#humans also do

[talesofmetalandmagic]

An Ascended by any other name

As Azir’s illness doesn’t seem to improve, Nasus examine him closer and comes to find his emperor has been overrun with parasites.

Ticks, lice, fleas, mango worms, you name it.

Granted he had this problem back with Xerath too, but he was able to clean himself up whenever possible. While entombed he was unable to do that, and after being freed he was barely conscious and couldn’t think about his sore body that much.

The first bath Nasus gave Azir was more of comfort than to cleanse him, and the idea of neglecting his needs – so much so Azir can’t even lay down it hurts so much – fills him with blame.

Samira and Akshan pull themselves out with this one. They’re mercs, they know how hard it can get, but there’s a limit to everything. Sivir and Taliyah are firmer and more willing to help, even if the initial disgust takes them too. But the most upset one is Azir himself, who just shakes his head no and covers himself with the blankets he was given.

“My lord, please. It will hurt more.”

“I order you not to come any closer.”

“Don’t give me that, Azir”, Taliyah says. “You’re acting childish.”

“This body is Ascended. You’re not to ogle it as if I was some hurt little bird you happened to find. I need no pity.”

“For Shurima’s sake”, Sivir calls, “you’re sick.”

“I am ASCENDED.”

Nasus takes a deep breath. Azir… isn’t exactly used at telling other people he’s unwell. Xerath probably made it even worse.

“I’m Ascended too, little bird. Show me your body and we’ll fix this. Leave us.”

Azir is drenched in sweat, has scratched his arm until it went bloody, and the Curator can already see some of the holes in Azir’s poor flesh.

“Oh, dearest…”

“It.. hurts” Azir mutters. He wipes his brow with a handkerchief and covers himself even tighter.

“I know. Don’t move, if you move it gets worse. Why didn’t you tell me, Azir? I could have helped.”

Azir shakes his head, nestled in blankets and cloaks to the neck. Of course, what he refuses to say is that he feels shame.

“Do you want some sleeping powder?” Nasus knows his baby bird very well. “What you do not see, will not hurt you.”

Azir ponders about this. He just wants to feel like an emperor again. He was so happy, there atop the temple… ready to become one with the Gods and rule over a renewed kingdom. Why is it so hard to just… feel complete?

“Just enough to feel numb. Don’t put me to sleep. I want to be absolutely sure no one sees me.”

Azir, as we’ve established, isn’t smart.

Not only because he refuses help, but also because the sleeping powder benumbs his brain right enough to send him rambling about whatever he’s thinking about.

As Nasus gives a gentle massage to the skin and dabs warm wine on the bleeding holes the worms slithered out of, removes each and every one and strokes Azir’s sore body as if to comfort him, Azir’s mind runs wild through the pain.

What kind of an Emperor am I? What kind of an Ascensed am I? A part of him doesn’t even want to be a hawk anymore. Not even Baccai look like this. It was supposed to be a beautiful dream…

But I guess I deserve this much.

When he’s done with his belly, Nasus lays him face-down to care for his back and neck. Tears fall down Azir’s face: his caretaker’s gentle hand dabs at them, unable to look longer than needed.

“I’m sorry, little bird. I’m so sorry.”

“What… have I done.”

“It’s not you, sweet one. It’s the scoundrel Xerath. You’ll be good as new, when I’m done.”

Azir winces: the wounds are deep and festered. He wants out. Nasus, however, smiles.

“I’ll clean you up nice and good. You’ll have a new armor, and the feathers grow back… it’s going to be alright.“

“Mmh.” Azir mutters to himself. Even if they did get him back in shape, what would he do? He has non followers, no strategy, and any credit he may have is undercut by the state he’s in.

Don’t go, he wants to tell Nasus. But how can he request anything in such a state?

[singinginthecar]

south africa was banned in the olympics in 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988 & 1992. a total of 8 times. for 28 years they didn't set foot in the olympics. you know why? apartheid. apparently the olympics disagreed with the apartheid regime in south africa. russia & belarus aren't allowed to take part in the olympics this year. you know why? because of their involvement in the war in ukraine. several countries throughout history haven't been allowed to participate in the olympics because of various reason from their involvement in war to human rights abuses. now if the olympics aren't blind to all that... why in the world are they blind to what israel has been doing to gaza for the past 10 months? why is a genocidal apartheid nation allowed to participate in the olympics when any other country in its place would've been banned?

[lgbtlunaverse]

The world exists in such a baffling state of simultaneous sex-aversion and sex-hegemony. Every social platform on the internet is trying to banish sex workers to the shadow realm but I can't post a tweet without at least two bots replying P U S S Y I N B I O. People are self-censoring sex to seggs and $3× but every other ad you see is still filled with half-naked women. Rightwingers want queer people arrested for so much as existing in the same postal code as a child and are also drumming up a moral panic about how teenage boys aren't getting laid enough. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

[woolydemon]

LISTEN TO ME RN, when the character is supposed to be rlly strong and muscular and buff PUT FAT ON THAT GUY fat is so fucking necessary to have a physical build that is so strong MAKE THEM FATTTTTTTTTTTTT

[ink-the-artist]

Love the contrast between the Americans’ “Apollo” and the Soviets’ “Sputnik.” You got the Americans naming their rocket after a Greek god trying to communicate the grandness and importance of this rocket. And you got the Soviets naming their rocket “fellow traveler.” Like a friend you go on an  adventure with together. This rocket is our little friend lol 

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

[wanologic]

reminder to take care of your loser human body

[qiinamii]

we'll do fine.

[yourangle-yuordevil]

That time in ancient Greece when Aziraphale needed a speedy horse and accidentally invented the pegasus

VS.

Whatever Crowley had going on in medieval times

[soranatus]

The Spider Target By Dan Martins, a character designer and illustrator

[vmkhoneyy]

“People are inherently terrible” no!!! Have you ever seen a child wait for their friend while they tie their shoelaces? Have you ever known someone who would bring hurt squirrels and rabbits and mice to the nearest vet just so it doesn’t suffer? Have you seen someone grieve? Have you ever read something that hit your heart like a freight train? Have you looked at the stars and felt an unexplainable joy? Have you ever baked bread? Have you shared a meal with a friend? Have you not seen it? All the love? All the good? I know it’s hard to see sometimes, I know there’s pain everywhere. But look, there’s a child helping another up after a hard fall. Look, there’s someone giving their umbrella to a stranger. Look, there’s someone admiring the spring flowers. Look, there’s good, there’s good, there’s good. Look!!!!

[theriverdraws]

Happy UT 9th Anniversary!! (STILL THE 15TH HERE SO,, NOT LATE)

(Guys I'm brazilian I can't use twitter :"), I give permission to repost this with credit there 👍)

[snek-eyes]

Can we go back to this for a sec? To Aziraphale having to explain the concept of being in love to the other angels? Because I cannot imagine what a trip it has to be, falling in love with someone when that is literally not something you are supposed to be able to do. When it is something you barely understand. When the object of whatever this is isn't supposed to be able to feel this way either, except as time goes on you start to realize it's happening to him too. And neither of you can actually talk to each other about it.

[notbecauseofvictories]

"I am going to get a good grade in ___________, a thing that is both normal to want and possible to achieve" drifts through my brain with positively alarming regularity.

[bizarrelittlemew]

i can't wait to be 30+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 40+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 50+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 60+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 70+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 80+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 90+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to look back on my life and know that i loved things deeply and passionately and was inspired to create and was part of communities with incredible people from all over the world brought together by the stories that touched us

[ruporas]

need to exist in your warmth (id in alt)