#do it to spite him

[crouteann]

deleting everything off my twitter so it cant be used to train anything owned by elon musk

[notherpuppet]

Good morning 🍎📻

[asthedeathoflight]

I think an underrated angle on 2x05 is something that either Jacob or Assad said in some interview somewhere, which is that in that episode Louis is addicted to heroin. Thats why he has that whole stash of drugs that he gives to Daniel, that's why he gives Daniel the drugs even though he's already got him alone. He didn't just use those 128 boys for sex he was using them to get high. Bring them home, get them to shoot up, and then drain them to get that secondhand high.

It clarifies something that's always confused me about that scene, which is why Armand saves Daniel the first time. He wouldn't save Daniel as a person, he clearly knows Daniel needs to die, but he's not seeing Daniel as a person there. Daniel is just a substance. He rips him away from Louis to stop him from using.

And i think that adds a whole other layer to the fight he and Armand have to think that this is Louis on a bender, with Armand cleaning up after him because he's not stable enough to. Louis in the bed for a week isn't just healing from the burns, he's going through withdrawal. Him at the table with Daniel giving him the "bright young reporter" speech is probably the first time he's been sober in months.

It adds another layer to Armand's desperation, that Louis has been running from both Armand and himself in this way, and of course Armand wants to erase that memory. Of course he wants to pretend that that fight never happened. Not just to protect himself but in a way to protect Louis from having said those things. When he describes the fight to Louis afterwards, he says "you said the worst things you've ever said to me." And he doesn't really know how to forgive Louis for that so he just wants to bury this rock-bottom moment and move on like it never happened. After all, Louis was high, he didn't really mean it, but if he remembers then maybe he might think that he had a point. Better to wipe the whole experience away.

[chumett]

Sorry, excuse me, just imaging Spite taking over a romanced Lucanis' body when Rook is pulled into the regret prison, kicking Ghilan'nain's dead body over and over again, screaming to give Rook back until Davrin and Bellara have to drag him away as he slowly fades back into a sobbing Lucanis...

[knightofleo]

Angela Orosco Silent Hill 2

[danielsarmand]

guys. guys. guys. look at me. i beg of you to think about it for one single second. do you really genuinely honestly think that armand. 514 years old never turned a human never made a vampire. would make his first and only fledgling OUT OF SPITE? look at me in the eye. come on. i know you don't genuinely think that

[pimsri]

Spite, a home-making demon

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

massages forehead So Ambessa hid Mel away because she was a weapon in the literal sense, a mage. But Ambessa came to Piltover for Hextech? And Ambessa had nothing to say to Mel about her powers having visibly awakened? Even when Mel offered to go with Ambessa, giving her the ultimate opportunity to make Mel a weapon for real? And Ambessa made no attempt to find or retrieve Mel - not just her daughter and the remnants of the family Ambessa professes to love, but also her ultimate weapon - when she disappeared? And Ambessa trusted Singed and Viktor on their home turf - neither of them hiding how insane and self-serving they are with every reason to take over Ambessa's soldiers or just blatantly turn on her as soon as it benefits them - more than she trusted Mel? While Caitlyn (and by extension Piltover) was visibly and clearly falling away from Ambessa's teachings before Ambessa's eyes? (as if getting rid of certain people allows piltover to get rid of fascism but we won't get into All That)

Not only do I struggle to be hyped for Mel's powers beyond how amazing and beautiful she looks, but I can't help but feel like Mel is somehow less powerful in season 2 than she was in season 1, and not in an interesting way. As if Mel's ability to bend all of Piltover politics and economics to her will in season 1 now means nothing in season 2? You can argue that Jinx's attack led directly to Mel losing ground in Piltover - because I expected Mel to have to claw back that power without being able to rely on people who are too easily seduced by Ambessa and authoritarianism, and she would have to get creative to go toe to toe with her mother. I expected pushback to her mage identity that she would have to navigate. But instead this went either unwritten, or was ignored or discarded. Instead Mel is removed from the main plot, cutting her off from what made her the most interesting - only for all of Mel's very real talents, her very real powers and abilities, to be not only translated but REPLACED with magical powers she doesn't know how to control, and by the finale, those magic powers are the only powers that are considered real. Mel takes a backseat to Piltover's governing and decisions, a backseat to Jayce of all people who was not only new to politics mere months ago but made poor governing, strategic, and diplomatic decisions when he had that power. In season 1 Mel stayed off the "throne" but she did pull its strings one way or the other, and she makes no attempt at this in season 2

In my least generous suspicions, Mel was gentled and quieted to capitulate to an agenda for other characters who had to be correct and heroic - or wrong and villainous - no matter what the leadup narrative said, given her powers to help sell the game and set up future shows, and was effectively ejected from the Arcane story with faceless soldiers and a role she doesn't want because she was inconvenient there

[beetlethebug]

consider,,,a lucanis who is in love with emmrich, a spite who is in love with rook, a rook in love with emmrich, and emmrich who is in love with all three but wants lucanis, spite, and rook to get together because he feels he is not the type of man any of them deserve...

bonus points for spite being the one to realize just what sort of love quadrilateral is going on and is the one to get them all together.

[cultoftheswag]

Narinder would absolutely be feminine but also masculine at the same time. Both and neither all at the same time. You expect the god of breaking convention and tradition to adhere to gender roles? That horrid old man would be GNC af.

[lwiann]

fall from grace

[ode-to-fury]

Just Sweet Enough

Pairing: Lucanis x f!Rook

Summary: Rewrite of the relationship lock in scene

Notes: I need them to kiss here and I need it to be sweet and this happened. Bioware please hire me to write a dlc for u I'll do it for free I swear. Spite dialogue in italics.

"Emmrich, I need your help."

Emmrich looked up from the tome he'd been reading. A fascinating history on Arlathan that Bellara had thought he might enjoy.

"Lucanis," he said jovially, glad to see the man was feeling better, looking slightly more rested.

"Rook told me about your little fade expedition," he said. "Is there something amiss?"

He'd ached to go and ask Lucanis and Spite about exactly what had been going on with them, but Rook had told him not to. Told him to let them get some rest, so he'd settled for grilling her about it instead, until she'd been all but falling asleep on his shoulder.

He did think sometimes she indulged him a bit too much.

"No," Lucanis said, pulling Emmrich back to the present, "I think we've... reached an agreement. Somehow."

We have. A deal. Spite sounded different. Not happy, persay, but... Emmrich struggled to think of a word for it.

Determined?

The younger man's hand went to the back of his neck.

"With Rook's help, no doubt," Emmrich said. "Remarkable young woman."

"She is," Lucanis said, and Emmrich did not miss the way his voice softened when he did.

"That is... actually what I wanted to talk to you about," he said. He gestured at the couch next to Emmrich.

"Of course, my dear boy, sit!" He scooted over slightly. It was his favourite place to sit, beneath the astrolabe in the library. Oh, he could spend hours on that couch, provided Manfred brought him enough tea.

"Is something the matter with Rook?" He asked.

"No," Lucanis said quickly. "No, nothing is the matter, not that she has told me. I just... want to..." he trailed off, his hands clenching into fists on his lap.

Faintly, Emmrich could hear Spite talking.

Thoughts are too loud when he thinks of her. Feel. Too much. Honey and lightning and home. He's stupid.

"I want to do something for her," he said finally, quietly.

"And I'm sorry to ask you, but Davrin would talk to me in hunting metaphors as if they are even remotely the same thing, Bellara would start talking about something else entirely, and Neve wouldn't know about any of this if it stabbed her in the neck."

Emmrich supressed a grimace. An accurate summary of their travelling companions, if a tad unsympathetic.

"She is- she deserves- " he sighed, he ran a hand across his face in defeat.

"Well, then," Emmrich said, taking pity on him, putting a hand on Lucanis's shoulder. "I'm sure she'd be delighted. If it came from you."

"But that is the problem," he said, almost panicked. "I am an assassin, Emmrich. All I know is death. What could I ever possibly do for her?"

He looked down at his hands, open now in his lap.

"How could I ever thank her for... " he closed his eyes, blew a long breath out of his nose.

Emmrich thought about it for a moment. Oh, there was no question that young Rook was infatuated with him, and he with her. No question at all. But how could they prove it to each other? To themselves?

"Hmmm," he hummed as he thought, and then an idea came to him.

"Surely," he said, his brows raising innocently, "You can think of one other thing you might be good at?"

Lucanis looked at him, lost. Emmrich almost laughed at him.

Good at making. To eat! Slice things! BURN THINGS! HA!

"I think Spite has the right of it, there," he said with a grin. "Sort of."

"Cooking?" Lucanis asked. "You think I should cook her something?"

"I think our Rook has a lot of worries," he said. "I think that she would appreciate someone taking the time to think of her, and do something special. Romance, or whatever you would like to call it, Lucanis, is about the small details."

"I know that," Lucanis replied. "But cooking? I cook every day. Almost every day."

"Do you make something with her in mind? Something to bring her some comfort? It's no small thing, making a meal for someone."

Lucanis sat for a moment, frowning at the floor in front of him, then his expression lifted.

"Emmrich," he said, grinning, "I think you might be right. I'll see you at dinner."

We go to Burn Things! For Rook!

He stood and walked to the door, then turned with his hand on the handle.

"You wouldn't... happen to know a dessert that pairs well with coffee, would you?"

***

Lucanis was just adding the last sprinkle of chopped hazelnuts to the torte when the door opened.

"Rook!" He said, his voice pitched too high. He cleared his throat.

Oh, mierda. He should have put someone outside the door to keep her away. Spite should have told him she was coming. Damned demon.

"Lucanis?" She said uncertainly, frowning at him. She walked toward the kitchen, and he tried to stand in front of the stove so she wouldn't see what he was making.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I was... hungry?" she said, one eyebrow lifting.

"I wanted to see if someone had started on dinner already. What are we having?"

She peered over his shoulder, and he could see her expression change as she beheld the pot, smelled the contents and connected the two things. He'd realised when he'd started cooking that he'd never made anything special for her before. It was always other people asking him for things. Katchapouri for Neve, spiced rices for Taash, turnips for Harding.

She never asked for anything, not even her mother's rabbit stew. It was Orlesian, she'd said, and the library had helpfully provided him a recipe.

A part of him felt ashamed, because it was such a small thing, the simplest thing he'd cooked since getting here, but he'd been so busy thinking about Illario, and Caterina, and Minrathous that he hadn't thought about what it might mean to her to have something from home.

A different part, a bigger part, the part that her presence in his life had woken up, that part was determined to make it up to her, no matter what.

"Wait..." she said slowly, her eyebrows lifting in surprise, "Is that...?"

"You said it was your favourite," he said, and he couldn't help that his voice became soft as he said it.

"In a passing comment weeks ago," she said, shaking her head. His heart broke when she looked at him, because there was disbelief on her face, as if he wouldn't remember everything she'd ever said to him. As if he'd dare forget any little thing that added up to who she was.

"You remembered?" She asked, her dimples appearing as she smiled. Her voice was so small and fragile that he almost couldn't bear it.

"Of course," he said, trying for a grin. "And a hazelnut torte for dessert. It pairs well with the coffee you like."

"You- " she stopped, shook her head. "You made all of this for me?"

"There is enough for everyone," he said, trying for levity. Immediately, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. She wilted slightly.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! It made her smaller!

Of course he felt like saying something now, Lucanis thought, annoyed. More at himself.

"Well," she said, and he heard how she tried to hide how much it meant to her, crossing her arms in front of her chest like a shield. Mierda, he didn't want her to hide anything from him, ever again.

"As long as they're fine with having my favourite meal."

"They won't complain."

She was quiet for a moment, frowning at the stove.

"You didn't have to do anything special for me," she finally said, quietly.

You are. Making it. WORSE. Make it. BETTER.

"Yes, I did," he said quickly, and she looked back at him. Maker's blood, he was listening to a demon tell him how to talk to her. He wasn't used to this, to holding something as fragile as her heart. "I still don't know how to apologize for... everything."

And there was so much to apologize for. To thank her for.

"And you- "

"You made Orlesian stew, and dessert," she said, cutting him off because she knew, of course she knew he didn't know how he wanted to finish that sentence. She gave him a grin that punched straight through his chest. Mierda, she was still trying to make him feel better.

"Just for me."

"It's nothing," he said, earnestly. Just then, Emmrich's idea felt decidedly laclustre. He felt decidedly laclustre.

"Or, not enough."

"It is."

Her smile was soft. Soft enough that he almost believed it when she said,

"And you are."

And you are.

Then her grin turned more crooked, her eyes sparking with mischief.

"And I'm perhaps too easily bribed by sweets."

"I'll... keep that in mind," he said, smiling back. He realised he could stare at her forever, if she let him. He also realised he'd been doing it too long, and quickly cleared his throat.

"Thank you, Rook," he managed after a moment. "I suppose that is what I wish to say."

"Oh," she waved a hand dismissively, her grin turning decidedly crooked. "What are friends for, if not to break you out of your mind... fade... prison... thing?"

He looked at her, and those weeks of trying to pretend that he felt nothing, that it was just Spite, that he wasn't good enough, that an assassin should not get attached, worried that her kindness and trust was something to be wary of, piles and piles of excuses, all went through his head. Weeks of being so worried about Illario and Caterina that he'd missed the fact he'd never made her dinner before.

For once, he agreed with Spite. Because he was an idiot.

She changed everything. And perhaps the world might end, and he might have to kill his cousin, but just then, looking into her eyes, he wasn't scared anymore. Not of this.

"Friends?" He asked softly.

She blinked. Then frowned at him.

"What else- "

Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

"You mean- ?"

Then her expression melted, and his heart broke, because before she turned away from him, he could see her write this off as something she didn't deserve, as one more thing that could go wrong. As if there was anything she could do that would change what he felt for her. As if she wasn't the best thing he'd ever been given a chance to know.

"You don't have to- "

Whatever she was going to say was cut off, because he kissed her.

Despite his fears and excuses and dissmissal of his feelings for her, since that first coffee at Cafe Pietra he'd pictured this moment so many times it had almost become rote. He'd pictured it happening in Treviso, at Cafe Pietra. On the beach in Rivain, beneath the stars, or in Arlathan, with drops of rain falling off the leaves they were sheltering beneath. In his dreams, there'd been lightning, and fire and ice and butterflies after he'd said exactly the right things, done exactly the right things, charmed her the way Illario would charm someone, and given her a first kiss worthy of a romance book.

This was not that.

It was a peck, and he hadn't even thought about it, and she was looking at him like he'd grown two heads.

"I want to," he said, breathless. Maker, he wondered if a proper kiss would kill him.

Hesitantly, he cupped her cheek with his hand. To his relief, she didn't pull away.

"You know my mind better than anyone," he said. From this close, he could count the little brown specks floating in the grey of her wonderful eyes. "I've wanted to. But I was... scared. And an idiot."

Her hand came up and closed around his wrist, like she was trying to find something to hold on to.

Or trying to keep him from leaving.

"What changed?" She asked, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say she looked scared.

"You," he said simply. "You change everything."

Rook opens locks.

She smiled hesitantly, and the only thing he could compare it to was the first breath of fresh air he'd taken outside of the Ossuary.

It wasn't in Treviso, beneath the lantern light, or on the beach beneath the stars. He hadn't said the right things, not the way he wanted to, but she'd understood. And when she leaned forward, her soft lips were warm against his own. Warm, and unsure, and sweet.

Not what he'd dreamed. Better. Because this was real.

He wondered where he should put his hands. He wanted to pull her closer, or perhaps run his fingers through her hair, or maybe he should keep a hand on her cheek...?

"What is it?" She asked quietly, pulling away slightly, her eyes filled with uncertainty.

"I don't know where to put my hands," he said, stupidly. But then she laughed softly, and suddenly it seemed nothing else in the world truly mattered.

She took his hands and put them around her waist, and her own arms closed around his neck, pulling him close again.

"I think this is good," she said, and Maker help him, he could smell the lightning on her hair she was so close.

"So?" He asked her, allowing a satisfied grin to steal across his features, "How would you describe the taste?"

She looked up at the ceiling, considering.

"Just sweet enough," she touched her nose to his, then frowned, as if in thought.

"With a hint of hazelnut."

He laughed, breathless.

"You're blushing," she breathed when he stopped, grinning, her eyes filled with wonder, a finger gently tracing along his cheekbone.

"I'm happy," he said, realising he meant it for the first time in a very long time as his hands splayed across her back. "You make me happy."

He kissed the grin off her face, deciding that was a better use of both their breaths than talking.

"Oh!"

Lucanis almost pulled out a knife when Rook pulled away, startled by the noise.

Neither of them had heard footsteps, and he realised belatedly that the door was still open from her earlier entrance. Sloppy, dangerous, but just then he'd never felt further removed from Caterina's strict lessons on discipline.

"Bellara!" Rook said, staring at the elf, who was staring at them. Lucanis watched as a blush spread across her cheeks, and couldn't help but feel a strange pride at it's appearance.

"We were just- " she looked to him for help.

"Finishing dinner," he said, aware he was still smiling, aware he still had his arms wrapped around her, aware he didn't care, not in the slightest.

"Oh, that's ok!" Bellara said, striving for casual and not achieving it in the slightest.

"I'm... gonna go. And come back later!" She said, "And definitely not tell Neve!"

She was gone before either of them could say another word, the door closing behind her, leaving them alone together in the firelight.

Rook turned back to him, her head dropping onto his shoulder as she laughed tiredly.

"Who's blushing now?" He asked her softly.

She lifted her head and levelled a playfull scowl at him.

"Shouldn't you be cooking?"

He grinned, pulling her closer to him.

"In a second," he murmured, before he kissed her again, and somehow, every time, it seemed to get better.

[countmothra]

I think it’d be funny if Nihil just had (probably still would have) insane one sided beef with the Beatles. Like he just fucking HATES them, all four of them are his mortal enemies and they don’t know it. To the point he forbids their music in the abbey. Yellow submarine was his last straw.

[persephinae]

no but, (a romanced Lucanis) Spite speedrunning trying to learn the mortal world and how things work, trying to understand Lucanis and Rook. Spite wants so badly to understand and protect Rook that he speedruns trying to become a little bit more mortal for them, trying to understand how people and hearts work. he tries so hard to do this

[vic-does-battlecats]

he totally did that On Purpose

(hope the gif colors come out right.. might have to click on it for it to display right?)