random thought, but i had a vivid image of, if helsknight and welsknight ever saw each other without armor (or just helsknight out of his armor tbh), helsknight showing welsknight the scar tanguish gave him and saying "this was intended for you."
i don't know how in character that is, but tbh it's haunting me. maybe it's part of helsknight's revenge against welsknight or something, calling out his unknightly behavior and unhonorable conduct.
"You didn't answer my summons."
Helsknight froze. It was a quick, momentary startle, a short-circuit of normality. The moment he did it, every instinct told him to keep moving. That old command [Do something.] blared loud in the quiet surprise of his mind. So he moved his hand to pick up the brush on his table, and pretended to be unconcerned.
"I'm not a dog. You can't call me to heel," Helsknight said simply. He smirked and growled, "Though if you feel like losing some limbs, feel free to try."
Behind him, Wels shifted uncomfortably. Helsknight liked making Wels uncomfortable, he didn't handle it well. He was a creature used to comfort and ease. Inconvenience often galled him more than a sword to the throat. Different tactics for different battlefields, and this battlefield was a delicate one.
Helsknight was cleaning his arms and armor, which was one of several reasons why he hasn't leaped for a fight when Welsknight had called him to one. He was only in a tunic and breeches. It was luck he even had his boots on. He had offered to run errands with Tanguish, but Tanguish had said he was visiting his church and wanted to go on rooftops. So Helsknight stayed home, and he left his boots on. That was the other reason Helsknight hadn't answered the call: Tanguish wouldn't know where he was, and he knew Tanguish got paranoid about being left behind. Besides, Helsknight had chores he could do at home [like cleaning his arms and armor] so he stayed. Cleaning the chainmail was almost a formality. Hels was hot and dry, and he wore it often enough that the rings clattering together cleaned themselves. But sometimes he just liked putting an extra shine on things, so he took out his brush and oil and started brushing it down for any miniscule specks of rust or broken links he could find.
Wels, always keen on the times he wasn't wanted, decided now was the perfect time to show up in his living room. He stood awkwardly, waiting on Helsknight to make some aggressive movement. When none came, he cautiously stalked further into the tiny living space. His emotions were loud and uncomfortable without the distance between their respective worlds to dampen them, and they clung like smoke against Helsknight's skin. Caution at an unfamiliar space. Disgruntlement at being ignored.
[Guilt, like ash on a burn.]
"Is this... Yours?" Wels asked, glancing around.
"No, I'm just squatting in a random house. Sounded like a fun way to spend a Tuesday."
Helsknight felt the ant-bite sting of vicarious agitation and smirked. He was already getting on Wels's nerves.
[Good.]
"Couldn't build something nicer?" Wels snapped impatiently.
"I'm a fighter."
Helsknight found a place on his chainmail to brush down and got to work. The rough, grating twinge of the coarse bristles on chain made Wels wince. Helsknight always found the noise pleasant. Like scratching an itch.
"So?"
"I have better things to do than spend hours building the perfect house."
Wels scoffed and looked around the room with renewed disdain. "Where's your little devil?"
It took Helsknight a moment to place what he was asking. He sneered, a quiet bearing of teeth, and caught the flicker of red in the reflective shine of his chainmail. Wels looked pointedly away from him.
[Like ash on a burn.]
"Not feeling remorse... are we, crusader?" Helsknight asked, finding a new place to polish. The coin-drop clatter of chain, and the shrill scrape of bristles filled the silence like an accusation.
"Of course not," Wels sniffed disdainfully, still refusing to meet Helsknight's eye.
"Careful." Helsknight murmured, that red flash reflecting off his chainmail again, anger simmering. "Lying's a sin."
"Why would I feel remorse for protecting my home?"
"A crusade well fought I'm sure."
"It's not a crusade!" Wels snapped, his own anger a living thing raising hackles. "A crusader invades! A crusader fights a holy war just for the principle."
"Right. And you're fighting because--"
"Because I'm protecting Tango."
"-because it's for his own good?"
Wels didn't exactly wince, but he did still, as though he'd heard someone draw a blade from its scabbard. Helsknight might as well have unseated his sword. He had stopped scrubbing, all pretense of work falling. The need to pace, to circle, to corner, rose up in Helsknight like a waking beast.
"Interesting choice of words. Protecting." Helsknight said, his voice low, his hands still. "I was under the impression they were friends. Do you often protect Tango from the people he's begging you to spare?"
"That doesn't matter." Wels said so firmly it was almost convincing. Almost. "People are convinced they need an abusive relationship. That doesn't change the fact it's bad for them."
"So many interesting words today," Helsknight hissed. He stood like a dark tower rising, all embered fury slowly stoking. Wels didn't bother turning to face him. He could feel his intent like thunder. "Abuse. Brings to mind the image of power. I do have a question."
"I didn't come here for your stupid questions."
"No, you came here looking for a fight."
"I didn't."
"You really do need to tame that lying tongue."
"I didn't come here for a fight."
"Did it feel powerful?" Helsknight demanded, pacing a step, and loathing the tiny room for denying him the space to circle. "The voice. The command. How did it feel."
"Shut up."
"To have someone begging you not to hurt them," Helsknight continued relentlessly. "Not your stupid play fighting on your stupid little server. True, shaking, terror. Did it feel good, crusader? Just?"
"I told you to shut up!" Wels shouted, taking a threatening step forward only to find Helsknight had closed the space between them and stood looming like a rook on a tombstone.
Fear, a caged thing howling, battered against Helsknight's anger. It made Helsknight feel almost giddy, the crash of malicious schadenfreude and self-righteousness against Wels; a flickering thing of brittle will. They made a terrible ouroboros together, fear feeding anger feeding elation feeding fear. They were always like this. No matter how calm either of them tried to be, once anger kindled in one, their emotions burned until there was nothing left but fury and loathing. Helsknight had been made to cut Wels down to size.
"Do you know what that kind of fear does to people?" Helsknight demanded again, his voice so near a whisper it was smothering. They were so close together, but they made so little noise, all will and wide eyes. "What happened to mercy for the helpless, crusader?"
"He wasn't helpless," Welsknight said, trying very hard not to back down. "He stabbed me."
"And a drowning rat bites. I wouldn't call it an apex predator. Certainly I wouldn't call it a danger to you, with your full armor and sword." Helsknight bared his teeth at Wels, something like a bitter grin. "I wasn't wearing armor."
Wels looked down, where Helsknight had drawn up his tunic to reveal the new scar in his abdomen. Wels looked like he'd stopped breathing.
"This was intended for you," Helsknight said. "You should thank me."
"You're-- you're here telling me he's harmless," Wels laughed nervously. "But he almost killed you. You."
Something in Helsknight snapped, and in the moment it took him to reach for it with white knuckles and compose it again, he'd shoved Wels hard in the chest. It didn't knock his other half off his feet, but he stumbled back hard enough hit the opposite wall. Not hard enough to hurt, but certainly hard enough to warn.
"He did," Helsknight snarled, pacing forward slow steps. "That's what terror does to helpless people, crusader. It makes them bite. It makes them beg. It makes them clamor to live. You. Did. That. What did it feel like to abuse that kind of power Wels? To turn someone into a scared animal? To make someone so desperate they would almost kill a friend? Did you find your righteousness there crusader?"
Helsknight didn't know what he planned on doing. Violence was in his blood like a serpent, and he wanted it. And Wels knew he wanted it. There was the ring of drawn metal, and the silver-bright glint of an enchanted blade in a dark room. Helsknight's advance stopped at the top of Wels's sword, not close enough to hurt, but close enough to warn.
"Stop." Wels said. A command. A plea.
"I'm unarmed."
"That doesn't matter."
Helsknight smiled, and there was loathing and euphoria in it, and the wine-dark dread of Wels right on the other side of it. The knowledge of a line crossed, a battle he hadn't even realized he was fighting made forfeit.
"Fine." Helsknight said. "My blood's already been spilled once on your behalf. At least this time do it with your own sword, coward. I'll make it easy for you."
He took a step forward, and nudged the blade with a knuckle, resting the point against his scar. The metal was cold, even through his shirt, the enchantments alive and writhing so close to his skin.
"How cruel have you gotten while I wasn't there to keep you in check, crusader?"
There was a long breath of silence between them. Helsknight stood, precarious and predatory, daring Wels to kill him. And Wels stood there, and dared himself to as well. And the room was dark, lit only by red anger and blue dread, and the pale, languid flicker of enchanted steel. And neither of them breathed. And the universe watched.
A loud clatter sounded on the roof. Both knights looked up towards the ceiling, Wels in startlement, and Helsknight in resignation.
"And he stays my hand once again," Helsknight sighed.
"What--?" Wels didn't get his full question out before Helsknight moved. He knocked the sword aside and lunged forward to grab Wels's shirt. In a move that would've made Martyn proud, he dragged Wels forward into his knee, knocking the wind out of him. In the time it took Wels to collapse to the floor, Helsknight had taken his sword, and held the point beneath his other half's chin.
"Go home Wels," Helsknight said, "before I send you there the hard way."
Wels, breathless on the ground, let out half a strangled laugh. "Why don't you?"
"Because I was asked nicely not to go running off and killing you."
"Helsknight?" A loud knock sounded at the door. Tanguish's voice, a bright comfort even in spite of its concern, called to him. "Is everything okay? I thought I heard something fall."
Helsknight glared meaningfully down at Wels, who only hesitated long enough for Helsknight to draw back the sword before slipping back to his world. The moment he did, Helsknight felt his breath leave him, the great void of being left to his own thoughts and emotions. In the wake of everything that was Wels, he felt ridiculous.
[What in hels had he even been about to do? Die on someone's sword to prove a point? Idiot.]
"Helsknight? The door is locked."
"I'm coming," Helsknight called, pausing only long enough to hide Wels's sword beneath the couch, where Tanguish couldn't see it and inevitably worried about it. He checked his tunic to make sure he hadn't managed to actually stab himself [he hadn't] and went to let Tanguish inside.
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Man this is so random but this theory is stuck in my head and I wanna see how other people feel about it because I don't see people talk about it a lot (I have no clue if the link will go through properly since I've never put a link in a ask box)
https://www.tumblr.com/art-w0rm/667910993425350656/theory-time
Oh god not this theory again. I really truly try not to be mean to people for no good reason on this blog, but this theory is literally one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever seen in my entire life. I don't talk about this theory because to me it's like the walten files theory equivalent of that tubby custard mechanically separated chicken post.
Most of the time I genuinely don't even consider it worthy of my time, because it's nonsense, but this is a very nicely worded ask, and I really don't mean to dedicate any of the vitriol I hold towards this theory to You, poor anonymous person, so I will deconstruct it. I will go through the theory point-by-point and deconstruct why I disagree with it.
First up, this:
Showbear is not a character in The Walten Files anymore. Showbear was fully retconned and is never going to appear in the series again. He was effectively just a cameo of ThunderingStatic's (one of Martin's friends) OC, but when The Walten Files blew up and people started assuming Showbear was Martin's character, Static decided to withdraw his character from the series and focus putting him in other projects.
Martin talked about this on Twitter forever ago, but I wouldn't be able to find that tweet now. But here's a bit from the interview he did with KnowYourMeme back in 2021 where he talks about it:
Now this:
This is just stupid to me? Like a complete logical incongruity? I barely even know how describe what is dumb about this because I can't even fathom how anyone draws this conclusion from this information. How is it strange for a man to say 'if my wife isn't home by the time she said she was going to be, let me know, in case something happened.'????? Why would Rosemary be out cheating on her husband with her fucking daughter with her??? If Rosemary was cheating on her husband why would her whole life collapse when he went missing? If Rosemary was cheating on her husband why would she show up at the restaurant every day after he disappeared asking if anyone had seen him and hoping to find him alive??? Why would she make paintings of herself and him together after he disappeared????? What the fuck are you talking about?
Ok now this:
Whatever. This is maybe the most coherent part of the theory, to me. I definitely agree that Sha evokes a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' sort of aesthetic, but I do remember Martin saying something in a Twitter Q&A at one point about how that wasn't actually intentional, and that Bon was the character he actually meant to seem unusually predatory. I looked for a while and couldn't find a screenshot of that, but I did find this one where he says the thing about Bon:
So whatever. take that with a grain of salt.
I don't even know what to say. here. Whatever. sure she was rolling in the hay
yeah Rosemary is asking if she's still beautiful because she cheated on her husband and not because she was chopped up and stuffed inside a big animatronic sheep. I think this is correct and is the True Deep Lore.of the walten files. I'm sure this doesn't have anything to do with the recurring motif of the double-meaning behind the word Beautiful either.
I don't know why it's weird that the lost lingering spirit of a mother would be calling out to her only living child. I Don't know why that needs additional explanation involving this batshit infidelity conspiracy theory.
Sha's chest is also ripped out
So is Banny's, honestly? Just a little less?
ok now this:
I guess I can't disprove this except that I think this is dumb. I think this is a really incredibly stupid logical leap to make. Y'know I really meant to go into this levelheadedly and very calmly go through every point and talk about why I think it's Decisively Disagreeable or whatever but I can't. I really can't. I just cannot keep my patience with this sort of thing.
You'd think if there was an infidelity aspect here it would've been lampshaded in some respect, at all, in the old /sophiewalten findjackwalten page text. Where it's literally Sophie talking to Jenny about what she remembers about her family.
Especially if the idea is that Sophie is meant to have been there. You'd think something like that would have come up here. Not 'she was nice and a good mom until my dad disappeared and her mental health started getting worse'
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Im gonna be honest I was expecting comf but that was a very cool interpretation of plushies as a prompt.
New prompt! Tiny (injured, ofc) whumpee getting found by caretaker
~🪴~
tw tiny whump, accidental bad caretaker
"Caretaker!"
Caretaker spun around and slammed their hand over their newest acquisition, pretending they were only... casually leaning on the desk for support. They tried to smile and not think about the damage that might've caused to the little creature wiggling under their palm. "Yes, sir?"
Whumper walked over and placed a hefty pile of papers on their desk with a smile that told Caretaker everything they needed to know. "I need these done by tonight, yeah? If you'd be so kind."
Yeah. Of course there would be a sudden assignment and an increase in workload just as they'd found a fairy– or whatever the hell they'd found. "Of course, sir. Consider it done."
"Thanks. Just put them on my desk later."
They nodded, not moving an inch. Whumper's smile faltered a little, and their expression became more suspicious. "Why are you just standing there like that?"
"Oh, I–" They glanced around the office for some excuse, but came up empty. "I was just... stretching my back a little. Before I sat back down for... another four or so hours."
Their boss faked being impressed, then nodded towards them. "That's how you stretch your back?"
"Well, uh–"
"You're right. None of my business. None at all." Oh, thank god. "Just make sure the papers are ready. Your back suffering a little in the process is a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
Not very surprising. "Of course, sir."
Whumper left the office without another word, and Caretaker immediately took their hand away to examine the little thing. Fuck. They looked so much worse than before.
"N-no more... please..." it whimpered, and Caretaker's heart broke.
"No more," they repeated quietly. "No more. I'm so sorry. I had to hide you fast, I, I didn't know what to do..."
"It hurts..."
"I know. I'm sorry. Let's try to help with that somehow, yeah?"
~
general drabbles taglist: @ashh-ed @whumpsday @whump-queen @the-scrapegoat @hidden-dreamland @rosewriteswhump @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night
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Hi hella!!!
I feel like i always start these off or end them by saying that these things are going to be incomprehensible in some way, mainly bc i have trouble translating whats going on in my mind into written words so i really dont know how much of my list thingies make sense to you but this one is especially probably going to not make much sense. (also bc i send them a lot when im either very tired or not sober, but i am sober and wide awake rn so this might be a different kind of incomprehensible)
I found one of my old drafts for an ask from around a year ago and it was a follow up response to the last chapter you posted at the time, so im not sure how its going to sound without the context of that specific chapter, but i also mentioned in one of my other asks that i add stuff in last minute and that ask i added a shit ton of stuff so i dont have any of that pretyped out so im going by memory. But im sending it again bc i havent seen you answer it
(please do not interpret this as ‘why didnt you answer my ask >:/’ or me rushing you to answer asks or anything like that, but like I said its been a year so im assuming tumblr ate it. If not and you just havent cleaned out your ask box and you find the original, congratulations you’ll know what i originally said. Bc idk how accurate this will be)
SO
Theres two different ways that you seem to write metaphors (idk if thats what theyre called im not caught up on my literary terminology)
(im scrolling through your blog rn looking for my other asks and tumblr really did you dirty in your asks system like i started scrolling and the third one down was from 2021 and im fighting for my life trying to find my tag (thank you for my tag btw its very useful to me))
Anywho, most of your metaphors ( to me) can be split into two categories. Theres the simple ones and the complex ones. Now this might seem obvious but im going to explain to you how these have different effects on my brain.
An example of the ‘simple’ ones is
““If Nanook’s tone had a note of seriousness, then Zuko’s was the entire orchestra.”” (idk what chapter this is from its been a while)
You have a lot of these kinds of whatever the haick kind of literary technique this is (is this a metaphor i’ve been trying to google it for like ½ an hour and i cant figure it out) BUT these type of things that are simple and easy to process is one of my favorite things about the way you write. I think this is a very common technique but the way you do it to me is just a lot more unique than the ways ive seen it done before. Its extremely fluent with the voice of the characters and brings a perfect kind of vibe to the ‘conversation’ (or story, text, whatever) and it paints the picture of what your trying to say perfectly. I also really like how these types of things arent ever in Zukos pov a lot (sometimes it is, but not nearly as much, I’ve noticed) and its not in the more serious like revelations that you drop these in. Like I said, it adds to the voice of the characters, bc of the contrast of Zuko constantly having revelations and dramatic archs and stuff, and the other characters just in general being a lot more calm. Its like when youre listening to a song and you have the lyrics and the like ‘main’ music behind the lyrics, but then when you listen to the song a lot you notice the smaller, like backup music that adds a lot to the song and makes it a lot more enjoyable than if it was just the lyrics and the louder more up front music.
Then in contrast you have the bigger ‘metaphors’
An example of this is ‘You curse in words already invented’
THIS IS MY FAVORITE LINE IN THE ENTIRE FIC.
OF ANY FIC OR BOOK EVER READ
AND THIS IS WHY
When I tell you I could not figure out what this meant for months I am AWFUL with stuff like this and interpreting it my english teachers hate me bc of it. Id have the question ‘why were the curtains blue’ and my answer would be ‘bc the people who decorated the room like blue maybe theyre interior designers and it goes with the room 😊 and thats so hot of them bc i love blue too’
But even thought i couldnt figure it out it stayed in my head and i probably thought about it once a day (i mean this literally, i think about that part all the time) and i cant remember the context for that or anything but i do remember that i knew it was a wonderful phrase.
I’ve mentioned in my other asks how whenever im reading anything at all that you’ve written (whether its tams, or toab, or in the tags of something even if its like 10 words), everything you type comes out so fluidly like a formula or a color wheel or however i put it last time i talked about this. And this is on the prodigious end of the spectrum of this.
But phrases like that are another part of the fic, theyre like the lyrics of the song. Like the phrases that gets all the attention and gets put in fanart and that gets quoted in comment sections because they deserve that recognition and you deserve that recognition and are just a reminder of how incredibly talented you are.
I mean that in the most sincere way that i know how to express.
I am constantly in awe of you and your writing style, and i really do think of you as one of the most talented writers of everything ive ever read.
And something else worth mentioning is that it isnt just your ao3 that portrays that. Like if I were to just read your ao3 I’d be like ‘oh wow this person is an amazing writer’ But your tumblr persona plays into it a lot more (In my opinion). Because then you see like more ‘backround’ stuff on ao3. And more of your system (im not articulating this in the way i mean it very well) and you get privy to the fact that you’re not a 30 year old with a masters in english and that you’ve never had any formal education on writing. I vaguely remember you talking about a story about a sailor (??? i might be misremembering that) that you wrote when you were a child and thinking ‘oh wow so she’s always been like that’. And its stuff like that that you dont get on ao3 that kind of reaffirms how incredible of a writer you are.
And this (to me) makes you a really easy person to admire. (ik i touched on this in a different ask but i dont remember if it was one of my list asks or not) but as someone who probably isnt going to ever be able to get an education around writing, it kind of reassures me that i dont need that to be great at it.
(i kind of feel like a lot of the stuff in this ask is too like ‘simple’ or obvious to be given a lot of weight, but this whole thing is about the kinds of things you do that brings me personally joy and the metaphors are one of them so)
Also on an off note when i was looking through your asks to try to find my tag, I noticed that i send you a heavy percentage of your anonymous asks (mainly without my alias) and I thought that was funny. But also i hope it doesnt come across as obsessive or weird, I swear i do that to a lot of people on here, I’m just a very social person. .😂
Also Im in your tbos server (lurking in the shadows) and someone pointed out that whenever you do the reaction emojis you always do the white ones, and thats going on the official ‘my favorite things about hella’ list because that was genuinely one of the funniest things ive seen.
Also the ‘anytime you type its very fluid (im too lazy to scroll up and see how i put it rn) also carrys on to discord. I think that i could probably block out the user names and be able to figure out that its you talking every time, you have a very distinct way of talking.
Also i wanted to mention that every time you answer these i read them again and i want to say like 1/3 of what i sasy, i have no recollection of. And i never have any idea what im talking about. so i think thats funny.
LIST ANONNNNNNNNNNNNN BAWLING MY EYES OUT HELLO BABY WELCOME BACK FROM WAR IVE MISSED YOU IM JUST HERE LIKE THIS RN
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