#but she cares about my comfort
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#need to belong to a rich neoliberal woman who’s invested in my safety#she thinks my leftist ideas are quaint#she gives me Xanax when I get too excited about the news (it’s stronger than she says it is and i know but i don’t care)#she thinks it’s fun to set my daily schedule but#well i like it because I’m being told what to do but it ends up being enriching and constructive#even if it includes chores because you know what? building better habits is constructive too#anyway yeah she has a 25 step plan for surviving the fallout of climate change#property in New Zealand#and being useful in that space is part of my training too of course#but she cares about my comfort#also she ties me up and just goes crazy on me I’m like a bop it she pushes my buttons and I make a lot of noise and i eat her sloppy style#i mean not that sloppy but i do tend to use a fair amount of saliva#maybe we’d rarely have penetrative sex but she doesn’t pressure me into it and in fact really takes control#telling me to relax and let it feel good#and we cuddle and she’s very warm and maybe she gains some weight while we’re dating but i love her and love it because i love her#im sick im fucked in the head dude
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I can't stop thinking about the relationship between Jon and Helen as perhaps one of the most important ones in the entire show. They are narrative parallels for each other, and they both know it. They've both known it from the very start!
Helen walks into the Archives, paranoid, unsure of who to trust, and Jon sees himself in her. And he thinks "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." Then he can't save her. The next time they meet, she's a monster. They're both monsters. There was never any other way their stories could have gone, their fates entwined from the very start.
And Helen answers his original thought with one of her own: "Maybe if we can help each other, there's hope for us both." But Jon looks at her and sees everything that he fears becoming, and so he turns her away, and refuses to accept that their stories are still one and the same.
Helen went to the last person who was ever kind to her, the only person who both knew her as a human and had the context to understand what she'd become, and he hated her. He hated her because he liked Helen, and told her that she couldn't be Helen.
So she stopped trying to be Helen, and embraced being a monster. Reveled in it even. Then Jon wakes up from a six month coma, more monster than person, and tries so hard to cling to the things that mattered to him when he was human. Even with no support, even with the entire archives staff against him, he chooses humanity and compassion over and over again.
And this is a direct threat to Helen's world view. Their stories are entwined. If Jon can continue to be a person even after everything he's been through, then she could have clung to her humanity too, if only she'd tried a little harder. And that terrifies her! She wants to conceptualize herself as someone who was completely overwhelmed by forces beyond her control, who never had a choice but to become a monster. She want's to be an innocent victim. But Jon argues with his actions that they'd both had choices.
And, Jon, in turn, holds out hope that she might make better choices until the very end.
This is the conflict between them for all of season 4 and 5. Jon wants to prove that they can both be decent people, and Helen wants to prove that they were never going to be anything but monsters. This is why she's so devoted to trying to goad Jon into enjoying his newfound godhood. She knows that they are the same, and wants that to mean that he has a spark of evil inside of him, and not that she was always capable of doing good.
When Jon kills her, she loses her life, but wins the argument. Helen is nothing but a dangerous monster who needs to be killed for the good of everyone, and in the moment he decides that, Jon dooms himself to the same fate. Their stories are one and the same. "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." he thought. But he couldn't help her, refused to, even, in the one moment when it actually mattered. And thus, there was never hope for him.
#the magnus archives#tma#jonathan sims#helen distortion#my rambles#i am not normal about them#helen did nothing wrong in her entire life#(aside from being a real estate agent)#Her story is just so tragic to me#She could have been better#she had choices#thats the entire point#but the choice was between a thankless attempt at retaining her personhood#with absolutely no support and no one who cared about her#or giving into the comforting lie that she never had a choice at all#She had choices and she made them but i don't think anyone could reasonably expect her to have done any better
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Council of lovefools.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#jiang yanli#jiang cheng#They don't have an actual sleepover in this scene but the vibes were so sleepover coded...I had to get them cozied up.#Late night talks with friends and family are some of the best conversations.#My siblings and I used to have room sleepovers with each other (Actually an excuse to stay up and talk about runescape)#Currently my flatmates and I also have really great heart to hearts late into the night.#Pondering shit like 'What defines confidence?“ and ”Why are people terrified of letting themselves fall in love?"#All that aside; There is a really great conversation between JC and WWX here. They are so close and yet so far way from each other!#Fundamentally they *agree* about many things - but JC now has to play the role of someone more 'mature'.#His temper is reigned in and he had to take a more nuanced approach. Whereas WWX can be far more reactionary.#JC has changed to become someone more mature (or at least he is trying).#Contrast this attitude with the scene *right* after where WWX literally goes baby mode with JYL. Rolling around going “I'm Fwee years old”.#When children are hurt we comfort them with hugs and warm food and a laugh. It's not enough when you're an adult. It's not simple anymore.#WWX is stuck in the past when everyone else is shifting and moving on! It's a depression allegory (and just...actual depression)#But we also get to see how some things have stayed the same. They still bicker about soup. They still tease. They are still together.#They all care for each other very much but they are struggling against trauma and are not equipped to talk about it.#You can't really blame WWX for being so protective over JYL. But JC is right: “You don't have a say in who she likes.”#It may have started as an arranged marriage but *she* is *choosing* what her heart wants. JC sees that. WWX cannot.#The final act of love is letting go after all.
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tristamp post-S1 mashwood sillies and tri98(?) merylwood :]
#trigun#trigun stampede#tristamp#trigun 1998#trigun 98#vash the stampede#nicholas d. wolfwood#meryl stryfe#mashwood#merylwood#stryfewood#the comfort of mashwood spending days together without much happening. just eventless days together#also i know i know meryl and ww barely interact in '98 but#who cares when i can just put two of my fav characters together like playing with dolls#after the fifth moon incident ww trying to leave w/o a word to go look for vash#and meryl having none of his shit bc she already lost sight of one of them so shes not about to lose the other one#*SLAPS VW AND MW* THESE BITCHES CAN STORE SO MUCH UNSPOKEN THINGS#i also just really like ww getting flustered and manhandled by a three-apples-tall woman#merylwood is yuri to me. im not explaining#my art#raepliica_art
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did someone order a bron-zel-jr sandwich? 😳
another fun collab with @ichiro-artosaki featuring her Durge (Eris Jr), my Tav (Bronwynn), and a very grumpy Lae’zel!!!
don’t worry though, Lae’zel is doing just fine :]c
#can you guys tell lae’zel is absolutely geeked rn#what better place to be than between ur 2 tall buff gfs???#she’s very comfortable i promise#this is like enrichment for her LMAOOOO#anyways I care about these goofballs a ridiculous amount#rotating them in my brain like a microwave pizza#bg3#lae’zel#bronwynn#eris jr#bg3 durge#bg3 tav#ichiro
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I guess I find the shipping discourse a little funny because fandoms are gonna create ships regardless of the subject matter. I think really heavy, depressing media creates a need for people to see human connection. It’s like a way to cope, you know? More importantly and specific to this game (Mouthwashing), I also find it a little funny just because the devs themselves seem to be leaning towards ~one~ “ship” by retweeting artwork that depicts them as pretty close and protective. They even did an edit of them on that Florence Pugh and that one white guy romance movie with a “what could have been” caption. Sooo tldr the ship drama is kind of dumb. Please block and move on cause the discourse is taking up space on my feed when I’m trying to look for more art of Daisuke lmao
#also disclaimer I don’t ship anything in this game because it makes me too depressed hahaha#I guesssssss you could say I leave towards Anya and Curly but that’s just because they’re my favs#plus I got a gen vibe that they liked each other so I kind of just assumed but whatever#I like that they find comfort in each other more than anything (at least in my head post crash)#if that makes sense? so don’t come for me lol cause some of yall are mean#I know he failed her so so so so badly but that’s kind of what makes their comfort and care for one another interesting you know?#idk how to explain it#it’s like the one sweet thing that continues throughout the narrative all the way to Anya’s suicide#where she locks them in together to keep them both safe from Jimmy#I’m high so pls excuse me as I make no sense actually#this is about#mouthwashing#mouthwashing game#captain curly#anya mouthwashing#curly mouthwashing#people who ship Jimmy x curly are another breed though lmaoooo yall are on something stronger than anyone else😭😭😭
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(Apollo Justice trilogy spoiler warning‼️)
I know Ema’s popular for being a hater, but I think it’s neat how she feel like one of the warmest, kindest characters in the franchise too.
Like, she always lets people use her equipment and teaches them how to use it, or straight up GIVES it to them if she has spares (which is probably just a byproduct of her love of forensics but hear me out), she considers people she knows through work like Apollo to be friends to the point where she’s actually hurt by him not wanting to talk to her when they meet again in SoJ, it’s subtle, but she empathises with him over the loss of his parents, and the way she consistently refers to him as a ‘kid’ (even as late as the SoJ credits) and a newbie honestly feels more irritating-older-sisterly than patronising in an offensive way. Like affectionate teasing. It doesn’t take much to convince her to let you perform informal investigations either — especially when her friends are involved, she’s often sympathetic to the people she arrests, she was surprisingly forgiving when Apollo both lost an entire corpse AND almost set her on fire within, like, an hour… she offered to share her Snackoos with Phoenix when an investigation wasn’t going so well and advised him to take a break even though they were technically on opposite sides, said she was proud of Apollo even though she’d only known him for a case and a bit at the time… and she has such a friendly smile! I don’t know, she just seems really nice and chill despite her grumpiness.
#This may be a me thing I might be “nanditafying my blorbos” as no one except me says#ema skye#ace attorney#AJ trilogy Spoilers#anyway I care her🥺 she is. Nice science lady#it’s always so comforting to see her at crime scenes as well#this feels like the equivalent of walking up to a cactus and trying to hug it what am I saying#Edit: WHY DID I SOUND SO UNSURE ABOUT THIS I MEAN DUH THIS IS LIKE GOING#“Um guys I think maybe Phoenix Wright is an attorney?? I’m probably wrong tho….”#I have no idea why I was expecting people to disagree with me smh#I edited it out it was stupid
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blood dripped from Poseidon's mouth, red.
red.
the day they overthrew Kronos, child-eater (stomach acid crawling around them, after maw of teeth grazing his small, child body), his golden ichor bled red.
god blood, degraded into a mortal's.
the day Typhon, father of monsters (as big as their father was, as big as the Titans with sharp claws and teeth) ripped out Zeus' tendons, his blood was red.
Poseidon, god of the tides, son of Kronos, looked up at the dark shape stood above him, his own golden trident in his hand, the teeth like prongs drenched in red.
Odysseus is a mortal. was a human.
sharp webbed ears spread out on the side of their head, scales grew around their neck and arms, shining like a coral reef, illuminated by their growing red eyes, that were shrunken to slits.
Odysseus' teeth glinted in the lightning, showing their unnaturally sharp point.
monster.
#small snippet that i can't develop any further.#this is uh#Ithacan Naga AU#didn't mean to talk about Poseidon's probable trauma with Kronos but here we are. do you think particularly salty or poisoned water reminds#poseidon of stomach acid? do you think the original five olympians are closer knit with each other#from being eaten alive as a child and then growing up in a stomach?#do you think hestia is the goddess of family cause she was the oldest sister and had to care for the others the most? that hades find an un#ealthy comfort in the darkness of the underworld? How do you think stomach acid was for Poseidon; as god of the sea? if that was the closes#he could get to his domain in a /stomach/? The same with demeter? only chewed up food as the closest to agriculture?#do you think hera understood - somehow - that this hurt their mother?#sigh#and all and all Zeus was really only able to lead them so easily afterwards is cause they didn't /know/ what to do after they were freed?#/AND/ Zeus really isn't privy to any of it; cause of course he isn't (nor does he care to know).#didn't mean to rant with that but. yup. anyway#tbh i want to draw a part of this to show the webbed ears w/ head-wings so. yeah. maybe. i'm still getting used to my new drawing tablet an#my sketchbook fell in water a while ago and i've been frozen on how to deal with it. so. yeah.#anyway#600 strike#vengence saga#epic the musical#the vengeance saga#epic the vengeance saga#why do we have so many tags for the same thing ;.)#six hundred strike#odysseus epic#epic odysseus#odysseus#writing#poseidon epic#epic poseidon
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thoughts on dave and aradia (<>)?
day 356
BIG fan tbh. in this house we love and respect timerails
truly yall read this log and tell me theyre not cute
#day 356#year 4#dave strider#aradia megido#aradave#homestuck#she really saw this kid and was like OH YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH YOUR MORTALITY?? :D#boy do i have some relevant life experience and wisdom to impart on THAT ISSUE SPECIFICALLY#and then she just. very gently and kindly makes the subject more approachable for ghostdave#the pesterlog i linked is literally my FAVORITE aradia moment. to me it is THE character defining moment for god tier aradia#yes she is being kind of ominous and trickstery at first#but it VERY quickly becomes clear shes got genuine concern for this kid she's had very little to do with up until this point#she really wants to connect with him over their shared time aspect stuff#and she really DOES care about how he feels about everything. she wants to help and she wants to put him at ease#because she KNOWS from experience that being dead and having to cope with what that means for you is like VERY UPSETTING AND TRAUMATIC#shes not just like. 'hee hee i think death is great and awesome because im edgy'#shes like 'no dude being dead is scary if you dont have anybody to explain this shit to you. so im going to explain it-'#'-and hopefully by the end of this conversation you will have some new things to feel relief and maybe even joy and excitement about'#'not just in spite of the death thing but BECAUSE of it'#i know shes spooky and has weirdgirl swag and we all love that about her but like#at her core she is a very KIND person. she may occasionally struggle to connect to people through the Death Special Interest Haze#but she WANTS to and when she DOES she is like. a genuinely very warm and comforting presence for her friends#ANYWAY. if andrew hussie or i guess james roach now want to give me an honorary doctorate for my 12+ years of intensive aradia studies#i will be here waiting patiently#timerails
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KEANU REEVES in 1999
#😧😧😧#Keanu Reeves#kreevesedit#keanuedit#*#don't even look at me#i'm building a time machine that's all there is to it#im fine#*narrator voice* she was not even remotely fine but she was often good at lying to herself#HAIR HOW.....HOW#i usually care about video quality but when THIS is the content of the video idc if it's 144p i will make do#they really just let him walk around like that#menace#i think my throat closed up#just kidding i'd be opening my throat#me @ me: 🔇#*air raid sirens*#he really has just been here and gorgeous my whole damn life#such a comfort#someone reblogged one of my other sets and tagged it with 'i need him in a way that's concerning to feminism'#i've never felt so seen and understood#me: did you need to make 10? also me: coulda made 30 now apparently so.....
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We don't talk about these panels enough this is the first time the words: "The loneliness that comes with peerless strength!! I will be the one who will teach you about love!!" Were uttered.
And THIS. WAS. SUKUNA'S. REACTION.
Yorozu seemed to have expressed to him exactly how he felt about someone else. It seems like an "Ironic, I was just thinking that" kind of laugh.
He pulled a weird face and legit started giggling; even Yorozu was like, "Huh?"
She perceived it as Sukuna already knowing about love, but if it were anyone else, they would’ve assumed Sukuna was just mocking them (she's not crazy; Gege is simply expressing to us what Sukuna is thinking through her so it becomes clear and not up for interpretation).
It becomes even more clear during his fight with gojo, it's so painfully obvious it's basically canon that Sukuna loved gojo (or at the very least wanted to).
It's so damn obvious that a dudebro created a theory video titled "Sukuna loves Gojo" that is based on this exchange between Yorozu and Sukuna before the fight with Gojo even happened.
Like... in what world does that happen??😭😭 a dudebro making a theory like that? And the comments are something else man... (I advice everyone to watch it it's really good).
Yorozu felt threatened, she became jealous, and literally started sweating😭😭 and declared "That's not love!! I'll show you what real love looks like!!" Which she obviously failed to accomplish lol
I wish we could have had an interaction between Yorozu and Gojo. we were robbed..
I know she would have hated gojo and tried to kill him in an attempt to prove she is stronger than him and therefore more worthy of Sukuna's love lmao
Orrrrrr.... maybe... she would support them and start fujoshing out 👀
#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#ryomen sukuna#gojo satoru#yorozu#sukugo#gosuku#sukugo's date night#my post#I confess that I didn't like Yorozu at first cuz she was getting too comfortable with my man😭😭#but she's soo ridiculous and unhinged that she won me over she's now my fav female character in jjk She's just too relatable#Sukuna giggling over being in love though....#grrrrr bark bark#Her words really struck him that mf lowered his gaze melancholically looking all shy and shit#he got it badddd you can tell he started fantasizing about his fight with gojo#You can say wtv about gojo and st.sg but Sukuna got a big fat undeniable crush on gojo and it's canon gege I love you sm#people were saying Sukuna doesn't care about love because of his conversation with Kashimo he was obviously lying it was very obvious
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Ok but hear me out
-Ken cooking for pregnant touka all types of healthy human meals and then blend everything so it’s easier for her to eat it 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
#and she’s so grateful bc without chewing the bad taste only last an instant#so she feels more comfortable eating more human food for ichika ❤️❤️❤️#I don’t know if someone else has share this before#but I couldn’t stop thinking about this#ken is such a loving and caring husband 😭😭😭❤️#he’s so in love#and she’s so in love#THEY ARE SO INLOVEEEE ❤️❤️❤️❤️#touken#tokyo ghoul#otp#kaneki ken#touka kirishima#my stuff
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Hi! I hope this is okay but I would love to hear more of ur thoughts about the Yunmeng siblings because they are important to me and your tummy hurt comic hasn't left my brain as just,,, such good immediate characterization! ^^ Thanks!
I have too many thoughts on the Yunmeng siblings to fit into a succinct post, but I can offer you a Jiang Yanli addendum to the tummy hurt alignment.
#ask#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#jiang yanli#They way I analyze characters is in two layers - the first is how these characters act as literary devices#(i.e. their relationship to the protagonist and themes of the story)#And the second is who they are as independent characters.#Which means I have extensive thoughts on JC and JYL on a scene to scene basis as well as overall thoughts.#The tummy hurt comic was always about the different ways we process grief#and Jiang Yanli's role as the 'comforting older sister figure' despite the hurt she carries in her heart truly fascinates me.#I can relate in the sense I find it easier to care for others than care for my own grief.#But that grief caught me eventually. And it was ugly and raw.#JYL is grief in rose tinted glasses (minimized). JC is the messy chaos of grief when raw and exposed. Clever move to make them siblings!
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love thinking kipperlilly spends her afterlife looking for lucy in a familiar forest
#not art#fhjy#fhjy spoilers#like. does she have a mean of knowing lucy and yolanda got sent to cassandra's domain to hang out for a bit#kipperlilly's isolation means so much to me. she is punished for everything she's done she just doesn't pick up on it#until the moment she dies! one more funky thing that mirrors riz in which he's actively tried to cultivate a community and denied it#until the bad kids. while kipperlilly does not want or care about a community she just wants someone who validates her#but she does Need a community so she latches onto the person she lets closer to her to fulfill her emotional needs#she took the ritual willingly so this might genuinely be her first death. probably terrifying#probably not even enough bandwidth to feel mortified. maybe immediately seeking something comforting out of instinct alone#lmao honestly thinking too much abt fantasy high afterlifes gives me a headache And a visceral fear#Im not religious but I grew up in a culture with a dominantly buddhist/taoist cosmology its Scary that u just go to A Place after u die!!#and then ur still urself!!! thats scary to me what do u mean u stay like that forever. thats fucked#but yeah I think this influences how I see kipperlilly turn out a little bit. in a sense I think of her as being a ghost now#yknow. trying to solve something from life so she can move on and. stop living this life etc#man the reveal that lucy took being killed pretty seriously and is like yeah the others are decent and even sweet#and probably was just trying to hold her party together and do what she thinks is moral by hearing kipperlilly out#lol lmao etc. gods I gotta wonder how kipperlilly's mindset handled jawbones' help#it really is damn tragic tho. I stand by what I said folks like this will complain and be nasty to be around#but they dont have enough desire to inconvenience themselves to off the bat do something abt what they find unfair or whatever#its when theyre handed the seemingly very easy means to be right that they'll start being dangerous#its horribly tragic that the supposed metaplayer and the self-perceived mastermind turned out to ultimately be just an useful idiot#yknow what. I think personally in my heart kipperlilly moves on from her afterlife the moment she says sorry#doesnt even have to be to lucy but that's probably gonna be who received it#ah.... teenage rebellion. teenage gamejacking
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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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Vanessa with Afton as her legal, unwanted tainted name, Shelly as her forced name as a cover, and Schmidt as her chosen name and the one she really feels comfortable with after finding a family in Mike and Abby
#listen i just love the forced lost gifted name trope#my best example is el from stranger things#eleven is forced jane is lost el is gifted#its different with vanessa because she probably never had her own identity that she actually wanted with afton being a curse#and shelly being just a cover#but i feel like she truly cares about the schmidt's and it would be the first name where she feels proud and comfortable to wear#vanessa shelly#fnaf movie spoilers#fnaf movie#thoughts#the schmidts
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