#many thoughts head full etc!!

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

The world is white.

The world is always some degree of white in Winterhold, some degree of pale monochrome, but this silence is… wrong. It takes Mirabelle a moment to realize the un-silence is the ringing in her ears muffling everything else.

An unfocused dark shadow interrupts the sea of white. Mirabelle blinks, once, twice; slowly, slowly, her vision clears a little; a hazy Faralda is leaning over her, wild curls haloed around her tight face. Saying something. Something important, surely; Faralda has never wasted a word.

“What? What is it?” Mirabelle tries to say, but can’t work her jaw, can’t hear either of them over the loud echo of nothing in her ears and some awful taste in her mouth and a heat—somehow both familiar and unfamiliar—that has caught her right hand. She tries to spit out whatever is in her mouth and is illogically self-conscious that she nearly chokes on it instead.

She can’t move. Why can’t she move? The warm tell-tale glow of restoration magic at her chest, where it feels like a mammoth has sat down. Ah—she recognizes, or remembers, or it only starts now that everything hurts. Pain clenches through every muscle. There, at least: sound beginning to seep faintly, barely, back in. “…going to need at least another three hours of this,” Colette is saying, her reedy voice on edge as ever, but with a sincere and tearful panic Mirabelle is unused to hearing from her. Take deep breaths, she wants to remind her, but her tongue is heavy in her mouth and tastes of metal. She can’t take a deep breath. “It’s too much. It’s too much. I haven’t got enough magicka to last that long.”

“Use mine. Take mine.” Faralda sounds utterly grim. That isn’t what she’s supposed to sound like, Mirabelle thinks vaguely as the world fades out again. Where has her eternal wry humor gone?

 ---

This is already much longer than she should have been able to go. The light keeps sputtering out in her hands, her magicka taut and ragged and wispy as a fraying thread on the verge of snapping. “I can’t,” Colette chokes. “I need both hands here. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

Poor Savos was already dead before any of them could reach him. It will be much worse, she imagines, a little distant from herself, to have Mirabelle die like this, under her own ineffective shivering fingertips.

There’s too much to knit together where she can’t see, too much displaced, misaligned; she’d straightened out the spine first to try to help get everything else closer to where it belongs, but Mirabelle had only opened her eyes to spit out a horribly solid chunk of something bloody with an awful gurgling sound and gasp, frighteningly shallow. Lungs. Ribs. The heart at least seems fine for now, and thank Mara for small miracles, but the abdominal cavity, which is disorganized on a good day—she thinks with a sudden fierce passion that she has always hated the abdominal cavity—

Faralda’s mouth is a grim line across from her. “You have to,” she says, never looking up. “You have to. This isn’t—it’s not—”

A shadow. A hand on her shoulder. She prepares to snap that she has told everyone to stay well away to let them make their futile attempt in isolation, terrified at the thought of the whole College audience to her impending certain failure, but it dies in her throat. Uncharacteristically pale and unsmiling, Kharish kneels beside her. “The thing in Labyrinthian,” she says, quieter than Colette has ever heard her, “knew how to siphon. I hadn’t…” She shifts her jaw. “I know what it feels like, now. I can try to—to replicate it, in reverse. To help. So you can cast uninterrupted.”

“You won’t last long enough either,” Faralda says, voice hard and glinting. She thrusts out a hand, palm upwards, long fingers rigidly straight. “I said use mine and I meant it. You can’t let her—” She snaps her teeth together suddenly and doesn’t finish the thought, as if biting off the word could prevent its happening, as if it isn’t already hanging in the air ready to outlast all their scrabbling efforts. “You will not,” she says at last, with a terrible finality, and says no more.

“I’m sorry I’m not very good,” Kharish admits, an embarrassed little tremor to her voice, “at dual casting.” She takes Faralda’s outstretched hand.

The rush of foreign magicka blazes so hot and so sudden that for half a second Colette is convinced there will be a print on her shoulder forever, and the end of a curl that has fallen into her eyes briefly catches fire—but it’s there.

Lungs first. She pulls the ribs straight, smooths out the tissue, moving with the airflow. Follow a breath in and out: less ragged, less wet. Good. Again. Again.

Again.

---

It is much later than she would have expected when it shifts and the wild heat burns out at last, replaced by something else, soft in the way of freshly-sanded wood. Faralda huffs out a breath, shivering—Colette has never seen Faralda shiver before—and says, hoarse, “I’ve got it. I can keep on.” She has not let go of Mirabelle’s hand. They will be here all night, and Faralda will not let go of her hand. The way her mouth is set, she looks as though she might never let go again.

“Take a moment to recover,” Colette says through gritted teeth, concentrating on the way the liver fits into place. “She and I can manage just fine until then.”

“How—how much longer do you think…” Kharish wets her lips. Her grip on Colette’s shoulder tightens for a moment.

She’s afraid to look, Colette thinks. “She’s breathing fine now,” she tells her, which does not really answer the question but is all she can do for now. And that is good. She sets after the tangle of the abdominal cavity, which she has decided lamentingly is her archnemesis. It does not seem nearly so insurmountable as it had when the sun was still up, though, and holding fast to the thought that whatever else she manages, Mirabelle has time now, she presses on.

Kharish’s magicka runs dry much sooner than Faralda’s had. Colette has barely begun knitting the intestines back into shape when the wood-soft feeling splinters away, leaving only her own, unaugmented. Immediately Faralda is there again, scorching. “Sorry,” Kharish croaks out, alarmed, “I didn’t ask if you were ready—”

“Yes. Yes.” Faralda shakes her head once, hard, as if waking up. “Please.”

After a moment spent studying her haggard face, Colette says, “You are both keeping a reserve so I don’t have two more people to worry after, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

“Ye-es,” winces Kharish, which is so painfully and clearly a lie that Colette would laugh if she didn’t also have much more concerning things at hand.

“Don’t worry about me,” says Faralda; “I will be as irresponsible about it as I need to be.”

This is not reassuring in the slightest, but it does get them through the abdomen.

---

The sky has begun to grey into dawn when Colette shakes Kharish’s hand off her shoulder and says, “Give me her hand, that’s all now.”

Faralda’s expression contorts about thirteen different ways in the span of half a second before she lets go. “That’s all,” she says, almost disbelieving.

Kharish opens her eyes. “We did it?”

“Well—it will be a few weeks before we should expect to see her in the halls, certainly, but,” she swallows and sits back on her heels, rubbing her palms on her thighs where they’ve gone numb from the constant channeling, “yes.”

Faralda laughs, far higher than usual, and then says suddenly, “Oh. I’ve got to sit down.”

“You are sitting down,” Colette says, exasperated. “I told you to hold back a reserve—”

“I’m not sitting down. I’ll go to tell—to tell everyone.” A stupid giddy smile on her face, Kharish pauses halfway to her feet, swaying dangerously, like a drunkard. “Oh,” she says. “Hang on. I’ve got a really good one to celebrate. Do you know the difference between a joke and a rhetorical question?”

“This is not the time for your nonsense,” Colette begins to bark, and then with a whuff Kharish pitches backwards into the snow. Mouth agape, Colette stares for a moment, then whips her head around to Faralda, who has only prevented her own collapse by propping herself up against the stone wall of the bridge first. “Really!” She stands, knees wobbling most unfortunately, and sends up the flimsiest magelight that possibly ever was cast. It does the job, at least—a shout, and a handful of dark shapes come running from town. “I have to do everything myself!”

---

Mirabelle opens her eyes to the soft glow of candlelight. Colette freezes in the doorway. “Oh, your timing is awful.” She hurries to amend, “That is—I am very glad to see you awake. But I’ve just gotten her to leave—are you really awake this time? Say something, and I’ll tell her you said hello or—whatever it is you like!” And then she’s sniffling violently, which is alarming, and says with startling intensity, “None of you are ever scaring me like this again! Promise me, Mirabelle!”

Mirabelle, bewildered, tries to sit up and finds she has been buried under what appears to be every blanket in the building. She opens her mouth—there was a foul taste, or something, she recalls, but it isn’t there now. “I think,” she manages around the dryness of her tongue, “I need some water, and then you can explain what exactly… happened.” She licks at her lips, thoughtfully flexing the fingers of her right hand. Something warm there, too, she remembers, and something tingles at the back of her neck. “And if it’s alright,” she pushes at the mountain of blankets, “I think I would rather a fire.”

[halorvic]

[vampirebiter]

guts + despairing over griffith looking down on him

[queerstudiesnatural]

i think my brain should be studied i'm being fr

[sainz100]

hi!!! I love to poke around insta during race weekends ❤️🏎️✨ and I end up with quite a few selfies & miscellaneous photos/gifs/vids with the drivers!! 📲💕 I usually post the more hq ones as I go, but idk if the others are of interest to folks? a few I have saved I haven't seen shared yet (I don't want to spam!!) but they are just v random selfies/moments and nothing major 📷🤏

definitely overthinking this hehe 🙂‍↕️🫧 but I'm still figuring out what is best on f1blr!! would love to hear your thoughts (and I turned on anons!! I had them off but I'm trying to be more confident!! but again I am so sorry if I take ages to reply!!! 💌)

[lionofstone]

i finally caught up on Malevolent and can i just say. I would be less stressed if things were going less well

[chihirolovebot]

oh noooooo all your doctor who posting put me down a twelveclara rabbit hole and i can't get out!! as a non-dw watcher, who is twelve and who's clara in the physouma situation?

SO SORRY TO INFLICT TWELVECLARA ON YOU NOT EVEN AS A DW WATCHER THATS OS PAINFUL .

12 is extremely emotionally unavailable, often coarse and unintentionally cruel/harsh, and is more 'flippant' with stuff that would cause a lot of other people emotional pain. in terms of his relationship with clara, she's the only one really permitted to see each and every side of him, and their relationship is very much a 'warts and all' type of thing, whether you interpret it as platonic or romantic or a secret third thing, its very... you're ugly, i'm ugly. neither of us can absolve or condemn the other, we can only love, and we do.

clara is such a fascinating character. she starts out imo as a fairly shallow girl with not much to separate her from the typical spunky adorkable sassy female deuteragonist of the 2010s but she gains infinitely more depth when paired with 12. as his own deep flaws are exposed, her reactions to them expose her own. she can be reckless, hotheaded, selfish, but at her core she is empathetic, kind, and loyal. and what i like a lot abt her is that she isnt a doormat to 12's callousness or disinterest. she will talk back to him, she will put him in his place even though its evident that 12 is smarter/wiser/older than her. it's such an equal-sided relationship that it never feels like 12 is bulldozing clara's feelings , or that clara is spitefully bullying 12 , because we know where they both come from .

so . long story short . 12 is ouma , keeping people at a distance with a soft spot for one person who is allowed to see him, who comes across cruel and flippant to most other people, who is not above deceit to get his way, who condescends to those he thinks are below him, who loves the other with all his heart. and phys is clara, the one who will see every ugly part of him and stand by him anyway, who will not lie down and allow him to trample over her feelings or the things she thinks are important, who will remind him when he's wrong, who will stick by him until death.

[daylighteclipsed]

Having Sweater Off Dead thoughts… It’s neat how so much of this episode’s conflict starts off-screen. By the time we find out Cuphead’s having nightmares, Mugman is past the point of alarm or concern. He’s irritated.

So you know this has happened quite a few times, and you know Cuphead has ultimately brushed it off every time Mugman has expressed concern or tried to get Cuphead to address the problem that he wants to pretend is not a problem (i.e. owing the Devil his soul).

Mugman states more than asks this. And when Cuphead hears Mugman’s voice, Cup actually grimaces like he’s been caught. It’s like they’ve argued about this before, and Cuphead knows he isn’t helping his case and is proving Mugman right.

Being woken by the sound of screaming for the nth night because your brother keeps insisting he’s fine when he’s not would grow frustrating quickly. It’s maddening to watch someone you love suffer, to want to help someone who refuses to help themselves. Doubly so if your sleep is also taking a hit.

This is the night Mugman puts his foot down about it, “We’re dealing with this Devil thing once and for all! Come on!” And we get an interesting bit of dialogue when Cuphead still attempts to protest.

This… kind of tells us a lot, right? I mean, up to this point in Part 1, “trust” hasn’t really seemed like a problem between these two. Sure they bicker, but when push comes to shove, they always have each other’s backs.

It’s not Cuphead’s intention, but maybe brushing off Mugman’s concerns and attempts to help feels like distrust to Mugman… ‘I don’t want your help’ can be easily misconstrued as ‘I don’t trust you to help me,’ and Cuphead appears to feel bad when he realizes this. It certainly shuts him up quick.

Now to be fair, to Cuphead, the chances of his brother actually knowing how to save him from the Devil are slim. And based on his nightmare, he doesn’t want Mugman caught in the crossfire, either…

But Cup also uses denial as a coping mechanism, and pretending a problem’s not there won’t solve it. Refusing to think about it, worry about it, address it means that stress will just build and manifest in other ways… like nightmares. (Or increasingly worse behavior, which is what I think we see in Part 2…)

Arguably, Sweater Off Dead is the first suggestion that the Devil is a constant source of stress for both brothers, even when the episodes don’t focus on that. It’s always there in the background. And like we see a bit here, that stress creates some division between the boys, which is exacerbated in Part 2… But that’s a different post.

Because this is Part 1, and it’s full of brotherly sweetness. In Sweater Off Dead, the boys want to resolve conflicts before they can spiral further. The bulk of this episode is Mugman proving he absolutely can save his brother. He can be trusted. Even outside of finding Quadratus and knitting the sweater, he proves it.

Over

and over

and over

and over again. Mugman is willing to sacrifice his life to save Cuphead. There are no guarantees that the magic of the sweater will protect him when he goes to hug Cuphead. In fact, “give your brother one last hug” sounds like it definitely will not… But he still lunges forward anyway.

And if I put my super analysis nerd goggles on, I’d even argue Mugman is the sweater here. Visually. Wrapped around Cuphead like that, protecting him, Mugman is acting as the sweater. Maybe the real invisible, impenetrable sweater was the brother we had all along.

It’s only fitting then that Mugman is the one who slams the sweater on the Devil in the following episode… It’s a temporary solution, but it does buy the brothers some time… which, as it turns out, is all they need for Cuphead’s soul debt to expire.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

i think i’m changing my mind on baghera’s classpect. qbaghera knight of light, not breath!! the pursuit of knowledge, the need to know what’s happening so she can better protect herself and others, etc etc. also i wanna classpect the eggs. richas seems very blood or heart player to me but i am still unsure

[designernishiki]

today on tumblr user designernishiki’s autistic-with-a-special-interest-in-psychology deep dives: dissecting the hell out of kiryu/nishiki’s childhoods and kazama’s parenting (or lack thereof) and how it all relates to their emotional development (or lack thereof). they will never be safe from my psychoanalyses

[throughtrialbyfire]

like ok . augh . i have very complicated feelings on the thalmor. because i don't like the idea of reducing characters down to sympathetic sadboys, especially when they're, y'know, thalmor. but i do believe in complex characters and complicating the narrative and giving characters reasons to be who they are, because the best monsters are human. or, in this case, elven. 

the stock evil villains that we got in skyrim could be so much more horrific and terrifying - and frankly, monstrous - if we met thalmor agents who weren't just the justiciars we get on the road and the named NPCs with barely any real personality outside of stock evil bad guy. the consequences of their actions, and that they repeat these actions time and time again, can be an intense driving force to actually see how something like the dominion warps someones mind. augh

[rivilu]

shadow cursed lands.. <3

[asexualfoxmccloud]

Even tho I haven’t been able to see either show yet I’ve seen some posts/meta about Simon for the new series that are really good (and I regret not saving them somehow) and with that I’ve been thinking of how to make a s/i that fits those boxes so to speak (ie. someone who relates to his issue of being a normal guy that can’t relate to Ooo anymore) though that has made me realize that like logistically and realistically there is no way that there can be a person that fits all the criteria of what someone would need/want and that sometimes love cna come from unexpected places. And at the same time though I do still kind of want in a sense to be the one to do that if only bc I want him to be happy so bad man. He deserves it

And also part of it is that the writing from the og shows is so good I don’t want to erase any of that (Betty) but also idk how to work around it? Idk I might be overthinking it. Probably am

[demiboy-bubby]

Mannnn watching tl/ou is reminding me of the zombie au fic I started writing for hlvrai AAAAGES ago

[tragedykery]

girl help I am plagued by visions (fictional little guys in scenarios. situations, even)

[butteryunlikelylady]

my inner world is so rich I sometimes have trouble explaining it out loud which can be so frustrating