue.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demands, again, and brings the heel of his hand thudding against the clawed foot hard enough that he feels the impact down his arm, through his blurry head. “Why would you – piece of shit – sorry spit-gill – I thought –”
None of their thoughts will go through to the end. “I thought,” Pax says again, and she’s not crying, and it hurts so much it’s looped back around to not hurting, and it’s all getting fuzzy at the edges, all the world narrowed down to this and this and this and all fucking hell she’d rather be anywhere, anything else. The statue is cold. Her throat is scraped raw. “Come back,” she’s begging without quite meaning to, “come back,” and she drives her palm into the stone again, and the pain sets her reeling.
And all hell, the sky is so blue; the statue enormous; and here they are, at its feet, vision blurring, staring up at its cold marble face. It’s so fucking tall, so proud, face tipped up towards the new-appeared sun, away from them.
“How could you?” Pax says, and then they can’t even see it anymore, blood unspooling from them like skeins of madder-dyed thread. Red has never been their favourite colour. The shape of the dragon, glowing like the sun, is fixed forever on the backs of their eyelids; gold, they think, is worse. The world is detached and floating about them. They taste smoke and then bile. Stone digs fierce into their spine.
It burned like the sun, the dragon; like all the divine light of Aetherius come to earth just to sear the moisture from her eyes. Where it clawed Mehrunes Dagon, his blood boiled; when it screamed, the world moulded itself to its call. Pax hadn’t known what was happening, while it happened; sure as shit doesn’t know now. What they do know is that he’s gone. What they do know is that the dragon didn’t look at them once. They don’t taste ash on their breath, now; just fear, stagnant, sour, blood jangling bitter in their veins and seeping out to soak their gambeson.
It doesn’t hurt, anymore, there’s just this spreading, vague numbness. It doesn’t feel like their body. It’s just a thing they’re putting on. Their ears are still ringing from the crashing-in of the Temple, but there’s a faint buzzing of noise outside. They might be dying. They can’t be assed to get up.
Skeeving asshole. They’re getting blood on the dragon’s immaculate feet. The hollow sounds of voices feels distant. Could well be worse.
Then, “… a healer, here!” they hear, much closer than anything else had been before, paired with the faraway thudding of the door, and “Pax. Pax! It’s – where’s –” and there’s hands on him, a cautious manipulation of his neck, a shifting of his legs. Pressure on his sternum, and then his stomach, and a pained grunt slips out of his mouth, bound up with a slurred curse.
“Stay calm,” says an unfamiliar voice, soft and steady. “I’m just accessing the wound.”
“Go away,” Pax says, or tries to say, but his voice is whispering-hoarse and the dragon looms in the dark even still. He could open his eyes, but what would be the point?
The hands stay on him even when he bucks, holding him steady; they whisper over the stab in her gut, pulling at the drying blood, mumbling words that she can’t be fucking bothered to listen to, one voice known to her already, one voice not; pressure again on the injury, and they try, half-heartedly, to breathe out a swear – and then light, copper-bright, behind their eyelids, and burning heat, and pain pain pain eclipsing all else as something inside them wrenches back into working order, and then their eyes are open and the sky is blue and they are very fucking aware, thank you.
Pax sits up, fast enough to send the world dizzily whirling, and shoves the mage-medic away from them.
“Piss off,” he says – and it’s still hoarse, smoke-throated and scraped raw, but there’s more bite to it this time, more sound. The strange hands fall away from his side, and he looks down. His gambeson is hanging open, cords untied, the emblem of the wolf split clean down the middle. His undershirt is rucked up around his chest, too, so much of his skin is bared to the clear, bright air; all to get to the wound tucked just under their ribs. It’s an underwhelming thing – smaller than they would’ve thought, a thin short slash like a very red mouth has opened itself up in their gut. It’s stopped dribbling quite so much blood, gone scabby with rough healing, though the stuff is still smeared all over their skin, damn near enough to bathe in. It’s barely anything, really. They’re barely even hurt.
“I’m not done,” says the mage-medic, all stern. The wound itches, the taste of hasty magic gone sour in the back of their throat with all the rest of it. “I might have to find my suturing needle. It isn’t too bad, but it can’t be healed all at once.”
“Piss off,” Pax repeats – and all fucking hell it hurts, and he’s sitting up against the statue, legs lolling. He’s dizzy. He ignores it.
Ocato – his fine clothes sooty, face tight as a wound-up spring – says, “Calm down, please – he’s a skilled healer, he knows what he’s doing.” His eyes keep skipping around the room like he’s searching for another enemy lurking hidden in the shadows. “What happened? Where’s the Emperor?”
Ah – not an enemy, then.
Pax tastes bile.
“Not very quick on the uptake, are you?” she says, elbow braced against the statue’s massive marble claws (she hates touching it, she hates it, she hates it, she wants to set it crumbling apart, she doesn’t want to let anyone else touch it ever again). She can’t stop leaning because then she might topple back down again. Fuck, she needs to keep her head on straight – or lose it altogether, whichever happens faster. Her fingers feel cold. “How’re you going to run an Empire when you’re this fucking clueless?”
Ocato looks them in the face; his brow, high and slanted in that way elves have, furrows. “You’re hurt,” he says, in a tone like he expects Pax to argue with him. “Martin Septim–”
“Can’t you see him?” Pax demands, tone torn in half and uglier than they’ve ever heard it before, and they slam the back of their hand against the stone for echoing emphasis. (They want to shatter all the bones in their knuckles, break every piece in their hand one by one, like wishbones. They want it bloody and bruising. They want to scratch its polished-smooth surface until their fingernails tear. They want – they want – they want –)
Ocato, the Empire’s de facto leader, says, “Ah.”
In his plummy robes, all fruit-rich and stained with ash, he looks very stark against the Temple’s cracked marble floors.
“The Avatar,” he says. “If – the Amulet – joined blood of kings and gods –”
“Ocato,” says Pax, leaning heavy against the statue’s hateful foot, “shut up.” Their voice is bowstring-taut; he looks at them, his eyes too golden to meet. His mouth twists. They tip their head back against the stone, glaring up at the chips of blue sky shown in the crater where the roof once was, and try hard to ignore the tugging ache hooked behind their ribs.
It really fucking hurts. Worse than it did before, maybe, like some gauzy veil has been ripped from it. A veil has been ripped from the world. All the colours are too-bright, hideous. Pax breathes, because there’s no alternative, and waits for the pain to ebb.
(It doesn’t, really.)
“The Gates are sealed,” Ocato says, slowly, and he’s looking at her again, she can see out of the edge of her eye. “We will speak later. I’ll have you put up in the Palace until you’re healed. Ah – Quintus, does –”
“As long as she doesn’t go back into shock,” says the mage-medic, busily flipping through some kind of supply bag at his belt, “her odds are good. Lost blood, but I don’t think anything important was too damaged – get a proper examination, all I did was give her a second wind. Stitches, rest, fluids should do it, with luck.”
“Can she stand?”
“Can or should are –”
“Shut the fuck up,” Pax snaps, “I’m right here.” Her back pressed against the cold marble of the statue, her plait half-loose and knotted, filled with ash. The sky is so fucking blue. It hurts like hell – if the healer took her out of shock, then shit, she wishes he’d put her back in. She can see in too much detail. She can feel the skin, damp and ragged and angry. She presses the heel of her hand to the injury; her palm is crusted with dust, tacky with the same half-dried blood streaked over the floors.
Ocato, in the edges of her vision, shifts, all a blur of rich clothes and sympathetic eyes and solemn voice turned soft like he’s talking to an easily spooked horse. “I know.”
The mage-medic clucks his tongue. “Let me take another look first,” he says, and takes a step forward –
Pax kicks out at him before he even gets close. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“Pax,” says Ocato – and why, why the fuck is the Empire’s de facto leader here, now, babying them like a whimpering little puppy instead of anywhere fucking else, why is he bothering to talk to them all patronising soft, why does he care? They’ve barely fucking met – talked twice, if you can call either of those times talking. Is it because they’re the Hero of Kvatch? Is this what they’ve earned – a bit of leeway as they throw a tantrum, bleeding out at the marble feet of that stupid bloody statue? Ocato looks so fucking tired; Pax wants to hit him in the nose. “You need care.”
“I need –” and Pax chokes it off in a puff of air. The statue looms behind them. There’s blood on the floors. (Traitor liar coward come back come back I hate you come down I’ll knock your fucking teeth in stupid selfish fraud come BACK. LOOK AT ME.)
Pax closes his eyes.
“My gratitude,” Ocato says, “ – our gratitude for what you’ve done cannot be overstated. The Crisis if over. The gates are sealed. Mehrunes Dagon and his ilk can never threaten Tamriel again.”
The knobs of Pax’s braid are pressing uncomfortably against their scalp. They can hear footsteps, coming closer. They don’t respond.
“It’s a great shame we had to pay such a price,” Ocato says, and Pax would fucking love to know who’s we here, “but it’s done. Dagon is defeated. We’ve won.” He’s much too close, now; his voice pitches softer. “Martin – is dead. But he died an Emperor – and a hero to rival Tiber Septim.”
Pax shoves him.
It’s a good fucking shove – knocks him right to the ground, his elbow hitting the marble with a painfully audible crack, Pax standing over him, shirt rucked up, their handprint on his shoulder marked in blood. “You useless, prattling jackass!” they spit, hoarse, and deal a swift, savage kick to his side. “How dare you act like this is a victory! It should have been me!”
Then their head swims, and they’re sitting again on the edge of the dais, palm pressed to their side, the sweaty cloth of their gambeson pushed half off their shoulder and its cord biting into their hand. The mage-medic is kneeling over Ocato, who still lies, stunned; Pax can’t see his eyes, now, but they remember them, brassy with shocked fear. Their bow is off by the wall where they left it. Pax’s palms are sticky with blood. The sky is so fucking blue. No matter how hard she rages the dragon won’t look down at them.
By the time the mage-medic has helped Ocato up, they’re gone. The Kvatch guard gambeson remains, smoke-smelling and crusted with blood, left like an offering at the statue’s feet. The Hero of Kvatch is never seen again.
#posting these two one after another is. fun :)#I lovee characters that just slightly misunderstand each other. causing pain and suffering for ever and ever#martin goes this will be sad for them... but at least I can apologise before I go. and at least there will be people to care for them#and I will at last atone for my many horrid sins (mostly existing and bearing witness to the terrors)#meanwhile to pax. the only person that cares about them + figurehead for their entire sense of purpose and confidence has abandoned them.#the Big Dragon Statue is apt because when martin died he made himself a monster#both the only good thing in the world and the thing that took it away#pax hates him. hates herself for hating him. loves him. hates herself for loving him. cannot fathom anything she knows to be true#about their relationship#If He Cared About Me He Couldn't Have Done This. so he never cared#so the dragon with its head arched to the sky is insult to extremely literal injury#so I will NOT be comforted or looked after thanks. I will die at your feet cursing your name and failing that I will lash out as hard#as I can and then disappear from historical record#(to go break into a physician's office and stitch himself up. pax says to himself that he's had worse but Worse was also major abdominal#trauma that caused hypovolemic shock. the perspective is skewed)#and everything is so so sad forever THE END thanks for reading :D#oc tag#pax#martin septim#the elder scrolls#tesblr#tes#oblivion#fay writes#my writing#hero of kvatch
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tumblr is so funny bc people get so focused on like this insane little bubble of political thought that theres people who like think the most countercultural belief system u can have is being a normie lib who thinks bernie sanders is wrong.
#i obviously don’t agree with everything he says but he’s 100% right about the us government being the most oligarchical it’s ever been#and this is something i think a lot of the democratic party didn’t want to acknowledge until now#like i kind of side eye anyone who gets upset at him for saying billionaires bought this election when all of trump’s cabinet picks#have been proving this right#yes racism and sexism also lost harris the presidency and i think sanders is kind of glossing over this aspect of it#but multiple things can be true at once
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All the talk about mermaid Desmond having to deal with polluted rivers is making me think of a Suicune Desmond on account of the whole purifies any water it comes in contact with thing
And with the whole touching the river and having it miraculously clean and the whole being able to walk/run on water thing this is another au where Desmond could be mistaken for some kind of angel
Wanna screw with Desmond more, nonny? Of course you do XD
Desmond’s time travel power only lets him travel to ‘dirty’ waters.
And the term dirty is used quite loosely. He can appear if the waters have been drenched in blood or if dead bodies have been thrown into it as well.
And it doesn’t have to be a large body of water. It just has to be large enough that all four legs can stand on top.
So even a huge ass puddle would work.
And to fuck with him some more?
His time in any given ‘period’ is limited. The moment his feet touches the water, he will immediately start purifying it.
The moment the purification is done, his tether to that time disappears and he gets suckered into the next ‘period’.
It’s also messed up because his destination seems to be random.
Oh. And since he’s a legendary Pokemon, he can speak.
But good luck to him being able to say everything he wants to say because his autohealing abilities is a timer he can’t even track.
Legends starts sprouting about the mythical creature that cleanses the waters.
Some even says he takes the souls of those who die in the uncaring embrace of the sea.
(He doesn’t)
And Desmond?
Desmond just wants to take a damn break from all this time hopping bullshit.
AND GET TO FINISH HIS CONVERSATIONS, DAMN IT!
#desmond is also known as being cryptic#not because he tries to be#but because he speaks really fast just to infodump on his ancestors#because he has no idea when he’d see them next XD#he draws blank when he faces other people he doesn’t know#he always start with ‘nothing is true’#and if that person says ‘everything is permitted’#he’ll check if they’re an assassin or a templar trying their luck#abstergo is absolutely trying to capture him XD#desmond is turned into an animal subgenre#desmond is turned into a creature subgenre#assassin's creed#desmond miles#ask and answer#teecup writes/has a plot#fic idea: assassin's creed
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yall what the fuck 😭😭
It’s one thing after another this week
I’ve been a one direction fan for years, loved most of their solo work, and although I didn’t like Liam anymore and didn’t stand for any of the shit that had been coming out about him, I still can’t believe this
#first it was the seunghan bullshit#then my friend got fired over a bullshit reason#and now this too#like what the fuck#all of my work friends texted me#I was with my best friend and she’d already seen an article about it but didn’t believe it so she didn’t say anything#but then all of my work friends texted me bout it and we were like oh shit it’s true#like I’m not too surprised because of Liam’s history with substance abuse and also with all the hate he’s been getting#like that’s gonna take a toll and slipping off a balcony whether intentional or accidental like I can see how it would stem from everything#that’s been going on but dang god damn this is just………#my 1d fangirl heart is having a real struggle of a time accepting this#like there was a long time during 1d’s time that Liam was my favorite so this is just god damn
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op turned off rbs but is this about that dark past fangame that everyone is now lauding as basically pre-canon explorers despite it literally being just a fangame that also happens to be extremely racist with some of its messages
#bwark#i don't remember the exact details emery was telling about but the stuff with rampardos was very uncomfortable to hear about#it was basically something to do with him being a ''savage'' and some sort of lesser being? idk emery help me out here when you wake up#but like. does that remind you of anything#i also remember the fatphobic line about wigglytuff too. lmao#i think this can also be about e*ts. idk how edgy it gets but ive heard that it treats the explorers cast like shit in order to hype up#breloom as the obvious writer's pet. and also everything ive heard about it makes it seem like it was made out of spite#like iirc grovyle's character is basically the writer getting pissed at explorers fans for wanting a remake and saying to move on from it#and like. that would be fine (without the passive aggressiveness) if it was more about explorers fans giving the 3ds games a chance#but it wasn't that it was just berating explorers fans for wanting more explorers stuff WHILE BEING AN EXPLORERS ROMHACK#like do you not see the hypocrisy there#it really gives reborn vibes as something just completely made out of spite#not even going into how weirdly both of these games treat the female characters#anyway pmd fans stop putting romhacks on a pedestal and lauding them as ''basically canon'' just because they fufill your edgy quota#ALSO THE CHATOT POINT IS SO TRUE#''e*ts calls out chatot for stealing our money'' chatot literally only takes money because it's a fee from the exploration federation and i#literally says this in-game. you are shooting the messenger when you parrot this take. this man is just doing his job he doesn't personally#have it out for you lmao it's fine to not like him as a character but some of you need to get over your childhood grudge against him#<- tags that remind me i need to finish my chatot analysis but i don't wanna replay eos rn to screenshot hunt
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