#makes my heart hurt in a good way

[silverskye13]

Nex you can't do these things to me. I'm feeling so many emotions ahhhhh. I have been sitting on a snip inspired by this for a little while. I hope you don't mind me tacking it onto your post. I want people to see the art.

Uhhh. Tw wounds, wound description, character death, strangling

There were many times in his life when Helsknight's world moved in slow motion. It was a side-effect of adrenaline. The world slowed down and turned into quick, stuttering movements that were all instinct and spine. In that strange world of timeless reaction, there was no true emotion or memory. Sometimes he had no recollection of things he did or said, only the smeared impressions of breath and sensation and color. A half-life of movement.

Welsknight was coming for him, and his sword was a living thing in his hand, lightning and sinew. Helsknight was moving to meet it, cold prowess and surety. He could feel where their blades would meet like he could feel his own heartbeat, and his mind was charting his next sword strike after. A one-handed swing, and if the angle was right, he would snake his blade into the crook of Welsknight's arm where it would cripple his movements, and then--

And then Tanguish was there. His knife parried Helsknight's sword long before its fated arc. Tanguish was right there and he was commanding in a voice more loud and sure than Helsknight had ever heard him.

“I said stop!”

Helsknight felt it in his bones like thunder, a command that came from the soul. There was a brief, weightless, eternal moment; the space between heartbeats. Helsknight glared down at Tanguish incredulously, caught between surprise and rage. His coherent mind, the part in charge of speech and thought that faded out when he focused so hard on fighting, scrambled to attention and tried to find its reason. To make sense of what had just happened and respond to it. His instincts, the one that screamed he should keep fighting, and the one that screamed he needed to protect Tanguish, tripped over each other and tumbled into a witless heap at his feet. 

Then he realized Welsknight hadn't stopped moving. He was still an impression of breath, and sensation and color; a half-life of movement.

Tanguish made a noise, the odd stuttered gasp Helsknight had heard a thousand times in the Colosseum when someone took a wound they weren't expecting. His back arched, his eyes widened with shock and blooming pain. His dagger slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

Helsknight only knew he dropped his sword because when Tanguish fell into him limply, his arms wrapped around him. There was blood on his hands. The warm slick wept across his fingers and set them trembling. They sank slowly to the ground and Helsknight cradled Tanguish as best he could, trying to spare him the pain of jostling his wound. It didn’t work. Tanguish choked and gasped when Helsknight's knees hit the ground, his hands tangling so tightly in Helsknight's shirt, the fabric threatened to tear. 

Helsknight's mind had gone still and placid as a frozen lake, all coherent thought melting down into the pit of his stomach where something dark was slowly stirring. Some deep, indescribable emotion, kin to defeat and rage, that boiled and sickened him at once. The hand that held Tanguish’s back searched gingerly, found the clean edge where Welsknight's sword point had entered skin, somewhere near Tanguish’s spine. There was a lot of blood, so dark it was nearly black as it spilled to the floor. 

[This is a mortal wound] 

The thought broke through Helsknight's frozen-over mind, rising fully formed and sure. It did something funny to his chest, like there was no space left in his ribs. It ached like a bruise in his breastbone. Helsknight was not a doctor. What he knew of wounding could be summed up by his experiences in the Colosseum; what won him a match, and what lost it. Something instinctual inside him, something that had memorized the color of blood, and the placement of blades, knew with bone-deep certainty that there was nothing he could do about this. So Helsknight started talking. Whispering. His forehead bowed close to Tanguish’s face, listening to the fear and pain in his breathing, and willing calm into his voice.

“It's alright. I've got you,” Helsknight told him, in his voice of tarnished brass. The Knight's voice. The one that couldn't lie; that comforted and reassured. The one that Welsknight abused so egregiously when he tried to compel Helsknight to kneel. “I've got you.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Tanguish gasped, his eyes a little too wide with panic and pain, the pupils thin, cat-like slots. His voice was thick, and his breaths came in shallow hiccups that weren't right. “Th-that was stupid. That was so stupid--”

“It wasn't stupid,” Helsknight reassured him, brushing a gentle hand along Tanguish’s cheek, wiping away a tracing tear, and caging a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “You were trying to help.”

Helsknight's voice still sounded distant to him, like he wasn't truly speaking. His world had narrowed to Tanguish’s eyes, and his hand braced behind his back, hot and slick with blood, and the feeling of Tanguish’s fingernails digging into his forearm and shoulder. It felt as if Tanguish were convinced, if he clung with all that was left of his flagging strength, he would not die. 

That was not how wounds like this worked.

“You weren't-- you weren't listening.” Tanguish informed him miserably. “I had to-- I had t-to stop you.”

“You stopped me,” Helsknight told him, pressing his forehead to Tanguish’s. “You were so brave.”

“I'm scared--”

“Don't be. You will be back in a moment.” 

Helsknight realized the grip on his shoulder and arm was relaxing, Tanguish's hands sinking away from him as they lost strength. Tanguish muttered something, half-slurred syllables. Something about dying. That he hated it, or that it scared him, or simply that he was.

“You will be back in a moment,” Helsknight told him, still in that calm, knight's voice. “Don't be scared. I'm right here. I'm right here.”

Tanguish whispered one more thing, weak and fervent. And then he was gone. Helsknight was abruptly kneeling on the ground, his arms empty and cold. There weren't even bloodstains to mark Tanguish's passing. Only a cold stone in Helsknight's chest, freezing his blood with the certainty that he had… failed. Tanguish had called him here to protect him. Protect him from Welsknight of all people. And he didn't. There was a crazed, distant part of himself still clawing itself from the ice in his head that wanted to dive onto his own sword, screaming. That perfect knight inside of him that desperately wanted to punish so great a failure. And then that perfect knight in his soul wanted to drag himself on his hands and knees to Tanguish, and beg for forgiveness.

But that perfect little knight was still trapped under the ice with his rational thought, and his ability to plan more than a few seconds ahead. It all clawed for escape, screamed for his attention under muffling cold, and dark.

“That wasn't supposed to happen,” Welsknight said, his voice muffled under three layers of Helsknight's grief. “He shouldn't have-- I wasn't aiming for-- that wasn't what I was trying to--"

Welsknight didn't get to finish his sentence. Helsknight was moving, his mind a cold dark, still frozen, but his chest boiled. He couldn't name the emotion that wrapped his hands around his other half's throat, only that it was a living thing, and it was twisting its claws in his ribs. And it kept twisting and twisting when he pinned Welsknight to the ground, a knee on his chest, his hands wicked vices. A sense of despair and failure and shame so intense, it could only turn into rage.

It would be a terrible, bloodless death, silent as a grave, and cruelly slow. It was not something a knight would do. Welsknight's pulse was a trapped bird fluttering beneath his fingers, and his fear prickled the edges of Helsknight's consciousness like the crawling of insects. Welsknight's own hands groped and searched, desperate for escape. His eyes pleaded.

Tanguish's small, fading voice, weak and fervent, whispered at him from beneath the cold dark of his thoughtless anger.

"Don't kill him -- please."

The perfect knight in him was screaming.

Welsknight's digging fingers were trying to slip beneath his, pry them away.

"Don't kill him -- please."

Helsknight leaned harder against the knee on Welsknight's chest, just in case his grip loosened enough to allow breath.

[Will you fail twice? The perfect knight screamed at him. Will you fail again? Better to fall on your own sword. Better to fall on your own--]

Helsknight screwed his eyes shut. Beneath his fingers, Welsknight's pulse was fading. The hands scrabbling at his weakened to half-conscious reflex. The fear crawling at the corners of his senses was melting into a heady sensation of nothing. Quiet. Helsknight wanted that terrible quiet more than he wanted the sun, or cold water.

"Don't kill him -- please."

Helsknight released his other half, and his knee slipped free of his chest. Welsknight came back to consciousness like a drowned man surfacing from a great depth, all choking coughs and whooping gasps. Helsknight didn't wait for him to recover. He searched for his sword and sheathed it. He grabbed up Tanguish's knife then and, resisting the half-mad urge to stab himself with it, vanished into hels.

trick-or-treat! >:D

Sorry King but you’ve been tricked!! And as a fellow RnS enjoyer you get the quick doodle of if Helsknight wasn’t fast enough to block Wels’ stab! A little brainworm I couldn’t get out of my head

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / strangulation mention / stabbing mention / blood mention / self-sacrifice / codependency mention in tags / ]

I think a lot about how common it is for Raph to be the one to have direct focus put on him when Leo gets into all his near death experiences.

Like, when Leo is thrown off a building, it’s Raph who’s right there jumping after him, not even thinking about the consequences to himself when he does. When Leo almost gets skewered by the Krang, Raph’s right there to take the blow and send Leo to safety without a second thought. When Leo’s being strangled to near death, it’s a Krangified Raph doing the job, doing exactly what Raph would never, ever want to do. When Leo is telling Casey Jr to close the portal, it’s Raph who tries desperately to convince Leo otherwise.

Likewise, Leo is consistently very single minded when Raph gets forcibly separated from them. Both when in the sewers and by the Krang, Leo is dead set on finding Raph first and foremost.

I also think it’s interesting that during each of Leo’s near death experiences, the lightheartedness of his words during them goes directly hand in hand with both how close Raph is to him physically and how much danger Raph is also in in that moment. From a literal “I told you so” as Leo’s falling away from Raph to a soft joke about how “hero moves” are Raph’s style - both of these are on the more morbidly carefree side and both of these notably take Leo farther away from Raph and, in turn, have Raph not in immediate danger.

On the other side of things is the apology from Leo, heedless of the danger he himself is in as he seriously and genuinely speaks to a Krangified Raph face to face. Then there’s Leo’s freezing and desperation as Raph takes a hit meant for him and sends just Leo to safety, leaving Raph himself behind. Both of these involve much closer proximity and Raph being directly harmed - these together make Leo much more vulnerable in his words and actions, something not even the threat of death can make him.

These two care about each other so much, and they’re way too much alike for their own good.

[me-sploh-rada-imas]

world's most self indulgent jance gifset

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

SO. TO KICK OFF THE WEEK OF SPECULATION BEFORE THE UPDATE DROPS.

last night i had a bit of a Revelation. literally. i borderline woke up in a cold sweat with this realization. the way i lunged for my laptop to scream at friends... ough. lets get into it

so. i do believe I've made a couple of theory posts about Barnaby not being quite as receptive to his and Wally's "forced" best friendship as Wally - since the show wrote them to be friends instead of it happening naturally. i thought it might be a point of tension for Barn. i thought a lot.

YES SO I'M TOSSING (almost) ALL OF THAT OUT THE WINDOW!

the bios state Barnaby as Wally's best friend multiple times over. it had to be regularly reinforced. their colors were chosen to mark them as friends.

but Barnaby - presumably - can't see the bios, he wouldn't know the scripts. the friendship would be natural from his perspective. how would he know otherwise? even if the relationship started out synthetic, i don't doubt that it became genuine. in the context of their world and perceptions, realistically speaking Barnaby probably wouldn't sense anything wrong.

the reminders to be best friends weren't for Barnaby.

they were for Wally.

i'm starting to suspect that Wally is Barnaby's best friend, but Barnaby isn't Wally's. i think that Wally's "best friend" is Home - or at least Wally has a closer connection to them / Home is more important to Wally than anyone else is.

i remember reading this livestream trivia (from theneighborhoodwatch's doc, if you haven't their resources yet what are you even doing?):

and i assumed it was for Barnaby's side of the relationship. but it's not, is it? it's Wally's? and it makes too much fucking Sense! it fits! i can see it perfectly! i can feel things slotting together in my mind due to this shift in perspective, and i'm scared

Barnaby probably thinks the relationship is natural, just like how he thinks he's a real person in a real world. Wally probably knows that the relationship is a role, just like how he knows he's a puppet in a false reality.

that leaves me wondering how much of it is genuine on Wally's side. i don't doubt that they really are friends, but how deep does that connection go? in the interview, Wally sounded excited/proud about having a best friend, but how much came from a place of feeling, and how much came from a place of Fulfilling The Role? how much of it is performative? how much of it is a mask?

i've been seeing everything differently. Barnaby poses for Wally the most because he has good balance and is good at staying still, not because of favoritism or because he's Wally's best friend. in the 14 (15 including the hidden halloween) audios, Barnaby consistently seeks out Wally and checks in on him. Wally seems more casual about their relationship than Barnaby is.

i'm worried that Wally values Home & You/Us over Barnaby. that Barnaby is second or third place in Wally's heart. that Wally means more to Barnaby than he means to Wally. after all, only one of them needed their relationship to be reinforced on a seemingly regular basis.

i'm confident that Wally cares about / loves Barnaby, but the question is how much? to what extent?

[shalom-iamcominghome]

[Video Description: A Jewish wedding. The bride, @jennmysterion on instagram, is voicing over the video, which is a collage of videos from her wedding, including a circle of people dancing, and her with her husband and her bubbe, among other clips. The video is titled Black Jewish convert + Holocaust survivor = ❤️]

Guyyys 😭😭😭

Transcript below

My husband is the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

As a Black Jewish convert, having my extremely intelligent Catholic aunt as well as bubbe, who is a Holocaust survivor, by my side on my wedding day was such an incredible honor that I will never forget.

Bubbe is a part of history, and I will always look forward to her sharing her incredibly inspiring life with me.

[perilegs]

one of the things i'm most disappointed about is that da:tv will sell well. it's been designed to bring as much new players in as possible, and apparently a lot of people disappointed in it will still buy it on launch day. and ea will keep producing absolute steaming garbage with some ip slapped onto it just because it sells. theyre treating the series with as much respect as netflix originals with their medias.

[issushaim]

fic is wild when you think about it too hard. yeah, can't wait to get home from my responsible adult job to continue writing about tv man having a thing for his not-boyfriend's deer hooves.

beautiful.

[froxythedumb]

"Finally I've found my North star."

[screechingfromthevoid]

*clenches teeth and fists* it's fine no one comments on how Dorian is more "lithe" than before. It's fine that he's not "nearly as bulky". It's fine that he doesn't sleep well then has to wake up just to be the sunny optimist the next day. It's fine that his strings are wound so tight that he's ready to snap.

It's fine that Dorian's health is being ignored. He's the new guy, right? Fresh faced? Not burdened by the trauma of the last few months, right?

[edwinisms]

I know how it sounds at first, but I really gotta feel bad for the boys that sacrificed edwin; I mean even the term “sacrificed edwin” paints them in a more sinister light than they really deserve– considering that wasn’t really, actually their intention.

they were bullies, they were homophobic (and/or were self loathing gay boys themselves taking it out on edwin, or were equally likely peer pressured into acting a certain way), they planned something stupid and mean to do to an innocent, anxious boy with the goal of scaring the shit out of him, all because he was effeminate and an easy target. but they didn’t know or expect any of the ritual stuff to be real. they were all laughing and joking during the ritual because it was just that to them– a joke. a cruel joke, but a joke.

teenagers can be mean and stupid and they usually regret it as adults and grow out of it / grow from it. they were stifled the chance to grow out of it, at least while alive. none of those boys deserved to be instakilled and sent to hell; they’re really not that much less deserving than edwin himself. they were all just kids, after all.

[a-lesbianshadowinthenight]

fellas is it gay to look at your best friends lips? is it gay to blush when they toast you? are we a little fruity if we run into each others arms?

jesslupe: true blue

[sygneth]

Another Love

So few days ago I was casually listening to music and this song stared playing and all I could think about since then was how perfectly HarryKim vibe this song has for me.

I believe that after everything Harry went through, even given his high sensitivity and emotionality, he seems likely to just have a lot of doubts and be afraid of another disappointment and potential heartbreak. Given that he decides to quit drinking and become more capable of taking care of himself in general terms, that fright won't be without cover. Another story like the one with Dora would probably just break him completely and he will just go down without any hopes for ever coming back. Especially, knowing how emotionally distant Kim can be.

(There are some scenes of my post-Return headcanon, I am thinking about publishing this as a full story, but I cannot decide if I want to make it as comic or fic series or a mix of everything, so maybe one day)

The song is of course "Another love" by Tom Odell

( Ko-fi | DevArt )

[milkbreadtoast]

my s class hunters does a really good job at gradually raising the stakes without feeling like a pointless power creep and keeping me extremely invested and i keep saying this but I really do think it's bc it's a story grounded in love at every turn... the bond between the han brothers especially is extremely compelling and beautiful and makes me feel like a knife is being stabbed into my heart and twisted all around... i love them so so much 😞💔❤️‍🩹❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

[solitaireships]

I'm not huge on the ending I'm pretty sure I'm getting for Wyll here and will be rewriting it in my head, but this was sweet

[skitskatdacat63]

"Bring on The Dancing Horses"(x) - Echo and The Bunnymen × Ferrari Drivers

[cheekblush]

just had a REALIZATION while dancing to old school rnb music in my room: i am beautiful, i am intelligent, i am funny, thoughtful, kindhearted and witty, i am capable of anything i put my mind to and i can’t believe i let some stupid bitches at work make me feel anything less than that!