#god. yeah.

i need the "you were destined for me. perhaps as punishment" vibe, i need the "he knew me by heart. it infuriated me that he knew me by heart" feelings. And its not even like. totally romantic to me personally. I personally headcanon johanna as aromantic and these two are in a queerplatonic relationship *then* a queerplatonic divorce that was hot gossip around necropolis for at least a year once johanna was exiled. they were more than full platonic friends, never quite full lovers either, but they *knew* each other better than anyone. Emmrich the sole soft spot of a woman made of razors and knives and all things sharp. Johanna pulling out the catty mean *ambitious* streak in a man who probably cried the first time he kissed someone or had sex.

they make each other better. they make each other worse. to know emmrich, you have *have* to know johanna too. to get that whole picture of him you need to see the haunting of her trapped in the blood between his rib bones!!!!!! in the blood and viscera of his guts!!!!!!!!!!! the "ITS SOMETHING TENDER. TENDER LIKE A BRUISE" thing going on or something!!!!!!!!!!

AND IN AN EMMLICH PATH, skull johanna could very much be the only person left of his old life. Manfred's gone, rook eventually dies, all his mortal friends also die. And who is left of his old life? Who was there from the start and somehow is still there at the end? JOHANNA THAT'S WHO. "ITS YOU. IT'S ALWAYS YOU" kind of thing you know what i mean??? There at the start and there at the end, tragically intertwined whether they like it or not, when their mortal lives become a only fleeting memory AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

clutches you and spins around

yes!!!! YES!!!!! listen i have been SOLD on the volkoss train since i first came across it mentioned. idek who said it first what is memory but i know i am INTO IT

they are soooo!!!! you literally said it so perfectly, they are just entwined, connected in a way that is so fundamental, so foundational, to the both of them!!!

you can't truly know emmrich if you don't know johanna!

and you can't truly know johanna if you don't know emmrich!!!!!

even before i hopped on the volkoss train i was utterly fascinated by the depth of their relationship. like... johanna is, on the surface, literally everything emmrich is opposed to! it was so tragic realizing that his enemy, his antagonist, was his old best friend

....but that wasn't enough lmao. no, no, it was never going to stop at "i have to turn against my best friend and that's horrible" it went all the way to emmrich announcing that he would have helped johanna achieve lichdom! and me fully, 110%, believing then and now that he would have!

don't get me wrong, they're very different individuals, but i think if i say that to me there is a lot of the same energy solas and mythal have, ppl will get how into them i truly am lmao. but that push and pull, the it-won't-work BUT it's-the-only-thing-that-works, the aching beating heart of you that is another entire person and you can't remove it!! you can't cut it out bc u can't live without it! without them!

they are just sooo woven together, it's unbelievable. and johanna is so cruel and so twisted up but even the fact that she can cut right into his core is evidence of how connected they really, truly are, how deeply known they are to each other

also i am living for the aromantic johanna, queerplatonic marriage, queerplatonic divorce vibes oh my god.... absolutely galaxy brained take my friend. and the frustration of it all! the "i found my person and i am their person and it had to work and it couldn't work and won't work but it has to and it will and it won't and-" augh....

"Emmrich the sole soft spot of a woman made of razors and knives and all things sharp." 😭😭😭 thisssss!!! he's her weakness!!! he's her vulnerable spot! literally him, the man himself, emmrich volkarin standing in front of her in veilguard; but also what he represents, what he reminds her of, the potential of youth and the particular kind of love they shared and the vibrancy of that time being full of potential even as it was quite certainly stained by deepest arrogance.

and now she's here and she's done what she's done and she's corrupted herself for her goals and she's failed to achieve those goals (at least in full) and god, it must smart. i imagine for a woman like johanna, she reads contempt into his willingness to help her, had she just asked. she doesn't need emmrich and she doesn't want that vulnerability! she wants to crush it! and if she can't attack the feeling inside her, well, she can attack the man himself-

and then. god. then. as you say. lich emmrich and skull johanna and they are just... bound together for eternity, really. a failed lich and a full lich, and he never preens or gloats about it, even though were the positions reversed she certainly would, and they both know that, and know that the other knows that, and so on-

but also they are just... there. and in some ways it hearkens back to those early academic days. long discussions that stretched carelessly into the night, only now it is careless because neither of them (i assume) need sleep, neither of them will age, and neither of them will die

and johanna has to be grateful he's there. not that she'd say it! or if she does, it'd be so far down the line and even then i find it hard to imagine. but deep inside, she has to be grateful that she's not abandoned to eternity alone, a skull without anything to distract her, perhaps even lost in the depths of the necropolis

instead she has emmrich, who has everything she wants, has it in the fullness she desired it, and has her completely at his mercy...

and literally all he does is make sure she's somewhere safe and talk to her. read books to her or sets them up for her. and they get to experience eternity and neither of them has to be entirely alone and-

tagged by @detectivelokis, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @inafieldofdaisies, @fourlittleseedlings, and @madparadoxum (who tagged my main, @verbjectives), to do this uquiz! thank you so much y'all~!

not tagging anyone because this has been going around and brain soop but if you see this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged!<3 <3 <3