rating: mature (mostly on a technicality)
pairing: armand/daniel molloy
series: the way people love evil (but can be read as a standalone!)
summary: “What is this?” Daniel mumbles, eyes still closed, “puppetry as pain relief?” Silence above him for a moment, and then Armand, sounding a little defensive, “Dr. Bhansali suggested it might prove useful.” || a standalone interlude: still human, daniel does not pass a restful night, and armand decides to help out.
anyone else watch 2x05 and go "wow armand could fix my chronic pain" or was that just me?
med. wood panels
mat. oil, blood
*
Armand tilts his head to the side. At this angle, hovering half-above Daniel, his face and body are all shadowed except those eyes. The smudges on Daniel’s glasses turn the overhead light into a horrifying, multifractal corona.
It’s beautiful. If he makes it out of here alive, Daniel ought to launch a research project—see how many of those medieval monks, painting angels with gold-flake halos, making saints out of corpses and killers, were simply seeing their salvation in the blood-draped monsters who stayed so close at hand, whispering to kings and snacking on courtiers.
making a whole major arcana deck for TWEOS would probably kill me to hell and back but like. Claudia is The Tower and Adrien is The Hanged Man and Marinette is The Star if you even care.
Bug who likes to say sappy or flirtatious stuff to Leviathan in order to embarrass him into messing up when they play video games together because it’s the only way she can win against him
Leviathan who doesn’t stop them because the attention makes him feel all warm and fuzzy + Bug will have more fun and play with him for longer if they get to win sometimes <3
Raj is compared to as a tank by some, but he's actually way stronger - he's capable of ripping through a tank with his bare hands as well as tanking shots from missiles. However, despite his extreme physical prowess and extreme durability, there are still a lot easier ways of damaging him rather than with melee blows or traditional projectile weapons.
The fastest and most effective way to bring Raj down is by overheating him. Just using his body requires energy, which creates heat - although everyday activity won't overheat him. When you add fighting into the mix, then you have the potential for him to overheat due to the intentional flaw in how he was designed. You can also overheat him with magic.
Raj slowly builds up so much heat that his body can't disperse it, and this eventually leads to overheating, and then burnout.
It's extremely obvious when his body starts to overheat - his body, including the metal parts, will start to 'sweat' like a soda can. He'll start to pant, and look like he's dizzy. Internally, what he's facing is fatigue, nausea, and vertigo. Where a normal human would have died at this point, Raj can still technically function - although not for very long. Typically while overheated Raj can only remain conscious for less than 3 minutes. Afterwards, he will burnout - one of the regulator chips in his brain will force him into unconsciousness to prevent further damage and stop it from cooking inside his head.
It just makes me sit here dumbfounded when I see folks go "don't compare to this genocide it's DIFFERENT", despite doing verbatim shit said genocide did, looking to open colonizers and contacting them for tips on how to colonize the best way, and the survivors of said genocide ALSO saying "hey this is like that genocide I suffered during". Not antisemitic to point out that there's Jewish people out there that are raging bigots and make a mockery of the faith by using it as an excuse to slaughter an entire population of people.