#i think this counts as meta

[whetstonefires]

I know I talk about mdzs modern AUs a lot, but it's just somehow become a fascinating adaptation process to me, all these people making their personal calls about the nature of reality.

And a thing I keep coming back to is all the people who deliberately decide to give modern!wwx Mo Xuanyu's build.

To preserve the strength contrast that's leveraged for horny, which like, yeah that's fair, horny is an acceptable reason to make a story choice. I respect that, sometimes grudgingly.

But as a result of noticing this being done, oftentimes it seems without any reflection about why, I've developed this minor obsession with the fact that wwx in his own body at its adult height was fractionally shorter than lwj.

And this was the height he reached after a multi-year period in childhood living on scrounged garbage, plus the three months starving in the mass grave toward the end of his growth period.

Meaning that by all normal logic, a modern AU wwx who did not experience these periods of intense privation--which is most of them; it's quite rare for children to experience that particular form of total neglect in modern developed nations and modernAU!wwx's life ruining circumstances only occasionally involve intense physical torment--is going to be significantly taller as an adult.

Like. Add a few inches on there.

Where are all my adequately nourished six-foot-four Wei Wuxians???

[drbatsponge]

It just hit me that Cassandra Cain, a character who was ultimately created because of the fallout of the Killing Joke, is the ultimate antithesis to the "One Bad Day" ideology Joker states in that story and I find that beautiful.

Since she was born she's had countless bad days and yet she still chooses to be a hero at the end of each of those days.

She's quite literally the ultimate fuck you to the Killing Joke in multiple ways by not only proving Joker's ideology wrong but also continuing the legacy and character of Batgirl.

[charmwasjess]

Still thinking about Galidraan, about the Legends vs Canon treatment of Dooku’s character, namely his exit from the Jedi. 

It’s funny how much it matters to me and improves Dooku’s story that he didn’t leave the Jedi out of growing disillusionment with the Order itself. In the current canon, it’s all framed around a very Padme-esque disenchantment with current political makeup of the Republic, the Jedi being used by the Senate and political machines inappropriately, and how planets with little wealth or influence are left out. In the penultimate moment of crisis, he leaves for Serenno, not because he can’t be a Jedi any longer. Because of a conviction that he could truly make something better. 

And I don’t mean to suggest that he never expresses any criticism of the Jedi or particularly, the Council. He seems to have founded that characteristic trait within the Disaster Lineage. (Ironically, the person in Dooku’s story who should have the most legitimate reason to have a personal problem with the Jedi Order is fucking Sifo-Dyas, who never seems to have considered leaving and literally dies telling the camera he did it all to save the Jedi, but that’s a different post.) But that isn't what compels Dooku to leave. In fact, he remains close with the Order for years afterward.

Why it matters to me is because that detail makes Dooku ultimately betraying the Order SO MUCH MORE FUCKED. 

Because they weren’t an old score he was settling. It wasn't seething resentment that boiled out into revenge years later. They were innocent collateral damage of his decisions. His family. His lineage. His legacy. It makes his treachery so much more personal. He had a wager, power for a horrible cost, and he took the power and paid the horrible cost. Sidious really gets him with:

If Dooku hated them and had always thought they deserved to be destroyed, it wouldn’t have been a true Sith bargain, the trade off wouldn’t have tallied. In the same way that Vader could not have existed if Anakin hadn’t loved Padme and yet still killed her.

If Dooku was just a horrible, conceited, power-hungry ass who expectedly traded the kinda shitty people in his life for a shot at more power, it wouldn’t be a very good story. If he really didn’t give a shit, why would Sidious make that his initiation? But if he does - does care deeply about Sifo-Dyas, does love Qui-Gon like a son, is touched by Yaddle’s kindness and sympathy, begins to see Asajj as a true apprentice, consistently tries to save Obi-Wan out of affection, still considers the Jedi his true family - and yet still dooms them all, how much more tragic and horrible and sickening and real and interesting is his story?

[mollysunder]

I think the fact that Viktor and Sky were never close says a lot about Viktor. Before I get started this isn't about any potential romantic relationship that could have happened between Sky and Viktor. It's just fascinating that he and Sky were as far the audience knew, the only Zaunites to work in this hyperelite space in Piltover... and they didn't get to know each other. No moments of peer to peer solidarity? No small talk to mention family or trade stories from the weekend? Sky worked for him and didn't know where to discard her ashes despite coming from the same place and likely having her address on file.

If we have to put Sky and Viktor's relationship in context of the greater story of Arcane, it represents Viktor's relationship with Zaun and its populace, which is both nonexistent and largely theoretical. Viktor has a deep well of empathy, but uses it ineffectively, even when he is in a position to help... he invents mining tools (not even an air purifier for a place like that). He gets it, but somehow he doesn't get it.

Viktor's most significant on screen relationships are with other Piltovans like Jayce, Singed, and even Heimerdinger. Despite the prejudice he faces in Piltover, Viktor has the most legitimate political influence out of the entire Zaunite cast. The way Viktor was Heimerdinger's assistant is not the same way Sky was his assistant. Heimerdinger was Head of the Council and President of the Academy and Viktor was tasked with carrying out his assignments with limited authority, technically that makes him a high ranking government aide. Could Sky or Ekko or Silco (without blackmail) talk to the Sheriff the way Viktor could? Viktor's even best friends with a Councilor (Jayce) after the timeskip, and he does NOTHING with that to lobby for Zaun.

By the end Viktor's very ridiculous and overly complicated plan gets even more Zaunites killed, including Sky a second time. He solved nothing, killed hundreds, and apologized to no one, including Sky's family. Maybe the Academy was a mistake all along.

[prismatiger]

Tell me your opinions on the stuff. Any stuff.

Grins. Smiles, even

I'm using you as an excuse to infodump my theory about the Island because I've had no in to do that, and my theory is pure opinion. Anyways:

THE ISLAND IS STUCK IN THE FUCKING FUTURE

(SCARE CHORD)

Hi so you might ask me. What the fuck do you mean by that. Well. Let's start with what we know about the Island, the King, and Wish Craft. (long ass post under cut. sorry)

The Island was redacted from the perception of outside world, via Wish Craft.

Wish Craft has the power to enable Time Craft. We see this primarily through Siffrin's timeloops, but also through the King's powers.

One of the King's powers is to show the saviors a "vision of the future."

...And this same attack is deflected back at the King by Mirabelle in ACT 5, in which the King is able to see the Island before being frozen in time.

...So. The King's "vision of the future." We're never told explicitly what this vision is. All we know is that it's apparently powerful enough to wipe the party in one hit, hearing it from a distance hurts your head, and that whatever Siffrin (and Loop) saw, they don't seem to actually be able to describe it. Even the King himself doesn't know what his vision entails.

We don't know whether the party all sees the same thing when struck by the vision, and Adrienne's answer to the question about it in the Reddit AMA is. vague? It's not a "no," and the specific wording makes me think the answer might be yes. But that's me reading into it.

Now. What do we know about the Island's redaction? The Island was affected by the wish recently, as in "like a decade ago" recently. We know that nobody in Vaugarde or the rest of the world is capable of thinking about the Island, anything closely tied to the Island's culture, or people on the Island for very long. When they do recall these things, they slip right out of reach. Particularly, the consequence for trying to think about the Island (or, more specifically, break the wish that forces the Island out of perception) is significant pain, localized in the head.

And that said pain is enough to become lethal, if pressed hard enough.

From here forward I'm running with the assumption that the King's "vision of the future" is not personalized to any individual, and is unchanging throughout the course of the whole story. Now. Remember the end of ACT 5, where the King gets hit with the deflected "vision of the future", and instead of dying, he recalls the Island and gets frozen in time? Very odd, yeah? Why wouldn't the King just die like everyone else does? He even does take 9999 damage when trying to say its name, like Siffrin does, and like the party does when they're hit by the attack.

Well. We know that he has a "true wish" that the ability to freeze Vaugarde in time grants. I don't think it's at all a stretch to guess that the King's "true wish" is to be able to remember the Island. My personal guess is that the King (and Siffrin) brought this "true wish" into effect via the "SAY ITS NAME" sequence- he even tries three times, a significant number in wishing.

The King (and Siffrin's) wish breaks, because it can't be fulfilled in this moment without breaking the wish to prevent the Island from being thought about. However. Consider the conditions at the end of ACT 5- the King sees the vision of the future reflected back to him, and what he sees is the Island. He remembers the Island, fulfilling his own wish, and is frozen in time. I consider this a compromise between his wish and the one binding the Island- the King gets to remember the Island, but nobody alive is able to think about it, because he's frozen in time; it's like the Universe is correcting itself (I WILL GET BACK TO THIS). The wish of all of Vaugarde to defeat the King is fulfilled, since he is no longer a threat, and Siffrin's wish wraps itself up soon after.

MY POINT BEING. The King's attack is a vision of the future. This "future" is of the Island, in some uncorrupted state. The saviors see it when he attacks them, and he sees it when it is deflected back to him.

The logical next question is "okay, so the Island exists in the future, but how do you know time shenanigans are even related to the Island?"

Recall a very odd series of interactions throughout the game, in which you try to interact with a piece of equipment that you already own.

The game rewinds slightly, before the item disappears, as the Universe corrects itself.

This is awfully similar to two particular events: looping back without seeing the death screen, and talking to the Daydreaming One about her sister. The latter is more interesting to me for the purposes of this theory.

In both instances, something is misaligned within the Universe (an item existing in two places, someone remembering something they're not supposed to) and it is corrected through some sort of rewind. Also compare the dialogue above to when you try to give Mirabelle the Stylish Bow when you already own it.

The world glitches, but Siffrin defuses the situation before the Universe has to intervene. Omitted from the screenshot is the fact that Mirabelle's portraits switch to happy from "catastrophically anxious" with no transition after Siffrin shows her where the bow is. Important to note is that when Mirabelle tries to recall receiving the bow, her head hurts, much like how trying to break the Island wish causes a headache.

The Universe leads you away from perception, and you can only follow.

My theory that I keep circling around is that through Wish Craft, the Island has been displaced temporally. The denizens of the Island, as well as the Island itself, still exist, but they are in the future. The Island is still loaded into the world, like how equipment is before you try to interact with it, and the Island cannot leave this quantum state, because it never actually went anywhere. The magnitude of the redaction event is so severe with the Island, because it is so much larger as an entity than a sword or a bow. There are of course things I don't really have pieced together, like why somebody would wish the Island into the future, how far into the future it is, or why equipment behaves this way. But it's the only Island theory I've seen that I have some level of confidence in, so I might as well lay out my cards for it.

[justhereforthemeta]

Romantic expectations and the story we didn't see: A magic trick hiding in plain sight

Here's a hopeful meta for all my fellow celestial brainrot sufferers out there. Cheers! :)

This idea started as a dead end, trying to track the movements of Crowley’s sideburns/tattoo because I thought time travel shenanigans were afoot. I had to abandon that theory when it was pointed out that David was simultaneously filming as the sideburns-having Fourteenth Doctor, and in-universe Crowley can do whatever he wants with his facial hair whenever he feels like it. But hey - null findings are still findings!

On the bright side, pausing the show to make notations in a spreadsheet forced me to slow down and notice other changes I'd overlooked the first time around: acting choices, costuming choices, references to book lore. And possibly a few surreptitious flicks of the wrist, in places where we’re meant to be focused on the magician’s other hand.

@amuseoffyre and @ineffablefood had a great exchange recently about romance and “the significance of misdirection and three-in-one (magic) tricks” throughout the show. I suspect Neil has done something brilliant with the audience’s long-standing expectations (since the 1990s, really) for the love story between Crowley and Aziraphale to develop. And while it is a wonderful story indeed, playing to this expectation lets Neil distract his audience from the blink-and-you'll-miss-them seeds he's planting for the final chapter.

Continued below the cut...

Let’s start at the beginning of Episode 2. First, context: In the previous installment, Crowley stormed out of the bookshop, was whisked away to Hell by Beelzebub where he learns about the Book of Life threat to Aziraphale’s existence, then returned to the bookshop to dance a little apology dance and hide Gabriel with an unintentionally massive joint miracle. In S2E2, we and Shax catch up with Crowley as he's snoozing in the Bentley.

Shax: “You’re in trouble”

A. J. Crowley, cool as a cucumber: “Obviously. Former demon, hated by Heaven, loathed by Hell. How will our hero cope?”

Interesting! Sarcastic? Yes, absolutely; but that’s also a good 4500 years and an averted apocalypse away from “I’m a demon. I lie,” wouldn’t you say? Someone is sounding a whole lot less depressed and aimless and navel-gazey (do snakes have navels?), and a whole lot more like he’s got a project to focus on, since his "what's the point?" ruminations on the park bench in E1.

And of course we all noticed the costume change right away. Hello, black turtleneck. Feeling cute today, thought I’d cover up my graceful long neck? That sounds unlikely. Let’s put a pin in this one.

There’s also an interesting acting choice going on here. Crowley speaks to Shax in a funny, drawling, too-cool-for-you voice that we haven’t heard in a while. Specifically, not since 1967. If you go back and give the S1E3 scene in the Dirty Donkey a listen, you’ll hear it (and if you know of another instance of it that I've missed, please let me know!). In S2E2, he keeps up this odd voice (if anybody knows what kind of affect this is supposed to be, please do tell!) throughout this dialogue with Shax, except for the brief moment when she first surprises him about the joint miracle having been detected.

1967 was a fun year. Crowley masterminded a heist! And seemed like he was having a ball doing it, right up until his little caper was called off after Aziraphale brought him the thermos of holy water. Crowley spoke to his co-conspirators in that same funny, very 60’s-caper-film voice. He wore a hip 60’s turtleneck. He bought petrol for the only time ever, so he could get those sweet James Bond bullet hole decals for his car (per the book, seen on the Bentley in the show).

Those James Bond bullet hole decals would of course have been part of a promotion for this 1967 release, which you just know our film-enjoying demon went to see in the theater:

Starring this suave, be-turtlenecked guy:

And now - begging your forgiveness - a brief rant.

There are a number of posts out there that refer to Crowley’s S2E2 turtleneck as a flirtatious sartorial choice - actually, ‘slutty’ seems to be the favored accusation. There are even a few posts floating around commenting on how sweet it is that Crowley swaps out his slutty, kinky, throw-me-over-your-desk-and-take-me turtleneck for a more dressy and appropriate collared shirt specifically to attend Aziraphale’s Jane Austen ball. 

Now this is all in good fun, and Crowley does indeed look fantastic here, and I do love a good fangirling sesh as much as the next person. However, fandom’s collective tendency to interpret what we are seeing on the screen through the lens of romantic expectation can, at times, give rise to a kind of blinkered enthusiasm that obscures the original text in a haze that is part Mandela Effect, part unrestrained horniness, and part in-group code talking and identity reinforcement.

Respectfully, Crowley’s black turtleneck does not appear at all in S2E5: The Ball. In fact, it never appears again after the end of S2E2.

For Someone’s sake, let’s collectively pull our heads out of the romantic fog/gutter for a moment and focus on what we are actually seeing in the book and on the screen. For Crowley, this is an uncharacteristic within-period costume change. There is a surreptitious flick of the wrist happening here, out in broad daylight, and we are all missing it.

So here’s a thing. Aziraphale appears to have settled comfortably into life on Earth, his neighborhood, his books, using Crowley as an outlet for sharing his good deeds that he would once have reported to Heaven. Meanwhile, at first glance, Crowley appears stuck in a rut. There he slouches on a park bench with Shax in S2E1: a guy who lives in his car, stagnantly clinging to old familiar habits, mulling over the pointlessness of it all.

Setting aside the bit about living in the Bentley (I’m going to attribute this to well-documented issues between him and Aziraphale, discussed in many other excellent metas, and move on), Crowley has at least two very good, proactive reasons for maintaining his contact with Hell through Shax. First and foremost, it’s a source of information he can use to keep ahead of potential threats to Aziraphale and himself.

But also, I would posit…he kinda likes it.

Recall that book GO was first conceived as a parody, with Aziraphale and Crowley as spy-against-spy (but not really) field operatives in an ages-old cold war between Heaven and Hell. Their entire book dynamic is rooted in the trope of two opposing agents who have been in the field for so long that they now have more in common with each other than with their respective head offices. Their St. James’s Park meetings among other spies and ministers trading secrets are a sendup of what was once a well-known Cold War-era cliché. 

Our contemporary Crowley still likes slick outfits and hellaciously expensive watches and high-performing vintage cars and pens that write underwater while looking like they could break the speed limit. He coaches Shax on how to blend in as a demon on Earth, and he helpfully redirects the wayward contact looking for the Azerbaijani sector chief. He loves improvising and getting away with shenanigans under the institutional radar. And boy golly was he impressed with Jane Austen: master spy, brandy smuggler, and mastermind of the 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery. 

And if you look at it a certain way, for as long as Crowley has considered himself to be on “[his] own side” - going at least as far back as Job - he could almost think of himself as a sort of double agent. It’s actually a very romantic sort of notion, befitting our hopeless romantic of a (professedly former) demon; but it’s romantic in a very different way than we, the audience, have been primed to watch for.

In other words, in a very “on my own side” kind of way, Crowley really gets a kick out of being a spy. Or at least, dressing up and accessorizing as one, and moonlighting as a good-doing double agent when he can get away with it. And also being a plotting criminal mastermind. Two sides of a coin, really. Just look at Jane Austen.

My point is: No, Crowley did not wait around for Shax to come find him in a turtleneck so that he could go flirt with Aziraphale later. He’ll flirt with Aziraphale no matter what. No, this:

is actually this:

Much like the one he wears to the Dirty Donkey in 1967: 

whilst holy water heist-plotting. Here's a clearer shot with gratuitous Bentley, because I love them:

…and which he'll wear again, with appropriate camouflage, while infiltrating Heaven in S2E6:

That is the 1967 planning a HEIST turtleneck for committing ESPIONAGE and STEALING THINGS in. Because turtlenecks are what modern human master spies wear to get their hands dirty - after all, he saw it in a movie once. 

Crowley dons his tactical turtleneck sometime during the first major break in the action (which doesn't happen until after the joint miracle to hide Gabriel) after he learns about the threat the Book of Life poses to Aziraphale. Loverboy started mentally preparing himself to go after that book immediately upon learning that it was in play as a genuine threat. 

Now let’s pick up at the S2E2 Dirty Donkey scene, reading the story from this angle. Of course, Crowley enables Aziraphale’s delusions about Heaven by hiding information from him, and does not disclose the Book of Life threat when they meet again. They go into the pub, Aziraphale shamelessly paws Crowley’s chest like the seductive Bond Girl he is, and Crowley gets to act all smooth and suave and intimidating as he chases off the interloping Mr. Brown (or Mr. Collins for the Pride & Prejudice fans, take your pick).

Ergo, theory: beginning in S2E2, Crowley is already thinking of himself as a Jane Austen/James Bond action hero (“How will our hero cope?”), psyching himself up to rescue Aziraphale by getting his spy game on and stealing the Book of Life.

Now, watch closely...This is where Aziraphale and Crowley brainstorm their plans to solve the problem they both know about: getting Maggie and Nina to fall in love and thereby get Heaven off their backs. Crowley’s vavoom plan is drawn from yet another movie (“Get humans wet and staring into each other’s eyes - vavoom, sorted. I saw it in a Richard Curtis film.”). But Crowley also implicitly shares his solution to the problem he hasn’t told Aziraphale about. And true to form, Crowley’s Jane Austen solution isn’t the same as Aziraphale’s Jane Austen solution. 

Two solutions that fail by the end of Season 2, and a secret third one that might still work...and there's our magic trick of three.

‘“I’m lost. Am I doing a rainstorm?” Yes, babe. And a heist, too - just not until season three. Can I get a wahoo!? 

I won’t spend time on A Companion to Owls during this meta, except to note that in all three minisodes, we get to watch stories that involve Crowley acting as a double agent on “his/their own side” - successfully making Hell and Heaven think he’s fulfilling their will while saving Job’s goats and children; failing to fool Hell when he does a good deed in Edinburgh; and of course, collaborating with Aziraphale whilst evading detection as an infernal turncoat during the Blitz.

(Because this is getting long, I'll also skip over Crowley's interrogation of Jim in this episode - I'll probably come back to that in another meta. But interrogating is a rather spy-ish thing to do.)

When we catch up with Crowley again later, he’s already slipped out of the bookshop, having left Aziraphale to his biblical reverie about Job. He saunters snakily down Whickber Street as usual, but with a very pointed and swift glance over his shoulder (see pic above). This demon is up to something - possibly something we didn’t get to see, something that may have happened offscreen while he stepped out. In any case, knowing there’ve been unfriendly angels in the neighborhood that morning, he’s rightly concerned about being spied on.

From this point until the beginning of episode six, there isn’t a whole lot of opportunity for Crowley to make any next moves. He babysits the bookshop, during which time he manages to wring some crucial information out of Jim; he follows his Crowley’s Angel around like a puppy, and downs a bottle of red like a good old fashioned lovesick boy once that’s been pointed out to him. If any plotting or scheming is underway, this occult being is keeping stumm for now.

This has been a long one, so I’ll wrap up with Crowley’s infiltration of Heaven with Muriel. The turtleneck disguise works (Archer fans, be vindicated!) long enough to gather some information that will be crucial not just to the denouement of S2, but also to Crowley’s journey in S3 (previous post on Crowley's Fall, Saraqael, and memory wiping). And Aziraphale gets to enjoy that view exactly zero times. The point isn’t oh, a turtleneck! How flirty! So cunty! So cute! Y’all. Everything matters. The costume change was a deliberate choice. In-universe, Crowley’s decision to wear his special spy turtleneck for spying in is a signal that he is out doing spy things, even as we watch.

In sum: Beginning in S2E2 and continuing through the end of the season, Aziraphale and Crowley are actively living out the scripts of two parallel, concurrent, and completely different Jane Austen stories. But you and I, dear fellow audience member, we came here for a comedy with a hefty jigger of romance, and that’s what Neil gave us to focus on. And right up until the Final 15, that was the only story we saw.

Meanwhile, Special Agent A. J. Crowley doesn’t have time to mope around at the end of S2E6. He’s kicked down, but he’s not out. He's got a Book of Life to steal, a very serious bone to pick with a certain memory-wiping angel, and his Angel and the world to save. 

“‘Heigh ho,’ said [romantic, optimist, former demon, hero, master spy] Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway.”

[distort-opia]

Have we talked about how bonkers it is to get married to someone else while wearing the symbol of your fucked up bond with the undead dark wizard corpse you rose from the dead? It's probably been discussed already, but I need to exorcise all my thoughts on Nosferatu (2024)... so yeah, I just find it such a deliciously insidious choice. When Ellen wears her wedding dress at the end of the movie, welcoming Orlok, she has dried lilacs in her hair from her prior wedding to Thomas, as the shooting script itself confirms. And Ellen had to know that marrying Thomas would break her Covenant with Orlok, right? She swore to be with Orlok ever-eternally, and then swore the same thing to Thomas at a chapel. Later, she tells Thomas, "He took me as his lover then, and now he has come back. He has discovered our marriage and has come back!" She must've had some inkling of what would happen, if she broke her Vow. So then what must've gone through her mind, to put those specific flowers in her hair as she was giving herself to another?

I got so long with this one, hence the cut. In fair warning, this interpretation is very Ellen x Orlok oriented, so if that's not your preferred view on the movie, you might not enjoy reading the rest.

It's almost mocking, her flaunting of lilacs as she marries Thomas. It's almost a "come back and get me". It's almost as if she knew she was preparing this dress for a different kind of wedding ("I have brought this evil upon us"). It's keeping in tone with that dark, eerie scene of Ellen clipping her hair and putting it in the locket, to give to Thomas... but as we know, the locket ends up with Orlok instead. And he uses that lilac-perfumed lock of hair to re-establish his hold on Ellen! It's as if she sent him a means of communication with her, because prior to Orlok obtaining the locket, we don't see him speaking to Ellen. The Covenant between them was broken by her, and Orlok needed to use earthly means of influence via Herr Knock in order to get to her and her husband. Of course, she has premonitions (her nightmare of marrying Death, steeped in the scent of lilacs once more) but it's not a dream induced by Orlok; it's part of her own psychic powers. And so, by putting a lock of hair inside the locket, knowing where Thomas was going... she gives Orlok a way to talk to her. Because we constantly see him use the locket as an anchor of some kind, as he spreads his influence towards Ellen. And then, all the while afterwards in her trances, Ellen moans "He is coming to me, he is coming..." Gleeful, orgasmic.

Am I saying Ellen intentionally and in full awareness did these things, so that Orlok would come to her? No, not entirely. I don't think it's something so planned and so conscious. She is as terrified and hateful towards Orlok as she is attracted to him, and that's the thing. It's a compulsion, a yearning. All along, through the entire movie, Ellen yearns. It's all over the shooting script; she pines and wants and hungers, in relation to Thomas, and to Anna, and to Orlok himself. And it isn't something spiritual. It's a yearning for touch.

"I frightened him [my father]. My touch..." Ellen says to Von Franz, when he consults for her. She feels the need to highlight that, as if her father recoiling from her touch was the hardest part she had to bear, the thing that made her the most lonely-- desperate enough to call out for any kind of companionship and tenderness. At the beginning of the film, before Thomas leaves, we see how much skinship Ellen seeks with her husband; she asks him to stay and make love to her when he was late for his meeting with Knock, they kiss each other ravenously after the Hardings depart to put the children to sleep. And both times, the script describes Ellen as "hungry". Even when Thomas leaves and gives her a small goodbye kiss, the text says "It's not enough for Ellen." Later in the movie, after Thomas is returned and dreams horribly due to Orlok's influence, Ellen is cuddling with him, but he pushes her away, asking her to "get off". She feels rejected enough that she seeks out someone else's physical touch-- Anna's, with whom we see her in bed next, and once again, the script uses "yearning" more than once to describe Ellen's behavior.

The theme of repressed sexuality and how in Victorian times, a female want for sex was demonized, has been discussed again and again in relation to Nosferatu (2024). Orlok is, indeed, a dark mirror to Ellen's desires: he is monstrous because she sees her own wants as monstrous. He destroys and brings disease, because Ellen sees that part of herself as destructive and unclean. But I do think there's a fascinating element to Ellen's nature that is not part of Orlok's symbolism, but rather extends to him as a character... her ravenous appetite for love. Her father deprived her of it, but the Shadow that came to her when she called was just that-- a shadow. A presence. It was not a person that could hold her, a person she might touch. Orlok, a spirit only, was not enough. He himself says it, while he's on the ship set for Wisburg. "Soon I will be no more a shadow to you." And this line was cut from the movie, but in the 2023 script, he also says, "Your spirit was never enough."

It was the script that made me think of this whole thing, really. Mostly because of how it describes their first meeting:

"...for the first time, she faces him in THE FLESH." It's emphasized. It's important, that Orlok is not a shadow here. That he is there, that Ellen can feel him and smell the blood on his breath. But the most damning thing she accuses him of? "You cannot love." As if that's the most important part for her, as if saying "That's what I need from you, and you can't give it to me". And Orlok admits that he cannot love her the way Thomas does, but that he hungers for her nonetheless.

I don't know, I just find this a much more compelling interpretation than a simple "Ellen is Orlok's victim and he is her abuser". Yes, Orlok is an appetite, but so is Ellen. Ellen is an active participant. She is the one to summon Orlok, the one to dictate his actions via his sheer want of her, the one to lure him to her so she could indulge her desire. Except, as it is a staple of dark and gothic romances, Ellen cannot directly act upon what she wants. Not like Orlok can. That's the point-- her desires are repressed, she believes them to be shameful, and so she needs an excuse to let them out. That's what characters like Orlok, who threaten and coerce, provide. A way to give in that preserves the heroine's "purity"; she sacrificed herself to save Thomas and Wisburg! She said she abhored him, she wanted Orlok dead! But then, why wear lilacs at her wedding? Why give Thomas the locket with the lilac-scented strand of hair? Why call Orlok her lover? Why wear a wedding dress and then cradle him in her arms as they died together, once again needing to touch him?

And I will say, it's great how this conflict, this self-hatred regarding her own feelings, is contrasted also in Orlok. "Till you did wake me, enchantress..." "You are my affliction." It's almost scornful, accusatory. You get the feeling he resents how much influence Ellen has on him, but he cannot help himself in the slightest. He denies that it's love, he says he cannot love-- but we have to keep in mind what he says prior. "Love is inferior to you." He considers love a weakness, something that he (as something inhuman, and something he believes Ellen is as well) is above of. But love is Ellen's craving, while life is Orlok's. Orlok is equated to Death. An all-consuming appetite, and they end up infecting each other with it, and then hating themselves for it. Ellen is oppressed by the society around her; her father had nearly institutionalized her, she had to marry Thomas to escape him. She is seen as strange and ill, as having "childish fancies", even by her own husband. She is tied to a bed and quieted down with drugs in the house of a man who's pretty much a representative of benevolent patriarchy. And so, does she not hate them all for doing this to her? Orlok bringing death and destruction on the society and people who stifled her is no coincidence, obviously.

But then again, Orlok ends up with a yearning for a person. Desire for someone's soul and body, not just their life-blood, which is ultimately something human... and he can't deny her, not even when he knows he would die. In that first scene in which Ellen calls upon him, he says "You are not for the living. You are not of human kind." It's the unspoken "You are for me. You are like me," that dooms him to an inescapable obsession, his own version of Ellen's yearning.

Ultimately, the human is a little bit monstrous, and dies for it. And the monster is a little bit human, and dies for it too. I, for one, am fucking obsessed with it.

[notalostcausejustyet]

Mouseonamoose makes sooooo many good points here. Crowley pushes back, always. But without something to ouch against, he flounders. He needs to find meaning and direction outside of conflict and crisis. That being said, he thrives in chaos and he has a shit ton of motivation both external and internal right now. He’s about to learn a lot about himself and a lot about Aziraphale.

hi nnm! i didn't send the previous ask about post-s2 fic in the demonology universe, but i would genuinely LOVE to see how you imagine crowley processing the events of the final fifteen in session with aubrey. the way he gradually processed the bookshop fire in demonology was really moving, so i can't imagine how demonology!crowley would begin to approach his feelings about aziraphale leaving for heaven at the end of s2, especially because he doesn't have all the answers! i do want to echo the previous anon in expressing my hopes that this isn't coming across as pushy, rather enthusiastic instead. i'm thankful that you choose to share your writing with us! have a lovely weekend!

Yes, I agree! I would love to do this, too. I've been toying with different ways it could go, depending on how we interpret the final 15 and what we anticipate Crowley will be doing at the start of S3. There's just so much we don't know. And I want you to know just how much this grinds at me.

But here's one thing.

I think that Crowley is actually in a better psychological state at the end of S2 than at the beginning.

What is Crowley doing when we first encounter him in S2? He's sitting on a bench, sighing about how pointless everything is. He looks depressed, and it makes sense. He doesn't have anything to do, and Crowley doesn't do well when he doesn't have anything to do. Even worse: he no longer has access to the motivations that previously inspired him to do things. He doesn't have to try to outsmart Hell anymore; he doesn't have to work against the forces of both Good and Evil to establish his own, personal 'side'. He has everything he has ever been able to admit to understand himself as wanting, and it's making him miserable.

By the time that Crowley gets up from the bench in that first scene, he is a lot more animated, a lot less despondent. And, note, there are two things that have happened that can explain this: 1) He has learned that there is Something Going Down In The Up, which of course could imply that he and Aziraphale may be at risk; 2) He sees some guys feeding ducks bread. This is why Crowley manages to shake off that mopey attitude by the time he stands up: both of these are sources of friction. They give him something to act against. Now, he gets to yell at two guys that they're doing something bad--er, wrong--er, harmful-to-ducks. He gets to plot and spy and scheme to learn what's going on in Heaven, despite the fact that clearly the forces involved don't want anyone to know.

Put Crowley in a frictionless environment, filled with endless possibilities and no limits, and watch him just slump down into a puddle of What'sThePoint. Give him friction, though--tell him there's something he can't do, give him a threat to fight against, put him in front of something stupid and wrong--and he comes alive.

It's almost as if, Crowley... Almost as if, uh... By his very nature... I mean... Well, it's almost as if there's something adversarial about him, huh?

In order for Crowley and Aziraphale to get their Happily Ever After, Crowley needs to learn how to act from internal motivation. (Know how he's "always too late"? Yeah, that's what happens when you don't know how to be active but only ever reactive.) After S1, we all liked imagining the two of them retiring to the South Downs and taking up hobbies and being happy... But, am I wrong, or did we all realize that wasn't really possible yet, given how we know both of them to function? The Crowley at the end of S1 and the start of S2 just isn't someone you can imagine actually doing it. Something has to change, in S3, for it to become possible.

This is my take on Crowley, at least: his biggest enemy is boredom. He doesn't know how to avoid it, though, unless there's an externality forcing him to act.

S2 begins with Crowley having nothing to do, and he's miserable and irritable and depressed. S2 ends with Crowley in emotional turmoil, yes, but now he's got plenty of external friction to motivate him. He's got to protect Aziraphale despite Aziraphale now making it so much harder to do, and he's got a Second Coming to stop. This isn't a demon who's at risk of self-harm, or a demon we can imagine is driving off to go take a decades-long nap somewhere. No, what we see at the end of S2 is a demon on a mission. (What is it? What is that mission? Argh, how are we supposed to survive until S3?)

If Crowley hadn't been there, outside the bookshop, when Aziraphale and the Metreon came out, then that would be a different story. I would be absolutely terrified for him, in that case, because I would take that to mean that he's given up. He's stopped fighting against The Plan, he's lost the will to struggle. But, no: he's there. He hasn't given up. He's scheming, and he's planning. Sure, he's boiling with rage and pain and plenty of other hard things, but that's the sort of environment where he knows how to thrive.

Does he need therapy at the end of S2? Oh yes. Oh hell yes. But he's functioning how he knows best how to function, and he's got plenty of motivation to keep going.

[vaguely-concerned]

The Wigmaker Job Reread thoughts

Feat. numerous bonus general Dellamorte boys thinky thoughts, because I can’t help myself when this particular brain state comes over me I will just. keep writing.*

SO I'm rereading The Wigmaker Job and folks, I uh. think Lucanis asked Illario to come along on this job mostly because he's incredibly lonely lmao. Not entirely sure he's recognized this himself and completely sure he would not have the language, ability or instinct to convey this to Illario in a coherent way if he did, but I really do think that's what it is. (He certainly doesn’t make it easy for Illario to actually pitch in meaningfully on the job itself at any point that’s for sure!) And what’s more, I think Illario does realize it, better than Lucanis himself… and did decide to go along with it, huh. I’ll try to show my work a bit later on in the post but for now, we have a lot of rambling ground to cover, let’s get going! 

(Obligatory disclaimer that these are just my personal impressions and reflections slash barely hinged stream of consciousness and if your read on something is different that is totally fine; as usual I am mostly talking out loud trying to explain to myself what the hell I’m thinking more than anything else lol. I’m going to be touching lightly on themes of suicidal ideation and child abuse in this, but only to the extent that is already present in the short story itself. I’ll mostly skirt around the body horror elements too, if those get to you!)

— “The man who’s taken the contract is no ordinary Crow,” Felicia explained, careful to keep her voice steady. 

Ambrose uncorked the wine with a wave of his hand and began pouring it into a crystal decanter. 

“He’s Lucanis Dellamorte.” 

The bottle clanged against the crystal. A crack splintered down the glass. 

“Ah.” Goose bumps pebbled the Wigmaker’s neck. He set the decanter back on the counter and sighed. “Shit.” 

*** 

In an unassuming inn, on an unassuming road, Lucanis Dellamorte sat with a whetstone in hand, his favorite sword resting across his knees. The monotonous movement of grinding stone against metal soothed him. Seven daggers of various size and shape lay polished and glistening on a rough wool blanket at his feet.

The opening mood whiplash of Lucanis’ name being spoken only in hushed voices among the Venatori, smash cut to Lucanis sitting there peacefully sharpening his knives (this is genuinely and unironically what he does for fun. This is his idea of a good time outside of work. Give him a cup of coffee to go along with it and his day is perfect. He’s been contentedly sharpening seven daggers and a sword while Illario gets dressed. Sometimes his attraction to Viago ‘I’m going to make a spreadsheet about who to kill about this I find that relaxes me’ de Riva makes so much sense to me.)? Of course amazing the first time around, but coming back to it now that I like. Know him. No actually that is exactly who and what he is huh got it in one fhsdkj. He’s wearing a sensible neutral toned knitted sweater beneath his brooding hotboi leathers and this is what you need to understand about him.  

I wonder if we were originally going to get more of the Erimond family in the game itself, other than just the notes we do find. It’s not every day a family produces someone even Cole can’t find a good word to say about, it would be fascinating to see what else it’s capable of haha. 

— This whole description of Lucanis’ sensory hypersensitivity especially to sound (hypersensitivity, as we see later, that extends to magic, despite describing himself as being as magically adept as a brick, however that works!) taken together with his, I feel I must reiterate, sharpening his knives for fun… I know diagnosing fictional characters is a flawed premise at the outset but as far as I’m concerned and with a whole game to add to my evidence pile this man is SO autistic and if you read him through that lens it does explain some things hahaha. 

— “Any excuse to primp.” 

“Hey—I’m only here because of you,” Illario grumbled. “We should be halfway home right now. Only ‘the Great Lucanis Dellamorte’ could delay a summons from the First Talon herself.”

Lucanis set his sword aside. Illario was generally thick-skinned— except when it came to their grandmother. “Caterina can hardly complain. She’s the one who beat into me my commitment to contracts.” 

Memories of sweat-filled days without food or water came unbidden. Lucanis’s back tingled from where his grandmother’s cane had bruised his flesh for letting his guard down or fumbling his footwork. For years, he’d hated her. But his time as a Master Assassin had since taught Lucanis that Caterina’s cruelty was her way of making sure that he was prepared for this life—that he survived. 

“All that effort training and grooming us, and the old woman still won’t step aside.” Beneath the bitterness in Illario’s tone was something rotten. 

“Your time will come,” Lucanis assured him. 

“Will it?” Illario’s piercing gaze met Lucanis’s in the mirror. “People talk. You’ve always been her favorite.” 

He’d heard the rumors. For all their secrets and intrigue, the Antivan Crows were a chatty bunch. 

“My talents lie elsewhere,” Lucanis said, gesturing toward the arsenal around him. “You’re the one with the silver tongue.” 

“So, if she named you heir to House Dellamorte, you’d refuse?” Lucanis opened his mouth to respond, when he realized someone was creeping up the stairs.

. . . 

“Lucanis?” Illario pressed. 

He held up a hand and clutched the worn leather grip of his sword. Illario’s pretty-boy mask slipped as a coldness flooded his features. A retractable dagger shot out from under his sleeve.

Now we don’t have time to unpack all of that — etc. but I want this exchange here in its entirety for stuff I’ll talk about later and also hey what the hell and so on. So much going on here. Lucanis’ acts of quiet rebellion by means of a sort of malicious compliance/competence — he’s following Caterina’s teachings to the letter and getting to have some in the spirit room left over for himself. He’s found a loophole to put off going home to something he dreads in an elegant practiced way, I definitely think this is a tactic he’s employed before.to claim some bits and pieces of agency. ‘How can she complain that I’m exactly what she taught me to be?’ suppressed anger/resentment under there. 

The fact that Caterina still hasn’t named either of them as heir at this point continues to be insane, of course, as is the fact that her blatant favoritism is a matter of public knowledge to the point of ‘As you know, Bob —’ connotations and neither of them even thinking to pretend to deny it. Wild shit. If she wanted to create an environment for seething toxic resentment, she couldn’t have done it better if she’d dedicated her life to nothing else lmao. Illario: I think I should be First Talon! Lucanis: I agree (please don’t make me talk to people)! Caterina: Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask? (Would Illario make a good First Talon? I don’t know, what does that even mean, really. But as has been said many a time before it would have been a much more natural use of their skillsets and natural inclinations to have Illario in the people-facing role and Lucanis to watch his back/stab anyone who disagrees, especially if what you’re after is stability. Oh well.) 

The special element of humiliation that it is a matter of public knowledge and tactical consideration across town that you’re the least favorite child… Illario’s obsession with winning the public opinion and being able to control his own image to the outside world is ah. Perhaps understandable.

Many thoughts and feelings about how they’ve individually made sense of/created narratives around the abuse in their upbringing. I didn’t end up going that deeply into that specifically in this post but it is an incredibly important element of their relationship. 

They come back to having this conversation again at the end — everything in this story right down to the structure of it is Lucanis desperately trying to avoid something and finding it implacably still there waiting for him no matter what he does. He’s playing for time as best he can and pretending that if he doesn’t think about it it won’t happen and he won’t have to deal with it, but no matter what happens in between it will be waiting for him at the end — Illario is not letting this go, and neither is Caterina. We open with it, and we close with it; it’s inevitable no matter how you bargain or try to go for the ‘well if I’m real lucky I could just die before that becomes relevant!’ gambit. Oof. Sorry Lucanis this isn’t something you can solve through stabbing no matter how good you are at it I know that’s terrible news for you but here we are my sincerest condolences 

— So cute to see their little double act of casual smalltalk/bickering as a diversion in action already here, in exactly the same way they break it out during the café meeting in Veilguard! Courtney Woods is really good at moments of establishing character like this, showing both the brewing conflict between them and how well they know each other and the ways they can wordlessly communicate because of it all in one scene. How unspeakably comfortable and uncomfortable they are together in ways only family can manage to be haha. 

— Illario complaining that Lucanis let him get a whole outfit made thinking they were actually going to the party and mentioning how long they (not he, they, Lucanis came along for all of that) were at the tailor’s (Lucanis, implied to be very dryly: “I recall.”)... listen. Especially once you hear the banter in the Treviso market about how Lucanis once sat around waiting for six hours while Illario tried on gloves to find exactly the right pair — that is clearly Lucanis making gentle fun of him, but he is also inadvertently revealing something about himself in that he stayed for six hours to keep Illario company through that. I think coming along on shopping trips where he knows nothing is expected of him except to hang out, make light snarky comments when asked for his opinion and wait might kind of be Lucanis’ idea of a good time socially hahaha. Nr. 1 shopping wingman in Thedas. His main ‘I’ll follow you to hell and back with only light complaining’ arena for Illario. This is part of the pattern of not telling Illario the whole plan and deliberately keeping him continually on the backfoot during this whole story — which clearly, not fair to him and not a great look, Lucanis, you’re not being very nice — but I feel like this is also another entry in the pattern of Lucanis desperately craving company and not quite knowing how to ask for it nor perhaps realizing that’s what he’s up to. Also I get the sense he thinks Illario finds getting ready for missions like this and picking out what to wear fun. Which to be fair he’s probably right about, if he just didn’t also go out of his way to make Illario feel like an idiot in the process lmao. 

— At the bottom, they found an elf in a scarlet coat guarding a large steel door. She greeted Lucanis with a cordial smile. “Master Dellamorte. And . . .” 

Her friendly façade faltered as she spotted Illario. 

“Master Dellamorte the Lesser,” Illario offered with a grin. 

“My cousin,” Lucanis clarified. 

Appeased, the elf asked, “Where does your business take you tonight?”

If you wear your self-loathing and resentment on your sleeve for long enough while everyone around you ignores it as a joke it becomes an accessory! And other Illario Dellamorte hot fashion tips in this edition of Treviso Weekly. Fhdskjas the things these two motherfuckers say that they consider completely normal and sane things to say — to each other and to say about themselves and each other in public… 

— Lucanis peeked over the side. No one looked up. One of the world’s greatest wonders is mundane to these people. 

“How do they get it to float?” Illario asked, tapping his boot tip against the aqueduct.

This is so quietly sweet to me. Illario does look up, because he is also a Crow. Courtney Woods is really good at creating these under-the-surface feelings — I love the small details she puts in to emphasize Illario and Lucanis connecting over their common background, over being two Antivans in Tevinter, in being Crows, in being Caterina’s grandsons. (...and also the places those connections fail or fall short. Ouch and owie.) At a point later in the story, Lucanis thinks to look up because he hears Illario’s voice in his head making a joke, reminding him. 

Moving in tandem, Lucanis and Illario dropped to their chests and shimmied to the edge overlooking the courtyard.

Lucanis seems to value these moments of connection through common experience because they don’t require him to speak or explain himself, which he clearly finds extremely hard to the point that he’d rather not even venture the attempt/doesn’t even know how to start. These are wordless ways he and Illario know each other, intimacy/connection that’s natural and effortless where that is clearly incredibly difficult for him in many other settings — body knowledge of another person’s company with the person he (thinks he) knows the best in the whole world, the most familiar and comforting presence in his life. They were boys together, they learned how to move together, they’ve eaten at the same table all their lives. In the Crossroads when he finds the smell of coffee and home there, it’s home because Illario was there with him. Hmghfsk. Agony. Suffering.

— “So, the Wigmaker.” Illario wiggled his fingers ominously. “Tell me about him.” 

“He’s weird,” Lucanis replied bluntly. He found the moments before a job crucial for focus, but Illario was never one for comfortable silence. 

“Specifics, cousin. No one hires us to kill normal people.” 

“I gave you a dossier.” 

“Yes, but I want your assessment.” 

“I wrote it. It is my assessment.” 

“Humor me.” 

Their dynamic in this is so heartbreaking to me in that like… okay this is going to be heavily vibes based and integrating some of the things we get to see of them in Veilguard so bear with me here while I try to explain this to myself. But what Illario is trying to do here is clearly to get Lucanis to engage with him outside of the professional sphere. Of all people in the world at this point in time, I think Illario is the one single person who best knows and also cares the most about Lucanis as a human being, not about what he can do for him. He loves his cousin, he wants to know what Lucanis is thinking, he wants to be engaged with him; he’s trying his fucking damnest to pick the locks to get to the person beneath the Crow, as it were! Maybe to a Lucanis he remembers from long ago, when they were children and the connection between them was effortless and open, not yet marred by all the ways trauma and the unequal dynamic enforced on them has forced them to shut parts of themselves down to survive. I feel there’s a where did you go that I couldn’t follow and when did it happen, why did you leave me here alone, come back sort of undertone to it, both here and in The Wake. As well as in Veilguard itself, come to that! ‘That is not my cousin, that is a demon, a stranger with his face’ is a sentiment that may, perhaps, have deeper roots than Lucanis popping back up from the grave like a jumpscare. Another metaphorical/emotional truth made mockingly literal, as it were, just like Lucanis’ Freeze response and deep sense of being a monster somehow in a way he can’t put his finger on is older than Spite or the Ossuary. (Zara thought making ‘the Demon of Vyrantium’ literal would be great value for shits and giggles, and this is also a Narrative Pattern in this corner of the story, the unspoken emotional metaphors in this fucked up little family heightened and made real through the literary device of magic. It’s good stuff. Veilguard does pretty solid work with metaphors overall, honestly.) 

Meanwhile Lucanis both seems to long for that connection too (there’s a reason he asked Illario to come along with him for this even though he refuses to like. Actually give him the information he needs to actively help out particularly effectively) AND to feel threatened/inadequate when Illario asks for it. I’m not sure he entirely knows how to give Illario the closeness he’s asking for anymore, and the pain both of not being able to give someone you love what they need from you and the feeling of something being fundamentally wrong with you that you can’t understand how to do that, as well as threatening the system of values Caterina has instilled in him so deep: the job always comes first, anything that could stop you from prioritizing that is dangerous, even love. (Especially love, you only get to keep that if you do your job perfectly first.) There’s also the resentment of ‘why are you asking me for more when I already tried to give you this information/closeness in a way I’m actually capable of, if only you’d be serious and pay attention for five minutes’, a feeling of not being understood or seen. A sort of I crave your company but every time I have it it only reveals how I’m fundamentally broken despair and stuckness as well, as we see the sort of fraught irreconcilably mixed emotions in all of Lucanis’ attachment relationships in Veilguard. 

Even at this stage, Lucanis’ is a psychology held together with workaholism and ‘I’ll just bottle this all up in here and then someday, on the bright side, if I’m lucky, I will die and not have to worry about it! If I can’t see it it can’t see me and it’ll be okay’ logic, and Illario’s attempts at breaking through, born of increasing desperation, love, and justified concern as they may be, are disruptive to those defensive structures and Lucanis instinctively rejects them. (Indeed, very much in the same way as Spite’s presence in Lucanis’ psyche works eventually, and eliciting the same initial reactions in him: avoidance, distaste, fear and anger. Davrin too refuses to stop poking and back off at subtler signs, and evokes a lot of the anger and rebellious little shitness for lack of a better word that Lucanis also has with Illario. Which I think ironically is also a sign that Lucanis kind of weirdly trusts him or at least trusts that he understands the parameters of their relationship clearly, it’s one of the few places he lets himself be openly angry right from the get go.) Thus the irritable pulling away/dismissiveness, and thus Illario’s (accurate tbf!) sense of rejection and dismissal and (I think inaccurate or at least incomplete) perception of Lucanis’ motivations for it. Though, again, who can blame him for reaching the conclusions he does with what Lucanis is able to give him to work with here. And so the misery carousel keeps going round and round.  

Illario and Spite speak the same truth to him: WE ARE TRAPPED. WE NEED TO GET OUT SOMEHOW OR IT’LL KILL US. (Inferred and indirect: HELP ME) And because Lucanis’ survival instincts naturally go towards Freeze, being asked for action of that specific kind is what he’s least able to deliver, because it’ll inevitably hurt someone he loves, no matter how he moves. So he just. Doesn’t. Rook finds Lucanis trapped in a chamber deep in his brain I think has existed in a less Fade-enhancedly literal form for much, much longer than the most recent barrage of trauma. The set dressing is new, the underlying logic is old and firmly established.

Lucanis’ instinct to keep the current patterns going as painlessly or numbly as possible, to ‘keep still’ and only work within the structures Caterina has set up for them — because in his mind a flawed yet stable status quo, yes, even a toxic one, is better than the risk of unbearable and irretrievable loss and chaos at its disruption, as they have in fact experienced before under traumatic circumstances — is incredibly destructive to the both of them, and it’s born out of an incredibly deep love and protectiveness. He’s trying to keep Illario safe, in exactly the same way he thinks he’s doing for everyone he cares about by staying in the Mind!Ossuary later, but it’s a child’s/survival instinct’s flawed logic and causing so much harm in the process. Logic that indeed is inherited from Caterina, whose solution to that same logic is what Lucanis is scrambling to protect Illario from the same way he tries to protect himself (if only Illario would understand that and stop rocking the fucking boat!!!, right…). Don’t struggle against the riptide, go limp, if you try to swim against it directly you’ll always lose. (And from Illario’s point of view: well, if you loved me you’d at least try, and not just wait for it to finish the job and finally drown us.) 

In this short story you can feel how they’re trying so hard to speak with each other in the only ways they know how, with the broken mangled tools Caterina left them with, and they can’t understand each other and very soon it’s going to be too late. I’m going to go lie down on the bottom of the ocean for ten thousand million billion years. 

— More observations of the patterns between them in this generally because it didn’t fit anywhere else lol: here’s the feeling I get. Illario makes bids for connection, Lucanis seems to bluntly brush him off even as we see from his internal dialogue just how fond he is of Illario — I think even some of the more dismissive comments he makes in his head is more along the lines of the affectionate amusement we see him have around people he cares about and their foibles in Veilguard too. If you listen to how he talks about Viago and Caterina especially, there’s that same laconic observation of their peculiarities as a part of how he loves them. HowEver. He and Illario do not have the tools or understanding to express to each other that ‘oof, no, that hit on something too tender, back off’, other than to try to jab back harder and sharper. And so resentments build and deepen on both sides without ever getting any outlets. A relationship where you don’t have the right or means to say ‘no’ is never going to be a healthy one, and saying ‘no’ is the one thing Caterina has most forbidden. In other relationships Lucanis solves this by creating distance internally — Caterina is in his inner world, but she’s the outermost lock, kept further away from his deepest self. He does not resent her ‘anymore’ (he says and probably thinks. I think he might ah. Have deferred it more than resolved it but that’s just me lol), but he has protected himself from her within the means he had to do it with and found a way to maintain his attachment to her in that state. And yet he is incapable of and/or unwilling to do that same process with Illario, to let go of the closeness he can maintain there. Illario is the innermost lock of his psyche, the person who has meant the most to him and as unguardedly as he’s capable of, who he’s held the closest all this time… even after finding out what he did. 

Illario is the safest, closest relationship he has… which also means that he is the one who gets parts of all the anger and resentment and frustration that cannot be there with Caterina in particular because that would be Dangerous Territory in a multitude of ways. I think Lucanis tries to mitigate this by more deliberately pouring that stuff into his job, but it’s still down there unresolved at the core, bubbling away, the fumes rising and infecting his interpersonal relationships in subtle ways. Even the ‘read the goddamn brief Illario’ move and refusing to budge is just another version of the malicious compliance/competence as rebellion that this whole mission is towards Caterina. (Unfortunately this is how it works sometimes when you’ve had to push things down that hard for that long; it comes out with the people we love the most and who deserve it the least.) And even then it’s mostly in undercurrents moving beneath the surface— it’s something that happens in an obfuscated and buried enough way that you can’t simply break it open all at once and let air in to stop the wounds from festering. If Illario did try to bring it up directly, I do not think Lucanis at this point would be capable of staying with it, he would flinch away and dissociate/freeze and deny it was even a thing at all (be unable to recognize it as a thing at all). And Illario clearly knows this too — you get the feeling that he’s been trying and trying and trying to get through here and found no way. He’s at the end of his rope, and not just about the First Talon conundrum.

Whenever they are speaking to each other, they are also speaking to Caterina through each other because you can’t really bargain with God directly (especially one that’s known to be a wrathful god given the provocation), but there’s enough of her and her meanings fused into you over the years that it’s almost the same thing when you talk. And sometimes it’s hard to see past her to your brother actually standing there with you.   

I’m going to SCREAM Lucanis loves Illario so much that he would prefer to die, would condemn himself to hell in his own mind forever rather than face having to lose him or deliberately harm him, AND YET!!!! AND STILLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! He is letting him down and leaving him behind and making him feel small and stupid in ways so incredibly profound and sad without even realizing it all the time. No one in this family has ever been equipped to talk about anything ever and I doubt they’re about to start now and I need to tear into something with my TEETH

Anyway. Breakdown over, on with our regularly scheduled tevinter nights reread post with slightly less anguish lol. 

— [Lucanis] clapped a hand over the mage’s mouth and slammed his skull against the wall. “Knock it off.

What does he have to go and be so casually funny for at all times. The undisputed master of the perfectly tuned in levels of comedic mild exasperation. Stop stop I already love him. 

— Illario waited with a chair and rope. 

“Sit down.” He beamed. “Enjoy a little Antivan hospitality.” 

While his cousin secured their prisoner’s bindings, Lucanis retrieved his sword from the wall. e mage was coming to. His unfocused eyes took stock of his situation. 

“I won’t talk,” he spat. “Even if you torture me.” 

“I’m too busy to torture you,” Lucanis said, and ran him through with his sword. 

. . .

Illario frowned. “If I’d known you were just going to kill him, I wouldn’t’ve put so much effort into the knots.” 

“Check his pockets.” 

“Ah—” Illario said, pulling a scroll from the mage’s jacket. “Found something.” 

The seal was broken, but the imprint of two dragons was still visible in the wax. “Venatori.”

 “Thought as much. What’s it say?” 

Illario unrolled the parchment and scanned the page. “‘Gallant brothers and sisters . . . In our veins runs true Tevinter blood, passed down from the dreamers—’” Illario’s head snapped up as Lucanis began pulling his sword from the mage’s chest. “ Careful! Remember the tanner job? You ruined my best shirt.” 

Lucanis smirked and continued extracting the blade. 

Illario took two wary steps back, then continued reading.

Unfortunately I do love it when Lucanis is a troll fhsdkj 

— Lucanis’ inner logic that he can buy the tiniest sliver of autonomy and meaning by consistently offering up a sacrifice of perfection — that’s the silent deal he’s struck with Caterina, an exchange she’ll accept as long as he doesn’t try to get too clever with it, and his subsequent panic in Veilguard when he’s too worn down to be able to perform to perfection anymore (and with that, in this internal logic, goes his right to autonomy or freedom)……….. He really does make me so so SO sad. He needed so much therapy even before the Ossuary. Some deeply entrenched ideas about the basic transactionality in even the closest relationships here. (Where I think Illario is kind of his exception to. That’s an assumed mutual unconditional love even when some terms and conditions probably would be in order actually situation for him.) 

Also I think this is a useful look at how the Crows operating on ‘might makes right’ lines could be harnessed if you’re of a mind — basically anything goes, as long as you’re good enough to get away with it and/or don’t step on enough toes that the rest of the crab bucket momentarily team up to tear you down. And Lucanis chose to use that little loophole to go ‘well you see I’d sort of like to get to be kind sometimes actually’. Which, y’know. Eccentric for a Crow, to be sure, but are you going to be the one to tell the Demon of Vyrantium himself, Caterina Dellamorte’s most speacialest and scariest little murderboy, that he can’t keep protecting servants of the households he hits because it’s making the whole team look kind of soft??? The whole business runs on ‘I’m bigger and stronger than you so don’t try any shit’, and Lucanis has successfully built up the image of being bigger and stronger than anyone who’d think to try any shit well enough to get away with it, as Caterina has achieved for their house overall. (It’s not like him sparing witnesses gets in the way of the interest of other houses or anything anyway, he’s creating potential trouble for himself more than for anyone else which I hardly think anyone would feel compelled to protest against. If it’d been something that threatened anyone else’s bottom line, a completely different story, but I think Lucanis understands the system well enough to know where he can get away with it.) And again, all he has to do to earn it is to deliver unflinching inhuman perfection at all times! So that’s not a stressful set of psychological parameters to have to function under at all, especially when you feel yourself start to fail as you’re falling apart after horrible new waves of trauma lmao

Which I think is partially also what the ‘You think I’m not good enough?’/’Are you?’ exchange is about — it’s an extremely unhelpful and mean thing to say the way he does (especially in front of other people! Other people who, to Illario, are basically strangers!), but it’s also said out of howling protectiveness and a deep recognition of this stark truth. You can get away with it if you’re good enough, and if you’re not good enough you’re dead. Something Lucanis is blithely ready to risk his own life on all the time for perfect strangers, and is completely unwilling to accept when it comes to Illario’s life! Lucanis’ love has that light element of  possessiveness/proprietariness to it from time to time — the ‘he is ours’ sentiment that both he and Spite maintain for Illario in love and in hate. I have a lot of sympathy for it because it obviously comes from a place of painfully earnest love and fear in someone who has lost people in horrible ways at a young age, but there is something paternalistic in that protectiveness too, a lack of trust in Illario to take care of himself and willingness to cross lines in Illario’s own autonomy to ensure that he’s safe. (Not healthy or anything but considering the shit Illario pulls in this game… a little bit of can you fucking blame him I’d be three seconds away from an ulcer about it at all times too going on here haha). ‘It’s okay if you don’t agree or don’t forgive me afterwards, it’s all worth it if it means you’re safe, if it means you’ll survive’. Sins of the grandma dude. Sins of the grandma. The generational trauma starts coming and it won’t stop coming. 

— I also think it’s relevant that Lucanis can count on some things from Caterina consistently, as long as he upholds his part of the ‘deal’ between them to be her perfect poor boy slash best knife who’ll never let her down. However devastating the cost of her regard and support is, it’s only Illario who’s left completely to fend for himself in this family dynamic. A little bit of what the fuck does he have to lose going on here. Lucanis, I suppose. For a long he has Lucanis to lose, but Lucanis is starting to act an awful lot like he’s not that invested in living too much longer. So where does that leave you if you’re Illario. With a very dumb plan that was never going to work, apparently. 

— While hunting his mark, Lucanis had opened the wrong door and walked into an orgy. Getting out of that had been interesting.

Nothing of substance to add here except that the mental image is hysterical, of course, and only more so after having a whole game to get to know him. Also this is just my personal read but I don’t think Lucanis would use seduction, even as a tactic on a job, by choice — my feeling is that his act as a servant in Vows and Vengeance would be more indicative of the social stealth skills he’d use when that’s what gets him where he needs to be. (Very tired service worker towards the end of their shift might in fact be the role he was born to play he has exactly the vibes for it.) 

A good assassin knows his tools, and I think Lucanis realizes that flirting, even in a professional capacity as it were, is one of his blunter and more inflexible ones and so mostly wouldn’t use it haha. If he understood someone to be attracted to him in a way that required nothing much of him actively and would somehow aid the job I’m sure he’d use the opportunity it provided well enough, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t believe it’d ever occur to him to go there as an opening move. The theoretical understanding is mostly there, the practical application… maybe less so. He knows he’s not very good at it and so wouldn’t rely on it if he could help it; that’s Illario’s sandbox to play in. Again this is just my personal opinion, so feel free to disagree of course, I know people have a range of reads on this element.  

— His skull felt raw. The backs of his eyeballs itched like he hadn’t blinked in days. Whatever magic Ambrose was using for his creations was tearing at the seams of the Veil. 

“Something’s wrong.” 

“Yeah,” Illario agreed, zeroing in on a group of half-dressed revelers, “we’re up here, away from the fun.” 

Lucanis snapped his fingers in front of his cousin’s face. “Focus.” 

“I am.” 

“On the job.” 

“To be fair, you never told me the plan.” 

Lucanis shrugged. “Find Ambrose. Slit his throat.” 

“Sounds complicated.” 

“It will be. The Veil’s thin here. Thinner than I expected.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “One wrong spell and this place will be swarming with demons.” 

“Then let’s kill the bastard and scram. I want to see what this city has to offer.” 

“Our ship sails at dawn.” 

Illario waved a dismissive hand. “Plenty of time for some good, old fashioned debauch—” 

“I see him,” Lucanis interrupted.

Lucanis does this really nasty thing with Illario where he first pushes him away and then punishes him for being disengaged with him/what they’re doing, or asks him for something he then rejects when he gets it. (I think he has some of this pattern in other relationships too but without the punishment or idk… familiarity/presumptiveness/feeling of natural entitlement to their attention part. Illario is his brother, the attachment there is safe/established enough that the part of him that doesn’t think he’s worth someone’s attention doesn’t kick in as it does in pretty much every other relationship. He’d never blame Rook or any of the Lighthouse crew for pulling away from him that same way, that’s a deep well of ‘well yeah valid I also don’t really want to have anything to do with me tbf :/’ self-loathing waiting to open up, ‘protecting’ him from making a presumption like that or imaging himself to have rights or worth interpersonally in basically any other context or relationship at the outset. But with Illario the love is always assumed. Both ways. You have a right to me on that level, and I have the right to you. The only person he takes for granted. Because that’s family. Oh boy.) 

See also: the way he barely acknowledges Illario greeting him when he comes back from the Ossuary and more crucially as far as Lucanis might expect Illario’s perspective to be beneath any repressed suspicions, from the dead — very understandably so, considering the Dire mood and implications and ‘...where’s Caterina’ of it all, but it’s also a larger pattern he has. I think he feels such deep love for Illario that he doesn’t quite get that he also has to like. Show that deep love for it to be understood by the other party. And it sure comes across as very dismissive from the outside, or if a person is perhaps primed to have that insecurity already by the entrenched family dynamics at play. Oh boy 2 electric boogaloo. 

Buddy you are setting the person you love the most up to lose again and again and again… and it would break his heart to truly realize that, probably, but I don’t know if he’d know how to stop doing it, either. 

This seems to be all completely subconscious, to be clear. These are clearly patterns established from when they were extremely young, and it’s hard for fish to conceptualize being surrounded by water other than when the absence of it leaves them gasping and dying, I suppose.

Shallower thought: So Lucanis is also not clean-shaven here! Probably a more casual didn’t bother to shave/not quite as meticulously maintained five o’clock shadow going on as with Illario, but perhaps a tiny bit of the pot calling the kettle black here, Mr. Lucanis ‘long black leather overcoat’ Dellamorte isn’t unconcerned with looking cool, in his more restrained way. (As we all know ‘looking cool’ is the foundational base of a Crow’s Maslow’s pyramid of needs to the point that Spite went ‘can do!’ immediately upon contact with Lucanis’ soul and never stopped dhfkjs.)

— “They’re never what you envision, are they?” Illario noted. 

“What did you expect?” 

“Hair, for one. Maybe a funny little dog.” 

That got a chuckle out of Lucanis, if only briefly.

The thing is that I love these two dumbasses so incredibly much. You see. This exchange of funny little observations is a huge part of how Lucanis interacts with Rook especially out on missions too, you can see where his patterns for having close relationships come from. Also restating my point from other metas that Lucanis seems to come alive a bit with collaborative humour, that’s clearly a social dynamic he finds soothing and also engaging, a way he knows how to take an outstretched hand. Since that seems to come from his relationship with Illario when it’s at its best… pain and suffering in my heart again needless to say

— Lucanis pays a lot of attention to people’s clothes and is very good at understanding what they’re trying to signal with their outfits. Overall he’s excellent at understanding people’s ways of thinking in the abstract/from a distance, as long as he doesn’t have to interact with them directly and interpersonally. Because then he falls to absolute pieces under the slightest pressure and runs. Again the best my particular brand of autism representation probably not even meant to be representation I’ve ever seen lol. 

— Camille had just taken a sip of watered-down mulsum, when a handsome stranger grabbed her glass and downed the rest. 

“Excuse me!” she exclaimed. The party drowned out her words, but Lucanis could still read her lips. “That’s my drink.” 

Illario simply smiled. “Guess I’ll have to buy you another.” 

Lucanis groaned—not only at the line, but that it worked. Even from his position, he could see Camille was hooked. He shouldn’t be surprised. This was old hat for Illario. But it was always amazing to see what one man’s smile could accomplish.

Lucanis’ mildly baffled and somewhat begrudging admiration for Illario’s social skills is so funny. As far as he’s concerned this is some kind of black magic beyond his ken. It must be a bit of pretty privilege involved in this case tho because what the fuck how did that land. Hey whatever works Illario you spent all that time on your outfit for a reason never let anyone tell you your slutty little unbuttoned shirt isn’t serving a tactical purpose I’m not about to tell you how to do your job

the fact that Illario is in fact a very good Crow. he's just not Lucanis. that's his original sin huh. never getting away from that one.

— Do u think Illario’s move with putting the keys on the tray instead of pocketing them and going back to Lucanis is maybe one of his small spiteful acts of rebellion. Ah. Family traditions. Truly they bind us together. 

— The Lucanis in this story is so much more… contained than the Lucanis we get to meet in the game, for good or ill. In Veilguard he is constantly fraying at the seams and cracking open under all the pressure he’s under, which for sure and of course is Not Great and causes him a lot of pain and distress — but also the whole that’s how the light gets in etc. thing, it also means it’s easier for things to find their way in to him and for him to let things out. Meanwhile here, there’s more the sense of immense tension —  a harder, more determined/deliberate lack of being able to move than the total helplessness of being stuck in the mind!Ossuary, but with some of the same quality. Illario tries to get in to find him and in his way I really do think Lucanis is trying to reach out to Illario as well as he knows how, but there’s a rigidness there that stops anything from really getting through or changing. Illario’s guilt trip letter after Sea of Blood saying that control is the quality he’s always most associated with Lucanis makes a lot of sense when you read this short story, even though I think Illario is mistaking ‘control’ for ‘deadening anything too vulnerable or ‘frivolous’ until I’m just a tool that can do a job’. That letter is transparently Illario deliberately pressing down on a bruise he knows to be tender, but it feels like there’s some kernel of truth to it beneath that which makes the sting all the worse. 

— Up ahead, Lucanis spied the servants’ entrance. If he could reach it, there was just enough space to wedge his body into the covered niche above the door. Not easily, of course, but nothing ever was. 

*Resigned Lucanis voice* Nothing is ever easy. (He does literally say this word for word in one of Bellara’s quests, and in exactly the tone you’d expect haha. He is my favourite person of all time)

— Lucanis thought about securing the entrance—leaving it unlocked could raise suspicion—but chose not to in case Illario decided to work tonight. He could already hear his cousin’s honeyed excuses— But seducing a beautiful woman is work! He snorted and pushed farther inside.

I do believe a certain amount of affectionate dunking is part of Lucanis’ love language and it’s too bad that’s kind of become a sore point/unequal power balance between him and Illario because it is frequently so funny fhdakj. Also kind of sweet to see the precedent for Lucanis sort of… keeping people he loves in his head like this, the locks in Inner Demons are clearly literalizations of a process he already sort of does naturally. He listens to the Illario and Caterina in his head multiple times during this story. I’m repeating my ‘this man is so desperately lonely in a way he doesn’t know how to solve’ point for emphasis. A common affliction in many of the Veilguard main cast, Solas of course being the most egregious and ongoing example. This game has Themes and it’s sticking to them haha <3<3<3 

— The cold opulence of the place reminded Lucanis of a Chantry rather than a home. 

Very interesting observation, now that we’ve seen Villa Dellamorte for ourselves! Is all I’ll say. (*Spite voice* Home? …Smells like linseed oil and dust)

Atlases bearing the visages of past Archons held up vaulted ceilings glittering with mosaic depictions of Tevinter’s golden age. The cost of such a commission must have been astronomical—both in coin and lives. How many slaves had gone blind gilding each individual tile? How many backs had been broken from hauling and placing stone after stone? 

There was patriotism and there was obsession. Neither was worth it.

Again. Very interesting observations from a man raised in a mansion built on spilled blood and with Crow decorations anywhere you turn right down to the wallpaper haha. Tevinter/specifically the Venatori lets him indulge in some ‘clean’ anger and disdain that he can’t have back home because it’s, y’know. Home. He may not have a lot of illusions about the Crows, but he also is deeply bound to them. Lucanis will sublimate his anger into ANYTHING including turning it on himself before he lets it touch something he loves. 

— Brief detour away from the general/worldstate agnostic approach of this post to my personal shenanigans, but…. Lucanis ‘breaking into morbid nursery rhymes internally while on a murder spree’ Dellamorte 🤝 Ellaryen ‘absent-mindedly reciting funeral rites in his head in the middle of a fight to keep his rhythm and also start to get it out of the way ASAP while people fall like flies around him’ Ingellvar. Made for each other, truly. 

— Too bad we never got to see Lucanis using a garotte in the main game, that’s clearly one of his go-tos normally. I suppose trying to do stealth sections with Taash on the team is a tall order even for Lucanis Dellamorte. The Crows AXE their regards!!! ]>:D

— The dead weight of the first man pulled the second one up until they both hung around the limestone Archon’s nape like a loose cravat.

Once more, I love Courtney Wood’s writing style. What a mental image. The tone of light comedy as Lucanis 9-5s his way patiently through all these guards is pitch perfect. 

— Spread out. Lucanis mouthed the words as the guard gave the order.

This dude really is out here doing his job like it’s a video game level he’s done a hundred times before hahaha. He’d be skipping dialogue and sequence breaking all over the place if he could. (Speedrunner Lucanis for modern AU, there’s a concept anyone can have for free that’s hilarious. He does cooking videos, knife maintenance videos and insane video game speedruns interchangeably on his channel and never speaks a single word nor leaves a note through text in any of them god bless. He has three followers no update schedule goes years without making a video and has never spoken to anyone online. He is my babygirl.) 

— One for silence.

Two for surprise.

Three for good measure.

Four’s exercise.

Five for a slaughter. 

Six for the thrill.

Seven means more sovereigns.

“Eight marks the final kill,” Illario said, coming to stand next to him.

The whole nursery rhyme, and Illario coming in with the unspeakably sinister final line here, considering what we know happens not even that long after this job! Again the connection there is between them, though — they were thinking about the exact same thing, counting it out with the same old remembered words. 

“Do you still recite that old nursery rhyme? The one Caterina made us memorize during training?”

Lucanis moved to retrieve his throwing knives. “What can I say? It’s catchy.” 

“That’s a word for it.” Illario glanced at the swaying guards overhead. “You know, if the Vints ever learn to look up, you’re screwed.” 

“They’d have to stop looking down their noses.” He narrowed his eyes. “Your tunic’s rumpled.” 

Illario flashed a sheepish grin. “You weren’t the only one tussling with guards.” 

“Tussling, huh?” Lucanis shook his head. “That’s a word for it.” 

“I’m happy to kiss and tell, but shouldn’t we do something about this?” Illario wrinkled his nose and nodded toward the sticky fluid seeping out from underneath the slain guards.

My nebulous vibe has always been that they’re basically the same age with Lucanis a tiny bit older, but IMMENSE younger sibling little shit energy from him in this moment fhdksfas glorious. Sheepish grin is also a very fun look on Illario I wish they’d leaned in a bit more on that capacity for him in-game. If he read as more calculatedly bumbling it’d change some of the scenes a lot in terms of feeling, I think 

— “Never known you to have a soft heart,” Illario muttered. 

Lucanis’s right cheek muscle twitched. “She won’t talk.” 

“This isn’t Antiva. We’re not heroes here.” 

“We’re not heroes anywhere, cousin.” 

Illario rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. The Venatori already have your name. If they learn your face—” 

“I’ll grow a beard.” Lucanis smirked. “They’ll never see me coming.” 

Illario’s frustration deflated. He grinned reluctantly. “That cavalier attitude’s going to get you killed.” 

Lucanis turned the key until the bolt unlatched. “It’s served me well so far.”

a) so it’s Illario who’ll refuse to take things seriously if he doesn’t feel like it, is it, Lucanis lol, b) ‘I’ll grow a beard’ :’) well. He did. Do you think Illario thinks about that every time he looks at him now, c) owie owie owie the foreshadowing 

I think being a hero is not important to Lucanis at all, being a professional/being able to do the job is. (Being the perfect professional buys him getting to do hero things when his heart calls him to, but the role of hero itself is clearly not a priority or something he particularly wants.) 

Lucanis clearly mostly works alone — I wonder how often Illario has come along before. We know he has pulled ‘soft heart’ moves before this, from in-game banter, but probably without Crow witnesses. How much does even Caterina know about? Might be some proof in the pile of how much he trusts Illario that he’s so blatant about it here. 

— Lucanis gestured for Illario to follow as he slipped through the entryway. They stood for a moment, quiet and still, allowing their eyes to adjust. Ten paces ahead, a stairwell materialized in the shadows. eir descent was slow going. Wrought iron made for easy creaks and groans. Each step was a test of patience—and balance. Lucanis went first, showing Illario where to place his feet.

And 

“He was my cousin, but we were more like brothers, really. Always getting himself into every sort of trouble. And I was always right behind him, you know? Always.” Illario’s voice suddenly grew thick with emotion. “Now there’s nobody for me to follow.” (From The Wake)

:) ahahaha. Ha. 

Both of them independently using the ‘but we’re more like brothers’ phrasing exactly the same way too. Alright. Okay. I’m fine

— All at once, the room became aware strangers were present. One by one, they moaned a horrifying chorus of despair. Lucanis stumbled back, his mouth dry. Something inside snapped. Death’s too good for this bastard. 

Illario touched his arm. Only then did Lucanis realize how quickly he was breathing. He closed his eyes. Remember your training , he told himself, and suddenly, he could hear the tapping of his grandmother’s cane, the hard elegance of her voice. There is no place for emotion in killing. It’s sloppy. File it down. Make it useful.

Illario being able to notice Lucanis being incredibly upset when he’s too overwhelmed to register/be aware of it himself and bringing him back to himself with nothing more than a touch to the arm is not devastating to me at all. It’s fine. In Inner Demons, even Viago and Teia fail to recognize that Lucanis is about to come completely apart psychologically, but again… I think Illario really does know his cousin better than anyone in a lot of ways. (And less than anyone in other ways, but hey, that’s family for ya lol) 

Make it useful, he repeated to himself. With slow, controlled breaths, Lucanis flushed the rage pumping through his veins until he could think clearly. 

I’m actually so happy they went away from focusing on the concept of wrath/passion as the touchstone for Lucanis’ character and angled it more towards the interpersonal issues he has with anger and with his sense of self than his rage at cruelty and injustice like this — that starts to step on the toes of Anders’ narrative space as a bisexual possessed disaster without bringing anything particularly new to the equation, which would have been a shame. Also as I’ve made no secret of I love what they are doing with him in the game SO MUCH I can turn him gently around to gaze at him forever 

— “What are you doing?” Illario whispered. 

“Breaking their shackles.” 

Illario stared. “That’s not the job.” 

“Fuck the job.” 

I think Illario is the only person Lucanis would ever say that in front of at this point. (See also: his point about honesty in their line of work towards the end.) This is a BIG admission from him, that there could be anything more important than the work Caterina raised them to — than Caterina’s approval and recognition. And what a horrible hurt that must be for Illario — ‘you’re willing to risk incurring Caterina’s wrath for total strangers on a whim, and yet not for me??’. (They both seem to recognize that death is secondary as a motivator here, Lucanis would rather die than let Caterina down, that’s the easy way out, and he’s putting that on the table frfr with the shit he’s pulling here.) Also part of what makes Illario fear Lucanis is rapidly spiralling/hurtling towards the edge of a cliff, probably, this acting on impulse is clearly not an everyday sort of thing for him. We know he’s made decisions of his own on jobs before, but probably not on this scale/in front of another Crow. 

There’s going to be room for so much ‘...why could you change for them and not for me? (why are they worth choosing to live for, and I wasn’t?)’ hurt on Illario’s side towards Rook and the Lighthouse crew after the events of the game. Maybe not as much on the Minrathous route, but even there. Like he doesn’t have much of a right to that after pulling the attempted fratricide card (that’s going to be the refrain of the rest of Illario’s life huh :’) entirely self-inflicted yet awful to have to live with; the Illario Dellamorte post Veilguard story), which only makes it worse to contemplate! Fun times in viddy games.  

— A+ body horror writing going on here, of course, hate every single thing about this thanks for asking!

—To his right, Lucanis sensed Illario readying his dagger. He gently grabbed his cousin’s wrist and shook his head. Illario gawked at him, his jaw clenched. 

The Wigmaker began the walk back toward the stairs. A groaning lament followed as he passed. When he was close enough to touch, Illario tensed—as if to lunge forward. Lucanis tightened his hold, his thumb finding the pressure point at the base of his wrist. The dagger fell from Illario’s grasp. Lucanis swiped it up before it clanged to the ground. 

What are you doing? Illario mouthed. 

Again, Lucanis motioned him to stand down. 

Once they heard Ambrose climb the stairs and close the door, Illario wrenched his arm free. 

“Have you lost your mind? We had him!” 

“He doesn’t deserve a quick death.” 

“Did you forget the mess you left upstairs? What do you think will happen when Ambrose finds his bodyguards slaughtered?” 

“Hopefully he panics. I want him scared.” 

“He’ll flee,” Illario asserted. “And this contract will be forfeit. Your life will be forfeit.”

Illario ‘cousin I am trying to have a fucking INTERVENTION with you here why am I more concerned about whether you live or die than you are!!!’ Dellamorte. His cousin is seemingly losing his fucking mind and playing with the one thing Caterina values above all and possibly would sacrifice even Lucanis for: the integrity of their House among the Crows. He’s seeing Lucanis determinedly, near methodically setting himself up for death no matter what path he ends up going down. This would be. Stressful. To have to witness, I imagine.

I do think Lucanis is passively suicidal in the way that he would vastly prefer to die on a job before he’d ever have to face the impossible choice that awaits them with the First Talon title back home — where he’s forced to let down either Caterina or Illario, possibly to spend the rest of his life on something he doesn’t want and might cost him his relationship with Illario, and is unable to deal with the thought of it so he just Avoids for all he’s worth. And he’s worth a lot that way. Which Illario clearly also recognizes and might be part of this freakout — having to watch your cousinbrother casually preparing to fall on his own sword for what seems like basically no fathomable reason (for these STRANGERS and not for me!!?!?!) and not be able to get through to him no matter what you try... you know. It’s kind of just a bad time all round for Illario too. He goes and chooses to do all the wrong things about it, of course, his talent for making everything worse in every way he possibly could is unparalleled (affectionate and derogatory), but I have a lot of empathy for where he’s coming from emotionally in a lot of ways. While you exist I’m nothing, and when you are gone I am nothing. And after you come back. Guess what. I’m still nothing. Imagine that. The Illario Dellamorte story. 

(Lucanis has also seen a lot of really horrible shit on the job lately, Venatori bullshit being what it is. That stuff must start to build up after a while, him finally snapping here makes a lot of sense.) 

— “Illario—” 

But the other Crow wasn’t finished. “I thought the plan was to have a few laughs, slit some throats—not release a demon swarm!” 

“Plans change,” Lucanis replied. His gloved palm covered the door handle. 

“Well, for the record, I preferred the other one.” 

“Noted.” 

Aw. This is my main proof that Illario does in fact understand the plea for company behind Lucanis asking him to come along on this job. Possibly better than Lucanis understands that himself, which could perhaps be. Exasperating to deal with — but he did also come along and with only light complaining etc. I umm. love them both. Some more musings about how Illario has clearly been the person most responsible for/involved in Lucanis having any kind of social life before Veilguard times: 

Comment Lucanis has around some more party districts of Minrathous in-game: “The nightlife was always more Illario's thing. He said I should get out more. Fulfilling Crow contracts didn't count.” (Illario is a terrible little fuckboy murderlad but consider what he’s had to deal with over the years…braver than any us marine etc. he’s been the one trying to convince Lucanis to take care of himself and maybe even have a good time at some point for like 20 years, a monumental task we know it takes a village/Lighthouse to make headway with. A man who has had to say ‘hey we should do something fun. No not a job with extra garrotting Lucanis Maker’s breath I was thinking a party or something’ more times than any of us have had hot dinners) 

+

Lucanis, trust me! Take this contract and we’ll be the toast of Treviso. Would I lead you astray? But I can imagine your face at that question. A better question, then: Would you truly leave me to my own devices? What would I do without you? Come, cousin, it will be just like last summer. I’ll buy the wine afterwards. —Illario

Letter we find in the room in Villa Dellamorte where it’s implied Illario has been staying since staging his little failcoup — it’s right across the hall from where he’s imprisoned his grandmother btw and I have a pet theory that it’s Lucanis’ old room. Illario Dellamorte what is wrong with you (so many things).

Illario has seemingly been drinking and reading this letter — this letter that Lucanis kept after receiving it, so Illario must have found it among his belongings at some point after his ‘death’ and has also kept it around ever since — in the same room where there’s a burned letter from Zara in the fireplace, even though the house is filled to the rafters with the Ventatori and trying to hide evidence of that connection is thus uh. Well it seems a bit late in the game to be worrying about that, is all I’m saying. It lends some credence to the idea that him crossing out Lucanis’ name in the family tree and scribbling ‘DEMON’ over it probably does carry some real emotional charge and isn’t just a tantrum/uncomplicated show of jealousy. 

So historically Illario has gone out of his way to spend time with Lucanis, and he seemingly is usually the one to reach out/take initiative in that? Lucanis clearly appreciates it — he kept that silly little letter (I am INCONSOLABLE about it btw), that comment he makes about the blight-beached boat in the Hossberg Wetlands that ‘Illario and I went on a sailing trip once. The boat ended up like that one, minus the blight (paraphrased yet very dear to me)’. Social connection is a need Illario has recognized in Lucanis before and offered even when Lucanis himself wouldn’t think to ask for it, is what I’m trying to say. I think. *sigh* listen you’ve gotten this far in the post hopefully you realize I am not entirely sure what I’m saying most of the time I’m trying to nail light to a wall here please have patience with me fhaskj

— Lucanis seems to navigate by sound a lot (which makes sense, considering how much of his job happens in the dark). Spite navigates mostly though a sense of (supernatural) smell. They’ve got a lot of eye imagery around them, but sight is not actually the most central sense for either of them. Nothing more coherent to add to that just observations haha 

— you ever think about the fact that despite everything caterina is ultimately unwilling to let go of Illario, and Illario is unwilling to let go of her. Me neither. 

— “Where are the bodies?” Illario asked. 

Effe shrank into herself. “I moved them.” 

“Not by yourself, you didn’t.” He turned to Lucanis, a smug sneer on his face. “I told you she’d talk.”

Proof Illario is not in fact an idiot and recognizes the basic logistics of a matter, and why his ‘oooh I think Zara must be back in Vyrantium already how inconvenient…’ ploy must be extra ‘...uh-huh cousin’ sus to Lucanis in Veilguard fhdjask. Trying to keep his terminator grandmother safely under lock and key while his cousin is back from the dead and possibly is now a demon with his face because of you and also you have to keep track of what lies you’ve told to what people must be incredibly stressful tbf I wouldn’t be keeping a particularly cool head either 

— Back down the hall, something wet slammed against the studded door. 

Effe’s bravado crumbled. “What was that?” 

“Take her,” Lucanis told Illario. “Find the others.” 

“Other what?” His eyes darted to the elf. “ Slaves? Absolutely not.” 

Lucanis continued as if Illario had agreed, “There’s a statue with a passage—like the one we used before. It’s not far. You should be able to escape in the chaos.” 

Illario blanched. “Did you not hear me? I said—” 

“Athima will help you. She’s the elf we met earlier.” 

“I don’t give a damn what her name is. I’m not—” 

“Once Ambrose is dealt with, I’ll meet you at the docks.” 

“Lucanis!” Illario shouted. “We are not revolutionaries.” 

Lucanis inhaled, his nostrils flaring. Illario was right. The Antivan Crows were assassins, not freedom fighters. Back home, people liked to romanticize, but Lucanis knew what he was. Still, his fingers twitched. 

“They are not responsible for their master’s mistakes.” He locked eyes with his cousin. 

Illario tried to remain resolute, but it was like touching hot steel. Sighing, he cursed and turned to Effe. “Come on,” Illario snapped. 

She glanced toward Lucanis. He gave her a reassuring nod. 

“My cousin may be a snob, but he’s true to his word.” 

“Are you? ” she asked, referring to his promise about Ambrose. 

“The Wigmaker will die tonight,” Lucanis affirmed. “But you have to go. It’s about to become very dangerous.” 

How much do you want to bet Illario is going ‘fuck it’s like trying to have a staring contest with Caterina herself’ on the inside right here, with all the emotions that may involve lmao. Lucanis is getting Illario out of there before shit really hits the fan too, notably — where Illario might see mostly lack of respect for his skills/what he could bring to the fight (there’s not none of that from Lucanis’ side either, but less than I feel Illario might be imagining), I think there’s a protectiveness, an unwillingness to risk Illario when the real madness shakes loose. *Lucanis voice* I mean it’s fine if I die obviously. but you don’t get to. get in the fucking car illario  

I think Lucanis adds the ‘My cousin is a snob, but he’s true to his word’ to reassure Effe that she can trust Illario/make Illario seem less scary/intimidating to her — both invoking the familial connection and the gentle dig to show that ‘see, I trust him, I’m not the least bit threatened by him, you don’t have to be either’. I don’t imagine ‘snob’ would be particularly upsetting to Illario either so while it is another datapoint in the grand tradition that is Lucanis-led public Illario slander, this might be one of the least egregious examples of it lol. (Implied lack of skill would hit way harder than anything about their social standing, I’m imagining)

— Lucanis has such a desperate need and desire to care for someone, as evidenced by how he reacts when he gets a whole Lighthouse full of people to do exactly that and springs into action like he’s been born for nothing else. He is that predator turned sheepdog all anxiety all the time he transparently projects onto Assan in that one banter with Davrin. That instinct has clearly been deep in him all this time, waiting for the right ground to grow in. To further his parallel with Davrin in so many things, there is a big part of him that is a protector as much as the part that’s a hunter, and it has finally found its place.

And like… can you imagine being Illario seeing that. Or this. Obviously it’s the right thing to do morally but on the petty small emotional and interpersonal level. Unbearable fhjksa.  

— Lucanis felt no sympathy. They were, all of them, Venatori supporters, who either knew what Ambrose was doing or chose to turn a blind eye to indulge their own vanity. Ignorance is bliss, not innocence.

Extremely interesting thing to think for someone raised in the Antivan Crows! I do think he actually holds himself to that standard, though — he doesn’t consider himself in any way an innocent. Even in situations where he is actually innocent, like how he feels about his time in the Ossuary. It’s easier for him to conceptualize that the demons/spirits in there were as innocent as anyone else trapped down there than to accept that maybe he didn’t deserve what happened to him either.

We’re also seeing the groundwork here for one of my favourite aspects of his character: the fact that he has an enormous, nearly unstoppable and instinctive on a kneejerk sort of level capacity for empathy — something he uses to great effect as a tool in his professional life to understand and predict his targets and the people around them, and which makes him an extremely devoted friend in his personal one — and yet is much more sparing with his sympathy. Those are in fact separate mental processes! And it’s fascinating to see someone in which the divide can be so clean and stark. (Not to keep beating this particular drum, but something deeply neuroatypical going on with this man long before the whole demon thing, he’s just found his niche and functions to the point of excelling in his particular field lol. Uneven skill profile: can intuit the thought processes of Tevinter fanatics or how word spreads through a community (as seen with the inn owner at the beginning) to a T from about two casual glances and find a way to stab anything up to and including a god cloud, cannot for the LIFE of him have an emotional conversation with his brother who he’s known all his life or understand what he’s thinking, because that all falls apart at the drop of a hat when he has to actually engage interpersonally himself and understand and interpret his own feelings on top as well in real time. Relatable. Is all I’ll say.)   

— The mage’s jaw pulsed. “You think you can come into my Imperium and act as judge and executioner?” Lucanis opened his mouth to respond, but Ambrose anticipated his answer. “Don’t say, ‘ Sì! ’” 

That earned a genuine smile from Lucanis. “Normally, there’s no judgment—only a contract. But for you, Ambrose, I made an exception.” 

The Wigmaker raised a brow. “Oh? What makes me so special?” 

“You upset my delicate sensibilities.” 

It was Ambrose’s turn to laugh. 

“I thought a Crow could stomach anything—for the right price.” 

Lucanis leveled the Wigmaker with a pointed look. “Not red lyrium.” 

“Morality is not static. Right and wrong are a matter of perspective.” Ambrose’s words were practiced and tired as if he had given the same reasoning a hundred times. 

Lucanis continued his advance, refusing to engage in the Wigmaker’s rhetoric. Nothing irritated him more than self-righteous excuses. If you’re going to do something terrible, just own it.

For your bounteous amounts of fuckery you have been promoted from the ‘contract’ category to ‘enemy’ category! Congratulations Ambrose it’s your special day. Also this makes a lot of sense with how he seems to feel about Solas too. 

— Hopelessness flooded the mage’s eyes. “One day, someone will turn your work against you. Only then will you have some semblance of the emptiness you’ve made me feel.” With his good hand, he gathered what was left of the wigs, hugging the locks to his chest. 

Lucanis experienced a twinge of disappointment, kindling for rage. He expected more fight from a high-ranking Venatori. He thought of the Wigmaker’s workshop, of the prisoners, their bellies full of poison, hanging like butchered pigs in stale, suffocating darkness. “Get up, Ambrose,” he growled. “You don’t get to do that—you don’t get to quit.” 

…

Panting heavily, Lucanis regarded the creature’s collapse without joy or anger. A vermilion fire engulfed the carcass, leaving nothing but a brittle husk. The other abominations stirred. 

“You have your vengeance,” Lucanis rasped. 

But his words did not reach them. They stared, snarling and ready. He squeezed the grip of his sword, preparing for another fight—then the pressure behind his skull eased. Without the Wigmaker, the demons had no anchor in the waking world. Gradually, the abominations disintegrated into ash. With the source of their anger gone, the spirits of vengeance returned to the Fade, allowing the dead to rest. 

Only then did Lucanis exhale and let relief wash over him. 

“Contract complete.” 

Again I’m glad they didn’t go with building on that in the end because I like what they did do with him so much better, but you can see here where they were laying the groundwork for more of a ‘righteous wrath’/outward facing central pillar for Lucanis’ character here. I’m on record as adoring the internal angle/more of the focus on disrupted self, and I think they also built really well on the subtextual family dynamics going on through this story, that’s a much more fascinating angle for me personally. This instinct for/longing to indulge in stubborn opposition sure does still exist in him, though, that’s such a fun part of him to make externalized as a whole little guy riding shotgun in his soul 

— That’s one way to make a point, Lucanis thought, coming to a stop.

Have I said enough about how much I love him. Because I do. One of his early very good ‘...wtf’ moments, so plenteous and marvellous in the game itself. (Not including all the body horror he’s actually looking at here b/c it’s truly disgusting and upsetting, excellent job as always Courtney Woods) 

— Sensing its weakness and spurred on by the demons of vengeance within, the other abominations began to surround it. 

That’s it, Lucanis smiled encouragingly. Good little demons. Turning his sword over in his palm, he cut across the roof.

Lmao. It’s interesting that Lucanis has a slightly… odd relationship with spirits/demons already here, for a non-mage and someone from an Andrastian culture — he’s able to think of them sort of as a natural part of an ecosystem that you can turn to your advantage if you’re careful and respect their unpredictable nature as part of the natural landscape as it were, and he extends his remarkable capacity for empathy to them in the way that he thinks about what their motivations and drives are in the same way he does with people — ‘you have your vengeance’. The baseline Chantry doctrine about spirits is basically ‘Always Chaotic Evil, Stay Clear’, but Lucanis seems to think of them as like… fellow predators. You know the way wolves and ravens will sometimes ‘team up’ and have symbiotic relationships? Kind of like that. Which is very him hahaha I mean sure Crows hire people for things all the time and if you can pay them in just doing your job anyway… it makes a lot of sense that this is the dude who’d think to earnestly strike a deal with a spirit despite the cultural narratives he was raised with, is what I’m getting at

— Lucanis reached the docks just before dawn. Knowing Illario as he did, he passed their ship’s allotted berth to check the nearby taverns. After a quick glance up and down the harbor, Lucanis settled on the Nug Queen purely because it was the cleanest establishment of the lot. When he entered, limping and bloody, the barkeep glowered. 

“Walk out the way you came,” the dwarf instructed. He had a tawny mustache that was twirled and waxed at both ends. 

“I’m looking for my cousin,” Lucanis explained. (🥺He’s literally just looking for his cousin…)

. . . 

Lucanis prepared to leave—then he heard Illario’s silvery voice flattering one of the waiters. 

“Oy!” the dwarf called out as Lucanis staggered toward the row of booths lining the left side of the tavern. “Exit’s that way!” 

His bellowing drew Illario’s attention away from the handsome servant. Upon seeing Lucanis, he jumped to his feet. “Andraste’s holy cabbage, you look like shit.” 

“Get that man to stop yelling at me,” Lucanis said. He plopped down in the booth, taking a moment to rest his eyes, while Illario soothed the irate proprietor.

‘Get that man to stop yelling at me, Lucanis said’ is my favourite line in this whole short story and always has been fhdskjfhsa it’s just so good. ‘Illario snooze that guy for me I never figured out how to do that non-lethally’. And Illario drops everything and DOES get to work on snoozing that guy. They’re headed right for disaster but I. adore them.  

Andraste’s holy cabbage HIGH on my list of extremely good Andrastian oaths btw thank you Illario. 

I wonder if this inn was supposed to be an in-game location at some point, it gets such a striking (and hilarious) description.

‘Silvery voice’ :’) well that got lost along the way haha. I honestly think the dialogue as written in the game could have landed differently with some changes in voice direction — if the actor wasn’t doing quite so much of an obvious Ze Evil Voice performance, the read on him might be slightly more ambiguous. (His immense susness would still be the same, of course, that’s just built in structurally, but I maintain that that storyline is more about chipping away at Lucanis’ denial that he’s been holding on to for so long down in the Ossuary until it has to crack open and crumble, less about the whodunnit of it all. We know who dunnit and so does Lucanis deep down basically from the first moment, I believe, he just can’t bear it. Not unlike the way Harding deep down knows what the red shade haunting her is, but is unable to accept and take that in until she confronts it, actually! Lucanis and Harding have some parallels going on in the deep there. People pleasers grappling with how to hold on to their healthy anger. Lovers of turnips. *Lucanis voice* Everyone likes turnips.)

Lucanis shambling around bleeding and absent-minded on post-adrenaline autopilot after that utter horror show (again I sheltered you from the body horror here but. Holy cannoli) until he finds the safety of Illario and then collapsing into the booth and almost nodding off b/c Illario will take care of it he knows how to talk to people, even though Lucanis never really relaxes he very nearly does here…………. You see the trouble is that the love is very much there. It just makes everything worse, but it is there. Always. And I’m afraid not even the Ossuary could change that, even when it changed everything else.  

Like… From Illario’s perspective Lucanis just sweeps in bleeding and limping with an imperious demand after shooing him away before — because he doesn’t have the inside view that the bluntness is because Lucanis feels safe with him. This is the sort of ‘pls solve this thing I don’t understand and find overwhelming and annoying’ a child extends to a parent/attachment figure ‘imperiousness’ to me, not an order from a superior. From which I think you can read some things about their dynamic growing up, aside from my ‘Illario has been 80% of Lucanis’ social skills most of their lives’ running joke lol. 

Both of them can form surface relationships with other people, mostly with transactional elements to them — Lucanis with the Villa Dellamorte staff growing up and people he meets and helps on the job, the ‘friends’ Illario sarcastically accuses him of making earlier in the story, and Illario clearly leaving a Necropolis-sized graveyard of shallow connections both romantic and otherwise behind him without ever getting deeper into it himself, gratification and a feeling of control and competence and entertainment all in one with no true intimacy behind it — but I think Lucanis is right when he tells Rook that Illario has been his only actual friend, before them (and the team, obviously). And for all his extroverted fuckboy antics, I think Lucanis is Illario’s only real friend too, I doubt any other relationship has ever reached him at the core but Caterina and Lucanis. They have been. SO weirdly socialized, they struggle so very badly to make real connections outside the family in their individual ways, feast or famine as their approaches are. And part of that is that in their childhood they’ve been forced to try to meet their emotional needs with each other in ways that were doomed to fail; things you should get from a safe parental figure and a group of peers, community, not your brother who’s basically the same age as you and just as traumatized and psychologically malnourished. Things they will not get from the Crows, a community that is also the constant threat that ate everyone else in the family, and not from Caterina, who aside from the general cultural Crow brutality in overseeing their upbringing is too busy negotiating with the ghosts of five children, eight grandchildren by making sure her last two grandsons survive, not realizing that it means she has not taught them the first thing about how to live. Or, perhaps as likely, that is just not particularly a priority to her, she values her control over them and thus perceived control of the future and continuance of House Dellamorte way beyond their happiness. (God it’s all such a real-feeling mess because the love is also there and real, it’s just that that makes everything worse and even more tangled. Family!!!!) 

Caterina has set up this dynamic of Lucanis as the golden child (he can do no wrong and thus is allowed to do no wrong nor want anything for himself she didn’t let him have; never making a mistake in life is something that is normal to demand of yourself and possible to achieve etc.) and Illario as the fuckup kid, the lesser one, we keep him around for sentimental value of course he’s family but he’s largely ornamental lol. (Sorry about your life, Illario. I’m not sure whether being her favourite or not being her favourite leaves someone with the worse deal psychologically long-term, but your situation is particularly undignified and thankless I will grant you that.) Illario is much more faithfully the Crow Caterina raised him to be, where Lucanis uses his competence and Caterina’s personal affection for him to get to keep and protect some of the parts of himself the role of Crow should forbid. And she STILL openly and unabashedly loves Lucanis more, while Illario cannot do a single thing that pleases her no matter what he tries. Lucanis at least has Caterina’s recognition and affection, what does Illario have? What does he have that could make him anything in this Crow eat Crow world? 

Which is why Illario needs Lucanis to choose him over Caterina with an intensity and psychological urgency that again, is more like a child needing a parent to put them first or treat them like they matter to develop the sense of a worthy self. (Or Caterina to choose him over Lucanis, but that’s never going to happen while Lucanis is still alive, and probably not even if he really were dead.) Lucanis can’t give him that, because he is unwilling and unable to give up either of the two attachment relationships he has left, even if it means he has to mangle and push down his own self to maintain those bonds. He will freeze to hold on to what little he has, even when what he has also hurts him and they are hurting each other. At this point in the short story I think Lucanis wants Illario to be honest with him the way Lucanis is honest with Illario (which unfortunately also means Illario gets some of his more unpleasant sides), and Illario can’t give him that because when he tries Lucanis straight up refuses to listen — can’t listen, because what Illario is saying would disrupt everything Lucanis is trying so desperately to hold together at any cost. Again, Lucanis asking Illario for something he then punishes or ignores him for actually giving. They’ve had to be everything to each other and they just can’t be. Not even through any fault of their own, that’s just how it works. And Lucanis starts to find his way out of that during the game, make other connections that do help, but I'm not sure Illario does or will. Don’t look at me and don’t speak to me I’ll never be okay again 

- “Drink?” his cousin offered, returning with two glasses and a bottle of wine. “It’s expensive.”

 Lucanis accepted with a faint nod. 

“Some say a bribe spoils the vintage,” Illario mused while pouring, “but I think it tastes all the sweeter.” 

“Effe and the others. Did you get them to—” 

“Yes, yes,” Illario snapped, “I did my good deed for the year.” 

The two paused to sip their wine. 

Lucanis rolled the liquid over his tongue. Bribery had not spoiled this bottle, at least. 

“Camille didn’t make it,” he said finally. 

“Who?” 

“The guard captain.” 

“Ah,” Illario said, nodding in recognition. “Well, that does free me from promises I didn’t intend to keep. And Ambrose?” 

“You have to ask?” 

“Fair enough.” 

THANK YOU, LUCANIS!!! THAT IS THE THING YOU SHOULD BE SAYING!!!! THANK YOU FOR GOING ALONG WITH MY NONSENSE THAT I JUST SPRANG ON YOU ILLARIO!!!!! I’M HAPPY TO SEE YOU AND THAT YOU’RE ALRIGHT WOULD NOT BE OUT OF ORDER PERHAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD I love him more than anyone in the world but he’s infuriating sometimes especially when dealing with Illario fhdskja. You can tell how much he does trust/value Illario because this is the first time he relaxes a bit in the whole story — the mental image of Lucanis standing there with his huge puppy eyes dripping rivers of blood onto the floorboards in his fucking… batman ass getup like ‘🥺is my cousin here’ is so. It’s so much — but again you have to SHOW that somehow too Lucanis he can’t read your mind. I think it’s what he’s clumsily trying to do with telling Illario about the guard captain, a little bit — that’s an olive branch/trying to give Illario the peace of mind he just gave to him about the fallout of the mission, even if it’s a sadder outcome — but that’s also a sign that he’s completely missed on understanding what Illario would value here. (For Lucanis someone he flirted with being torn to ribbons five minutes later would be a big deal no matter what, probably, for Illario it’s all just business. Whomst??? Oh her lol.) Illario tries to fall into their pattern of companionable bullshit because that seems to be as much as Lucanis will accept from him as a show of care, but even that Lucanis breaks him off on, with what to Illario seems like doubting his skills/ability to carry out the job Lucanis handed him (Lucanis seems to want to know for his own peace of mind more than that, tho, from my vibe here; he did make a promise to Effe). 

“That his?” [Illario] gestured toward the dark stains on Lucanis’s coat. 

“Mostly.” 

His cousin’s brows drew together. “Do you need a healer? The ship will have one, but if you can’t wait—” 

“I’m fine,” Lucanis stated. 

“All right,” Illario said, topping off his glass. “We’ll just pretend that’s wine you’re dripping all over the table.” 

“What do you want me to say?”

How many times do you think Illario has had to rock up to Thedas emergency care with his cousin like ‘well he says he’s fine and to not worry about him, which in my experience is Lucanisese for ‘I’m about to bleed out and die on the spot’.’ As someone who has now been on that side of Lucanis’ ‘*actively bleeding from the eyes* I’m fine don’t worry about me’... y’know I’m not saying Illario was right or anything (he never is (affectionate) that’s his charm) but I do have a certain amount of sympathy one does start to lose one’s mind after a while. Yeah I am making silly jests and japes to avoid talking about this part because it’s so painful to me to contemplate thanks for asking. To be serious, though: being forced to watch Lucanis do this to himself, and then being asked to pretend he can’t even see it to enable it… that’s a big ask and one you should not be making of him, Lucanis. He’s not doing it intentionally, and it’s because he is also in so much pain over this that he has no idea how to handle, but it doesn’t stop it from being fucked up and unfair. 

‘I don’t understand what you want from me/I don’t know understand how to give it to you’ and ‘So we’re just going to pretend that nothing’s wrong and you’re fine and nothing needs to change, you can keep going like this indefinitely?’ 

Illario’s gaze grew hard. “How long are you going to keep doing this?” 

“Doing what?” 

“Caterina’s bidding.” 

The wine turned in Lucanis’s mouth. “Illario. Stop.” 

“If I was in charge, you wouldn’t have to do this anymore,” he cajoled. “You could quit.” 

Lucanis stared at his cousin. “I don’t want to quit.” 

Illario sat back. The distance between them suddenly felt much wider than a table. 

“Even if it kills you,” Illario whispered. 

“Death is my calling,” Lucanis stated, matter-of-fact. “Just as yours is to become First Talon.” He smiled, hoping to ease the tension, but Illario’s posture remained taut. 

“And if Caterina disagrees? If she thinks you’re the better man for the job—” 

“I don’t want it, Illario,” Lucanis insisted. 

“But you wouldn’t refuse.” 

“It’s impossible to refuse Caterina,” Lucanis admitted reluctantly. “Only prolong her, until she sees reason.” 

He knew it wasn’t the answer Illario wanted, but it was the truth. And in their line of work, honesty was hard to come by. 

Illario exhaled and lifted his wineglass in salute. “To reason, then.” 

“To reason,” Lucanis echoed. 

The two Crows clinked the rims of their glasses together, then prepared for the long journey home

Sobbing and crying and dying. So much stuff going on under the surface here. This particular conversation clearly haunts Lucanis for a long time after, it’s where most of the Illario lines in the Mind!Ossuary are taken from. ‘You’ll choose her over me every time, even if it means death and leaving me behind alone. No matter what I do I’m never going to be good enough for her or you, no one is ever going to choose me or put me first or think I matter at all’. Delicate overtones of ‘You love even the work more than you love me’. The more mundane layers of jealousy, of being the unfavorite, the Cain and Abel of it all. The I can’t grow when you always get all the sun.  

The distance between them suddenly feeling much bigger to Lucanis… in a way I think that’s Illario’s side of ‘it wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was the truth. And in their line of work, honesty is hard to come by’. Just for a moment Illario drops the act, he stops trying to reach out to try to find him again, to do his ‘job’ in the relationship of smoothing it over and pretending everything is fine or at least sustainable, and the distance that has slowly grown between them over the years is laid bare. Lucanis would ignore that forever if given the chance, but here Illario finally refuses to play along and forces him to feel it.

After a whole story of Lucanis being ruthlessly competent at his job to the point that he turned it into a challenge run for extra style points just because he can (and because it would be quite emotionally convenient for him to die before he has to go back to Caterina and probably be named her heir), we see him try to (avoid having to) have ONE real conversation with someone he loves and he’s so awkward. He’s reduced to pleading for Illario to stop. (There are notably no please and thank yous between Lucanis and Illario — mutually, also notably  — but that ‘Illario. Stop’ carries big helpless ‘please don’t’ energy)

I’ve talked before about the way Lucanis speaks of Caterina like she’s a weather system, or an act of God — something that can’t be resisted, only navigated with immense care and a hope for the best fear for the worst attitude. He expects Illario to have reached the same conclusion, raised side by side and in the same household as they are… but he hasn’t. They are different people by nature and the roles within the family have given them different perspectives — on what’s possible, and on what’s sustainable. It’s. hey. It’s a lot. 

— God. can you imagine being Illario when Lucanis returns from the grave with some FUCKING RANDO Caterina dragged into the house five minutes ago, and not only is he, surprise surprise, already entrenched as their favourite and they don’t like Illario (they don’t even know all the reasons why they shouldn’t like Illario yet, they just think he has rancid vibes! Which to be sure he does he’s big enough to admit it it can’t be helped the rot will out!! but STILL!!!!!), on a Treviso saved run Lucanis also lets them waltz through all the locked doors in his mind that Illario has been clawing his fingers bloody against for decades while screaming for him within the span of a goddamn afternoon’s work of Fade shenanigans. and through all of it they are *throwing up noises* FLOURISHING together whether as friends or something else in a way that practically shows like a healing glow around him. Rook ‘steal your cousin-brother (you kind of lost the right to stay his favourite when you y’know. Murdered him)’ Dragon Age swooping in to end this poor pathetic little man’s entire career in the last way he hadn’t already managed to ruin it himself. You know what. I kind of get it, Illario, that would send me finally stark raving bonkers insane too. After all that I think I too would have marched over to the ancient elven mean girls like ‘sure I’ll join you in burning down the world if you spare me some gasoline I need to do something hugely self-destructive and unwise and take everything down with me’. Obviously Illario sucks in many many-faceted and inventive ways but holy shit dude. In his shoes could you sit through the café scene without choosing violence.  

— Do I have to put in a disclaimer here that even though I have understanding and empathy for just how shitty Illario’s situation is pre-game and am expressing myself with comedic hyperbole about it, what he ends up doing to Lucanis is obviously extremely bad not justified and not okay in any way etc. and I do not endorse cousin murder as a way to solve your interpersonal problems, nevermind entrusting the task to your known mad scientist girlfriend with blood magic benefits if you did mean for it to be a clean quick death. Lucanis did not deserve any of what happened because he’s an imperfect communicator and like any of us has some less than perfect interpersonal patterns, and he’s still an intensely loveable character to me with these flaws. Is that something I have to state for the record after writing 12k+ words about him like this. One would hope not but you know. I’ve been on this site for a long time now and I am carrying around some stress fractures of the psyche about it, at least this way I know I’ve done what little I could to make myself perfectly clear in this our how dare you say we piss on the poor public square lol 

— The hilarious/hopeful thing is that I don’t think this relationship is necessarily doomed because of the very specific ways Lucanis is nuts haha, he has not willingly let go of anything he loves one single day in his life and he’s not about to start now — if Illario can bring himself to take that outstretched hand and do his part of the work I feel there could be hope for it. Not for it to ever be what it was before, of course. But to be something, still. Once Lucanis recognizes some of his own shortcomings in the dynamic I think he would try to work on that on the Forgive route at least, Illario matters that much to him. 

— rare W moment for Illario towards the end here and we simply must grant him those: Zara clearly meant to merely use him as a means to get to Lucanis, but he did seemingly somehow manage to get her properly wrapped around his little finger for real eventually. Enough for her to be very bitter about it after death, at least. Listen Zara play too close to the fuckboy fire and get burned to a crisp puh-lease this man is a professional. If he’s your amatus why is he obsessed about what his grandma and cousin are going to think of him after this and killing you mid-sentence. Smh 

— god I have said so much in this (...obviously. my face is in my hands why am I like this this is my curse), but I’m still not sure I’ve managed to get at what I was actually like. trying to say. Oh well. At least this chunk of thoughts is out of my head now, maybe I’ll get some room in here for something else and maybe even sensible for a while (doubtful but one should live in hope) 

*in a 'that's a threat' kind of way. also well done for making it all the way to the end you're a real one

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

I love it when magic systems exact a price!!! I love it when magic systems require you to give up something, to be less human, to cause deaths of others or to risk the chance you will go mad or destroy yourself!!!! I love when the epic workings of great and powerful magic come with a horrific cost!!!!

That shit RULES!!!!!!!!

[sentientsky]

i know this has been discussed ad nauseam, but i'm doing research for a meta, and i'm slowly realizing that i will never ever be over the Good Omens Lockdown dialogue. especially that line towards the end (begins at the 02:50 minute mark):

Crowley: [...] You know, I could hunker down at your place; slither over and watch you eat cake. I could bring a bottle—a case—of something...drinkable?

first, the unabashed expression of a desire to be near Aziraphale is so rarely evident (i mean, we have 1967 and other instances, but in the case of '67, an outsider could more easily—i guess??—interpret offering him a lift home as an expression of gratitude for the holy water). so, to witness his clear, unveiled desire for comfort and closeness (and to literally just watch Aziraphale eat cake) demonstrates the interpersonal progress made in the time after Armageddon't; he's not concealing the offer behind some flimsily-constructed reason (e.g., "I just didn't want to see you embarrass yourself"). in fact, he's implying that they'd be spending long lengths of time together ("hunker down", "a case of something drinkable"). and then Aziraphale's response is also really interesting, and kind of exists as a microcosm of their whole push-and-pull dynamic that has existed for literally thousands of years (begins at the 02:59 minute mark):

Aziraphale: No, I—I—I—I’m afraid that would be breaking all the rules! Out of the question! I’ll see you… when… this is over?

i'm sorry, but the sheer nervousness???? the grasping for excuses??? they're gay disasters, ur honour. breaks my fucking heart </3 i love them both, but also OUGH. azi, why?!?

[not-equippedforthis]

holmes and watson as the sun and moon respectively because holmes is a burning, eccentric force of nature who collapses like a dying star when his mind seizes him, because watson is a solid rock who provides the stone for holmes to lean against and reflects his light by documenting the cases and righting holmes' thought process and scattered bearings. holmes as the light that comes back into watson's life after he's been stripped of hope and forced to wander around london's dark streets without any friends or familiar faces to support him. watson as the calm, ever-present soldier who is capable of burning with equal intensity but is often underestimated in his power because he isnt as outwardly flashy as the sun. holmes as the sun because he does everything with passion, with an inward intensity, watson as the moon because he has the same power but with softer lights, not blinding but glowing, calming. holmes and watson as the sun and moon because they will always be said in conjugation with each other. they belong as one. holmes as the sun because he is the light and watson as the moon is his conductor of light. holmes as the burning sun and watson as the shining moon- do you. do you understand.

[orphiclovers]

Secretive Plotter voice appreciation post.

He makes it a habit to speak in his 'true voice' 99% of the time, so we get a lot of descriptions of it  - it's very distinctive.

Kim Dokja calls it 'sharp and clear' the first time he hears it.

Sun Wukong is less complementary and says it's 'insidious-sounding' - both descriptions give the impression it's a grating and harsh sound to the ears.

It makes sense - he's an Outer God, after all. Usually the effect hearing their voice has is bleeding from your ears and terror - unless you're sufficently powerful to withstand the effects.

And despite that Secretive Plotter very delibaretly choses to speak in his 'true voice' anyway, a little bit as an intimidation tactic but mostly as part of his artificial persona of 'frightening Outer God called Secretive Plotter.' And so no one forgets what he is for even a second, not even himself.

But then of course the fearsome illusion shatters when he drops the voice whenever children are around. There are only two times we ever hear his real voice - not so coincidentally, the only times when he's not pretending to be the 'Secretive Plotter' but is instead just 'himself'.

The first time, for a brief moment when he talks to Yoo Mia. The switch is never called out, even though Yoo Joonghyuk's narration notices it. And Secretive Plotter doesn't point it out either, because he does it automatically and without thinking - because it would never occur to him to hurt or frighten a child on purpose, no matter how villanous he is acting.

Most significantly he tells the honest truth here, to both Yoo Mia and Yoo Joonghyuk. But it doesn't last and then the next sentence after he puts Yoo Mia to sleep he's back to 'true voice'.

The second time we hear his real voice is here.

Again, he's speaking to a little kid here and at the same time dropping the 'Secretive Plotter' persona - for the final time. During the rest of this scene he never goes back to speaking in the 'true voice', even though the rest of the 999th turns outer gods do - Oldest Dream can obviously handle it, but it means something different to Secretive Plotter to speak in his real voice, he only does it when he's being entirely honest and candid - when he's not keeping up appearences. And he was definitely brutally honest during this whole conversation.

(It's also interesting that despite it being called a 'true voice' it's often very much the opposite. It's a lie for Secretive Plotter, a mask he wears, as I pointed out in this post - but also for Kim Dokja too, in the same exact way. Kim Dokja only uses it to intimidate his enemies (for example, when he was defending Yoo Joonghyuk from Asmodeus) or paint himself as someoen frightening, irredeamable, inhuman (when he was trying to convince Anna Croft he was evil and no better than any other constellation). In this, Secretive Plotter and Kim Dokja are exactly the same - except the Plotter has done it longer and gotten used to keeping up the facade at all times, whereas Kim Dokja speaks in his real voice most of the time.)

[quinn-pop]

something about learning, idk

[ghoulsbian]

gelatin powder is made of finely ground animal bones. ghouls could grind up human bones like this, and make jello. though, i don't know how they'd flavor it bc flavorless gelatin is, yknow, flavorless. perhaps with blood? would give it a red color like cherry or strawberry jello too. i think that maybe this is something that could be helpful to half-ghouls who are struggling with the transition to ghoulhood :•) cuz it could very closely resemble the human food!

ohhh they could also make coffee flavored jello as well!! that might be even tastier, and would be even more close to a human equivalent. i was always so sad that ghouls didn't have any real desserts they could partake in, bc desserts are my favorite kind of food, but they could have coffee jelly made from the human gelatin!!! yayyy!!!

this entire premise is a little bit silly, but something even sillier that i like to imagine, is ghouls in a (ghoul) hospital being given jello hahaha.

i can also imagine shuu eating something akin to those crazy gelatin dishes from 1950s era america. blood gelatin with eyeballs inside it or something. he's a very adventurous eater!

[transmascanakin]

I think in order to understand Geta's character you first need to understand that he's not smart and is not only incapable of manipulation but in fact very influencable himself. Neither he or Caracalla were made to be scheming villains, that is not their purpose in the story and just because Geta's mind is clearer than his brother's you should not overestimate him. He is dumb.

Second you also have to deal with the fact that he's extremely devoted to Caracalla and he loves him in a way that's not very easy to grasp by the audience, and he most likely would not show or feel resentment or disgust towards him like you think he would. (Do not missunderstand me i do think it can be explored in an in character way because of course Geta has his limits too but I dont really see it portrayed in a way i think would be realistic for him.)