#guess who watched arcane again lmao

[frenchublog]

dirty little animals

[starschu]

Guess who’s rewatching snippets from Arcane instead of studying for finals lmao

Anyway, do you know what I just realized about S2E2 when Ekko and Heimerdinger are breaking into the lab? You know what’s absolutely tearing me up inside??

(Sorry for the low quality pics lol bear with me)

I can’t believe I missed this on my first watch through omg

Jayce thought it was Viktor

He stood by as they unscrewed the grate—waited until someone came through—and it was only when he heard Heimerdinger speak and knew it wasn’t Viktor that he fired up the hammer

He stayed, kept sleeping in the lab (though not much judging by how tired he seems), in case Viktor came back. In case he changed his mind and decided to stay with him. And for a second he thought he did. And then his heart broke all over again

[viwifey]

If you don’t mind telling me, can you tell me what you found wrong with act 2? I did think it was a little rushed but I still love it, I’m probably biased tho

yes!! i was debating on making a post about this so i'm glad you asked lol

just wanna say that this is not me saying that my opinions are right; i find it great that you loved the act and who knows if my opinions will change in the future anyways

i'm going to break my thoughts down by character and compare what happened to them in act 2 from where they left off in act 1 to help organize my thoughts

JINX

last we saw jinx in act 1 she had fought vi with the help of sevika and isha and lost her middle finger due to a shot fired by caitlyn. sevika released the air from the janna temple and kept jinx and isha covered while caitlyn and vi were separated from them. the strong wind causes piltover to be covered in these paint explosions which incites the people in the undercity to start riots in jinx's image

we start act 2 with jinx and isha doing sisterly things that she wished she got to do with vi when they were younger. we also see, with some conflictions, that she isn't interested in being a symbol for the undercity and doesn't seem to have much going on outside of that because her goal of "finishing what's left of her family" basically ended when she realized that vi still loves her during their fight. when isha and the other people from the rally are taken to stillwater, jinx breaks in, releases them and receives more love/praise from her supporters. here it can be strongly interpreted based on jinx's reaction that she was going to be accepting the role of being the symbol for the undercity and help lead the fight against piltover's rule. but after all of that, her reunion with isha is interrupted with the introduction of warwick/vander. then she spends the next two episodes trying to find and cure him with the help of vi and there no further development on her role in the rebellion, aside from the mural in episode 5 and her calling herself a hero because of the jailbreak.

i love that jinx was able have her family back again, it was my favorite part of act 2, but i found it strange that there was a lot of focus spent on jinx being the symbol for the undercity rebellion in episode 4 and how she was presented to be ready to step into that roll only for it to be almost forgotten about for the next 2 episodes. i don't know if the possible death of isha and warwick is going to be used as reasoning for get her to actually "join the cause" but if not then i don't understand why it was implemented into the show in the first place. my guess is that its going to be used just as a way for jinx to easily get people to fight in whatever battle is going to take place in act 3 since it seems like the noxians are already going to be attempted to be removed by caitlyn anyways since she betrayed them in episode 6

JAYCE

jayce ended episode 3 possibly entering ??? into the hex thingy after touching it and smashing it with his hammer (way to go dude!!) while he was with ekko and heimerdinger. we do not see him again until the end of episode 5 where he emerges from the hex looking like he had survived some crazy arcane apocalypse and experienced a shit-ton of trauma... after realizing how powerful viktor has become and killing salo, he makes his way over to viktor's cult base and kills him too before fleeing the scene lmao

i've already seen people joke about how it's no wonder jayce has haters because he just continues to fuck things up but this is the most interested i've been in his character since first watching the show. but i'm worried that were not going to get to see much of what happened to him while he was in the hex and that the show is either going to just have jayce tell us what he witnessed or use quick flashbacks instead. (and like... the show is named arcane because of the arcane magic and hextech is crucial for a lot of the story arcs so i would've anticipated that there would be more focus on that i guess??) though it isn't really fair for me to use this as criticism for act 2 since act 3 is not out, with only 3 episodes left and a lot of story to wrap up i feel like that is going to be the case

MEL

mel ends act 1 getting captured by the black rose and spends act 2... being captured by the black rose... i also really like mel and have enjoyed watching her character develop but i feel like her story is part of the show that has bitten off more than it can chew. i am not familiar with anything from league so the black rose stuff is very new to me and as much as it is interesting, it just doesn't feel necessary to have as part of the show. i think if it were introduced more in the first season then i would understand why it's a part of this one but it's being used as a storyline that is either put to the side or is getting ran through to get to the other stories arcs that need their own attention.

on a positive note, i am excited that the show is writing her as a character more than a piltover counselor and that we get to see what her tattoos, or is it armor??, are truly intended for

EKKO

so ekko also entered the hex with jayce??? i guess we don't know for sure since he didn't physically interact with it and i guess we still don't know now lol

i realllllyyy missed him in act 2 and his story is another one that i'm worried is going to be reduced to quick flashbacks or dialogue. my guess is when he returns from the hex, that is going to be the explanation for how he can manipulate time and he's going to use it at some point to help with the final battle

HEIMERDINGER

no complaints it was refreshing not seeing him ngl

AMBESSA

we finished act 1 with ambessa declaring martial law on the undercity and appointing caitlyn as commander with the intention of manipulating her and using piltover's recourses and weaponry for her own gain... and i would say that's basically what continues in act 2 for her as well

ambessa is a great antagonist and her motivations were set the moment we saw her in season 1: she wants control hextech and she wants her family to be safe. i don't think there was anything specific about her character or story that didn't fit for me because honestly everything with ambessa has been very consistent. i really look forward to her fight scenes in act 3

VIKTOR

viktor because jesus in act 1 and continues to be jesus in act 2 BUT a more powerful jesus... plus he has a cult

i just think he is another rushed storyline and that's pretty much the sum of it. it was wild watching him be able to enter people minds and float around in those celestial planes but i wish we got to see more about how he got to that point. when i think back to season 1, i liked how that season took time to show viktor's desperation with the hexcore and trying to find a cure for himself. it made me feel almost as desperate as him and i wanted him to be successful. watching act 2 didn't make me feel much of anything for his character and same goes for his death, although i'm sure that isn't going to be the last we see of him anyways

CAITLYN

we all know where caitlyn's arc finished in act 1 lol

i was really surprised that her first scene in act 2 was of her already showing doubts in how ambessa was running piltover because i think a lot of us expected her to do that much later in the act. i also wasn't a fan of how the show chose to have her character express these concerns with a couple scenes of dialogue rather than have us see her do something about it. if she were concerned that the noxians were being too violent with the people in the undercity, then show her trying to do something to stop it ! i feel like her scenes were either her saying she wasn't sure she was ok with being commander or it was her being like "i have to find jinx" and avenge my mother. so when she ran into vi in episode 6 and was somewhat casual about it, i was almost confused that there was nothing else to it... especially when the next thing we know is that she and vi devised a plan to stop ambessa from getting warwick??? it felt soooo random and i started laughing because it was practically ridiculous to me

i'm glad the act 3 trailer showed vi calling caitlyn out because there needs to be a discussion between the two of them over everything that happened. also it looked like it was taking place in caitlyn's house (mansion) and idk i think i just assumed that they wouldn't feel safe to go back to piltover after pissing ambessa off so maybe there's a reason for that?

VI

saving my best girl for last cause i'm biased oopsie... uhh we also know how things went for vi in act 1

ugh this might just be me getting my expectations too high but i was really hoping we were going to see more with her pitfighting than just those first 2 minutes. if anything i would have liked some scenes with loris before he decided to leave after her drinking got too bad. and thats other thing... you have vi being presented as an alcoholic but she's totally fine the second jinx shows up?? as mentioned in cait's section, i don't love how their reunion scene went. i find it really difficult to believe that vi would have enough trust in cait right away to let her be brought to ambessa without any concerns that something could go wrong. but in general it feels like vi doesn't have much of an arc going on anyways... she started off working with cait to find jinx which didn't go well. then she's working with jinx to help vander which as far as we know could be dead. so now is she going back to working with cait to stop the noxians? it just seems like she doesn't have a solid motivation this season when it could have been something about her finding self-acceptance for all the guilt she's had over the years or idk making her lead the rebellion in the undercity, just something to make her feel like she has purpose.

and i'm going to stop here :) i think i got everything i wanted to say somewhere in here but either way i'm sure i get my point across just fine. i want to reiterate that i don't think i'm right about my opinions and also wanna say that i am enjoying the show, though it may not seem like it with this lol. i think act 3 will make me change my mind about a couple things anyways but this is how i feel currently and that's pretty much it

[low-budget-korra]

Comments on Arcane s02 e1-3

-As someone who is still dealing with the loss of my father, I can guarantee that this type of pain is something else and it truly changes you. Caitlyn lost her mother in an act of violence, terrorism, so of course she will be full of anger and urging for revenge. And also, of course she also felt guilty about it, like she said to her dad, she had the shot on Jinx but didn't shoot.

I've seen people commenting as if Caitlyn had volunteered to be Ambessa second hand and now that I've seen I'm like ? Bruh did y'all didn't see the masterful power and pressure move Ambessa thrown on Caitlyn? After that speech, there was no way she could say "no", those people would eat her alive and she would possibly be treated as a traitor, especially because of her proximity with Vi

-And I KNEW Ambessa was behind it all

-"I'm the one that created that monster" no Vi, you didn't 🥺. See? That's exactly when Jinx loses me. She doesn't take accountability for her actions and blames Vi for it.

"but she is traumatized" grl tell me one one character in that show who ain't?

Okay, let me say something serious. Being traumatized, doesn't give you the right to hurt others. Assholes can be traumatized too, and I'm saying this because I've already seen people hide behind their mental illness and trauma just so they could hurt others and not be held accountable for that.

Jinx asking if Caitlyn and Vi had sex before the fight began, was brutal lmao

-We got the CaiVi kiss but at what cost??? 😭

I think what made Caitlyn snap was being compared to Jinx

-If something happens with Maddie, I will kill everybody in the show and myself. What an sweetheart. In fact, I like all of CaitVi squad

Something I can't say about that kid who follows Jinx. I'm sorry but I couldn't care less about that child.

-And the assholes attack again, and guess who will suffer the consequences?? In my comments on s1 I talked about the need to know how to pick the battles we fight. And Silco's gang just reunited the stronger enemy against them, and the people of Piltover won't care about any more ruthless or aggressive response against Zaun. Now more than ever, they think of them as vile monsters who need to be put down.

What Jinx and Silco started will just result in the death of more innocents, especially the people of Zaun.

-Gotta say, watching Sevika be all "we don't hand over our people" speech, the same of she took as a weakness when Vander spoke.... character development.

Viktor basically became Jesus. I'm sorry but that scene when he wakes up and was like "peace off bruh ✌️" to Jayce, and leaves him...it was so not funny but still made me laugh

-wtf is happening with the Hex? Also, yeah, now I get why Riot almost went broke after making this

[cookinguptales]

Okay so now that I've had some time to digest and think about Late Night with the Devil, some thoughts.

Sorry in advance, this got really, REALLY long as I rambled about all-male secret societies, who and what was possessing whom throughout this movie, literal and metaphorical hauntings, how fame and fortune tempt us all to give up our humanity, and uh. Family youtubers.

I really enjoyed the film, but I do have to wonder, to start with, if other people will get all the allusions...? I didn't think about it until later when I was reading confused posts by other viewers, but I guess the film does kind of predicate on a lot of somewhat arcane knowledge. Like you can understand what's going on without it, but I do think you get a lot more enjoyment out of it if you have a good working understanding of, like, the Satanic Panic of the 70s, the parapsychology/esper craze, James Randi's whole thing, Anton LaVey, Waco, late night hosts like Johnny Carson, and of course the Bohemian Grove.

The Bohemian Grove is kind of... like, obviously a lot of the people making up conspiracy theories about that recently are alt-right assholes (see: Alex Jones), but it is very much a real thing. It's kind of a modern Masonic situation, imo, where you get these big groups of rich, influential men together and they do silly, juvenile vaguely pagan frat boy shit. It's edgelord stuff. But because they are secretive and they are powerful, people come up with all of these conspiracy theories about them.

(I mean lbr that's kind of the history of the occult in general, isn't it? lmao. People ask me if I was afraid when I was studying secret societies and occultism and it's like -- no, these were by and large just rich assholes fighting over headcanons about rituals that they made up based off of deeply faulty scholarship. But I digress.)

The fact of the matter, though, is even if the actual rituals and stuff are kind of silly, the main focus is really rich, powerful men meeting up with other rich, powerful men and networking like crazy. It does keep the rich rich, the powerful powerful, and political resources focused on men. Like the Masons, women aren't allowed in the Bohemian Grove -- and women in politics have bitterly criticized the way that they're being excluded from this kind of networking.

(God, it's so fratty. It's so fucking fratty.)

So in that respect, it is kind of something to be feared.

And... I do think you see that aspect of it reflected in Late Night with the Devil. The consolidation of power, the networking with shitty people, and the way that women are "sacrificed."

[massive spoilers for the entire film to follow!]

I do think I want to see this movie again to firm up some of my ideas, because I suspect that there are a lot of details that I missed the first time I watched this. (And I really should have watched the open captioned version of this; I couldn't understand a lot of what the demon was saying, rip.) But here are some initial thoughts.

The heart of this, obviously, is the demonic presence at the Grove and the way that men go there to sell their soul for power. In a very literal sense, that's what's happening in this film and it's what happened to Jack Delroy. He made a deal with a demon for fame, and that demon ended up taking everything from him to achieve that.

But... metaphorically speaking, it seems clear that Jack Delroy was very willing to make human sacrifices in his day-to-day life. He may have literally (and I think accidentally) sacrificed his wife's life to a demon at the Grove, but he very consciously and willingly sacrificed her for fame when she was alive, too. I mean... imagine having a spouse who is actively dying of cancer and making her make an appearance on your show two weeks before she passes. For ratings. Imagine how much it must have physically taxed her. Imagine how difficult it must have been for them both emotionally. It even could have hastened her death. But he was still willing to do all that for views. He sacrificed his wife, his home life, and his overall privacy for views.

(Family youtubers, anyone? 🙃)

He's also willing to sacrifice his girlfriend, his crew, his audience, and a little girl for ratings. Gus, his voice of reason. He was willing to humiliate him onstage and wouldn't let him go home when he was scared. His audience, whose trauma he was entirely willing to capitalize on through Christou's act. His gf, who I'd argue was probably using Lilly as well, was totally thrown to the wolves when he realized it'd make good television.

Like -- yes, there were supernatural forces at play. Supernatural forces claimed these lives. But Jack sure as shit wasn't being very careful with them, and these supernatural sacrifices always, always mirrored his mundane ones.

(I mean... he performed a human sacrifice of a little girl on national television while in a hallucination about using the sacrificial dagger on his dying wife. It wasn't subtle. lmao)

Moreover, the producers of the show were also very willing to put people in harm's way and capitalize on tragedy for ratings. So... there's a really unsubtle message here about fame and capitalism and the way it tempts you to sacrifice your humanity to get ahead.

(MAYBE LIKE UNDERMINING YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY BY USING AI INSTEAD OF HIRING ARTISTS, IDK)

I'd in fact argue that pretty much everyone who got on that stage that night sacrificed their humanity a bit for fame, with the possible exception of Gus. Gus was the voice of reason, but I mean... he was still there. Maybe a message about how once you get in, you can't get out. :(

But yeah, Jack's obvious, but also Christou, who was willing to use people's trauma for fame. June, who was willing to use a little girl's incredible trauma to advertise for her new book. Carmichael, who got off on humiliating people just to make himself seem smart.

Like... they all started with a kernel of something good (wanting to help the grieving, wanting to help traumatized children, wanting to stop charlatans) but in the end, show biz turned all those urges into the most amoral, selfish, and cruel versions of themselves.

And all of those people crumbled when they were confronted with something real.

(Side note, our theater was in hysterics when Carmichael tried to offer the demon the check. lmao)

Truthfully, it felt like all of them had made their own individual deals with the devil years ago. Halloween 1977 was just the devil finally coming to take his due.

That's the main message of the movie, I think, but there are still some smaller details I want to talk about.

The Grove itself was an obvious allusion to the Bohemian Grove, which is a secret society of powerful men who meet amongst the redwoods in Northern California. Their mascot has always been an owl, which is why you repeatedly see the owl motif throughout the movie. (Happy Owl-ween, the owl mask, etc.)

Abrasax makes sense as a demon to choose (the strong historical associations with magic and demonology, the reoccurrences in many world religions (and occult groups), the role in Gnosticism, etc.) but there seem to be vibes of Stolas, an owl deity who communicates arcane knowledge to humans in exchange for their souls, as well. I noticed a lot of little allusions to Abrasax throughout the film even before Lilly started manifesting, like the movie being shown after the show being about Abrasax.

Lilly... She was rescued from a cult that seems to be a hybrid of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and the Branch Davidians who died during a siege by the US government in Waco, TX. (Like the cultists in the movie, their compound caught fire when they were being raided. IRL, it's unclear whether the fire was started as a suicide cult situation or if it was started by the actions of the government as they tried to flush people out.) In this cult, girls were sacrificed at age 13, and all who witnessed that sacrifice would fall under the control of Abrasax.

So... she was rescued at age 10. Three years have passed. So she is now 13, the age at which these girls were sacrificed. She was due, in other words. Who and what was possessing her... that's the question, I guess. Demons, historically speaking, were known to speak foreign languages, speak in the voice of other humans, have psychic knowledge their hosts shouldn't know, etc. So she did exhibit symptoms like that.

I think... there are a couple of options here. There's Abrasax specifically, there's June's theory that she was possessed by a minor demon, and there's Minnie. Or a combination of the three.

It's pretty clear that Minnie's presence is felt throughout the whole taping. You can see her reflection various times throughout the movie, she manifested through Christou, and obviously you see her in the tape playback.

(And when I say my theater YELLED. lmao)

The question is, though... Is it really Minnie? And if it is, what does she want? Has she been haunting Jack all along? Is she there because, as it's the first Halloween after her death, it's her last chance to deal with her unfinished business? Did the demon allow her to manifest? Or was the whole thing an illusion created by the demon all along?

(I'd like to note here that, historically speaking, there was a theory that ghosts aren't actually real. They're actually demons masquerading as the spirits of departed loved ones, and they want you to summon them and listen to them so they can tempt you away from God. You can read this in the writings of a lot of the ancient Christian theologians. Or you could have talked to my grandmother, who also told me this when I was a kid! :') But she's dead now so I guess you'd have to do a summoning and find out for yourself.)

All that said... I come down between two current theories. I'd have to watch it again to firm up my ideas.

The first theory is that she's been trapped on earth for the past year, but because it's Halloween, she can haunt them. They mention at the beginning of the film that Halloween is a recent spirit's last chance to take care of unfinished business. So this could have been the case with Minnie. That said... what exactly was her unfinished business? Was she trying to protect Jack and the others? Or hurt them? Was she angry, or was she just, as Christou said, sad? Was her "an unmarried man wearing a wedding ring" referring to the way that Jack was grieving her and still wearing his ring, or the way that he wasn't much of a husband to her when she was alive?

The second theory is that, when she was sacrificed to Abrasax, she became a part of that legion. She was, like Lilly and the other little girls, essentially raised to be sacrificed, and once she was, she joined everyone else who is under the control of the deity. It's still hard to sense whether she was trying to help or hurt throughout the broadcast, but it explains her presence (she came with Lilly, not Jack) and how she was used during Jack's hallucinations to ultimately get him to perform the sacrifice on Lilly, thus bringing all audience members (both in the studio and at home) under Abrasax's control.

Either way, Minnie, in this film, is literal ghost haunting the stage -- but also a metaphorical one. The ghost of all of Jack's past misdeeds and the humanity he's sacrificed to get ahead. She's guilt and she's shame and she's desperate grief, and I guess it's no wonder that the negativity surrounding her was enough to kill Christou when he touched it.

I do think it's fascinating that all of the women in this movie are, in a very real and physical sense, sacrificed for the aspirations of men. (The little girls are sacrificed, Minnie died of a mysterious cancer, June dies because Jack pushed for her to stay, etc.) But metaphorically speaking that seems to be the case as well. They're constantly expected to put their own comfort and safety aside for the men in their lives, and their own aspirations are consumed by the men's.

Like I said, it feels very telling that women aren't allowed at the Grove. Women are constantly being denied power in this movie (or are only allowed power when it's in service to a male costar/deity) and it's largely because they just don't have the connections that the men do. The deals were made while they weren't in the room, essentially.

I'm not sure if that was a conscious choice being made, but it does seem to dovetail nicely with the strong, strong sexism and male privilege present in real-life secret societies of powerful men that disallow women. Like June only getting to shill for her book because Jack let her, women are only allowed at the real-life Bohemian Grove in very limited areas -- and only as a male member's guest.

Um... back to Lilly, though. What the hell is possessing her? She speaks as Minnie a few times, but that could be because Minnie is a part of their legion or just because she's trying to freak out Jack. Demons are known to lie using the voices of loved ones. Minnie's presence could have been influencing her, but I definitely don't think that's all that was in there.

The question, really, seems to arise from what June said about Lilly changing like a week ago and how she started talking about Jack nonstop. At least one presence in Lilly seems to be the same deity that Jack spoke to in the Grove when he was making his deal with the devil (so to speak) because it mentioned that encounter. But is that the only one in there? Is it the same deity that's always been in there? Or did it come to her only a week ago as a way to get to Jack and complete their contract? ("It is done.")

Lilly refers to her demon as Mr. Wriggles (which feels like an Exorcist allusion) and it seems like she has a pretty good lid on it. And when that demon is brought out of her by June, it seems confused and frightened. But Lilly is pretty clearly possessed the entire rest of the broadcast, so really the two options are that she was faking the entire time just to fuck with them (entirely possible) or there were two different deities, perhaps the original (lesser) one put in her in the cult and Abrasax(?) newly arrived to claim Jack and his audience.

It's fascinating watching her, because you can see her slip in and out of a possessed state several times when people aren't paying attention to her (jerking, spacing out, etc.) but it's hard to tell whether that's different presences coming in and out of control, her "talking" to what's inside her, etc. Again, this is a thing I think would benefit from multiple viewings. I'm really not sure if the Grove creature is new to her body or if it's been there all along biding its time, and it's only changing its behavior now because it wanted to be on tv.

While her recently changed behavior seems to lean towards the former, I am sort of stuck on the detail that Jack said early on, that he read June's book and couldn't stop thinking about it. That could just be normal fascination (and he did end up having an affair with her) but it could also be demonic intervention. That would indicate that the demon was manipulating him into putting Lilly on TV long before a week ago.

What is not really up for debate is that the presence inside Lilly now is one that has connections to Jack through the Grove and promised him fame. Lilly (before she was visibly possessed) alludes to this promise by telling Jack that he'll be very famous after tonight. And once the ritual starts, she is seen taking electrical energy from the set and cameras. She is literally getting her power from the audience viewing the sacrifice. (It's very Ringu.) And after Jack stabs Lilly, the studio audience, audience at home, and presumably real-life audience watching this movie, are all put under Abrasax's control.

("Hail Abrasax" is seen multiple times throughout the film, which might also imply that the documentarians themselves are trying to spread this contagion after watching the video.)

Uh... a few more small things.

Carmichael Haig is obviously James Randi. Like Houdini before him, Randi was also a stage magician who dedicated his life to exposing "supernatural" charlatans. He did indeed offer a huge sum of money to whoever could prove him wrong. Carmichael even looked like James Randi. (Though I'd point out that "Haig" is the name of the man who constructed the owl statue at the real-life Bohemian Grove!) I suppose it makes sense that he'd be such an asshole in a world where demonic possession does actually exist.

The one thing I'd say is... it's hard to say whether this was a case of the filmmakers not thinking through implications or if this really was a nasty joke, but Randi was, IRL, gay. He came out late in life and got married to a man shortly before he died. So the implication that Carmichael, in the movie, wanted to join the Grove largely because he was perverted is... iffy. Carmichael was never stated to be gay in the movie (that I noticed) and it's hard to suss out whether the orgies he was talking about were relating to the all-male membership of the Grove (i.e. a gay orgy) or the women that these powerful men had hanging all over them (i.e. a... less gay orgy) and I do think which they were implying has major implications for what they were saying about a man who was, IRL, gay.

Like... if the implication was that he must've been willing to hurt people in order to have wild sex because he's gay, that's uh! Not great! But if the creators didn't realize that aspect of Randi's life (it was less publicized because, as I mentioned, it happened later in his life) then they might have just been pushing on that trope of powerful men using women.

Really, really hard to say.

Next, Christou. Christou... it's hard to say whether the man was psychic at all. It's clear that he was doing a lot of fake-ass cold reading beforehand (though I do want to go back through it and see if there really was any allusion to a Peter- character involving the skeleton) and was using interviews to find grieving audience members. (Two practices that James Randi talked about a lot IRL.) But he also did have a very real experience when he sensed Minnie and, while overwhelmed, didn't seem particularly shocked by it.

If I had to guess, I think that Christou does have some psychic powers (which is why I want to investigate the Peter thing) but can't control them well and is easily overwhelmed by real phenomena. He plays things up for the cameras (I noticed his accent slipped when he had his real experience, lmao) but I wouldn't be surprised if, like everyone else on stage, there's a kernel of something real in him.

Finally... that fucking skeleton! I want to do an entire watch through just to examine that guy. He was in the flashbacks about the Grove, so I think it's likely that he might've been a member of that. He also is the only one who refuses to take off his mask, which seems to relate to the dialogue at the beginning of the film about wearing a mask to protect yourself from spirits during Halloween. I think he's definitely in on what's going on, to some extent, but it's hard to figure out exactly in what capacity. Was it a Grove member, or maybe a cult member? A follower of Abraxas? Was it actually the personification of Death?

Hard! To! Say!

Like I said, I really do want to rewatch this movie to pay more attention to small details I might've missed in the theater. I'm also looking forward to seeing it with subtitles. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was intriguing and original enough that I really enjoyed it and want to watch it again to puzzle through it. Really, the one big mark against it was the brief use of AI, which is just -- god, it's infuriating.

It's such a small part, so it would have been so easy to not do. (Apparently it wasn't even IN the first festival showing.) But it kind of pollutes the whole movie, especially when such a large message is not fucking over real people in the quest for success in the media landscape.

Plus, it just kind of looked like shit.

I know it's probably a lost cause, but I would be thrilled if they hired a real artist and redid those images for the Shudder release. It would be so easy to fix, and it would make the movie a lot better. Those commercial breaks were so funny and if they had better interstitials (that didn't make you feel icky just looking at them) then it would boost an already great film.

I just. I don't even know why they did it in the first place. I'm guessing, based on the fact that they weren't in the original screenings, that they were pressed for time to finish things...? But come on, surely you can find some artist who can do something quick for you. It wasn't even a moving image.

So uh... yeah, I guess that's where I'm at. It was an interesting (if slightly hokey) movie pulling together a lot of threads to make something cool and mysterious, I liked a lot of the acting (particularly Jack Delroy's) and set design, I wanna chat with people about it -- but I can't really in good conscience fully recommend it because of the AI thing. It's just such a disgrace to artistic integrity. Here's hoping they hire a real fucking artist.

[caphayzardous]

arcane season 2 spoilers

anyway we all know I only care about viktor. I kinda feel like there were some major scenes missing there. like yeah i get what happened off-screen for all that, just that personally I am always interested in "watching someone become a cult leader" u know. or become a robot freaky guy. I think that a bit more of that corruption could have been shown because it's Interesting. and also because he ended up being kind of important to the Plot right but was not really.. Around. anyway large main cast and only 9 episodes I get it my fave will never have enough screentime etc etc.

and then also idk he had that happy cult where yes he could inhabit their bodies at will, but they did otherwise seeming to be thriving and having free will (I think?) and like. the turn from that to 'no I gotta take away the free will' is a bit like rushed LMAO. like yeah it was going to go that way but really, like that? sure he got exploded, plus it's da magic and stuff messing with him a bit, it's not just viktor-as-we-knew-him making that leap, but yeah man idk

all of this pairs alongside with my other complaint which is: Too Much of Jayce being Boring As Fuck again ! mans boring what can i say. whats up with that scene where he busts in and ruins like 4 different happy endings at once. I know that's ostensibly because some future viktor encouraged it, but then that act was also the turning point for vitkor fully 'evolving' people, so ? idk maybe he woulda got to that point anyway (you know what cults, literally all cults, are like)

Jinx was interesting, Vi and Jinx still have an interesting story together, the back and forth "one last betrayal, one last I've-always-got-your-back" maybe was a bit like drawn out right at the end but hey it suits 'em. I liked Jinx's arc w da kid. The entire time I was watching this season i was remembering someones commentary of s1 which was "damn this show really likes to kill children, huh" and uh well Yeah. rip but in terms of plot that one was real cheap and I think honestly boringly predictable to do the 'rip it all away again' thing for jinx. round 3!

A bit interesting watching Jinx go quiet depwession and Vi go rage depwession but perhaps also I just think after a whole season 1 of tragedy it was like man . . . can they catch a break though. and I dont think that having jinx do the sacrifice at the end was really necessary or satisfying. it was satisfying having those two unite. but I think jinx has actually died enough LMAO

Cait's arc. uhhh. like. man. woof. nah. pretty fucking egregious choices, words, and actions, there! she kinda fucked up a lot this season. I was vouchin for her and Vi in s1 but honestly by the end of this one I'm liek dude. like idk about that. I guess Vi already compromised or rewrote her morals when she agreed to uhh [checks notes] "Gas Civilians utilising Zaun's literal air ventilation systems" while hunting for her sister. so. sure. the cell makeout scene was so funny for how intensely censored it was.

Ekko was cool I liked His Episode w the parallel stuff that was interesting and also a bit sweet. he kinda faded into da background a bit all season and hten I thought he was going to come in clutch but he kinda didnt. I mean he did, in the way everyone did, but not for the actual resolution.

speaking of the resolution look idk space viktor scenes are ok they are like. ehh. ok. that imagery was all a bit wishy-washy 4 me. but it was alright. kinda sweet to have those two reunite sure but. idk their friendship breakup wasnt like...... I mean it was like a gradual falling out? sorta? 'jayce growing apart from viktor' and then 'viktor refusing to compromise his morals any further and deciding to leave' u know I think its nice they were partners at the end again but who am I kidding jayce is too boring for me to give a fuck his friendship (or... whatever we are calling it :) ) with viktor IS interesting but once its over im kinda like good riddance !

Mel is cool idk man I didnt expect her to disappear and come back a mage umm like she was a bit more interesting as a manipulator or even as A Person u know ? but good for her. As for Ambessa I will say she is. well. consistent. actually, until the robots thing - I know she's obsessed with obtaining A Weapon but that particular angle doesnt seem to align with her principles at all. but yknow. these things happen. still kind of tracks for obsession to win there.

Who else. uhh. why DID heimerdinger explode asfjsknd. did that serve any purpose. also Sevika had the MOST "this character will be killed off" energy for all of BOTH seasons I actually cant believe she lived to the end.

all in all. I liked season 1 more, I maaay have liked this one more if I had rewatched it beforehand, because I was playing a little bit of catch-up and the emotional points may have hit harder if I had rekindled my investment in the characters that s1 did stoke so well. I did like this one though. but. was not as moved by it and just kind of wanted to see how it all ended. and then it all ended and I was like ah ok. thats ok I guess.

in s1 I was all in for the tragedy and p sure I cried a bunch at various things lmao. in this one I felt like it was just hmm not cheap exactly but idk none of it really landed. maybe you can only watch vi scream and punch a wall so many times?

the animation still rocks though. (except why was one random guy in the last episode given normal eyes where everyone else is cartoon? it was so noticeable?) I like the sequences of Different Style as well. fun stuff.

did find it a bit funny how no one (of the main characters) is ever allowed to win in a one-on-one because they are all part of an equal and balanced Video Game its just kind of funny in the cooonstant match-ups in the show when you sort of pick that like. every fight is going to be interrupted, or made uneven by numbers, or etc etc for some reason and no one can ever appear to have too much of an advantage over anyone else, hahah.

[practically-an-x-man]

For the character thing. Warren Worthington, Viktor from Arcane, and... the Corinthian

Ooh okay!

Send Me A Character and I'll Give You....

Warren

1: sexuality headcanon - oh he's very much bisexual. I'm surprised they haven't made it canon yet tbh 2: otp - canon-wise, him and Psylocke. Though is it wrong to say my own OC too? 3: brotp - I like the idea of him and Kurt making up after the fight and eventually getting to be really good friends 4: notp - I see people shipping him with Bobby and I don't really get it? No harm to those shippers just not my cup of tea 5: first headcanon that pops into my head - hates hospitals and gets severe medical anxiety after what his father put him through in his childhood. Thankfully his healing factor is usually strong enough to avoid it though. 6: favorite line from this character - "Sometimes I feel unimportant, like all I do is catch those that fall. But I look like an angel. People call me an angel. And though I'm not taking names, I'm the one who is most visually saving lives. I'm doing alright, and dammit, I'm an X-Man" 7: one way in which I relate to this character - only one? uhhhhh how about all the rampant unexplained medical issues that first sprung up at age 12 and had me locking myself in the bathroom? among a lot of other things 8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - there's one moment in the comics where he's kinda misogynistic towards Jean? It's from one of the very first X-Men runs from the 60s 9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - both, and I mean that genuinely. Un-brainwashed he's a bit more of a cinammon roll, but then there's everything in the Apocalypse arc...

Viktor (fair warning I haven't watched Arcane in a while)

1: sexuality headcanon - gay, possibly ace or demi 2: otp - him and Jayce I guess? I don't really have one tbh 3: brotp - Don't really have one of these either. I guess it could be fun to see him and Jinx make friends, since they're both kinda inventors and that could be interesting 4: notp - none? Look After is literally the only Arcane fic I read right now, so I don't really know who he gets shipped with to begin with 5: first headcanon that pops into my head - uhhh everyone has chronic lung problems from the pollution in the Undercity but it affects him worse because he's prone to asthma/bronchitis/other lung conditions 6: favorite line from this character - "We lost ourselves. Lost our dream. In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good." 7: one way in which I relate to this character - Joint problems babeyyy 8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - none? Been a while since I've seen the show, don't remember any specific moments 9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - Cinnamon roll

Corinthian

1: sexuality headcanon - not a headcanon but Neil Gaiman's confirmed he's pan and I like that 2: otp - again, do my OCs count? Nothing compares to Prometheus 3: brotp - don't really have one, but I want him and Hob to dish about Morpheus being a little bitch (/j) 4: notp - Corintheus. I get that it's popular but Dream's technically his creator and that just... gets weird to me. 5: first headcanon that pops into my head - he's got a soft spot for kids and genuinely doesn't want to hurt/scare them, it's the adults he gets fed up with 6: favorite line from this character - "You ever notice that people only ever use your name when you're in trouble? 'Get over here, Jed!'" (it's not the most impactful line of his but I think the delivery is really fun) 7: one way in which I relate to this character - on a simpler note... general Southern-ness I guess? But also the themes of being neglected/seen as inherently flawed by a parent (which... may be a repeat trend for me, just look at Warren lmao) 8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - In the comics, when he gets remade the first time and is first relearning about the Dreaming and what happened. It's a great scene overall, there's just something about the way Dream and Matthew talk to him that feels a little weird to me. 9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - Problematic fave, no doubt

[milkovichrules]

its tag game wednesday thursday!! thank you for tagging me lovely people ☺️ @iansw0rld @transmickey 🖤

if you could switch bodies with anybody for only one hour who would it be and what would you do? im a shortarse so someone big and tall would be fun... maybe a wrestler... probably baron corbin hes hot

what's your most trivial / dumbest hot take? mmm... maybe that every person should watch at least one animated thing (smth not made for kids like where the wind blows or arcane) and one thing from a non-english speaking country/with subtitles

if you had to teach a college course what would it be in? probably makeup artistry? its my one and only practical skill and I would've been a licensed artist if our teacher hadn't quit her job halfway through lmao

season 12 of shameless is suddenly happening and you've been out in charge! what plot point(s) are you gonna make happen? its the mickey and debbie show now and there will be various wholesome shenanigans but fr get carl outta the police force, maybe into college and that can be a nice bonding thing for him and liam studying together. oh and they definitely keep the house, maybe lip and deb get on good terms by fixing up the place together. debbie maybe runs into alex again and they give it another go? ian and mickey have wacky comic relief with their neighbours (the possibilities are endless) and probably think more seriously about starting a family and definitely get a cat or dog I just want to bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy

who would be your godly parent (can be any mythology)? I took a percy jackson quiz for this one and got Hephaestus, Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes, which sounds cool as shit (roman equivalent is Vulcan too?? hell yeah)

what's something you love about yourself? my eyes are really cool I think, they're mostly green but also have some blue and brown

describe your day in 5 emojis: 🥱👩‍💻☕️🎧📑

what shameless character do you think you could beat in a fight? mmmm either no one or the tiny social worker lady from season 3 lmao

tell us two truths and a lie, we'll try to guess the lie! I'm farsighted, I can speak a bit of norwegian, I love roller coasters

do you have a pet/pets? if so, how did they get their name(s)? I have two cats, artemis and athena, they're sisters from the same litter. my fiancé named them because she loves mythology (I'll put some kitten pics under the cut💕) alternate names were william the bloody and willow (if we got a boy and a girl, from buffy), april and miriam (from coraline), and teacup and lucifer (from the cat lady/downfall)

show us a meme (or picture) that captures your essence: middle one is irl only I love to be Perceived Online

what's your typical coffee / tea / beverage order? oat milk latte, iced if it's warm out

use a song to describe the last five years of your life: I really don't associate the stuff I listen to with my own life so these are just things I was really into that year:

2019: butterfly - loona 2020: lady wood - tove lo 2021: too late - the weeknd 2022: stayaway - muna 2023: hard times - ethel cain / death of me - pvris

Tagging: @softmick @golden28s @m4ndysk4nkovich @abetterdaaye @heymrspatel @stocious @callivich @jrooc @sgtmickeyslaughter @gallavichlover19 @depressedstressedlemonzest 🖤

kitten pics as promised (artemis/arti is the black and white one, athena/aggie is the tortie)

[tribadismes]

7, 10, 11, 34 for the tv show ask!

Hey love ! Thank you so much for asking !!

7. have you ever been inspired to start a new show based on gifs or memes it has produced ?

oh definitely ! probably the case for 1/4 shows i've watched !

10. what’s one show you thought you’d love but turned out to really hate ?

There's this show called Work in Progress that sounded right up my alley, it's written & stars a butch with ocd so you know basically my life story, i was really excited about it, but it ended up making me extremely uncomfortable and was a huge disappointment. The premise is already... really icky since it's about this 40 something butch lesbian who starts dating a 20 yo pre-transion trans man, but you know it could have been handled in a good way i guess ? but it wasn't, it really really wasn't, and the main character is so unlovable and, yeah, big flop, wouldn't recommend, oh at all. I was also really disappointed in Dead End : Paranormal Park, it's an adult horror/fantasy cartoon featuring a gay trans man lead and his autistic bestie and talking dog. I love adult cartoons and liked the premise and animation style so i was like this is gonna be good but it's not. I watched it less than six months ago and barely remember it so i can't really elaborate lmao but i remember the plot being both messy and underwhelming (proof : can barely tell you what the plot even is) and also that the worldbuilding was extremely lackluster, which is a huge dealbreaker when we're talking fantasy like ?? Needless to say i dropped both these shows after the first season and never looked back.

11. which TV show has the best musical soundtrack, in your opinion ?

if we're talking serious good original soundtrack obviously Twin Peaks comes to mind... if we're judging by how obsessed i am with it then... Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, oh surprise

34. what are your top 5 shows right now ?

i loooove that question and i will even make a proper ranking for yah ! I'm judging by how often I think about them and how much youtube content i consume around them lmfao.

5. A League Of Their Own : best show of 2022, favorite lesbian show since oitnb probably, actually haven't gone into a youtube rabbit hole about it (yet) but i really wanna rewatch it soon, also my thirst for butches in period clothing is endless

4. Arcane : i am obsessed with this show, watched it twice in like a week, it's amazing truly, so fucking well-written, if you're into fantasy, animation, crazy women and butches with big muscles you should definitely watch it. I don't think a show has ever emotionally scarred me like that and i loved every second of it.

3. Young Royals : i regularly rewatch scenes from this show, i'm just fascinated with the acting... also i love their love, makes me wanna fall in love again (yes i have been using it as a coping mechanism since my break up to remember love is beautiful and shit)

2. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend : i mean what can i say that i haven't already said jjjkjkjkjarf the thing is it's the only show on this little list that i watched for the first time a really really long time ago (4, 5 years ago ?) and that has finished airing (cause my obsession for the other shows is mostly explained by : i'm waiting for the next season/episode) but i'm just obsessed with the music man, i listen to it on a daily basis almost

Helluva Boss : indie adult cartoon (free on youtube), hence why it's almost unknown except if you're an embarrassing cartoon dweeb like me lmfao but it's about to be a lot more famous since a show by the same creator in the same universe was picked up by i believe hbo and is going to air sometime this year. The best way to describe the tone of the show is, it's like Bojack Horseman but in hell. It's. So. So. Good. It has everything i love : really really dark humour, fucked up characters, drama, incredibly toxic gay ships, tons of lore, great world-building, foreshadowing, and most importantly a completely hectic release schedule (due to it being indie) that makes my adhd go absolutely fucking bonkers

[ropes3amthoughts]

My little sister told me I needed to watch more “real people” movies and shows because I told her I hadn’t seen a lot of stuff so we sat down and watched “I Am Not Okay With This” and that show was pretty awesome I enjoyed it and it ended on such a crazy cliffhanger but it was cancelled so there was no more 💔 and we were upset so we looked up the graphic novel afterwards and lemme tell you guys that ending was depressing as shit I hope the show doesn’t do that because that would be a very sad message

Ok I just start rambling beyond this point lmao

Also I’m pretty sure my sister recommended that because she thinks I’m a lesbian lmao ok so it might sound crazy to anybody reading this because like everyone of my Tumblr buddies know me as gayboy Kabruliker but I’m nonbinary and I double dip with being gay I dabble in a bit of both though not really in real life lmao I hardly ever feel about people that way not in fiction but in fiction it’s fair game gender don’t matter n stuff but like since I’m afab (not out to my family because they’re transphobic) and I don’t find irl guys attractive and I had a crush on my friend who was a girl in middle school and also I like stuff like Arcane and I do think real girls are pretty even if I rarely actually like like them I think my sister thinks I’m a lesbian especially bc this one time we were talking about celebrity crushes and she recommended I just “get one” because “it’s fun” and her recommendation for me was Billie Eilish lmaooo it’s sweet she’s supportive even though I’m not a lesbian I mean I think if I were to identify with anything it would be demiromantic (and then like panromantic too because it’s not like gender based? Idfk man) asexual because I have had two crushes in real life before but I just might not get one again? I kind of figure I’d get one in the middle of high school because I had one on a guy in third grade (which is the middle of elementary) and I had one on a girl in seventh grade (which is the middle of middle school) but I’m halfway done my senior year of high school and nada so I guess that’s just not happening lol it’s not too big a deal though I don’t want a partner like super badly but sometimes it’s awkward when I’m talking to people and they’re like “who do you have a crush on” and I tell them it’s no one lmao

That was all kind of nonsense rambling lol I just thought my sister thinking I’m a lesbian is kinda silly but also sweet and I guess I kinda wanted to share my identity too I mean I’m not totally confident in it and I feel like pinpointing exactly what it is is kinda difficult but idk I feel like it would surprise some people to know I find fictional women attractive maybe even more so than fictional men like in Dungeon Meshi I could name you like 5 attractive women and the only attractive man I’d tell you is Kabru lmao ok sorry I can’t stop talking about him ever

Oh yeah so for the ending of the graphic novel, spoilers obviously, for the graphic novel, it ends with Sydney blowing her own head up and like that’s such a fucked up message like mentally ill grieving gay girl who feels like she makes everything worse kills herself to solve her problems like what if there were people who could really relate and they see that she just kills herself 😭 I don’t think I’d try to explode my own head or anything but I think I’d feel a little discouraged with overcoming grief and stuff y’know I mean it can end sad no one has to make it end happy and the graphic novel is called “I Am Not Okay With This” so like maybe it’s saying the ending isn’t ok and that’s like not the solution but idk man it felt anticlimactic and depressing like she never takes control of her life and feels guilty and sad forever bro I mean maybe I’m reading into it wrong but it sure as hell felt sad 😭 I like what the show did better and I’m definitely biased because I watched that first but I feel like it fleshed stuff out more and I found the characters pretty fun n stuff like y’know?

Ok also spoilers for the show. Lowkey I should probably get a diary too because I just ramble about everything online but whatever it’s not like online can be stolen like in the show lmao bro how did Brad even steal Syd’s diary like did she leave it at the counselor’s office and then Brad was like “oh I know her I can give it to her” and the counselor just trusted him or something lmao like what also why was the show rated M none of the sex or violence was all that explicit like the sex was implied and cut away from and Brad’s head exploding wasn’t like super visceral I don’t think. I feel like the show coulda done a little less with flashbacks though like there were only 7 20 minute episodes and so much of it was the same footage! Wish there could’ve been a bit more 💔 it was fun though I liked it it was funny it was interesting I enjoyed it I’d recommend it even I actually think this got recommended to me a while ago lmao but I’m so slow to start (and finish) stuff lol. I mean this is kinda my diary bc I’m pretty sure nobody reads my nonsense rants except me lmao and that’s chill it’s just nice to rant sometimes

[funnyscienceman]

so….arcane s2

i said/thought "that's a choice" way too much too often while watching and i highly doubt that that's a good thing. whether it's a reflection of me or of the show, though, remains to be seen djsjhd

ori certainly hasnt had her agency taken away but they sure did take viktor's! 😀👍

jayce has been such a bystander this whole arc

in all the craziness i somehow forgot mel and elora got kidnapped by the black rose

listen im all for sevika getting to have smth to do bc she rocks but please for the love of god dont make jinx a revolutionary

who the hell is the kid???

wtf is going on with hextech

oh my god i completely forgot about ekko and heimer

so much like. Happened? but this whole arc still felt like a nothingburger

idk if it's just that s1a1 left ginormous shoes to fill but like this whole act was just Strange

Sky. That's not sky. Where tf are her glasses. Viktor have you given any of this two seconds of thought? No. Obviously he hasn't. He woke up and kinda just sleepwalked through the divorce. Riot cant point at this and say this is the glorious evolution this is just Changes Happening Without Anybody's Input. this is just Stuff. it's just a whole lot of Nothing what the Fuck

literally the only unequivocally good thing abt these episodes so far is singed

SPEAKING OF SINGED the music box begins each and every one of singed's scenes. it plays all through to the end - except in the last one, cutting out when singed closes the locket. that is the only time it's being played diagetically. those two other scenes, singed didn't have the locket open, but he sure did have his kid at the back of his mind

ok well yknow for one thing im glad nobody so far has been made infallible. i cant think of a single major character who hasnt gotten their shit rocked in some fashion this act. Ambessa's scared of the black rose, Jinx is still vulnerable to stuff like the Gray. i guess viktor hasnt really had anything happen to him yet but i think im considering the whole Jesus thing 'getting his shit rocked' in a completely different way. like jayce isnt wrong to be suspicious of 'it does that to him but i get by without a scratch?'

I might have to rewatch that opening scene tho it was genuinely pretty neat. Just feels like a lifetime ago considering all the crazy shit crammed into three episodes

Overall, Season 2 so far has been such a tonal departure from Season 1 that, if nothing else… it's actually not that hard to just mentally stick with the fanon of S1 taking a straight shot to the 2014 lore 😂 cant believe this is the shit riot wants to make canon lmfao

Earnestly, i really do hope this season turns out well. I don't want to hate it, but so far…. eehhh…

edit: went scrolling thru the singed tag and saw someone mention the "jayce will understand" thing, which like, yeah i guess he did? everything just went by so fast, none of what happened even felt… real. everyone besides singed is so off-kilter it's hard to believe they're even the same characters. they don't even feel like evolutions of who they were in s1, this just feels like a straight-up AU that's somehow made it to the big screen. again, Viktor basically sleptwalk through the 'divorce'. it's hard to even call it that tbh bec it just… happened? jayce said some stuff and viktor said some stuff and it felt like they were going through a script, not that they were actually saying things they thought or felt. this whole act so far has just been bizarre, i struggle to even see it as canon. this is literally just an AU

i shouldn't make any edits after this. i should just go back to hibernation lmao

edit 2: ok one last edit i now no longer feel bad about having cait be a total cringefail protagonist in ccn lmfao that is Absolutely not the worst direction to take her character. this is literally just her own Battlecast. i cant believe they made their 'one of the good ones' cop a total martial law dictator wtf 😂

[affogato-analysis]

!! absolutely! Thank you for that input!

Also, Cait is not punishing the undercity. The implications of her actions are cause of concerns for the entire zaunite population but Cait leads a targeted assault on Zaun. She aims for Jinx who is Piltover’s #1 wanted at the moment and it makes a lot of sense!

Also you are so right, being kidnapped when you’re naked, in your house, in the shower is deeply intrusive and Cait must have felt terrible the whole time and even afterwards. Also, it is very likely that Jinx made her and probably watched her get dressed (i doubt she dressed her up by hand ngl). Without sexual intent (but clearly murderous ones) but the toll this must have taken on Cait is not to be underestimated.

Thank you for pointing out more ��psychological’ (if that’s the good term) factors for Cait’s behavior because i certainly missed them as I’m focusing on more social and political factors.

The only point I’d have a slight disagreement with you is that I think she trusts Vi until the moment she deviates her rifle. I think before that point, there is still trust in Vi AND in Zaun, because she offers Vi the uniform so that she can come with her. And her justification for it is “If I go after your sister alone, one of us comes back in a box”, this, this is Caitlyn trying to be merciful to Jinx and extremely kind to Vi. Only when she feels like Vi betrays her does she snap.

Also, her plans include locating Jinx, and while she is dead set on revenge, it’s between her and Jinx, she is not dragging Piltover or Zaun into this personal grudge. by which i mean she doesn’t declare martial law to catch Jinx, she does it when Ambessa singles her out in public and offers her “justice”, while she’s in the middle of pure unfiltered rage and hatred after the attack on the memorial. Really, Cait only truly walks down the martial road after the attack on the memorial, where she can’t see the Zaunites as humans anymore (dehumanizing someone is a very, very dangerous path to walk, it’s a favored one for fascist and fascist adjacent ideologies).

It takes a lot more than just some prejudice for Caitlyn to start her ‘dictator arc’ as i like to call it. And yeah, it doesn’t justify her weaponizing of fresh air, or the domination of Piltover even if the attack had been purely the Undercity’s doing (which it’s not!); and we can argue that the assault of the Chem Baron is justified (to quote TBSkyen (who we love and is on ytb, tik tok and tumblr as far as i know please go check his content out): “you can’t kill someone’s son and expect it to go away Jayce!”) but it makes a lot of sense, from Cait’s perspective and still not saying it’s morally right, to take matters into her own hands with utmost violence. And I’m sorry for repeating myself, but becoming a monster out of love is such an important theme in Arcane we can’t just pretend Caitlyn is isolated from that narrative.

Again, the difference in reactions to her arc versus, let’s say, Viktor who starts a cult, mutates people against their will, takes possession of their bodies and tries to basically end humanity (for a ‘better’ version of it, and always in what he thinks is their best interest but still) is astounding!

Also, Cait turns on Ambessa because she knows what she’s doing is wrong (that and the lesbianism i guess lmao). Because Cait never learns that Ambessa orchestrated the attack on the memorial. She turns because, once the blind rage is done, she knows she fucked up bad and is willing to work to undo it as soon as Vi gives her that opportunity. We never really get to see that because the story then deviates from the Piltover/Zaun plot to the Piltover/Noxus conflict but it must be noted.

Again, thanks a lot for that imput, this is a genuinely great take and i’m very glad i got to read it!

Caitlyn as a symptom of Piltover’s violence

No because i need to throw hands with both her haters and lovers.

Mass spoilers for Arcane, season 1 & 2, for every characters.

(post is like 2k words)

Was what Caitlyn did in season 2 act 1 terrible? yes. Does that make her a terrible person? debatable. Is she the best girl ever and above any criticism? also no what the fuck.

What happens to Caitlyn, essentially, is that she loses her mother and burns for justice and vengeance, and is willing to do all she can to reach her goal. Which is not an uncommon arc in Arcane, to be willing to burn it all for your family and getting overwhelmed by anger and loss.

The main difference is the scale and power dynamics. Because the chembarons have their shimmer, Vi has her gauntlets, Powder and Jinx have bombs, Silco and Vander have allies but they quite match each other when it comes to power until the very end.

So why is Caitlyn’s case so apart from the others? Here’s the thesis: Caitlyn is a symptom and the harm she causes is a consequence of Piltover’s domination over Zaun. I will argue for it thank you.

The main characteristic of Caitlyn, in the context of Piltover leading a targeted assault on Zaun, is that she is the one with power. Caitlyn is, first and foremost, a Kiramman. The show’s explicit about the power of the name, because with the name comes respectability, status, wealth. The Kiramman family is a powerful one, that’s why Ambessa chooses her above Salo. Both Cait and Salo have enough hatred for the Undercity to follow her lead if she plays her cards right, but Caitlyn, even if not officially appointed, has the power to exist in the Council’s room. Salo is nothing beyond the Council — and while it gives him power, his own family or personal entreprises are irrelevant enough that we do not know of them — while Caitlyn is powerful even without the Council — she does bypass every standard enforcers recruitment procedures to get Vi in, and thus we are told that she is one of the most important if not the main funder of the enforcers. In a state holding its peace through sheer violence and constant repression (especially after Jinx’s rocket), if one private actor owns your police force, you are at that actor’s mercy (which, yes, does turn on Cait when Ambessa’s soldiers take over).

Most importantly for us, the Kiramman hold one monopoly of power over Zaun. A vital need of Zaun they are the only ones to answer. Yes, we’re talking about the vent system. Caitlyn, in her anger and in her determination to do whatever it takes to get to Jinx, is willing to use every power she has. That includes her rifle and her aim, when she takes the shot at Jinx despite Isha and Vi standing in between, but also the vent system.

And as we’ve said, Caitlyn is going through a fairly usual character arc in Arcane of becoming a monster for love, for family, only to be brought back by love and family (Vander i’m looking at you) (and then that culminated into nothing to serve Viktor’s character arc tihi) (i mean it when i say Caitlyn has an amazing arc). It just so happens that Caitlyn owns Zaunites’ right to breathe. Is it immoral to weaponize it? Absolutely, and we can deplore the lack of political repercussions on the Kiramman in the show but that’s a more general criticism: the audience and the Zaunites are expected to just forgive Piltover to ally against Noxus. We can have sincere grievances about that (i do, and a lot of caitlyn hate comes from there from what i’ve seen) but it’s not a Caitlyn exclusive problem.

The thing is, Caitlyn’s weaponizing of the vent system isn’t the root of Piltover’s oppression or of enforcers’ violence. It’s a symptom of this violence. Cait can weaponize the vents because she owns them, because Zaun’s clean air is her possession. Because Zaun’s vital needs are dependent on Piltover. Cait doesn’t even realize just how much she’s hurting Zaun. She knows she’s gassing them but, and to her credit, it’s a fairly targeted assault (what Cait is doing isn’t terrorism!) but she is a reminder that whatever little fresh air they have, it’s still a mercy from Piltover. Piltover engineers a problem and a solution and holds that solution above Zaun’s head to silence their protest. This is domination, this is the root of that vent system being oppression still: the Kiramman hold Zaun’s air hostage and it took two mourning girls for that hand to cut off the air flow.

Caitlyn makes herself an enforcer of that violence in her grief, and that’s the symptom of a deeply ingrained disease. The root of that disease is always, always the inequalities between Piltover and Zaun.

The violence is the symptom of a system that is critically failing, repression means your governing body is illegitimate, weaponizing clean air is oppression to its finest.

To argue this point a bit further, we’re gonna circle back to Silco and Vander and how their power dynamic influences their behaviors and how their power struggle drives the entire undercity.

Vander and Silco both benefit from powerful allies. Vander has Grayson, Benzo and his position as bartender of the Last Drop makes him a valued member of the Undercity for Zaunites. Silco has Singed, Sevika and an entire network himself. They are two pillars of Zaun, creating a status quo that they work to maintain (at least their own position of domination) while furthering their own goals: Vander wants to raise his kids, Silco wants the independence of Zaun. Two vastly different sets of goals admittedly and that’s what leads them to reach out to vastly different individuals to help maintain it. Vander seeks out Grayson with whom he strikes a deal, while Silco allies with Singed for shimmer.

And when power suddenly shifts, when the right conditions appear, when the status quo is shaken, that’s when Silco asserts his power over Vander and his domination over the Undercity. Vander is put in a vulnerable position (his deal with Grayson isn’t enough anymore and he’s arrested) and Silco seizes the opportunity, deploys a power he has a monopoly over (shimmer). And after Silco wins against Vander, he can deploy his power over all of Zaun.

The status quo between Piltover and Zaun is constantly imbalanced. Piltover has already won at the beginning of the show and has been asserting, over and over again, through violence and in an abusive fashion, its domination on the Undercity. Caitlyn is like Silco in that comparison, she uses a power over which she has a monopoly (vent instead shimmer), in an unbalanced situation that puts her in the situation of the oppressor.

(And facing her, there is someone who is willing to turn that power against her. Just like Vander using Shimmer to protect his children, Sevika and Jinx using the vents for their own colorful clouds.)

Cait isn’t a poor innocent victim of circumstances but you have to acknowledge context and, in a show where parallels are so frequent, you can’t pretend she’s a completely unique character going through a completely unique arc completely unrelated to anyone else. If you hate her, hate a lot of other people too!

And, as is typical in Arcane, characters are monsters for love, and brought back by love.

And Caitlyn’s arc shows that! Past arc 1, she was lost. Vi had left, Jayce was missing, her mother was still dead even if after all she did, her father was a shadow of himself, the only one she had was Ambessa who was fueling her vendetta to further her own colonialist agenda. Suddenly she was alone, serving as a puppet on top of a pile of gold and too much power she couldn’t control. She can’t call back the gas once it’s out after all, she can’t call back the martial law Ambessa installed now that the resentment is growing in Zaun and that Ambessa is the one holding the reins of enforcers.

That’s why her switching sides was so immediate: when Vi calls her cupcake, she brings the girl forth, before the monster. She gives her love and Cait latches onto it, and uses it to pull herself away from that trap she walked right in. “Why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? For love” & “Is there anything as undoing as a daughter?”: love is forever the way in and out of hate.

I am very disappointed that we never got a proper conclusion to the tensions between Zaun and Piltover. I wish we had witnessed negotiations between Ekko/Sevika/Jinx/a representative of Zaun and the Council, I wish they had gotten control of the vent system, promises of fair trade, independence, something. I wish Caitlyn had been made to apologize and deliver herself the keys to the vent system to Zaunites. I wish for a lot of things about the political resolution in season 2 and the show did not go how i wanted it to. Does deviating from what I wanted inherently make the show bad? No, although I do think it wasn’t the greatest this time around.

I however can not talk shit about the character arcs. Not all are as well crafted as Caitlyn but i will take no more Caitlyn slander on the basis of “she’s a fascist!”. 1- that’s not what fascism is, although she did walk a line close by; 2- she’s a symptom of oppression, and by reproducing she makes herself an agent of it. She weaponises Zaun’s air because she can because she’s in power because she’s the heiress to the Kiramman. Doesn’t make what she’s doing less harmful, but it has to be treated in context. Caitlyn is still a twenty something grieving girl with her entire world shaken up, she just so happens to also be the heiress to an extremely wealthy and powerful family in an oppressive system and every path that opens to her, in the midst of her hatred, brings her to reproduce that domination in the most efficient way she has access to: the vents and the enforcers.

And, yes, by reproducing domination she is also an engineer of it. It’s important to acknowledge that what she's done is bad to put it simply, but do not denature her character to fit a conception of her that is easy to hate. I will put part of the blame on internalized misogyny too, as it pushes us to have less leniency and tolerance for women’s mistakes. No because I haven’t seen half that much hate towards Silco who, reminder, made the Undercity kneel by giving them severe shimmer addiction (engineering an issue and making himself the sole owner of the solution while maintaining it as a form of domination, everyone see where i’m going with this?).

Again, do I wish we’d seen more of the political consequences on Caitlyn of that? Yep, absolutely. But I will not blindly hate on her while ignoring the global context of her actions and I invite you to do the same.

Tell me, do you hate Jinx for her so-called terrorist acts or do you see them as part of resistance against Piltover? You can not see the context when you like it only i’m afraid, and, in an unprecedented show of nuance for the internet, we can understand context and acknowledge moral complexity and still hate someone.

Hate Caitlyn if you want, but do it in a constructed way so we can argue together please! I need to talk about this show so badly, please hate the enforcers and the change in Cait’s character but do so in a well-argued fashion, i beg of you.

[lemonmangosorbet]

Hello, I am back with my hot takes (aka in-depth analysis) of Arcane episode 4 as I rewatch it and pay excrutiating attention to every scene with Jayce and/or Viktor (actually, I rewatched the episode last week, but then spent hours just taking screenshots of every frame, so I forgot everything I wanted to write in this post sdghkjf)

This one ended up being.....long, so I’ve popped it under a ‘read more’ so it doesn’t clog up people’s feeds - I hope you’ll still read it!

* First point: how many years have passed between ep.3 and ep.4? Going by how much both Jinx and Ekko have grown up, I’ve gotta say it’s been at least 10 years?? But I’m mad that they skipped all that time when they could have been showing us Jayce & Viktor working together in the lab! I’d literally pay to see a spin-off series that’s just Jayce & Viktor messing around with Hextech for those 10 years between the two episodes :’)

* I don’t understand anyone who can watch Arcane and think that Jayce is egotistical??? The first few minutes of this episode set him up as someone who is modest - Heimerdinger tells him the council have decided Jayce should give the Progress Day speech and Jayce’s instant reaction is “m-me?!” and he stutters and is flustered. These are not the actions of a man who’s got a big ego (Honestly reminds me of some irl mathematicians who dedicate their lives to solving particular famous problems, and when they do solve them, they do not want the fame or glory)

* I also can’t help noticing (and loving) how uncomfortable Jayce looks in any big social situation, and it happens TWICE in this episode. Both times he seeks out someone he knows (first Caitlyn, then Mel) and end up talking in a 1-on-1 conversation with them to get away from the crowds. This man is an introvert - I can feel it in my own introvert bones

* On my first watch of Arcane, I didn’t think much of Viktor using the Hexclaw during the presentation, but now that I know a bit of League of Legends lore, I’m like (Beyonce meme) THE HEXCLAW???? sdghkjf (I guess Viktor using the Hexclaw now is supposed to be foreshadowing for Machine Herald)

* The way Jayce and Viktor look to EACH OTHER FOR APPROVAL after their presentation to Heimerdinger. brb, just crying and throwing up thinking about it

* Heimerdinger telling Jayce & Viktor to spend 10 years refining the new Hextech portable devices really hurts. I understand it from Heimerdinger’s POV - it’s dangerous to put such powerful devices in the hands of everyone. However, Heimerdinger has a much longer life-span, so to him a decade is a blink of the eye. It’s not like that for Viktor (I suspect he already knows he’s sick but not how sick because they do show him coughing in this episode). Viktor knows his time is limited and he wants to help his fellow Zaunites while he still has a chance to see it. Seeing his disappointment hurts. Seeing Jayce’s big concerned eyes while he looks at Viktor hurts ;-;

* When Jayce has that 1-on-1 conversation with Mel it is yet again obvious how modest he is. She’s telling him he could be a leader of Piltover and he’s like “Me?? Are you sure???” This man never intended on becoming a leader; he just wanted to play science in his lab

* Just before Jayce’s speech when Viktor looks sick with worry because Jayce isn’t there yet, and then Jayce tells him he should join him to make the address and Viktor’s like “in front of all those people?!” If Jayce is an introvert then Viktor is the super-introvert lmao

* Arcane did something very clever in this scene. Jayce tells Viktor to join him to give the speech because it’s their Hextech dream - Jayce is not trying to steal any of the credit from Viktor (he always says they are partners in Hextech). However, there is a frame of Viktor standing on his own and then (due to the forced perspective) when Jayce puts his Man of Progress mug down, it completely blocks Viktor from view. Definitely foreshadowing of what will happen in the future - Viktor will be expelled from the Academy, become the Machine Herald, and the world will forget his involvment in Hextech and assume it was all Jayce

* Mister Jayce “oh god I’m forcing this smile and I hate public speaking” Talis

* When Jayce is giving his Progress Day speech and he says “No one in my life expected very much of me” and the camera immediately cuts to Viktor smiling fondly at Jayce (because Viktor was the one who believed in Jayce at his lowest moment)

* Viktor looked so disappointed when Jayce didn’t reveal the new Hextech innovations they’d been working on and I feel like we were robbed by not seeing how that conversation went down between them after the Progress Day speech

* When they’re brought before the council and Viktor tries to stand and speak up, but Jayce stops him, I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about Jayce’s actions, but he stops Viktor from speaking only so he can take responsibility for the explosion and theft. I am pretty convinced that Jayce is trying to protect Viktor

* This scene is pretty key at setting up Jayce an idealist. He wants to suspend all Hextech use and research to safeguard the population because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. But then the council are like “but think of the economy!” and Jayce is like “what about the safety of the people?”. The man wants to do what’s in the interest of the greater good, and this is gonna keep happening throughout the rest of the series

* When Mel suggests to the rest of the council that Jayce become a new council member, there are two important things that happen: 1) Jayce is reluctant and it’s evident not only in the way he looks, but he actually says ‘no’ out loud. And 2) when Mel is making her proposition, the camera cuts to a shot taken from just behind Viktor and you can HEAR AND SEE HIM take this deep breath, like he is extremely nervous for Jayce and what him becoming a Councillor would mean for them and their Hextech work.

Ok, I think that’s it. Sorry this ended up being so long, but if you read until the end, then THANKS! ;3;

[voidpacifist]

(this turned into an essay about the fandom and how they write viktor lmao oops)

disclaimer I'm able bodied and I definitely don't speak for anyone who is disabled, this is just an observation of other able bodied arcane fans. if there's at all something I'm glossing over please tell me!

something I've noticed (since my very recent entry into the arcane fandom) is how quick people fall into the habit of diminishing viktor into certain archetypes, usually stemming from ableism that treats his character like an infant, or some other characterization that overshadows the rest of his personality.

particularly in fanfiction, it's not uncommon for me to read fanfic or something and then see a post later that spits back out a lot of ideas written into said fics. a lot of it is just the whole "abled savior" thing which is gear grinding enough but then there's also people who portray his character as this insecure person who is in constant need of reassurance and here's the thing. viktor may be an insecure person, but it's not insecurity that stems from his disability. it's in other people, because other people, in his experience, aren't trustworthy.

let me say that again. he isn't insecure because he's disabled – he's insecure in the way that other people are/will be with him because of their perceptions. let me elaborate.

I was watching that series on youtube of the "therapist reacts to arcane characters," and she pointed out that viktor experiences a degree of social anxiety, starting in his childhood, structured by how he interacted with people from a young age. and from a young age, viktor, already outcast due to being from zaun, is further ostracized because kids are judgemental little shits. they refuse to befriend him because he can't physically do things like dive into the lake or play tag.

but he can build toys. and he doesn't verbally extend the olive branch to sky on the rocks but he does show her his boat. he still wants her to accept his gesture of, "let's be friends, I made this kickass toy." whether or not he's the most outgoing person about interacting with the other kids isn't necessarily an insecurity thing in and of itself. he's naturally more reserved, but a lot of people in the fandom attribute that to the fact that one of his legs doesn't work right, rather than the fact that he naturally leans towards introversion rather than extroversion.

and while it's clear to see that he's more of an introvert, it doesn't mean he's not also snarky as hell, or afraid to speak his mind. he's a passionate character with very firm convictions. whether or not he's constantly verbalizing that doesn't mean those traits aren't plain to see. he's a much more rounded character than just "disabled genius who's afraid of talking to people." sure, he's not the face of hextech, nor is he eager about giving a speech to hundreds of people in episode 4, but we also saw him poke fun at jayce only an episode prior about how he signs all of his notes. man is absolutely not stale just because he isn't necessarily the first person to stick his neck out. and him not always sticking his neck out shouldn't automatically be associated with his disability.

because guess what! being disabled isn't a curse! we never see him think less of himself just because he can't walk unassisted. that doesn't mean it won't come with its own frustrations but that also doesn't mean that any of us should automatically hop skip and jump to the conclusion that all of his woes are because of what he can't physically do.

summary: people can be introverts/reserved without it being because of a societally perceived flaw or because of anything in and of themselves. if the mindset is that viktor's insecurity stems from his character being disabled, it's an ableist mindset. I'd love to see more fics focus on other aspects of him that are independent from his body's downfalls. not every bit of his personality comes from that, and it's weird to me to see him treated like that, in and out of fanfic

[inscrutable-shadow]

guess who fucking. forgot to post the other half of the fic. it's me. lmao i'm sure most people have finished it on ao3 already but here is the good part for people who are lazy

The thing was, Thanatos did recognize Mariano.

He knew the shape, the set of the shoulders. Muscular but soft, with hands capable of both brutality and tenderness. (How many times had he caught himself staring at those shoulders?) The luminous bands of silver-white that ringed his dark eyes, piercing in the darkness but always kind in the light. (How many times had he lost himself in those eyes?) He knew every scar that wound its way beneath the mage’s clothing: on his face, on his arms, on his back, his side, his hip. (He couldn’t help looking when they bathed together, especially not when Mariano would put a hand on his back and assure him he wouldn’t drown.) The lines of his face, the curve of his lips. (It was a victory every time he got those lips to smile for him.) The combat stance, practised and deliberate, deadly efficient. He knew the blaze of arcane power that surged up the mage’s blade, had memorised the arcs the light made in the night’s blackness as he fought. He knew Bastian’s familiar rumble, never too far behind. He knew the voice, the speech rhythm, the accent. He knew Mariano. And he did trust him, with his life if not his truth — and he was coming close to that as well. The only issue was that it wasn’t quite Thanatos in control of his body at the moment.

One could argue the semantics of the difference between a vampire and their Shadow all day long. The fact of the matter was that when it had become clear that those men intended to kill him and that they had no qualms about continuing to throw projectiles until his shields failed, Thanatos’s Shadow had said “Let me handle this,” and he’d willingly retreated to a little corner of his mind where he could curl up into a ball. What a coward he was. He couldn’t even sit here and fail to defend himself on his own.

Not that it did any good. Though his Shadow put up a much more valiant struggle than he would have, in the end, he was still reduced to cowering and snapping at anyone who got too close. HIs Shadow was rather single-minded. It didn’t care for the “let them think they’ve killed us and get away afterward” plan, but also didn’t exactly have any better ideas, leaving them in a stalemate that saw Thanatos losing a lot more blood than he could really afford.

When the others — his friends? no. travelling companions, surely — arrived, it sparked a small ember of hope. Mariano would save him again and all would be well. He could go home. He could sleep. He was so tired and so hungry…

This is good. It’ll be easier to kill two than ten, his Shadow advised. Kill? Why? Mariano wouldn’t try to hurt him. Probably. We need blood, dullard. Or do you expect me to heal that leg of yours with fairy dust? Oh, right. Well, he’d just have to hunt — Oh, and I suppose you intend to sprout wings? You and whose ankle? You’d pass out before you so much as put weight on it. No, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t that much of a pansy. Ah, of course. My apologies. I’ve clearly underestimated your power. Carry on then, it’ll be amusing to watch you fail.

Despite his argument with his Shadow, Thanatos wasn’t an idiot. He knew there was no way of getting more blood without taking it from one of the obvious sources his night vision outlined in a faintly pulsing red. He tried to warn them away as best he could without his voice — his Shadow had taken that for its own amusement, and it sounded nothing like him — but they just wouldn’t take the hint. As Mariano approached him, hand outstretched placatingly, full of “you’re safe now”s and “trust me”s, Thanatos felt a pang of frustrated disgust. Mariano deserved to be murdered by a vampire if he was going to be so recklessly trusting all the time. Didn’t he know a monster when he saw one?

Closer and closer. Bastian was coming to free him from the accursed wire. He’d be grateful for that. He wasn’t grateful for the way the heady scent of blood suffused his senses as the pair approached. So hungry… Heartbeats drummed in his ears, begging him to have a taste, just one taste. This is what he was made for, a single drop of warm salty wet and his problems would dissolve…

His vision went red, and he thrust himself forward toward salvation. Fangs met flesh, slicing through juicy veins and arteries bursting with divine flavour. He’d never tasted anything like this in his life. The blood itself was rich, a steadfast, refined taste without the cloying sweetness he’d come to associate with positive antigens, but underneath there was something else, something that crackled through his system and made him crave more.

Finally. This was what he’d been searching for.

—

Mariano returned to consciousness quickly. It was probably less than five seconds that he’d been out: his head had hit a tree root as he fell, that was all. “I’m fine, Bastian,” he mumbled, getting out ahead of the questions.

“You scared the shit out of me.” His tone was frustrated, yet relieved. Typical Bastian.

“Sorry.”

“Are you… okay?” Bastian inclined his head toward Mariano’s left hand, still extended awkwardly to the side.

“Yeah, I’m—” Oh. That’s where that feeling was coming from. “It doesn’t hurt, actually.” It really didn’t. Well, the pain was there, he could feel where Thanatos’s fangs had nestled into his flesh and the movement of his tongue as he sucked down as much as he could, but the whole thing was obscured by a pleasant numbness, as if any negativity was shot down before it could reach the surface. It was definitely weird to have a hungry vampire hanging from his wrist, but so far not bad.

Bastian had been squatting on his haunches beside them, and he shifted to a more comfortable sitting position with his legs folded under him. “So… you’re just gonna leave him like that, huh?”

“Yeah, I think so. He seems like he needs it.” Thanatos’s movements were more desperate than they were greedy, and if Mariano looked closely, he could see silent tears spilling from the vampire’s closed eyes. Relief? Regret? Perhaps both. The mage couldn’t hope to guess. “He’ll probably stop on his own when he’s done.” And if he didn’t, Mariano would just find some way to remove him gently if he felt a little woozy.

They didn’t have to wait long. Thanatos seemed to come to all at once, flinging himself away from Mariano in a windmill of tattered silk. He didn’t get far, the bad ankle hampered his motion and when he ran into a wall — more accurately identified as “Bastian” — he just sort of gave up. He curled himself into a ball in the dragon’s lap, stifled sobs and apologies leaking out from behind his arms over his face.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t- I couldn’t- I’m sorry—”

Mariano cut off the flow of words. “It’s okay, Than, you’re safe now, you don’t have to be afraid. No one’s going to hurt you.” His reassurances were indented to soothe, though it felt strange to just keep repeating the same thing.

They seemed to have the opposite effect. “It is not okay!” Thanatos exploded, and though his eyes were once again their usual crimson instead of the glowing scarlet, the emotion that blazed in them was pure self-loathing rage. “I hurt you, Mariano! I attacked you like some sort of feral creature! Ah, the indignity alone is like to see me in the grave, for you to see me like this—”

“I didn’t mind.”

“You—what?” Thanatos stopped short, as if Mariano’s words had put a stick through the spokes of the wheel of his consciousness. He sat with his mouth hanging open for a long moment, to the point where Mariano wondered if he was all right. It hadn’t been that unusual of a statement, had it? Mariano would gladly do the whole thing over again. Could Than really just not process that?

Mariano would have elaborated, if the confusion etched into Thanatos’s features hadn’t been wiped away by abject agony. He screamed, muscles spasming, and Bastian had to react quickly to prevent his face from hitting the ground. “Shit, what’s wrong with him?” Mariano didn’t know.

Thanatos was able to speak again after a few harrowing seconds, during which Mariano wasn’t even sure he was breathing. “The w-wire… still around my leg… My body is trying to heal the wound now that I have enough blood. The new flesh is being… c-cut through as it forms, please, please, by the gods, get it out!”

He cried out again, and sure enough, Mariano could see a fresh surge of blood (his blood?) from the ruined ankle. He steeled himself and plunged his fingers into the wound, searching for the offending object in the gore. Finding and pulling at the loop in the wire wasn’t difficult, but the damn thing refused to release, no matter how he attempted to convince it. It didn’t help that Thanatos’s face contorted with pain and he made increasingly loud but stifled sounds of misery the longer Mariano tried.

“It’s no good. I’m going to have to melt it,” Mariano concluded, pulling his casting dagger back out from his belt.

Thanatos’s face went bone white, and he swallowed hard, but he nodded. “I-if you notice I’m not… all here… at any point, if I don’t understand where I am, that’s common for me and there’s no cause for alarm. Just wait, I usually come out of it relatively quickly if there is no genuine danger.”

Mariano understood. Thanatos didn’t like to talk about his past very often, but it had clearly taken a toll on him in a way the mage could easily relate to. Sometimes there was no way to avoid a return of awful memories and you just had to pick yourself back up on the other side. “Hold him, Bastian.” Bastian laid Thanatos on the ground and moved to stabilise the leg. It was an unpleasant situation, but this needed to happen now. All Mariano could do was make sure it passed quickly.

Mariano pushed his magic through the blade, watching it heat up to the characteristic white-hot glow. He spread the gory mess of flesh apart to ensure he had a clear shot to the objective. He didn’t want to have to go in more than once. When he was confident in the positioning, he looked up to see if Than was ready — if a person could even really be ready for something like this. Mariano had done it to himself enough times to know that it was never really any better, and thinking about it more didn’t help. The vampire had caught what was left of his shirtsleeve between his teeth — which were still slightly stained with Mariano’s blood — and screwed his eyes shut. He took slow, deep breaths, carefully measured: he’d clearly had practice at this sort of thing. Professionalism, then. Mariano could do that.

Each of them had a job to do. Mariano’s responsibility was to cut through the wire as efficiently as possible, a task to which he applied his usual single-minded dedication, even though the smell of burning flesh was more sickening now than it had been earlier. It was made much easier by Bastian’s immovable hands, smoothing Thanatos’s helpless writhing down to the gentlest ripple so that Mariano barely noticed the vampire moving. Thanatos, for his part, did his best not to cry out, and mostly succeeded, though a few muffled wails slipped past the silk wadded up between his jaws.

Mariano stolidly pressed the blade through the wire, ignoring the sizzling of cauterised flesh and Thanatos’s sobs. The metal parted with a sharp pop, but they weren’t out of the woods yet; the wire itself was caught in regrowing muscle and wouldn’t just come away. The hot blade would only make this worse. He’d just have to rip it.

The sound that came out of Thanatos as the chunks of sinew tore away from the metal was unearthly, a howl of despair that seemed to reach inside of Mariano to rattle his bones. He refused to give ground, even as the grasping ligaments stretched to their utmost, desperately drawing the vampire’s flesh towards itself and finally failing with a wet pop. He could almost see muscle knitting itself together and fat rendering under skin once the wicked cord had at last been removed. Mariano flung the object that had given them so much trouble away toward the tree and went to check on Thanatos.

—

Thanatos had thought he’d adequately prepared. Really, he had. The meditative techniques he’d developed to keep him sane during the war had served him well: breathe carefully, don’t fight against the screams, let the impulse roll through you and, if it must, release wordlessly. Mariano wasn’t trying to torture him. He didn’t need to hold out against anything, and the pain would stop as soon as the wire was gone. It should have been simple. Ten years ago, he would have been able to endure it. But despite everything, the instant the searing hot metal had touched his skin, he’d been back in a holding cell begging for his life.

The cloth gag was to prevent him from embarrassing himself in this scenario. If the others couldn’t hear him, they couldn’t know that between the stifled moans were pleas for mercy and offers of servitude. Thanatos wasn’t even aware of his surroundings now. The only thing that cut through the waves of blistering misery was the firm grasp that kept his leg in place. That touch felt warm, comforting somehow, an anchor of hey, you’re safe, I’ve got you in a sea of no no please I’ll do anything please stop.

The burning finally stopped, and for a moment he felt a flicker of hope that it might be over. (Of course not, they’re just switching tools, you know better than that.) His chest heaved, and he tried to stop the shuddering sobs that poured from him like smoke from incense, but it was like trying to catch that same smoke between his fingers. He was just beginning to think that perhaps it was over after all when his vision went white and a horrible crackling static filled his ears. Was he screaming? He couldn’t tell. The smell of his own burning flesh was thrust into the forefront of his consciousness along with the metallic taste of his blood overriding what was left of Mariano’s flavour. Had he bitten through his tongue? He couldn’t understand what was happening. His entire leg was agony, every nerve buzzed angrily and he couldn’t tell where the origin of the pain was. Had… his leg been amputated? It’d take ages to grow back…

He must have blacked out for a moment. He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing. His only awareness was that every muscle in his body was screaming in pain, though passive, not active: soreness, not injury. He also noticed he wasn’t breathing as his vision cleared, showing him the forest floor, albeit blurry. Why would… Ah. He must be playing dead. Rumholt would always go easy for a bit if he thought he’d killed Thanatos, and so he’d taken to feigning the period of insensibility before the Shadow would forcibly revive him. He couldn’t do it too early or too often, but if used correctly, it would grant him a reprieve from the worst of the abuse.

Thanatos wasn’t sure why Rumholt would have dragged him out into the woods to torture him rather than use one of the numerous and very expensive custom-designed sex-cum-torture chambers in his mansion, but he supposed it had been explained to him already and he’d just forgotten. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d… lost… significant chunks of time that he knew he must have been conscious during. He’d just have to trust his past self and continue the fiction.

He didn’t flinch at the familiar crunch of boots on leaves, nor did he choke on the torn strips of fabric that peeled from his tongue. That was strange. Rumholt had never gagged Thanatos before. He liked to hear him whine and beg, and he certainly wouldn’t bother to clear Thanatos’s airway if he choked to death. Who was this?

“Than? Are you okay? I got it out, it’s gone. You can heal now.” That certainly wasn’t Rumholt’s voice. He did recognise it; it was just so difficult to place anything just now. His head was stuffed with cotton and a frightful headache pounded behind his eyes.

The person tilted their head to look him in the eyes. For a moment he saw Rumholt’s teasing grin, but then the image resolved itself into the soft features and the white-rimmed eyes of the man he wanted to see most in the world right now. His perpetual saviour.

“…Mariano?”

Thanatos didn’t quite believe it wasn’t a dream, but the relieved smile was definitely Mariano’s. “Yeah. It’s me.”

“You came… I didn’t think you would.” He never thought anyone would. There was no point. The transition from despair to relief was much easier than that from hope to despair. He knew that from experience. Occasionally, he had the fortune to be pleasantly surprised.

Bastian snorted. “What, you thought we’d just leave you?”

“Yes.” It would have been the smart thing to do.

Mariano frowned. It somehow didn’t take away from the overall charm of his face. “Well, we wouldn’t. We’d never do that.” No, you wouldn’t, would you? You’d never leave a comrade behind.

Mariano wasn’t like Thanatos. He didn’t value his own skin above everything else. The same fanatical devotion Thanatos dedicated to survival, Mariano turned toward those whom he loved. Admirable, really, though a bit of a wasted trait on a mortal who would only get a hundred-odd years anyway if all went well. A short life was even more valuable than a long one and certainly more worthy of being preserved.

“Let’s get you back to camp,” Mariano was saying now, and Thanatos realised he was drifting. He was exhausted and his head ached terribly. Camp and sleep sounded very good. “Can you walk?” He shook his head no and instantly regretted it. The movement sent his vision spinning, and he was forced to squeeze his eyes shut or lose the blood in his stomach. He was so cold…

His stomach lurched as the ground fell away beneath him, and he wondered if he was dying. It stopped after a moment, though, and it was evidently Mariano’s shirt that Thanatos’s fingers were so tightly wound into as the mage lifted him into the air effortlessly with his arms hooked under Thanatos’s knees. The day he’d met the Archfey, ae’d carried him just like this, and now, as Thanatos looked up at the face framed by the glittering night sky, he got the same feeling of beholding the face of a god.

—

“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…” It wasn’t the first time Thanatos had had this dream. It was a pleasant dream, one that had kept him going on the darkest nights when he’d truly believed death had come to claim him. The Archfey would sing to him while braiding his hair, the same way ae had many a time over the centuries of their relationship. He’d gotten to the point during one of his longer captivities where he could fully hallucinate the scene and make himself believe it was real. Scarborough Fair was aer favorite song. He could smell the sandalwood and cedar oil ae used in aer bathwater and feel the strokes of the brush and aer fingers braiding patterns into his dark hair. As he came more and more to consciousness, though, the more he realised the hands weren’t as soft as the Archfey’s, the tune wasn’t one he’d heard before, the voice wasn’t quite right. He picked his head up off of the lap slowly, muscles protesting.

“…Mariano?”

Mariano tucked a lock of his own hair behind his ear and adjusted his glasses in a way that made Thanatos’s heartbeat quicken. “Glad you’re awake. When you passed out about an hour ago, I wasn’t sure you were coming back. You seemed cold, so we put you by the fire.” The crackling warmth made Thanatos feel much better. It eased the bone-deep chill that had taken hold of him earlier and soothed his tired muscles. “Bastian believed in you the whole time, though,” Mariano added, and the dragon rumbled assent from his position on the other side of the clearing, patiently stacking firewood. “How are you feeling?”

Hungry. He’d never been so hungry in his life. You’re being dramatic. If you were truly starving, you’d be feral, his Shadow commented. “Need to—ugh…” Thanatos clutched his stomach as it twisted inside of him and let out a sound like a strangled cat. “Need to hunt. I must have… used everything up…”

Could he walk? He had to try. He had to get away, get somewhere with a proper food source. The moment he tried to put weight on the injured leg, he crashed back to the ground with a yelp of surprise and pain. Mariano had the presence of mind to pull him away from the fire. “Careful! There’s no way you’re walking on that. Just look at it. I cleaned it up, but I was afraid to wrap it in case your skin grew over the bandages.” It was true. Under the shredded trouser leg, the cut in Thanatos’s ankle was still a mess of gore, though Mariano had done his best to clear it of debris. Thanatos could feel that the major tendons were correcting themselves, but not quickly enough. He wouldn’t be running back to town anytime soon. Mariano set a hand on his shoulder. “What do you need, Than? Maybe I can—”

“I need blood, Mariano!” He rounded on his companion with force, nearly knocking him over in his fervour. “Warm, wet, delicious, salt and sweet, I’m starving!” He must look mad. Eyes glowing scarlet again, shaking the mage by the shoulders, he must look like some slavering beast. He felt as if his psyche were shaking itself apart with the effort it took not to rip the mouthwatering mortal apart then and there. But Mariano’s eyes held only surprise, not fear.

“Okay, drink me then.”

What?

He must have said it out loud, because Mariano laughed nervously and repeated himself. “You did it a moment ago and everything was fine. Look, you can’t even see the mark. If you need more, why not take it from me?”

Thanatos couldn’t even really process how monumentally stupid of an idea that was. “There are a myriad of reasons, chief among which is that I am a monster who has slaughtered thousands of your kind! My only drive is to suck out your life-fluid for my sustenance. What makes you believe I won’t just drain you dry and leave you for dead?”

“Bastian, for one. He’d eat you in a heartbeat.” Mariano was joking, probably, but Bastian’s answering smile was distinctly less good-natured than usual, and fell away quickly. “And I don’t think you’d do that. You stopped on your own last time, remember?” Thanatos had barely managed that. He wasn’t sure he could do it again.

Bastian, abandoning the wood in favour of the much-more-important conversation, crossed the clearing and crouched down next to the two of them. “I don’t know, Mariano. This seems risky. You need your blood, you know. How much is he even going to take?”

As friendly as he and Bastian had become, Thanatos was under no illusions as to the dragon’s priorities. If he thought he needed to kill Thanatos to protect Mariano, he would, no hesitation. We were lucky the first time. Don’t think we could beat him in this state. Be careful, his Shadow warned. Thanatos would be astonished if he could survive more than a few minutes against Bastian on a good day.

He tried to check up on his internal state, gauge the cravings, the Thirst, to know exactly how much he needed. “Litre and a half, maybe two, it’s hard to tell. I’m… ngh… hungry…” He’s tall, he’ll make it. And if he didn’t? What then?

Bastian shook his head. “That’s too much, you’ve lost enough already.”

“I can handle a bit of blood loss, Bastian, I’ll be fine. Besides, we have potions. If things get bad, I trust you to handle it.”

No! Why were they even considering this? “I won’t do it, I don’t want to kill you—”

This didn’t make any sense. When he’d finally had enough to clear his head, he’d stopped immediately, sure. The addictive undercurrent to Mariano’s taste had been immediately soured by guilt as soon as his higher functioning was back online, but that didn’t mean the same thing would happen again if he took himself back to the edge! The very idea that he could have lost control like that, given into his Shadow and let the Thirst control him, and in front of mortals no less. The utter humiliation of his obfuscations being stripped away, being revealed for what he was, an abomination, a slave to his curse and his cravings, and after everything, Mariano could still look at him and trust him? Put his life in his hands? It was nonsensical, ludicrous, absurd!

The careening train of his thoughts came to a screeching halt when Mariano put his hands on either side of Thanatos’s face. His instinct was to flinch, and then to freeze, but of course Mariano wouldn’t strike him, he knew that. The warmth of the mortal’s hands against his clammy skin soothed him, and as he relaxed into the hold, he wanted nothing more than to stay there forever. No, he couldn’t. Wanting always got him into trouble. Comfort was something he couldn’t allow himself to have. It made him complacent, made him — “Shh…” whispered Mariano, and all of his anxious thoughts melted away.

When he’d pulled himself together, he found himself looking into those softly glowing eyes once again. “And what happens if you don’t do it? You lose control again? You’re not thinking, Thanatos. I’d rather you try it now, while you’re you and I know you can stop, than later, when who knows what will happen. Don’t give up. It’s not that bad yet. We can save you.”

Something about the gentle patience in Mariano’s touch broke something inside of Thanatos, a wall he’d built up over decades, a shell to protect himself from the pain and the heartbreak. He’d been alone. The only one looking out for his interests, the only one who would lift a finger to help him without expectation of return, was himself. Vampires saw each other as tools, each relationship a contract wherein each participant held obligations and incurred debts. Thanatos worked hard to repay his debts. He bled, sweat, and cried to ensure he wasn’t beholden to anyone. An unpaid favour might as well be a death sentence to someone like him, with his only skills in theatre, prose, and the bedroom. Telling stories and cooking meals a few times a week was far from enough to balance his ledger with Mariano. Yet still, far from collecting on what he was owed, the mage wanted to save Thanatos. No one had ever wanted to save him before. Was it some sort of trick? No. Mariano didn’t play tricks. Could he finally trust, then? Trust the kingslayer and his dragon and let himself be saved?

“You’re… sure?” the vampire asked, and his voice sounded strange to his ears, high and thin. This felt like a threshold, and he could almost feel the phantom pressure of his curse demanding he be invited in.

“Fucking idiots,” Bastian muttered under his breath, but went to dig the potions out of the supplies rather than protest further.

Mariano smiled. “Yes, Than. I’m sure. Drink from me.” He tilted his head and pulled his hair aside, offering his neck to be punctured. The glow of the firelight lent him a mysterious air, especially with the way the embers reflected in his eyes and off of his spectacles, making them seem to burn with their own internal flame. Combined with the vermilion outline from his night vision and his own lubricious delusions, Thanatos’s eyes beheld the image of a dark archangel reaching out to soothe his tortured soul. He wanted this so badly. But was this truly what he wanted? Or was it truly him that wanted it? It didn’t matter. Thanatos couldn’t hold back any longer.

A vampire’s fangs are long and hollow, designed to nestle firmly into the carotid artery where blood would be drawn upwards as a cocktail of chemicals — anticoagulants, analgesics, and euphoriants, colloquially referred to as venom — was pushed downwards. Usually, this is done from behind, where the angle is more natural, especially for a victim shorter than the vampire, but overzealous haste had resulted in a much more salacious positioning. Thanatos had knocked Mariano over, and with his lips pressed to the other man’s pulse point, appeared to be engaging in an activity of quite a different stripe. The mage didn’t protest, though, he let out a surprised grunt, but otherwise just repositioned the vampire’s body to rest over his own more comfortably.

Liquid burst over Thanatos’s tongue, propelled by Mariano’s strong heartbeat. As soon as it hit the back of his throat, the vampire let out a guttural moan of pleasure, one that seemed to reverberate between Mariano’s body and his own. So good… Thanatos’s breath came heavily through his nose and his throat bobbed rhythmically, funnelling the sanguine river down into the depths of his stomach. The blood-haze permeated his senses and allowed him to think of nothing else. Just warm pulses of red and crackling white, an added tang that was vaguely familiar and yet utterly unique. He wanted more. He wanted to drink this down forever. He wanted this holy fire to cleanse him, to gut him, to purge from him every vestige of the choking shadow until he was empty save for divine light, free from his curse, pure at last. He felt like a starving man tasting meat for the first time in years. He felt high. He wasn’t even close to satisfied.

He felt Mariano shift under him and let out a dreamy sigh, probably caught in his own euphoric daze as vampire venom filled his bloodstream. The mage’s movements became slower, weaker, and less frequent the more the vampire’s belly distended and pressed up against him, stealing his life and warmth. I’m sorry, Mariano, Thanatos thought fuzzily. I warned you. It’s such a pity for you to die here. Your life was worth living. But thank you. He couldn’t stop. Each desperate swallow hastened his descent and drove him further from any semblance of control. Eventually he would hit the bottom and shatter against the guilt and the grief, but the plunge was everything for now. There was no one to catch him.

Except a voice. Scattered fragments sharp enough to cut through the blood-haze filtered through to his perception: “Than—enough—he’s falling asleep—Thanatos!” The last was accompanied by a vigorous shake to the shoulders that dislodged Thanatos’s fangs from Mariano’s neck. Instinctively, he pulled back and hissed, not wanting to give up his prey, but Bastian wasn’t impressed. “Come on, Than. You know you don’t want to play that game with me.” He really didn’t, actually.

Clarity returned to him, and with it the crushing wave of remorse. “Mariano?” The mage didn’t respond, long eyelashes fluttering against grey-tinged skin and his breath coming in shallow gasps. Panic clutched at Thanatos’s chest and made his own breathing erratic. “Oh, shit. Oh… fuck—Mariano?” He’s dying. He’s dying, and it’s my fault…

“Need to stop the bleeding,” Bastian grunted impatiently, and shoved a stack of bandages into Thanatos’s hands so that he could yank the stopper out of the potion bottle. Thanatos didn’t need bandages, though. He was a vampire. He traced the trickle of blood still sluggishly pumping from the holes in Mariano’s neck with his eyes for just a moment before diving back in with his tongue, ignoring Bastian’s surprised “Hey!” The final component of vampire venom was more magical than it was chemical: accelerated healing that would prevent a victim bleeding out, if it still mattered by then. Thanatos thrust his tongue as deeply into the wounds as he could, praying that the healing would work and that Mariano could come back from this. Could Apollo even hear him out here, so far from home?

Bastian had propped Mariano up on his arm, gradually feeding him the red liquid in the bottle. Would it replace all the red liquid Thanatos had stolen? That was now churning unsteadily in his gut? Thief, murderer, usurper. That should be you lying there. He stifled a belch of nauseous shame and backed off slightly to where he could only see glimpses of Mariano through Bastian’s hair, vitreous strands falling in a curtain over his shoulder as he cradled his mage close.

Mariano looked so much smaller like this. He was taller than Thanatos, but always looked small next to Bastian, who was over seven feet — about the size the Archfey usually chose. That wasn’t the problem. He just seemed… empty. The solid personality Thanatos had grown accustomed to had vanished and left behind a hollow shell. His spectacles now sat haphazardly on his face, and Thanatos, almost without realising, reached out to set them right. His hand lingered on the mage’s cheek, and it felt so wrong for that cheek to be cool against his hand, now warm with Mariano’s heat. “Please…” he whispered, almost inaudibly, “I don’t want you to die. I need—” He choked. Could he say it? He tenderly lifted his mage’s left hand from where it had fallen to the side and pressed it to his lips, his own body shaking. “I need you to live. I need you.”

“He’s not dying,” Bastian said quietly. “I can feel him. He’s okay. Stupid, but okay.”

And like magic, Mariano’s eyes fluttered open, the white bands around his pupils shining as brightly as ever. “Bast—Than? What h-happened…”

Despite his earlier reassurance, Bastian sighed with frustrated relief. “You fuckin’ idiot. I told you this would happen.”

“N’ I told you I’d be fine. Saved me, didn’t you?”

Thanatos didn’t hear the rest. A tidal wave of relief washed over him, so potent his head spun. Gingerly, because of his bad ankle and the vertigo, he withdrew to the other side of the clearing. It was good that they were together again. They probably wouldn’t want to even speak to him again, not after what he’d done, but he was grateful all the same. He’d make his excuses, say his goodbyes, and go on his way as soon as his ankle had healed enough. He was still so wound up, he needed something to do with his hands. Mariano liked the camp a certain way before bed each night. He’d been too busy caring for Thanatos and hadn’t finished earlier. If he wasn’t well enough to do it himself, Thanatos would do it.

Mariano had shown him how to do things a few times, when the two of them had found themselves sleepless simultaneously. Thanatos because he’d become accustomed to a vampire’s schedule once again during the war, and Mariano for his own reasons, his own demons that tormented him. The mage had used the casting dagger again after he’d already cleaned and honed it for the night: that was something Thanatos could do.

The oil and the stone were comforting, repetitive, and Thanatos was meticulous about cleaning Mariano’s casting focus and making sure the blade was as even as it could be. It was unbalanced and rather poorly made, but Mariano preferred it that way, saying it was the way he’d learned to fight. Mariano had fought today. Used this blade today. He’d killed today, and Thanatos hadn’t. Mariano wielded the blazing sun to protect what he loved. Thanatos had only Shadow to protect him and only cared about himself. He’d wanted to believe that things could be different, that at last he could be safe, but no. He’d ruined that.

“Hey, idiot! Get your ass over here!” Thanatos looked up in confusion, hands coming to a slow stop. Bastian rolled his eyes. “Leave that shit for tomorrow. Just come to bed, will you? It’s late and he won’t sleep without you.” Thanatos heard a quiet “where is he?” from the bundle of blankets that was presumably Mariano, and Bastian’s answering “over there pouting, just a second.”

Thanatos blinked slowly. “Y-you want me near him? After what I did?”

The dragon scoffed impatiently. “Told you, if I thought you were a real threat, I’d eat you. You know you get cold sitting over there. I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing. Come to bed.” He wasted no more time in scooting himself into the bedroll next to his mage.

Thanatos shuffled the materials back into the packs and hesitantly moved toward the bedroll. It didn’t seem real that they still wanted him after everything that happened, but Mariano (angelic, beautiful Mariano, who’d faced death for him twice today) looked up at him with a smile and said, “There you are. Aren’t you tired?” And by the gods, he was.

He was exhausted. It seemed like years ago when he’d been sitting on the fence at the market. He’d been tossed around, passed out twice, lost probably a litre of blood and taken two and a half from Mariano. He was physically, mentally, and emotionally at his absolute limit, and it all caught up to him at once. He let himself crash to the ground, ignoring the pain in his knees and only slightly breaking his fall with an arm, and pressed himself up against Mariano’s side as if he were afraid he’d fall apart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as if it could fix anything.

“Don’t be,” Mariano answered, and it fixed everything.

The moon shone gently down upon the clearing as the fire slowly guttered out. The glittering stars above held a million worlds and a million petty conflicts, but here, on this one world set apart from the others, all they became was a backdrop for the quiet night. If pale fingers wound themselves into dark hair and dark hands fisted into ruined silk, not even the birds would know. The mage, his dragon, and their vampire slept soundly, long after the ruddy face of dawn peeked up over the horizon.

only then i am human (only then i am clean) - part one

contains: mild horniness, homoerotic blood drinking, minor nausea (no vomiting), swearing, gore, a disgusting amount of gay pining, whumptober 2023 days 11, 20, and 30 (animal trap, "you will regret touching them," bridal carry)

summary: The Culling War is over, and Thanatos is not the same.

Mariano doesn't have a same to go back to.

Bastian just hopes that he won't have to kill Thanatos when the vampire's ravenous hunger finally takes over.

It's been far too long since Thanatos has had a good meal, after all, and he loves getting himself in hot water.

beginning notes: whoo-wee! i started this as a whumptober fill, and it still is that, but it’s also so, so much more than that now. four times the size and now part of a series i hope to continue in the coming months. so many thanks to @crash-bump-bring-the-whump for letting me borrow his characters, fill his dms with screaming and gay shenanigans at all hours, and for betaing! i have so much more planned for our boys after this so stay tuned :)

also available on ao3! even though i've broken the fic into two, this section is 7.3k words so you might enjoy it more there. (plus you get the ending a day early)

Thanatos was rather surprised at how much fun he was having. When Madame Nocta had initially shown him his redistricting papers, he’d had to step out of the room to stop the choking panic from clawing at his insides. The image of his old life, of returning to his job and his apartment and his lover after so long away, had been the only thing keeping him going for so long that the idea of changing that image made him sick. “It’ll be quiet,” she’d assured him. “No one will know what you are. You can relax, recover. It will be good for you.” Thanatos hadn’t believed her, but now, as the damp wind ruffled his hair and sent ripples over the nearby lake, he was forced to admit this world was rather quaint.

He could almost convince himself it was just like home, at least, before the “engine of progress” had compressed every ounce of magic from the land. The countryside was littered with small villages of wood and stone instead of towering metropoles of metal and glass. The air held none of the heavy odour of burning oil; if anything, it crackled and pulsed with magic in the way the ancient forests had when the fae still inhabited them. If it weren’t for the various ruins that evoked to those in the know the aura of an advanced society, he would have believed it was the ninth century again. Wandering from place to place, offering his eyes, his voice, and his stories to anyone who could use him in exchange for a few coins, and flirting with people in taverns, it was quite akin to the way he’d lived before he’d met the Archfey. One could almost call it idyllic.

“Hey, Thanatos! There you are,” a voice called from behind him, and he turned to see Bastian pushing through the market crowd toward him. “Thought I’d lost you for a bit. Crowd too much for you?”

There was one major difference between this world and his own, and here was a prime example of it: one could tell just by looking that Bastian was a dragon. If the prismatic hair and the horns weren’t a dead giveaway, the shimmering scales certainly were. He wasn’t the only one, either. A vampire blended right in among the varying peoples of this world, and Thanatos didn’t even bother to wear the glasses that obscured his eye color and slitted pupils anymore. He still became rather on edge in the market crowds, but even that he was doing much better with than he had a month ago. He’d been able to drift from stall to stall with the crowd for almost an hour before he’d felt claustrophobic.

Thanatos nodded acknowledgement of Bastian’s presence and alighted from the fencepost. “I just needed some air. Find everything you wanted?” If he recalled correctly, they were supposed to be replenishing supplies after an unfortunate encounter with a river (that had not at all been Thanatos’s fault).

Bastian only shrugged. “He’s the one shopping. Weather’s turning. Ought to get back together with Mariano and head out before it gets too bright for you.”

The sun here burned much brighter than Thanatos was used to, and even cloudy days pricked uncomfortably at his skin. The locals had been kind to him, though, and no one had hesitated to offer him shelter or clothing or food that he inevitably had to refuse. The hat that he was wearing and had reinforced with a layer of Shadow had been forced upon him by a kindly old woman who had noticed his discomfort while he was carrying her shopping for her on a not-so-cloudy afternoon. She couldn’t have known that his refusal to put a square millimetre of exposed skin in direct sunlight was an aversion to screaming immolation and subsequent death, but she’d pushed her hat onto his head anyway, and called him a sweet young man who needed to take better care of himself. That sort of behaviour had by far been the norm, and for that, he was grateful.

“That little basket all you’re getting?” Bastian asked, edging a hand under the fabric cover, but pulling it back when Thanatos swatted at it.

“The two of you have been very kind. I thought that perhaps I could repay the favour by taking care of dinner for tonight.” It had been a long while since he’d had to cook anything, but he still remembered some of the things his mother had taught him, oh so long ago, and he felt the need to provide something other than diverting conversation for once.

Bastian walked ahead of him in the crowd, forging a less constricted path for Thanatos to follow as the pair threaded their way back to the meeting point. “You don’t even eat. How’re you gonna know if it’s any good?”

“I’ll just have to have you taste for me.”

“Sure thing.” The dragon grinned in that toothy way of his, and Thanatos allowed himself a small one in return.

He’d come out to the two of them during the second week. Not about his taste for men: the reality of that oozed from his pores and was apparent in every movement. The wistful stares he threw at every young man who looked even a bit like the Archfey left little room for doubt. About his taste for blood. Thanatos had violated Clandestine Accord and clued two mortals in on the fact that he was a vampire. It hadn’t phased them at all. There were very few things that could rattle Mariano, and Bastian was a dragon. A vampire wasn’t a threat, and so he didn’t care. Thanatos had felt silly for even being slightly anxious about it. The way they looked at each other, talked to each other, to him, he just knew. They’d felt safe. Thanatos hadn’t felt safe in decades. Not since the Culling War.

Twenty-five years of paranoia had turned an easygoing, charismatic Thanatos into a nervous wreck of a man who jumped at every shadow. He’d heard Tenebrus and the Council talking about him: the psychological effects of his job had made him nearly useless at it, and they were planning to replace him. The war had ended before they had the chance, but still. He knew he wasn’t the same man his Archfey had fallen in love with. That thought alone made him want to shatter into a thousand porcelain fragments, but living here had started to fill in the jagged gouges the war had left on his soul. The people were kinder, didn’t treat him like a monster even when they couldn’t know he was one. (Not like home. On Earth Four, even the slightest deviation from the norm had put him at risk of discovery.) He wasn’t constantly on the defensive anymore.

The crowd opened up a bit, and he could now see slightly further ahead. Ah, there was Mariano. His dark hair rose up above most of the bobbing heads of the market-goers, and the soft lines of his face were broken slightly by a brow furrowed in concentration. Comparing products, perhaps? He’s rather particular about the supplies. He was still deep in discussion with a shopkeeper, though from the amount he was carrying, it seemed as if he must be nearly done with his shopping. “I’ll be right back, found something I want to pick up,” Bastian leaned down to whisper in his ear, melting into the crowd again before Thanatos could even respond. He felt a bit nervous in the crowd by himself, but he could see Mariano, at least, and the hat would probably make him easy enough to find again. He found a quiet spot between two stalls, where he was offered a seat and an apple by an old woman selling fruit. With a smile, he accepted the former, but of course not the latter.

The market had been set up in the hollow shell of some ancient building, and most of the shops on this side of the square were peddling foodstuffs of some kind, set up on the raised ground on either side of the makeshift thoroughfare created by the terrain. This particular ruin gave Thanatos the nagging sensation that he was late to catch a train. He supposed it’d be a long time before he saw another train, given his reassignment. It would have been strange to go back to his Earth after a quarter-century of war, anyhow, let alone live in the cottage without the Archfey. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to fit himself back into a fast-paced mortal society now that he’d had the fear of other people forcibly drilled into him. There hadn’t been a moment in the last decade or so when he hadn’t been acutely wary of other vampires out to give him a glowing recommendation to the nearest Reaper. Relax, Than. There aren’t any other vampires in this area, he reminded himself. He had a hundred miles of clearance before he encroached on anyone else’s hunting grounds. Anyone who wanted to mess with him would have Mariano to contend with, anyhow. No one had got through him yet.

“Do you like it?”

“Hm?”

The laugh was like birdsong, and it came from a girl, about nineteen, behind the fruit stand, helping the old woman set out more goods. “You were staring, mister. Do you like the hairpin? My mother made it for me.” Like most of the denizens here, her skin was a deep ochre, with matching eyes that held a mischievous smile and an effortless charm.

He had been staring; he realised. The pin was an array of jasmine-like blooms on a fastening of ebony and amethyst. It looked like something the Archfey would have worn, not in the early days of their relationship when they’d been doing the courtship dance of fey prince and vampire, no, this was something ae would have worn to a coffeehouse date or to the cinema, a coy reminder of the power that lurked behind the mortal disguise. Thanatos summoned up a smile and gave a wry chuckle, hoping his expression didn’t seem tortured. “You remind me of someone, that’s all.” Oh. It was easier than he’d expected to become the charming vampire once again. Maybe he really was getting better.

The girl returned his smile. “Someone you like?” She turned away a little, then met his eyes again.

“Someone I love.”

The grief must have shown through in his eyes for a moment, because the girl’s smile turned sad. “What happened to them?”

He hesitated, deciding how much of his pain was worth pouring out to a stranger. “Gone. Said they would return, but, well. I’ve had to move, and I fear we may never be reunited.” His gaze drifted away toward the shifting clouds. Bastian was right. The weather would clear up soon.

“Take it then,” she said, and his brow furrowed as his eyes returned to look at her. She took his hand in hers and pressed the pin into it. “My mother made it as a good-luck charm. Maybe it will bring the two of you back together.”

Why would she give something like that to a stranger? Part of him wondered if it might be some sort of trap, but he pushed the thought away. Humans weren’t like vampires. Every gesture of goodwill wasn’t a secret power play with them. Sometimes they did these things on a whim, or even out of kindness. It was a foolish thing for her to do, though, so he demurred. “Oh, miss, I couldn’t possibly take such a precious heirloom—”

“Surely you won’t refuse a gift,” she countered, and the expression of mischief on her face melted the last of the ice in his heart. Maybe things truly were looking up.

Thanatos bowed. “Then I shall graciously accept. However,” he added, setting his basket down for a moment, “allow me to return the favour. A charm for a charm. My partner gave this to me a long time ago. It, too, is good luck. May it bring you winds of fortune.” He removed the earring from his right ear, a dangle shaped vaguely like a wreath. In truth, it was a ritual sigil, one of the Archfey’s smallest and subtlest protection blessings. Woven directly from aer magic into metal, he’d worn it for almost two hundred years, and he credited his continued existence a significant amount to the Archfey’s protection rather than any qualities he himself possessed. For a moment, he questioned why he would give away something so precious on a whim, but the girl’s gift had struck a chord with him, made him feel as if the dark days might be over. That was worth the loss of the charm.

The young woman accepted the earring and worked into her own ear, and the two of them shared a smile, and a laugh, and a blush. One couldn’t fault Thanatos for finding comfort in the sweet moment, but of course, the universe saw fit to punish him for allowing himself to relax. “The fuck you think you’re doing, dipshit?” a gruff voice called from behind him. And here we go.

He went for his usual disarming smile. “Ah, you must be the boyfriend.”

“Fiancé,” the young lady corrected mildly. Of course he was.

The fiancé in question wasted no time in invading Thanatos’s personal space. “You gotta be stupid to chat up another man’s girl like that.” He folded his arms, probably trying to look intimidating. It was sort of working.

Thanatos’s eyebrows raised. “If that’s what you think flirting looks like, my condolences to your lady-love. I was nothing more than cordial. Aren’t you just the strapping young man though,” he purred. “I cannot fault the lady’s taste.” Now that was flirting. The tried-and-true Thanatos method of getting out of this sort of tight spot was to play up his flamboyance until their discomfort outweighed their indignation. “Baffle them with his bullshit,” as it were. It usually worked long enough for him to work out some method of escape.

“Leave it, Javier. He’s not bothering me. We were just talking,” the girl said, annoyed.

Javier was not dissuaded. “I don’t want random guys feeling like they can talk to you, Violetta. And that didn’t look like talking.”

Thanatos saw this as a chance to cut back in. “I assure you, I have no interest in absconding with your sweetheart. My intentions with her were purely platonic, for my tastes lie elsewhere, if you take my meaning.”

From the way Javier picked him up by his collar, Thanatos got the idea that he might not have understood some of those words. “Are you saying you don’t think she’s pretty? Take it back right now!”

Oh, by the celestial river… Annoyance ignited in Thanatos’s chest, and he was firing back before he could think about it. “I didn’t say she wasn’t pretty, you oaf. I said I was fucking gay! By the Divines, humans grow ever more stupid. I’m married too, if it matters—”

“Is there a problem here?” Oh, thank fuck. Mariano, his knight in shining armour once again. Part of him orchestrated these scenarios intentionally just to have a chance to see the mage work. Bastian was hanging back, presumably to watch the show. He gave Thanatos a little wave and a grin and appeared to have found himself some sort of drink. Typical Bastian.

Javier looked Mariano up and down. Tall and broad, the dark-skinned mage certainly carried his share of scars, from the clearly deliberate burns on his arms to the blade-mark under his jawline. Thanatos thought it added charm to the soft lines of Mariano’s face, especially when he smiled, which was often if Thanatos had anything to do with it. He was not smiling now. Mariano’s default expression was blank, unreadable, which combined with the silver-white pact rings around his dark irises and his subtle but not-insignificant musculature lent him quite the imposing air. Even behind the dark-rimmed glasses, it was clear that Mariano was not a man to be trifled with.

Undeterred, likely due to a lack of basic survival instinct, Javier pressed on. “Sure is. Your friend here’s about to eat shit for fucking with my girl. Unless you’d like to eat it for him?” Now, that was borderline suicidal. If he hadn’t known Mariano as well as he did, Thanatos would have expected a bloodbath.

Mariano looked up at Thanatos, still dangling in the air with an expression that read “I’m sorry, please save me again.” He didn’t speak, just removed his casting dagger from his belt, held it up, and ignited the blade, his war mage’s magic shooting up through the hilt and heating the metal until it glowed. A single eyebrow shifted, challenging Javier to try him.

“You really don’t want to fight him,” Thanatos supplied, helpfully.

Javier looked as if he might try it anyway, but Violetta read the situation correctly. Smart girl. “Let’s just go, Javier. I’m fine, it’s not worth it!” she implored, pulling on his arm.

A moment’s hesitation, then the brute relented. “Whatever,” he spat, and threw Thanatos down. The vampire sat down hard in the dirt, hat askew, but that was better than having his neck wrung on what had otherwise been a fairly pleasant afternoon. His basket was down here too, fortunately undamaged. “Let’s go, Violetta.” Javier stalked off, pushing through the crowd.

Thanatos let out a heavy sigh of relief. He took the hand Mariano stretched down toward him and allowed himself to be helped to his feet. “You okay?” Mariano asked, observing his slanted hat and open collar. Thanatos felt the heat rising in his face.

He cleared his throat. “Quite all right, thanks to you, once again. Just in time, too.” He had to stop doing this. As entertaining as it was to be rescued time and time again, the risk to his person was too high. Mariano might save him, but not necessarily before he was seriously damaged.

“You have to stop doing this, I’m not always going to show up right when you need me, you know.” Mariano picked up the basket from the ground and handed it to Thanatos, who suddenly thought he might repeat the whole procedure again tomorrow.

“Oh, but you do it so well! The spectacle, the cinema! You play quite the dashing hero,” he enthused, attempting to distract from how hot he suddenly felt under his silk shirt.

Mariano looked away, probably looking for his dragon in the crowd. It was difficult to tell with Mariano, but Thanatos got the idea he might have said something wrong. Fortunately for him, Bastian returned, amused as usual. “Thought you were going to teach him a lesson. Too bad you let him get away.”

“Wasn’t worth it.” Mariano shrugged. “He was just a blowhard, and I’m sure Than started it, anyway.” He accepted his bag back from Bastian and instinctively sorted through it, as was his habit.

“I’m sure I resent that remark!” Thanatos spluttered, but before he could really get going with his retort, Violetta pushed her way back through the crowd toward them.

“I’m sorry about him. You didn’t deserve that. I should go, but here, take this. For your friend with the pretty eyes.” She pressed a meat bun into his hand and vanished again.

Thanatos blinked in momentary confusion, then held the pastry out to Mariano, who also seemed confused. “Me?”

“I think it’s relatively clear she didn’t mean Bastian. No offense meant, of course.”

Bastian grinned. “None taken. Eat it, Mariano, looks good. If you won’t, I will.”

“But your eyes-” Mariano began, meaning Thanatos’s crimson ones rather than Bastian’s white-silver.

“Oh? Taken your fancy, have they?” It came out more flirtatious than he’d intended, he was having trouble shaking off the performance. “Alluring as they may be, I already have a gift from the lady, and I can’t eat it anyhow. Take the bread and the compliment, mortal mage.” One would have to be blind to fail to acknowledge that Mariano was attractive, in Thanatos’s opinion, but Mariano didn’t seem to process it the same way.

“I- okay.” He didn’t seem convinced, but he always looked like that.

Better to just distract him, then. “Good show, Mariano. Another innocent man rescued, another reward earned. Let’s move on before I am reduced to ash, eh?” That was something he was actually worried about, not just a diversionary tactic. The clouds were moving uncomfortably quickly, hurried on by the wind.

“Wouldn’t want to have to scoop him up off of the ground. That’d take ages,” Bastian joked. Mariano laughed, and all was right with the world again.

#

As Bastian had predicted, the sky was nearly clear when the sun finally slipped below the horizon. The particular corner of the glade where they had built the fire was sufficiently shaded for Thanatos not to have to focus on protecting himself from the light. Not that he had much else to do than leaf through his well-worn copy of Theogonia, which had managed to survive the war tucked into a corner of his briefcase. He didn’t need to read the pages anymore, so many times had he been over these same words in the two thousand years since this particular edition had been published, but turning the leaves and skimming the familiar passages was of comfort to him, a habit he’d developed to unwind after a long day. The woods were quiet except for the soft chirping of insects and the scrape of Mariano’s knife against the whetstone.

“Is it done yet?” This was the fourth time Bastian had asked in the last hour. Thanatos didn’t blame him. The tantalising aroma of slow-cooked meat rising from the stew pot filled the air and stimulated the appetite. His sense of smell had shifted since becoming a vampire, but if one thing had remained the same, the scent still took him back to his childhood, helping his mother by the stove.

“Not quite.” Thanatos gave the pot a stir and tested the meat with the spoon. “About ten more minutes.”

Bastian groaned. “That’s what you said ten minutes ago.”

“No, ten minutes ago I said twenty minutes.”

“Fifteen,” said Mariano, inspecting the blade’s edge in the firelight.

“Hm?” It was the first time Mariano had spoken in an hour or so. Thanatos hadn’t even known he was listening.

The scraping resumed. “You said fifteen minutes. Ten minutes ago.”

“Did I?” Thanatos couldn’t recall, but if Mariano thought so, it must be true.

“Yeah.” There was a beat of silence, and then the rustle of a page and the scrape of the whetstone.

The pot simmered happily despite Bastian’s impatient scrutiny. “Can’t we just eat it now?”

Mariano laughed. “I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait, Bastian. We can’t all eat raw meat, you know. Though maybe next time pick something that doesn’t take as long, Than.”

Thanatos gave a snort of mock-indignation. “Genius cannot be rushed, mortal mage. This is an heirloom recipe passed down to me by my mother.” They’d had servants to cook for them, of course. A magistrate’s wife would never have been expected to do that sort of thing, but Thanatos’s mother had loved every part of the process from selecting ingredients to serving. She’d taught him to cut vegetables and to know when meat was tender. It was incredibly rare for him to need to use those skills, but his hands knew what to do. In a way, it was as if his mother was still alive.

True to his estimate, the stew was ready in about ten minutes. Bastian would have been happy to eat the meat before it was cooked, and if Thanatos was careful, he could sip at the tomato base without making himself ill, but it was Mariano’s opinion that mattered.

Fortunately, the mage’s first spoonful earned a smile. “It’s good!”

Thanatos sighed with relief. “I’m glad you find it so. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve had the occasion to cook, you understand.”

“It doesn’t show. It’s just too bad you can’t taste it,” Mariano said, attacking another spoonful. That dispelled the last of Thanatos’s worries that he was just saying it to be nice. Even if that would have been out of character for someone so straightforward, the apprehension was habitual.

“Oh, I remember it well enough. Enjoy it in my stead.”

“Doesn’t it make you hungry, watching other people eat?” Bastian mused, though most of his attention was caught up in finding more bits of tender meat to fish out of the stew, which Thanatos took as a victory.

He shrugged. “Mortal food is, at best, unappetizing to me at this point. My senses of taste and smell are so altered that it doesn’t register to my mind as consumable.” He was hungry, though, he realised. It had been three days since he’d eaten last: though he’d gone out yesterday and the day before, he’d been unlucky and had found no one else wandering the wilds.

House Iuventae contracts rarely came with non-sapient sustenance clauses. The Shadow could tell the difference, and if Thanatos tried to cheat, it would punish him for it with days of nausea and cramps. It was for that reason that he preferred to eat every other day if he could. A human could survive a litre of blood loss much more easily than two or three. It looked as if he’d actually have to kill today if he didn’t want to lose control of himself later, though. He’d made peace with the concept millennia ago — or so he told himself, but drinking only prepared blood during the war had brought back a vague discomfort. Prudence told him to avoid specific details when discussing it with the others, regardless. He didn’t want to know what they’d truly think of him.

Oblivious to Thanatos’s introspection, Bastian had come up with a theory of his own. “But if you dried it out or whatever, made it into flour, couldn’t you make, say, blood bread or some shit like that?”

“Well, yes, actually. House Nocta does extensive research on alternative ways to prepare blood. Whether it’s edible depends on one’s specific contract. I have a special provision that allows me to consume most liquids, but anything solid makes me ill, blood-based or otherwise.” He didn’t regret it. He was happy to never taste cake again in exchange for still being able to drink wine. The stew he was sipping at was still rather flavourless, though.

“It’s so interesting that your people have found different ways to work with your condition,” said Mariano.

Was it? Thanatos had never thought so. “Necessity is the mother of invention. But enough about vampires. Shall I read you out a story tonight?”

This got Bastian’s attention. “Do the one with the king and the wild man. I like that one.”

“Ah, yes, the epic of Gilgamesh.” He didn’t have a copy of that one in his carpetbag, but he could do the first hour or so from memory, and pick up the book from the Archfey’s later if he needed it. (If he could bear it. The sight of the empty house had made him feel hollow the last time he’d been.) He shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and when next he opened them, his voice had changed to that of the orator. “This is one of the oldest stories in the world, about two thousand years older than me, even. Translated from the tablets of an ancient civilization, large segments of the story are missing, but what we do have tells the story of a mighty king and his quest to discover the secret of immortality. Let me tell you of a man who had seen everything, whom the god Anu had granted all knowledge, who had seen secrets and hidden things, even from the time before the Flood.”

As usual, his audience was rapt, caught up by his words and taken to a time five millennia in the past, when giants walked the earth. He’d go hunting later in the evening, once the magic of ancient fable faded to that of the sandman’s sleep.

#

Thanatos leaned against a tree and tied his hair up into a low ponytail. He’d left his travelling jacket back at the camp as well, leaving him in just his silk shirt, tie, and trousers. The less restricted his movement was, the better, and it had the benefit of making him look younger and less careworn. He hated this, really. When he talked and laughed with Mariano and Bastian, he could pretend that he was perfectly ordinary, still fully human, but when he hunted, it was clear that he was anything but. He wasn’t even an ambush predator like Tenebrus or most other hunting vampires, the sharpening of his senses and the way his night vision flattened everything into shades of grey save for outlines of delicious scarlet around everything with a heartbeat was of little use to him. All it did was remind him how little humanity was left in him.

In his element, Thanatos was a honey trap, an attractive, confident, charismatic man whom others would gladly follow into a dark alley for a tryst — with perhaps a little hypnotic encouragement. It fit his personality quite well, and he’d been able to carve a niche out for himself in both vampiric society and back on Earth Four. He was the very picture of a Iuventus, a man of words taken with alcohol and sex and other pleasures of the flesh. Or at least he had been. Before everything. He wanted very badly to return to feeling like that man. (If he thought about it too hard, he’d realise that luring people into the night to be devoured was also rather monstrous, so he didn’t.)

Right now, his priority was to return to the village and civilization. He was still getting back into the rhythm of pursuing prey, hunting instead of being hunted. It felt good to be out at night instead of having to worry about the sun surprising him. He decided to just try to enjoy the sense of freedom. Moving at a vampire’s speed, the wind singing through his hair, the moonlight lightly caressing his skin. All the horrors of the war: the daily grind of waking up, infiltrating a location, and running away that made him feel as if the dust and grime of the road soaked into his soul. That was all behind him now. He was an ordinary vampire now, without obligations or debts, free to eat and sleep and do whatever else his heart desired.

He really should have learned his lesson from earlier in the day. Stay on your toes, don’t stop to enjoy things. Don’t dare believe you’re out of the woods. You developed that paranoia for a reason. It was his own fault he was now lying on his back on the forest floor, his ankle held fast by a metal cord. One moment, he’d been darting through the trees trying to cover distance, and the next his head had hit a tree root and sent stars exploding behind his eyes. How long had he been unconscious? Ten seconds or ten minutes?

The impact alone might have killed a mortal, but Thanatos was merely concussed. Confusedly, he tried to pull his ankle free, and only succeeded in tightening the cable around the unfortunate limb. He would leave this part out whenever he told the story afterward, but in truth, he panicked. The idea of being trapped again, being captured again, was too much for him. His nails scrabbled for purchase in the soft loam, fighting to take him somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t here. His vision tinted red, his own too-loud heartbeat overwhelming his heightened senses. It felt as if it were another person who was thrashing and kicking, desperately trying to get away and only tightening the wire until it cut down to the bone.

He flinched at the snap of a branch, close, too close. “Well, well. Look what I got here. You ain’t a cougar, are you, buddy?” The voice was rough and belonged to a banjo-string sort of man now crouching three metres away.

This should have been his salvation. If Thanatos had been in his right mind, he would have turned on the charm and begged this man for help. But no. He’d been hungry too long; his Shadow was too close to the surface, converting his stress response from fawn to flight. He didn’t even know what small indication he must have picked up on, or perhaps he truly was the animal for which the trap had been originally purposed — but before he knew it, he’d drawn back toward the tree, hissing and baring his fangs.

The man only grinned. “Who-wee, ain’t you a feisty one? Hold on, red eyes, dark hair… You’re the fucker Javier was tellin’ us about, tryin’ to muscle up on his girl. Oh, he’s gonna love this. What kind of freak are you, anyway, with teeth like that?” Oh, fucking fantastic. They’d set him up on a world where people didn’t believe in vampires, and here he was screwing it up. “Eh, doesn’t matter. Wait ’til I get Javier and the guys. It’s gonna be a riot! Not like you have much of a choice but to sit, though, huh?” The man laughed cruelly and wandered off.

Alone again. Thanatos was used to how this sort of thing went by now. The hunter would come back with a group of men, and they would kick Thanatos around until they were tired of him, and then they would probably “kill” him and dump his body somewhere. He’d wait until they left and drag himself off to lick his wounds. It would be tolerable. He would just have to endure.

#

Mariano was pacing again. Bastian watched him for a few minutes, hoping he would come back to bed, but eventually gave up. “Something on your mind?”

“Than’s not back yet.” Bastian had to admit that was strange. Thanatos had never been gone for over four hours before. He’d usually slip away an hour or two after dusk and return just after midnight, blood-drunk and stifling hiccups. He should have been back three hours ago.

“You want to go after him?” Mariano nodded. Bastian had already got to his feet. He knew Mariano well enough by now to know he couldn’t just stand by. “It’s a lot of ground to cover. What if we don’t find him?”

“He probably went back to the village. We can start that way and fan out if we need to. It’s all well and good if he comes back on his own, but if he’s in trouble…” Mariano trailed off, his pensive gaze wandering toward the forest and taking his feet with it.

Bastian doused the fire and moved to catch up. “I’m sure he just fell asleep somewhere,” he commented, but knew as soon as the words were spoken that they were false. Than didn’t sleep anywhere he didn’t feel safe, and definitely not by accident. When they’d first met, the two of them had spent three days in a stalemate waiting for the other to fall asleep first. It had become clear by then that Thanatos wasn’t even slightly a threat, but Bastian had had to be the one to give up on the whole thing. Than hadn’t seemed like he could, even if he’d wanted to. Even utter exhaustion couldn’t convince his body to rest if it wasn’t safe.

No, it was much more likely that he’d managed to get himself into a situation he couldn’t get himself out of. At this point, it happened so often that Bastian wondered if Thanatos did it on purpose just to enjoy the privilege of having Mariano rescue him. Not that he could blame him. Mariano took on the “knight in shining armour” role quite handsomely, all shining blade and “put him down” and “let him go.” If the mage didn’t have such a tendency to hurt himself while taking care of others, it might have been worth trying himself, but he’d seen what lengths Mariano would push himself to in order to save him. If the idiot got himself killed, it’d be much less fun.

Tracking Thanatos wasn’t difficult. The vampire didn’t have any particular abilities that lent themselves to obscure a trail. He’d been moving quickly, but not particularly quietly. They heard the commotion up ahead before they saw it: a group of about ten people, talking and yelling and throwing spears, rocks, and crossbow bolts, all centred on a tree at the edge of the clearing. The place looked like a war zone. Broken branches littered the forest floor, some splashed with dark red. Black liquid pooled in some places and flowed in others, streaming down from holes in the surrounding trees that looked like they’d been punctured with incredible force. A mass of dark hair and torn fabric, stained with blood, lay at the foot of the central tree. The same black liquid guttered weakly into a half-dome in an attempt to stop more projectiles, but couldn’t hold its shape and joined the rest of the dark splatters on the ground. Surely that wasn’t…?

Another rock bounced off of the figure’s shoulder, leaving behind a line of red that spilled down the pale skin exposed by his ruined sleeve. He shifted and some of the hair fell to the side, revealing a single scarlet eye, darting from side to side, searching for an escape. The leader of the pack, recognizable as the brute from earlier in the day, hurled another stone that struck the wounded creature across the temple. A yelp of pain rang out, but then the shape was silent.

“I think I finally got him!” Javier exclaimed. “How much do you think they’ll pay for his head?”

Mariano had already come to his conclusion. “Leave him.” Despite the lack of exclamation point, his voice was clear and cold and had an impressive volume that carried it well enough to make the rabble stop what they were doing.

Javier turned to see who had spoken. “You again? Seems like you really want trouble. Why do you care so much about this monster, anyway? All it wanted was the steal our people away in the night. I did this town a favour by exterminating it.”

“You’ll regret laying hands on him.” A statement of fact, not a threat. Mariano never threatened.

Javier snorted. “I don’t think so. Maybe I should take care of you, too, for protecting that thing. Boys!” At his command, the scattered hunters left off taking potshots at Thanatos and aimed their weapons at the new threat.

Bastian loved watching this part. Mariano fought like a wild thing, with a magic that was hungry, ruthlessly efficient and utterly without mercy. In some ways, one could say he fought like a dragon. Bastian couldn’t afford to be distracted watching his mage work, though. Rescuing Thanatos was more important, and so he refocused, his new objective heavily discouraging any of Javier’s goons from running to his aid.

#

Mariano let out a deep breath and put his magic away. The smell of charred flesh rose over the scent of the forest at night — more of which was Bastian’s work than his, if he was honest. “We’re all clear now, Than. Are you all right?” The figure by the tree made no sound, and Bastian threw Mariano an inquisitive glance. He elected to approach, wanting to see if that last rock had knocked the vampire unconscious.

Unconscious he was not, and the speed at which he withdrew toward the perceived safety of the tree surprised even Mariano. The curtain of his hair obscured his face, and it was a bit unsettling the way the glowing red eyes watched Mariano through the tangle, pupils narrowed into slits with none of the good humour or charm he was used to seeing in them. If the vampire weren’t wearing Thanatos’s clothes — or, rather, what was left of them — he’d almost believe it wasn’t Than he was watching at all. Thanatos’s eyes showed no recognition, only wary apprehension, as if he were waiting for Mariano to reveal threatening intent. Was he too far gone to realize who they were?

Mariano continued to approach, slowly, giving Thanatos time to track his movements. “You’re safe now,” he murmured. “It’s just me. It’s Mariano, you know me. Bastian’s here too. Let him see you, Bastian.” Bastian approached as he was told, but Thanatos backed away, which pulled taut a thin wire around his ankle. The metal had cut into his flesh to the point that white bone was visible amidst the mess of pink and red. “That hurts a lot, doesn’t it? Let us help you. We’ll get that off of you and get you somewhere we can treat it, okay?” He could only hope that their potions would work on a vampire. It didn’t look at all treatable otherwise.

Thanatos remained silent. That was the weirdest thing about it. The Thanatos Mariano knew rarely stopped talking: his presence was a constant stream of words about everything and nothing, almost as if he were afraid to stop. Right about now, he would usually apologise profusely for needing to be rescued at all and be on the verge of composing an epic ballad about their combat prowess, maybe a little worse for wear but trying hard not to show it. As Mariano approached, all he could hear were the harsh exhales forcing themselves through the vampire’s nose. That it wasn’t broken was a miracle, considering the state of the rest of his face. Thanatos did a good job of not looking like a corpse most days, but the bruising mottling his cheeks and over his eyes appeared distinctly post-mortem. Tear tracks, long dried, were visible under the blood and dirt. And yet, through it all, he looked not fearful exactly, but… vigilant. Distrustful. He hadn’t given up at all. He was just waiting to see what else he would have to endure.

Mariano tried again. “Thanatos? Bastian’s gonna get that cord off of you, okay? And then you can just come to me. We’ll take you somewhere safe.” Thanatos still didn’t seem to hear, but Bastian’s approach certainly got his attention, eliciting a growl from deep within the vampire’s chest.

“Doesn’t seem like he wants our help,” Bastian murmured, slowing, but not stopping.

“He’s just afraid.” This was a sound like a cornered animal, not like a predator, ready to fight if he had to, but wanting to avoid it. “We can’t just leave him like this. He’ll understand once the wire’s gone.” At least, he probably would. “It’s okay, Than. Come to me, you’ll be safe. You trust me, right?” Mariano could only hope Thanatos did. It certainly seemed like it, given how quickly he’d started to account for the mage in his plans. Would that trust be able to cut through whatever was going on with him?

The growl became louder as the distance between Bastian and Thanatos closed, and escalated into a hiss when he got close enough to touch the wire. It was Mariano’s turn to fill the air with words, anything to distract Thanatos long enough for Bastian to do his thing. If Than tried to run again, he’d probably make everything worse. “Eyes on me, Than, that’s it. I know you’re scared. He won’t hurt you. We’re friends. You know that. You remember us. We’re going to get you out of here, and then we’ll make your leg stop hurting.” Mariano extended a hand toward his injured friend, proving that he held no weapon and no ill intent. It was up to Thanatos to believe him, if he even could right now.

Everything happened at once. A rush of dragon fire, the twang of metal parting from metal. Thanatos lunged toward Mariano at lightning speed, covering the distance between them before Bastian could even shout a warning. White-hot pain, a burst of warm blood, wet, lips, tongue, breath, a dull thud, blackness.

part 2 up tomorrow!

taglist: @athenswrites, @albatris, @thethistlegirlwrites

[oodlyenough]

alright i've seen arcane twice through now, here are my opinion patch notes:

jayce is hilarious i can't believe fandom hates him so much lmao... arcane boldly asks, what if steve rogers shot a child, and i think that's very fun and sexy of them

fr though i do think jayce is one of the more interesting characters precisely because he's -- well partly because i feel like he realized he's bisexual two days ago and is making it everyone's problem, which is already great. but also because watching the square-jawed hero complex guy make a series of terrible decisions and go mad with power is a satisfying thing to witness. the story seems very aware jayce is doing a bunch of fucked up stuff, and i appreciate that. unhinged bisexual rights

i was also more into the political drama once i was following it closer. i think it's handled with relative subtlety most of the time and i like that! i hope it stays that way in s2, please god. also how tf does the council work, are people appointed? i guess? based on status/wealth? it certainly doesn't seem to be a democracy.

also i love ambessa. can't wait to see more of her.

i feel like mel's writing is... kind of underbaked. her words and her actions don't always correspond (eg "i've never been able to give back!" says the single richest person in a city with severe wealth disparity who has been in political power for a decade). i don't say any of this to drag mel, because i'm very interested in who i think she is/could be, but i find it hard to decipher if this is nuanced writing or just the story not really knowing what it's doing with her -- i guess we'll see what s2 does. i'm still pretty confident she'll survive the finale, not so much because i think she'll survive the entire show (doubtful imo) but because i think if they're going to kill mel she'll get a solo death episode and the finale/fallout of jinx's bomb has too much else going on. fingers crossed anyway, lol, i think it'd be shitty if she's just dead now before they did much with her

i understand like 25% more of what happened with viktor and happy fun ball but ... still not a lot. lmao. i don't mind them keeping it vague i guess but i hope future sequences are less outright confusing to me. why did it eat sky? why did it change his hand? was that on purpose? we never saw him having issues with his hand, right? who knows.

still love that dinner scene with jinx/silco/vi. as i was watching with @firstofoctober i was saying how great it is that everyone in the scene is saying stuff they genuinely believe even if that stuff isn't factually true. i know there's Discourse over how genuine silco was being but i really do think all evidence points to him meaning it/believing what he's saying, even if *we* know vi isn't going to betray powder, etc. likewise vi obviously means it when she says she loves jinx and they're still sisters etc... but i really don't think she has a proper grasp of who jinx is now, she's projecting baby powder and expecting she can flip a switch. it's good and sad and i like it a lot.

coming out less flatteringly on rewatch:

ep 1 is so boringgggggggggg these are so many characters and i only have to care about two of them

caitvi moves at breakneck pace lol. slow down ladies it's been 72 hours tops

heimerdinger is just terrible on rewatch imo lmao he literally never does anything to help anyone or anything. i'm pretty sure jayce only deposed him for being mean to viktor, but he was still right. i GET that his whole thing is being immortal and blah blah but like what if: some guy with no perspective on human existence wasn't ruling a city full of mostly-humans. depose him again jayce.

and my least popular opinion: caitlyn i just... i tried man. i dunno. i mean she's nice and stuff... katie leung is funny sometimes. i just feel like she is so uncomplicated compared to literally every other character, with the least compelling arc. and i think the story treats her with real kiddie gloves too, which i find grating. everyone else fucks up and makes mistakes and is punished narratively for it, but caitlyn is always right bc she is a nice good cop. okay. whatever.