tw: I think the description of the Egyptian taking-all-organs thing but not in details and the a little more detailed description of the aftermath of the beheaded person.
this is very out of context but what if
Apollo gets beheaded on his knees, after stripping himself from all dignity he ever had including his hair, his neck pressed hard on the damp grass with his eyes closed.
(The lightning bolt is pressed against his scalp, cold. It killed his son before, he remembers.)
(He tells Chiron to keep his sister safe. Not the god one - she will handle his absence steadily. The moon will turn crimson red, the forests going mad, but she will be okay. And the girl who was staring at him a few seconds ago, when he glanced at her for the last time, her soil-brown eyes filled with dread? No, she won't.)
he's completely still.
even after there is a wet sound of his bones breaking and there is a gap between his neck and head.
(He heard a choked scream, felt how everything went to quiet. He didn't feel how a small hand grabbed his shoulder, shaking it, muttering him to get up.)
(He didn't hear how the air was broken with a sigh, the girl passing out after a simple touch of fingers to her temple from the man with dark-wine eyes.)
____ ____ ____ ____
and Dionysus picks him up, hand on hair, body on the shoulder like a sack of wheat and disappears.
he does the Egyptian ritual of removing all the organs and substances from the body because gods don't really have them.
mortals do.
his brother is not mortal.
he takes everything out, gets Ariadne's string and sews the head of his brother to the rest of the body.
he sings, quietly, wiping the marble-carved body with white clean-crunchy cloths that are soaked in sun-filled olive oil with bits of ivy in it.
he keeps going for 16 days.
____ ____ ____ ____
he cleans his dead brother, brushes what was left of his cut golden hair that is still unbelievably soft.
covers him from head to toe with a white bedsheet and stops all of his actions right there.
____ ____ ____ ____
there is a shadow that is almost glued to the wall, silently observing the process, its silver irises glowing from time to time.
the moon has been red for more than 11 days now.
it sighs a few times, before leaving the space.
he was taking too long; his first birth took only 9 days.
(She kept her lips sealed, vibrating with questions. He never really died before, it was all anew. Violet eyes begged her to keep quiet. There are no second chances.)
she was the one helping, after all.
____ ____ ____ ____
the shadow returns once more, bringing the smell of burned flesh and metal with her. the smile that splits her face in half says that much. there is nothing even semi-human in it.
Apollo was right, his sister handled his death just as steadily as he expected. with animal ardor for blood and vengeance.
the King is dead, the strings are cut. violet creature resembling a boy, his ears too sharp, nods.
____ ____ ____ ____
on the 16th night, Apollo opens his eyes, remembering pain and darkness and smoke.
because gods don't die for forever.
mortals do.
and he just so happened to have a brother so was strongly connected to rebirth a long time ago.
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You know, when I think about Arcane I can't help but think about the fact that I'm not a huge fan of how Vander handled things.
I mean his heart was definitely in the right place, he wanted to protect his children and his people, but to be honest there were moments where I felt like he was very confidently doing the wrong thing.
Specially in a child rearing sense. Now I just want to put it out there, that we the audience are shown a biased depiction of Vander.
Just about every scene he's in he's surrounded by his people who (mostly) look to him for protection, his children who adore him, or his enemies who are literal drug lord gang leader bad guys and corrupt policemen. Who are not humanized by the story until after his death.
For one there's Vi's pretty obvious eldest daughter syndrome, which Vander does nothing to try and curb. In fact I feel like in most of their scenes together Vander is treating this unhealthy dynamic as Vi being her sibling's leader and that she therefor needs to take more responsibility for them.
Even though I feel like Vander teaching Vi that way of thinking caused a lot of problems for all of the kids.
Sure it's great when your kids can work together, but there shouldn't be a pecking order among them, and if there is you shouldn't encourage it.
Vander fully expects Vi to take responsibility for Powder(which makes some level of sense considering she's 4-ish years younger than Vi), but also Mylo and Claggor, who are both the same age as her.
Meaning that if Vander trusts Vi to look after herself (and Powder) I feel like he should be able to trust Mylo and Claggor to look after themselves.
Vi should not be saddled with the responsibility of being in charge of her siblings, who are literally the same age as her.
If Vander is going to be reprimanding Vi for getting into trouble, he should be getting on to Mylo and Claggor just as much.
Sure Mylo and Claggor mention that Vander is going to be upset, but it's very obvious that the majority of the responsibility rests on Vi's shoulders.
Which, sure they look up to Vi and listen to what she has to say and what she thinks they should be doing.
But if it's to the point where Vander thinks it's gotten to the point that they will literally blindly follow Vi into dangerous situations because she said so. Then I feel like it's time for Vander to have a sit down with the rest of his kids and have the very important "Thinking for yourself" talk.
It's- You can't raise your children to just blindly follow their oldest sibling their entire life, and raise the oldest child to be the caretaker of the rest of their siblings their entire life.
Yeah, Vi needs to think things through a bit more, because the other kids look up to her a lot, and will go along with whatever her plans are, because they think she knows what she's doing and they trust her.
But also the other kids need to know how to assess things for themselves, rather than just blindly follow whatever it is Vi says, no matter how much they look up to her.
Like this man fully thinks that his 15 year old daughter, who clearly has problems with her temper and being impulsive herself, should also be responsible for her two adoptive brothers who are functionally the same age as her [one with a pretty obvious superiority/inferiority complex], alongside her younger sister who already has problems of some kind of anxiety.
Mylo and Claggor are just fully not held to the same standard as Vi in spite of being the same age, and literally getting into the exact same trouble. Their choice to go along with what Vi planned, is put onto Vi's shoulders when it shouldn't be, because if Vi is old enough to know better in Vander's mind, so are Mylo and Claggor.
If it was just Powder I could somewhat understand. She's younger, more impressionable, she idolizes Vi, she's not as strong or fast as the other three and if Vi forgot that at some point Powder could have gotten left behind or hurt.
You know the general "You need to be a good role model for your younger sibling because they look to you for guidance" stuff.
Like the fact that Vi feels the need to fight Piltover in order to secure a better life for Powder in Act 1 tells me so much just how parentified Vi is when it comes to Powder's care.
Which I do think originated from before Vander adopted the girls, to be fair to Vander. Vi gives off the vibe of looking after Powder having always been her responsibility.
To be unfair to Vander, I don't think he did anything to try and undo Vi's over responsible and over protective mindset when it came to Powder after adopting them.
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