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cinnamonsikwate · 5 months

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i'm really curious about what marcille's mother's deal is. seems like she's not too big on the rest of elven society. here's what we know about her so far:

mage at a human royal court (adventurer's bible)

courtship with marcille's father donato lasted 17 years (adventurer's bible)

specialty is roast pork, which was also donato's favorite (chapter 81)

had a cheerful personality up until the point donato got too sick to eat his favorite food. her extreme emotional reaction to this left a lasting impression on marcille (chapter 81)

remarried to a gnome and moved away from the city at some point after donato died (adventurer's bible)

several portraits of her appear in marcille's nightmare (chapter 42); this is the second time we see marcille dream of her (chapter 3)

preferred non-elven food and didn't introduce marcille to any traditional elven dishes (chapter 74)

from the canaries' reactions in chapter 74, it appears elven society looks down on elves who go to live among and work for short-lived races. they seemed especially put off that she would have a mixed-blood child. when they're talking about the lyrikmumare to get marcille to trip up, marcille envisions her mother saying that the food "here" (i.e., the northern continent) tastes so much better. so the picture we're getting here is of an elf who has removed herself from elven culture, but the question is, did she do it willingly or was she forced to?

keeping her other actions in mind, i'm leaning more towards the former. the most intriguing thing for me is that she eventually married a gnome, despite elves and gnomes having infamously waged war against each other over differences in the practice of magic and presently tending to discriminate against the other on sight. (one thing's for sure — marcille's mother is winning the idgaf war!)

marcille never talks about her gnome stepfather though, and it's unclear what she thinks of her mother's remarriage. the timing of the remarriage is also a mystery. donato married marcille's mother when he was 32 (after having courted her for 17 years) and died at 82, meaning they were married for 50 years. marcille is also currently 50 years old, but we know she wasn't born immediately after the marriage: in chapter 81, donato's doppelganger says marcille was born when he'd started "getting on in years." based on marcille's memories of him and the established fact that the average tall-man lifespan is 60 years, i'd hazard that he was in his 50s then. this gives him 30 years or less with marcille — definitely less than 35, which we know is the age at which she left for the magic academy.

we don't know if marcille's mother remarries before or after marcille leaves (if before, than that's definitely a shockingly short time), but it's interesting that she chose to marry someone from a long-lived race this time. maybe this is her way of ensuring she spares herself another heartbreak? or maybe she *is* still heartbroken and is trying to cover it up.

but. i can't help but kind of agree with chilchuck in chapter 81, that marcille's parents are not blameless for marcille becoming the dungeon lord. since it's apparently well-documented, they surely must have known — as well-educated people — that mixed-blood children face not just discrimination but also mental anguish that comes with their unstable aging (not to mention the sterility). so the way they raised marcille feels frankly irresponsible 😭

anyway. i'd love to get spin-off content where post-adventure marcille and her mother meet again. i feel like there's a lot of unresolved issues there (that can of course be hashed out over a good meal).

#dungeon meshi #marcille donato #what can i say i'm often drawn to mysterious mother characters (often dead)#the toudens' mom too — we know even less about her!#does marcille's mother hate being an elf??#oh and if i missed any points feel free to reply #marcille doesn't really seem to have strong feelings about elven society #although it appears she might not have interacted with that many other elves before the canaries #i wonder if marcille realized fionil was also a half-elf #i'd like to see them interact as well. get fionil's perspective on lifespan disparities. seems like her dad is the elf #oh wait wait i was also wondering if it's still possible for marcille's mother to get pregnant #what happens if a mixed-blood child is from two long-lived races?#imagine marcille with a baby sibling #speaking of babies everyone kept making digs at her sterility but she never expresses an active wish for children #i just think that's interesting #calemonsito notes

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iguessitsjustme · 2 months

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maybe the real boops are the friends we made along the way

#boop #the thing about the boops is i have interacted with blogs i never would have even seen before #we are nowhere near each other's orbit on this site and yet because of the boops i feel a special kinship with many blogs #that i will probably never interact with again #unless the boops stay in which case boop boop you'll never be rid of me

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biblicalhorror · 3 months

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Aroace Riz real but also Fabian is SO clearly in love with him and Riz has no idea

#honestly fabian might not even fully know yet #a core part of fabians character is that he is so deeply afraid of rejection that he is never going to pursue the people he actually wants #i do think he likes Maezy a lot but i think he only knows how to pursue hot toxic women that will discard him at a moments notice #which in a way protects him from ever actually dealing with heartbreak #is he a gay man dealing with comphet? ehh maybe #i could see that #but I think the vibe i get is more about how he has these platonic friends he completely adores and is fully devoted to #and then in another category he has the people that he does not have any actual attachment to that he will allow himself to pursue #and crossing the boundaries in between those two categories or allowing himself to pursue someone he really cares for #would require a level of vulnerability he is in no way prepared for #in his home life he has an emotionally detached mother who is well liked but kind of floats through interactions on a surface level #and a father who is extremely concerned with fame and glory and attention but doesnt seem to have ever stopped moving in his life #genuinely fabian does not know what a safe loving partnership would look like #and we see him constantly oscillating between emulating his mother and his father in relationships #but just beneath the surface is a little boy who wants so badly to cling to his loved ones so tight and be squeezed right back #with no way of knowing how to even ask for that if he wanted #and riz is his best friend in the world and he knows on some level that riz is simply not interested in having that kind of relationship #not on the level fabian needs #but that also makes riz a safe target for these feelings of devotion #theyre just friends! just besties! fabian never has to reckon with his own loneliness or harmful patterns #if he channels all of his yearning for closeness onto his best friend #anyway! this boy needs therapy #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #fabriz

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bananonbinary · 4 months

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god i hate smug athiests so so much

if you go around saying shit like "lol religion is stupid and only idiots have faith" you are just as much of an obnoxious asshole as christian proselytizers sorry

if you wanna have a real discussion on the merits of faith you need to start from a good faith perspective where you DON'T assume everyone who disagrees with you is a moron who can be disregarded. consider for two seconds that you arent the super genius you think you are, and something that is present in literally every human culture throughout history might, in fact, be slightly more load-bearing than you think.

#like. i would argue atheism IS a religion #religion is like philosophy. it's not about literal facts you dumb fuck its about figuring out our place in the world #and how we interact with each other #if you believe in nihilism that in and of itself is ASKING THE SAME FUCKING QUESTIONS ASSHAT #the closest thing to NO religion is actually probably agnosticism #but even then. its really human nature to have SOME kinda opinion on this stuff. ive never met anyone who doesn't at ALL.

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ratinthevoid · 5 months

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#käärijä #THANK YOU FOR THIS YEAR GUYS!! and best wishes for new one #i don't know how to talk about feelings but this fandom means everything to me and even if we never interacted ily all #graphic design is my passion or sth i dint have time to draw anything so have this for now #and lets be kaarija slus together in 2024!

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sharkflan · 8 months

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i reached another follows “milestone” and like, i know a lot of people who used to follow me are inactive and bots are a problem as well, but i just want to let y’all know how much i appreciate the people who do follow me. i see you and i see the likes and comments and it means the world to me 🥹❤️

i’ve been on tumblr since i was 16 and i’m nearly 30 now. you guys rock and i love you 🫶💕

#some of the things y’all say have really kept me going through good times and bad #i know i’m not always super interactive but i do see and care and love what you all say #16k is crazy number to me #even if we never ever interact i appreciate you

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skunkes · 6 months

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i have soooo much more i cld say abt him, and have explored more thru other doodles, but quick summary of talon's whole deal, which is subject to change still as he's only almost 2 yrs old as an oc

#oc text #obvs sparse description of the events bc i dont mean for it to be gratuitous #even if i decided to explore it further in some medium the focus wouldnt be gratuitous ykwim #not that there werent awful stuff within that but my focus with talon is also more exploration of like #even stuff that isnt a big deal (which it wasnt at first) can effect someone greatly #and then once it does get a bit worse the focus is still more on the effects of how he views himself and the aftermath #AS WELL AS LIKE. well. did i do this to myself? i went back. do i deserve this?#he's a lot like me and the reason i like the self insert dynamic is bc he thinks of cheye as Me If It Didnt All Go Horribly #bc ive not gone thru the Extreme but i have had interactions with ppl who very enthusiastically thought i was ummmm underage!!!#while they were already being creepy toward me and making me nervous abt my safety !#so this isnt ''he's umm 400 but looks 12 bc i want to do weird shit with him 😏'' dude drawing him Fed makes me so sad sometimes...#we're also weird eating buddies <3 #and grief buddies <3 he actually further spawned out of my need to deal with a lot of family members passing away in such a short time #severe death phobia buddies...#i still dont know how he really feels about his Old Wrinkly Form btw all i know is he feels safe in it #as much as id love to sway toward ''he thinks he's hot like that. because he is.'' i also dont want to convey the wrong message wrt this #form being due to....disordered eating caused by Issues. ykwim #though! he can shapeshift quite well when he's fed and maybe he'd choose that form willingly if he ever got. Past everything #he does hate that he never gets to actually age...! he wishes he cld age normally like a mortal...(still scared of dying though)#but we cant knoww for certain yet ykwim. maybe he'll let me know soon.#my issue with talon other than i suck at plots is well he has too many of my issues. and. idk how to solve them.#he's growing with me.#oh and have we noticed he's mean to me when *im* being mean to me...MANY such metaphors #ok goodnite

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genderkoolaid · 2 years

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tbh its not entirely fair to paint all blatant rep as poor in comparison to queercoding (altho i do love some good queercoding). i think the reason so much blatant rep is Like That, while queercoded stuff feels so much more meaningful and real, is because the blatant rep we often experience is made to Market To The Queers. while it may have queer creatives working on it, the reason its created is to make money off of queers. its trendy. so just write a fairly surface level fluffy movie about white queer teens and get some cash! its blatant, which means it will be treated as a groundbreaking queer media especially by liberals.

while queercoded media on the other hand (intentional or not) cant or wont just slap two conventionally attractive teens on screen and make them kiss and get those rainbow dollars. its an expression of queer silencing, the quiet thats left when you arent allowed to say what you desperately want to. when you cant spoon-feed your audience queerness you have to. yknow. actually think about what it means and how to express that artistically. you have to show and not tell.

thats all to say, there is blatant queer rep that is good. but you probably aren't gonna find it on amazon prime. that kind of rep is being made by queer artists making indie films. i promise you its not either "blatant queerness that feels shallow" or "deep queerness thats not allowed to be blatant". theres a secret third option and its "capitalism will never liberate you and you need to actually support indie queer artists and actively reject queer capitalism to experience the breadth and width of what queer art is capable of being and doing."

#m.#like verilybitchie has talked about “bad queer rep” in a video essay (check her out)#and she mentioned one bisexual tv show made by a bisexual #that was both blatant and interesting #or uhhh that transfem vampire movie #like. this shit exists. you just need to put effort into #breaking free from spoonfed capitalist media and interact w indie art #not trying to be pretentious either!#if you enjoy fluffy capitalist queer media good for you fr thats 100% fine #and its not NOT important that we CAN have that pandering now #but like. from an artistic standpoint #capitalism prioritizes money not art. it will never care about you #queer media is only being produced bc enough people will go see it that studios will put it out #its not even a matter of homophobia rlly. we only matter as long as we make money #when queers stop being profitable to netflix queer indie artists will still make thought provoking takes on queerness

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viktoriakomova · 6 months

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are we as a Community ready to have the conversation about how She is just a giant dumb bitch in general, re: stuff 0% connected to gymnastics ? like shes basically the undisputed goat as far has athletic performance goes but as a person god fucking damn she WORKS to undermine it all lmfaooooo

#shes the quintessential pick me #im not digging into all her baggage and trauma bc all gymnasts have it even post nassar #and/or never interacted with nassar. etc etc etc. its a toxic sport and thats inevitable at the highest levels u cant pin it on him #we are all very ready to have these discussions about beijing girlies and even increasingly ready about london girls #some who are not on twitter and just Poast on here are even brave enough to talk about suni and jordan #simone escapes in these Sessions every time it seems. and i get why dgmr but like. lmfao.

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20001541 · 17 days

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it's so disappointing that we didn't get more of tomura and afo interacting after that huge revelation about afo being involved in his life from the very beginning. he had his dad giggling and kicking his feet. he even encouraged him to have another child. tomura thought afo finding him that day on the street was a coincidence, but it wasn't. none of it was, he was even given the quirk that killed his family then told he wanted every single one of his family members to die and that was born twisted for years after. he even thanked afo for making him for who he is today in previous chapters!

I wanted there to be an actual encounter between them where he is distraught that the man who he thought was his savior has been planning his downfall since before he was even born. I wanted more of afo telling him to his face how he has meant nothing to him and his usefulness begins and ends at him being a possible vessel for himself, and how he's never had any control over his life. then have tenko argue back against his words. to finally stand up to everything afo has tried to ingrain in him. to cast aside the name of tomura shigaraki which was the name he gave him and tell afo how he doesn't need him anymore. that he finally sees him for the pathetic man he truly is. I want to see afo's reaction to losing control over him permanently. izuku would also be helping him through this encounter as well, might write a fic about it tbh.

oh well best I can hope for now is tenko discussing his feelings about what was revealed in 419, that is if he survives. I have a feeling something will happen that will bring him back in some way based on how only the name tomura shigaraki was said but not tenko which is an important distinction to make. a tomura dies, tenko lives situation if you will.

#tomura and a41's dynamic is one of my favorite in the series and I feel disappointed that we didn't get more towards the end #at least he played a part in ending him #idk about ya'll but I always imagine post canon tomura to have complicated feelings towards a41 #because he did genuinely care for him at one point and despite everything done to him perhaps a part of him would miss him #even though he did all these horrible things to him that was still the man who he grew attached to and was there for him-#when no one else was #at least that's how I imagine he would explain the feeling...#maybe it's just projection on my end 💀#I also had many thought of toshi taking care of tenko post war and tenko also taking care of toshi because I buy into the toshi is paralyze #from the waist down theory and would need extra help adjusting to a major life change #he helps tenko through his ptsd and talks with him about the things he experienced #I never got my tenko/all might interaction this is how I cope #I never even got a tenko/yoichi interaction *sobs*

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skitskatdacat63 · 9 months

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Hey do you remember all those videos of Fernando smelling flowers? Haha yeah....

#posting this both while im asleep and after whatever bee event ends up happening #so who knows what will happen! will we get nothing? will we get eye contact? will we possibly get an interaction? its a surprise!!#anyways this is basically me hearing about seb's bee event and he said the drivers will be there #me deep in my vettonso brainrot: OH MY GOD THEY'RE GONNA BE IN THE SAME VICINITY #will be so funny for me if when i wake up i find out fernando didnt even go 😭#but we remain hopeful 🙏#also this is just very funny to me bcs like both seb and fernando have very specifc quirks #and what are two of their specific quirks? seb and his bee thing. fernando and his flower thing from this season #so this fanart is perfect y'know 🥰🥰🥰#also screeching over how this is the first canon au drawing ive ever drawn. ive literally never drawn non-au until now 💀💀💀#okay and now some horrible jokes thay happened during the process of this:#thesis of this drawing: whats Fernando gonna do? Pollinate him? 😏#C. why did you have to make me think of bees that produce sex pollen 😭😭 this is gonna haunt me forever. but also vettonso post-japan fic-#and then also the barry benson thing. im like what do humanized bees look like and then realized 'oh no....oh no.'#fernando to seb at the bee event: 'ya like samurais...?' SORRY 😭#also having to pick the colors from one of my historical au drawings was haunting. just the sheer difference btwn them yknow......#anyways please take my old men yaoi. took a break from historical yaoi to draw this 😭😭😭😭#this is my peak vettonso fanart cannot improve from here. also a fever dream #vettonso #f1 #formula 1 #sebastian vettel #fernando alonso #catie.art.#*not gonna edit the tags bcs i like the time capsule of it all but like. yeah. we were fed.#*catie from 2 hours prior(atm its 3 am) would be so pleased right now i think

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ehlnofay · 1 month

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Pax should have said no.

Damn it all, they should have said no. Should have said go to hell and fucked off back – stop contacting me, sort out your own shit – but they didn’t, fuck knows why, and now they’re stuck here.

(They know why. They know exactly why; absolutely anything would be better than fucking off back to Cyrodiil. What’s for them there?)

But there’s nothing worth staying for here either, and now she’s crammed in between strangers on a long table, everyone dressed in fabrics she’s never seen with dyes so saturated they seem almost gory, eating stuff that isn’t food and talking loud enough to make her want to hurl a glass into the wall. It’s bizarre. The woman next to her, ruddy-faced and bald, wears a headpiece that shines like the sun the Isles doesn’t have; the other side is taken up by a stranger in a bone-white porcelain mask who has not moved but to swill the wine around in their glass. There’s scarcely room for Pax’s chair. It all feels like such a baffling pantomime of aristocracy (she's known the real thing well enough – feasts and toasts and luxurious gifts she had no use for, and if she doesn’t stop thinking about it she actually will throw a glass), bright colours and rich settings and a god taking offerings at the head of the table.

At least, Pax thinks, no-one tries to talk to him; they’re too busy fawning over their lord. Which is probably to be expected; but it all feels so strange, so unsettling, the way they all lean in towards it like flowers turning to face the sun, like seaweed dragged at by the inescapable pull of the tides. They grow towards it through the cracks in the air, matter moving toward the inevitable centre, as if they can imagine nothing more than this.

(Even more unsettling is the way it responds in kind, listening attentively to anyone who speaks to it, leaning in as though to kiss them, as though to swallow them whole. All hell, why did Pax agree to this? Why did they come?)

(They should have told it to fuck off. Should have said no way, I don’t want to help you, don’t want to get involved in anything you’d need my help for. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m done.)

(Pax is done. Pax is sick to death of all this shit; doesn’t want to deal with this, the vaguely described problems of a god that picks people apart like it’s unravelling a thick yarn shawl. Doesn’t want to deal with anything like this. He’s had his fill of gods.)

(Why is he still fucking here? Why did he agree to this? This is no better than eating in that weird fucking inn in town. This is no better than –)

(That’s a lie. It’s a bit better than Cyrodiil. Just as much a shithole, but it pulls the rug out from under him often enough that he doesn’t have time to think too much.)

“Not hungry?” says a prowling voice, coiling catlike into the plaits in their hair, and Pax jumps enough to jostle the masked bastard sitting ramrod straight next to him.

He looks up.

At the empty placemat across from him sits a figure veiled in gossamer, glittering in the glow of the lit-up lichen on the distant throne; the fabric of its endless shawls pulls apart at the ends, peeling away from itself, shedding patches like iridescent insect wings every time it shifts. If Pax squints, they can see through it to the grand marbled wall behind.

She glances back at the chair at the head of the table, where something lounges, eyes dripping gold, intricately carved cane laid across its knees; its too-many fingers are laced with the hand of a man whose gown blooms floral. Flatly, she says, “What the fuck?”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sheogorath asks, pouting; she can hear it laughing down the other end of the table. “It’s a proper feast. We pulled out all the stops.”

Pax shifts their eyes away to peer down at their plate. “You have served me worms,” she says. She flicks the dish with a fingernail. “In jelly. With flowers.”

“Larva, actually,” Sheogorath replies. It’s still at the other end of the table. It doesn’t seem eager to explain this. When it smiles, the gossamer falls away; its whole face splits in half.

It’s all so fucking stupid. Pax takes a deep breath – in through the nose, ignore all the odd spiced smells, and out – and does not yell at it, or try to hit it, because she’s gotten herself into a situation where that’s not really an option, because she’s a fucking idiot. Why didn’t she just say no?

(She knows why.)

The Mad God’s teeth flash bright as the ornate silver cutlery. Its chair scrapes back from the table. “It melts in your mouth,” it tells her, eyes glittering, “but I won’t make you try it. Walk with me?”

The figure still sits at the head of the table, snatching something from someone’s plate, always, always laughing. Its limbs sprawl like tentacles, like the silken threads of a tapestry, to encompass the whole room. The dinner guests stare as though bewitched, bedevilled, beguiled. Not one of them is looking at Pax. If he were to drop dead with his face in the food his corpse would not be discovered until sunrise.

Pax sniffs and shoves his chair back from the table. He lets Sheogorath (the second Sheogorath – but it must be, what else could it be?) lead him through a narrow door into some winding hallway, the walls lined and rimed with ornate coloured-glass windows. (It’s so much quieter. Still as garishly bright, but Pax is getting the sense that that is inescapable, here; the clothes they wear, as crumpled and covered in travelling-grime as ever and startlingly out of place against the odd jagged finery of the dinner party, seem unimaginably dull in comparison. Everything seems unimaginably dull in comparison.) Outside the windows, they can catch glimpses of the city – its winding, lamp-lit streets, the jumbled mess of its architecture, the sky arcing above it like a child’s attempt at watercolours. Pax wants to smash it, tear it down.

There’s no sun here, but still it’s night. The sky has shifted to purple and black.

“Isn’t it nice?” says their companion; when they look back, it’s nothing more than a shifting impression in the stained-glass window, a series of hairline cracks. It still manages, somehow, to smile at them.

It’s not. The sky is a shadow and the flamboyance of the palace is scraping at their spine. “Sure,” Pax says flatly. When she flexes her fingers, the bruising staining the base knuckle of her thumb aches.

Sheogorath looks at her – an ancient man leaning on a stick, a flickering painting, a bloody corpse, a little girl in velvet-red skirts, a breath. In its mercurial shifting she catches the flowery blossom of the man at the table’s collar, an unpleasant glimpse of her own braided hair, the smell of sulphur. It tips its head. She can’t focus on it anywhere but for the eyes.

“You don’t like my dinner parties,” it announces, as though it’s a revelation, a tragedy; its body crumbles like sea cliffs slowly eroded by the ways. It’s annoying – bloody obnoxious, and incomprehensible, and kind of weird that it noticed, that it would even care. (She’s never liked dinner parties. Nobody ever commented on it before.)

I’ve had well enough of them, Pax could say, or no, I don’t like you, but it’s the fucking Mad God, Daedric Prince of – Pax doesn’t even know what, he’s never known much about this shit, only that it’s well worth avoiding. Prince of the mad and the missing and the foolish, of breaking and breaking and putting yourself back together backwards. She should have said no, but she didn’t, and who knows what would happen if she went back on that now?

It's slinking closer. All that stay static enough to make out are eyes and teeth.

“Pax, yes?” it says, soft-voiced – a hand lands on his arm, small and dry and shivering, the skin as thing as a mouldering leaf. “You have no obligations here. If you want to be on your own, be on your own. We’ve plenty of space for it.”

Pax’s eyes narrow. He does not jerk away from it.

In the light of the coloured sky, the coloured windows, its face is phantasmagorical. “If you don’t want to be here,” it continues – still so skin-pricklingly gentle – “then your hand will not be forced. I’ll speed your way home if you wish.”

They can’t help but twitch at that. It’s setting their teeth on edge. (It’s lying – has to be. After its ages of coaxing them in, meting out information, not telling them where they were until they were on its doorstep, it would not give them the chance to leave.) Rough, still covered in road-grime, Pax asks, “Why should I believe you?”

(None of them have ever given them the chance to leave.)

Sheogorath, a figure of hollow skin and bone, inclines its head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Pax,” it says. Its eyes are wide and bulging, whites on full display like a frightened horse; it grins again. “Others might. But we’re not a monolith. We’re not even especially similar.”

Pax bites down on the flat edge of their tongue. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The light coming in through the windows flickers. The Mad God turns to meet it.

“I’m the youngest,” it says, its voice glittering like mist on the air. “Did you know that? I don’t remember the world without you in it.” Its form spasms, volatile, wings and limbs and eyes like a snail’s on stalks sprouting and choking and subsiding back into its mass. “I’m closer to you than any. I understand, almost.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Pax repeats. She’s gritting her teeth, tonguing at her gums where two are missing. Are two devil-gods not enough to deal with for a lifetime? Is there really going to be more of this now, too?

Rolling through the air like smoke, the voice says, “It will.”

Pax presses purple-green knuckles to her mouth. Her teeth dig into the soft meat of her lip.

Sheogorath turns to face her, hair moving as though blown by the wind, as though tugged by the tides. It sighs. “You don’t believe me,” it says. Its tongue pokes through its teeth. “That’s perfectly fine. Clever, even. But if you want to leave, all you need to do is tell me so.” It pauses, then; the train of its strange, gnarled crown shifts over its shoulders when it moves its head. “Or just leave. The door is still open.”

“You’d be fine with me just leaving,” Pax rasps around his knuckle, “after weeks of not leaving me alone?”

(Of begging him to come, poorly-hidden agitation giving way to blatant franticness, half-swallowing the fear that choked its face in every mirror it spoke to him through. Of begging him still, after he got here, after he met it – begging in a roundabout manner, casual as anything, its every motion reeking of fear. Its abject terror when he turned to leave. You’ve come this far. Why not hear an old man out? Pax told it that it wasn’t an old man, that he didn’t give a shit either way, and it slid through a child, a monster, a sulphur-burned body coughing blood, his own shuddering form in armour he hasn’t seen in months, and it said please.)

(Regained its composure, its gentleman’s face, immediately afterward. But it – the Mad God, unknowable, inconsolable – said please. Pax still doesn’t know what to do with that.)

The Mad God, now, shrugs. Taps at the hairline cracks in the stained glass windows. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” it says, one pair of hands braiding something intricate into its beard. The hand on the glass slips down. “I told you. I do need a champion.”

“And I told you,” Pax bites, something aching and ugly surging in their gut, “not to call me that again.”

A smile, bloody-mouthed and beaming. “But we will abide,” says Sheogorath, and digs its fingers into the cracks of the stone. One brick slides loose, mortar dug up under its nails. It offers it up.

Pax licks their teeth and takes it.

The brick shivers, momentarily – crumbles, in their hand, like sand slithering through their fingers, and left in their palm is a hardy slip of bone. Spiked and sprawling, carved with intricate patterns; it arranges itself around an oval of empty space, the perfect size for four sharp-knuckled fingers.

“You can always leave,” the Mad God tells them, and for a moment it does look so very young and strangely, staggeringly hopeful. “But give it a chance. I think you could love the Isles, if you choose to.”

#for context - in my version of events sheogorath's recruitment of the HoK is a lot more active #it needs someone who can fulfill the metaphysical niche of the hero. it needs someone experienced enough that they might not even die tryin #and it needs someone desperate enough to take the deal #pax is fifteen years old has alienated everything that maybe could have been a support system and is grieving very badly.#perfect mantling material!!#so sheogorath pursued them very specifically and was very judicious about what they revealed when. which is why pax already has some kind o #relationship with it here - they've interacted before - in that for weeks pax's reflection has been constantly begging them to 'visit'#writing the interactions of these guys is a lot of fun because there is always so much sheogorath is keeping from pax. it is #extremely strategic in how it presents itself #and pax falls for it hook line and sinker. though we can't really blame them #it's hard to outsmart something that's in your head #and at this point pax is pretty much made up of their worst impulses #which sheogorath cannot and does not help with #see: this piece #“I would NEVER make you do something you don't want to do <3 if you'd like to go back to your miserable self-destructive hellscape that's #YOUR CHOICE. but wouldn't it be more fun to be regular destructive here... i made you brass knuckles... 🥺“#im obsessed with them #the elder scrolls #tesblr #tes #my writing #fay writes #oc tag #pax #oblivion #shivering isles #the shivering isles

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