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sourcherryandsprinkles · 6 months ago

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please please please more hockey cregan

Synopsis: You both agreed it was casual when you began this situationship with the Wolves’ hockey captain. It was exactly what you needed at the time. But, as time passes, it’s getting hard being a chill girl — because you're not. Every time you hear him tell people it’s nothing serious, it stings a little more. Because in your heart, it hasn’t felt casual for a while now

Three times Cregan tells people you’re not together, and one time he does

After weeks of waiting, my new modern!Cregan fic is here!! Sorry for the long wait. October was stressfull and busy (creating halloween content is fun but also exhausting!), and then my mom got bad health news and that turned my whole world upside down. I hope you'll like it <3 Please send more hockey au requests, i love writing them

Warnings: 18+, sexting (sort of), oral (f receiving), car sex, misunderstanding, men being clueless and blind

—

You: A little something so you think about me while on the ice 💕

You: [picture attached]

It was cruel, but you liked to tease Cregan before his games. Especially the away ones where he wouldn't be able to touch you after. Today, you went with a simple snap of your lace panties, the kind you knew made his dick painfully hard.

Cregan: Fuck 🥵

More messages appeared on your screen.

Cregan: Hate when you do shit like that

Cregan: How am I supposed to be getting ready for the game?

Cregan: Little minx! 👿🖕🏻

You were tempted to send another picture, to push with the teasing. You could imagine Cregan in his bedroom, in his gray joggers, cursing as he felt his dick stiffen from the sight of your underwear. It was almost 5pm, and he needed to be at the arena an hour early for warm ups and some locker room talk. If he jerked off now, he would be in a time crunch for the arena. You didn’t want him to get in trouble.

You: If you win tonight, I might let you take them off

It was crazy to wear a skirt to a hockey game, but you didn’t think of the cold air of the arena when you got dressed. All that was on your mind was the after-game party at the hockey house…and Cregan’s delicious cock inside you. The Wolves were playing against the Lions tonight — easy win —, so he’ll still be full of energy after the game. In other words, tonight will be a long and fun night.

‘’Aren’t you cold?’’ Rhaena’s eyes fell on your bare legs.

You shrugged. ‘’Nothing I can’t handle,’’ you brushed off.

The reason you dressed like that was so you wouldn’t need to go back to your dorm to change. You could go straight to the party. At least you wore a sweater over your corset bra. You would get frostbites by exposing your nipples to the arena’s cold air. Not pleasant. Although Cregan probably wouldn’t mind warming them up with his tongue later.

‘’You’re lucky Baela’s not here tonight,’’ Rhaena said, pulling you out of your naughty thoughts. ‘’She would have lectured you about the risks of getting sick and spiraled about how irresponsible it is to risk getting the whole campus sick. People will miss classes, possibly fail their trimester, and blah blah blah.’’ She laughed, perfectly imitating her sister’s softer voice with a tinge of scolding. ‘’Nursing school is getting to her.’’

Sweet Baela. You were curious how she’ll make it as a nurse if she continued being this stressed about sickness. It was sweet of her to care, but she really needed to relax.

A group of girls came to your row and next to you. One of them had a hockey jersey on — a girlfriend, assumingly —, and the others were dressed casually. If you remember correctly, her name was Talisa. You gave her a smile, then turned your attention back to Rhaena.

‘’How was your date with Luke? You never told me.’’

Judging by the smile on her face, it must have gone well.

The hockey house was packed, the typical crowd buzzing after another one of the games. Players, friends, usual fans, and even people who didn’t go to the game came to bask in the afterglow of a win. It’s an ambiance no frat party can match.

You walked through the crowd, expertly dodging a spilled beer incident as you searched for the Wolves’ captain. You saw some of the players around, shower-damp hair and a beer in their hands, so they must have begun to arrive at the house.

While you waited, you busied yourself with a drink and sent Cregan a little teaser.

You: Come find me 🍒💋

You: [video attached]

The video had been taken prior to the game. Just a short little video of you groping your tits, which were spilling at the top of your corset bra.

Although he claimed to love all of your body, Cregan Stark was a breasts man. He liked to lay his head on them, suck on them — and come on them —, and to use them as stress balls. They fit perfectly in the palms of his hands.

So, when you hit ‘send’, you knew he would search the house for you and drag you to his room.

Standing in the kitchen in all his post-game glory, Cregan was laughing with his teammates like he didn’t have a care in the world. A joke about one of the rookies — they get teased a lot. His laughter came short when he opened your text, not expecting a fucking video. He held back a groan as he watched you play with your tits, wishing he had his hands on them right now.

Cregan must have been staring for too long because Ben peered over to his phone screen to see what had taken his captain’s attention. ‘’Ohh, nice tits! Who’s that?’’

Beside him, Jace took a look too. He whistled, agreeing with Ben.

‘’Damn, is that your girl, Stark?’’ another teased, taking Cregan’s phone to get a better look and replaying the video again.

Cregan shook his head, taking a sip of beer. ‘’Nah. It’s casual.’’

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

‘’Did you see my bra?'' you asked as you walked around Cregan’s bedroom in your panties and one of his shirts, searching for the missing piece. ‘’I can’t find it.’’

Cregan, still lying in bed, barely lifted his head to glance around. ‘’Eh, no,’’ he muttered, too lazy to really help.

You sighed, hands on your hips as you scanned the room. It had to be somewhere.

He pointed lazily toward his dresser. ‘’I think it’s by my gym bag, over there.’’

You raised an eyebrow. His gym bag? How could it have ended there?

You bent down and checked, pushing aside sneakers and a Wolves hoodie. ‘’Are you sure? Because I see no bra here.’’

‘’Search deeper, maybe you should see to get glasses,’’ he teased, a smirk playing across his mouth as his eyes stayed glued to your bent-over form, obviously enjoying the view more than helping you search.

‘’Cregan, it’s not there! Maybe you should get glasses,’’ you returned, your tone showing your patience was running thin. ‘’Are you fucking with me right now?’’

His laugh gave him away, and that’s when you realized what he was doing.

You shot him a glare over your shoulder. ‘’You’re an ass.’’ You stood, his shirt covering your thighs again. ‘’And I thought you liked my tits better?’’

“I do.” Cregan smirked, leaning back into the pillows, arms behind his head. “But they’re covered right now, and your ass is right there in my line of sight. So I’m appreciating the view.”

Before you could shoot back a reply, his phone buzzed on the bedside table. His smirk faded as he reached over to grab it, glancing at the screen.

“Hi, Mom,” he said, voice dropping to a softer, more polite tone.

You, too focused on hunting down your missing bra, didn’t even notice the phone conversation. Where was that damn bra? You could go home without your bra — you had other ones — and free the nips on the way to your dorm, but it was your favorite and you needed it back.

Finally, you spotted it half-hidden under the chair. “Got it!” you exclaimed, holding the bra up triumphantly. “It ended up under the chair. Probably wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t flung it across the room like an animal last night.’’

You laughed, but it died on your lips when you heard a woman’s voice faintly from the phone. Cregan’s mom.

‘’Cregan, was that a girl I heard in the background?’’ her voice asked, clear enough in the now-quiet room. ‘’I didn't know you were not alone.''

Cregan stiffened as he fumbled for an answer. ‘’Eh...''

‘’Bring her over for Thanksgiving next weekend,'' his mom cut in, excited.

‘’I don't think—''

‘’Sara is coming with her girlfriend, the more the merrier!''

‘’She's not my girlfriend, Mom. She's just... She...''

‘’Oh. Got it,'' she replied, the awkwardness sinking in over the line.

You couldn’t believe he said that to his mother. He could have said you were a friend. It would have been discreet and more respectful to you. But no, he told her you were the girl he was taking to his bed when he needed to empty his balls.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

Panties pulled to the side, you had one of your feet on the dashboard while Cregan was knees deep in the passenger seat with his mouth on your cunt. A symphony of mewls and moans was slipping from your lips, your head thrown back against the headrest of the seat. Going to the backseat would have been a smartest idea, but it was filled up with hockey shit and unusable.

To make more room, the passenger seat of the jeep was pushed as far as it would allow, but Cregan was tall and broad — it was simply impossible to make it comfortable for him. He didn’t seem to care that it was cramped and that he could barely move. All he cared about was watching and hearing you squirm from his tongue.

You gripped his shoulder, fingernails digging through the thick material of his sweater, needing something to grip as he sucked on your clit and sent jolts of pleasure up your spine.

It’s crazy what a 9pm trip to get In-n-Out can lead up. The puck bunnies who hung around the team would throw knives at you if they knew where you had him right now…

‘’I’m close— Aah, please don’t stop.’’ You pushed your cunt against his face, as if it wasn’t glued to it already. ‘’If you stop I’ll fucking kill you, Stark.’’

Cregan was very tempted to stop just to mess with you — he took pleasure in that —, but instead kept going, his stubble scratching your inner thighs as he kept his head buried between them.

The jeep's interior filled with the sounds of your ragged breathing and the wet, desperate noises of his mouth working against you. You felt the buildup, that white-hot tension coiling tighter and tighter until it finally snapped, sending you tumbling over the edge. Your thighs trembled around his head, and your hips bucked uncontrollably as a loud moan escaped your lips. Cregan kept going, drawing out every last shudder, his tongue working you through the waves of pleasure until you were nearly limp in his hands.

He finally pulled back, a crooked grin curling on his lips as he looked up and slapped the crotch of your panties into place on your sensitive cunt. You winced and glared at him. Could he be a little more delicate?

You watched as he opened the passenger door, getting out with comical difficulty. What was he expecting?

He moved to the driver side and turned on the car, swearing when he saw the time. ‘’Shit.’’ Cregan ran a hand through his hair, and searched for his phone, quickly typing a message to someone. ‘’Do you mind if we’re making a little detour on the way? I was supposed to pick Jace up, but we got…carried away and it completely slipped out of my mind. I’ll drop you off after.’’

Couldn’t he take a bus or an uber? You felt uncomfortable about someone other than Cregan seeing you like that — fucked out. You must be looking a mess with your panties going up your ass from being pulled to the side and your skirt all hiked up, face flushed from your orgasm.

‘’Yeah. It’s fine,’’ you said with a forced smile, shifting on the seat to adjust your clothes and trying to regain some composure.

After a few minutes of driving, Cregan pulled up to the curb where Jace was waiting. He got in the Jeep, complaining about all the junk that was on the backseat while pushing it away to make space to sit.

When he finally clicked his seatbelt, his eyes flickering over your disheveled form and messy hair with a raised brow. ‘’Were you two on a date or something?” he asked, his tone carrying a teasing edge, not minding his business. ‘’Because you both look a little messy over there.’’

You felt your heart rate pick up. Was this a date? A date at a fast food place was not very romantic, but you couldn’t imagine Cregan taking a girl on a date at a fancy restaurant. It wasn’t him. He preferred simple things.

But this was not a date.

Maybe it’ll be one day.

Cregan rolled his eyes and shifted the Jeep back into drive. ‘’Shut up. We were not on a fucking date. We just got In-n-Out.’’

‘’And you didn’t take anything for me? I thought we were best friends, man…’’ Jace shook his head in disappointment.

The words stung, but it was his tone that hit deeper, as if the idea of a date with you was too absurd to even consider. It twisted something inside you, and you hated yourself for letting things drag on this long, pretending it was still casual when, in your heart, it hadn’t felt that way for a while now.

When you got to your dorm, you sent Cregan a text saying it was over between you.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

''I don't want to be mean, but what were you expecting?'' Rhaena said, lounging on the couch beside you and Baela. Her tone was blunt, like she was stating the obvious, and it stung more than you cared to admit.

You had just finished telling them how you had called it off with Cregan — if you could call it that.

''Rhaena!'' Baela shot her sister a sharp look.

Rhaena shrugged, unfazed. ''It's known that hockey players don't do girlfriends. Clearly, he didn’t want anything serious; he just wanted sex. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have stayed casual for so long.’’

You didn’t expect Rhaena to turn on Cregan so fast, but it was comforting to hear that she had your back.

Baela shook her head, letting out a sigh. ‘’They're not all like that, Rhaena. Don't put everyone in the same basket. Cregan had a girlfriend for three years before college.''

Your brows shot up. A girlfriend?

‘’How do you know that?’’ you asked, surprised. Cregan never mentioned any past relationships.

‘’Alysanne told me,’’ Baela explained. ‘’She and Cregan used to go to high school together. Apparently, he had a tough time after the breakup and never had a girlfriend since.’’

That would explain why he never brought it up. Any why he was always correcting people when they assumed you were his girlfriend. Maybe that relationship scarred him so much he was scared of commitment now?

Rhaena scoffed. ‘’So it’s a valid reason to treat Y/N like that?’’

Baela glared at her. It was not what she was trying to say. ‘’Of course not. I just think it’s best to try to understand the other person’s side before jumping to conclusion. Girls are not the only ones who can get hurt from relationships, guys too.’’ She turned to you. ‘’What did he say when you told him you had feelings?’’

You looked down at your lap. ‘’I…I never told him.’’

Unexpectedly, Baela hit your arm.

‘’Why did you do that for?!’’ You rubbed the spot, frowning.

‘’For not telling him!’’ Baela said, exasperated. ‘’Guys are blind as hell. They don’t pick up signals. If you don’t tell them you like them, there’s chances they’ll never make a move.’’

You turned to Rhaena, who agreed with her sister about needing to be straightforward with guys. So, maybe the reason he corrected everyone was because he didn’t want them to get the wrong idea because this situationship was what you agreed on?

And they dare say girls are complicated and confusing…

‘’Well, that’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’’ you concluded. ‘’Besides, if Cregan liked me, he would have said something when he got my text or called. He didn’t. Case closed.’’

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

The case was not closed.

A few days later, Cregan was in the living room of the hockey house, hunched over on the couch with a controller gripped tightly in his hands. He was playing Call of Duty with Jace and was sorely losing. Every time his character took a hit, he grunted and smashed the buttons like he was trying to punch a hole through them.

''If you break the controller, you buy a new one,'' Jace warned, not even looking up from his own controller.

Cregan rolled his eyes. ''I'm not gonna break the damn controller,’' he snapped.

''Could've fooled me," Jace shot back, a smirk across his face. "Smashing the buttons is not gonna help your game, bro.''

Cregan grunted in response, and just as he got his character back on his feet, he got taken out by a sniper. Again. The muscles in his jaw tightened. ‘’Bullshit," he muttered, slamming the controller onto his thigh. "This controller's definitely broken. Let's switch, Jace."

Jace snorted, still lounging on the floor with his back against the coffee table. "Your controller's not broken, you’re just shit." He looked over at Cregan, who was glaring at the screen like it had personally offended him.

‘’Or, maybe our captain is sexually frustrated,’’ Ben chimed in as he wandered in from the kitchen, a bag of flamin’ Cheetos in hand. He plopped onto the couch next to Cregan, crunching loudly. ‘’You've been playing shit on the ice too, and you’re irritable.’’

Cregan shot him a look. ‘’I’m not—’’

‘’He got dumped by his girl, Ben,’’ Jace interrupted. ‘’So little Cregan’s getting lonely.’’

‘’First off, she was not my girlfriend,’’ Cregan said, setting the record straight — again. ‘’How many times did I tell you that? And second, don’t call my dick that. Actually, don’t call it anything.’’

Ben laughed. ‘’We should make you a Tinder profile so you can find a girl to fuck tonight or tomorrow, and we can have our captain back just in time for Friday’s game. What do you say, Jace?’’

Jace grinned, picking up on Ben's suggestion right away. "I’ll even help you with the bio, Cregan. How about, ‘Hockey captain, terrible at video games, but makes up for it in other areas’?’’

Cregan groaned, tossing a cushion at him. ‘’Fuck off. I don’t need a Tinder profile.’’

‘’But you do need to get laid,’’ Ben reminded, eating some more Cheetos. ‘’Why don’t you call that girl with the nice tits? You know, the one who sent you dirty pictures the other day?’’

His question was answered with the darkest glare.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

The Wolves broke their winning streak since you called it off and lost every game. According to the whispers on campus, Cregan’s head was not on the ice.

Baela tried to convince you that it was because he was thinking of you, but you laughed and told her she was ridiculous. If Cregan was thinking about you, he would have called.

It wasn’t until the first fall of snow that you got a text from him, asking to come by the house to pick up a few things he had found in his room. Nothing worth going seemed to be missing, but you went anyway.

The house was quiet when you got there. Robb let you in and said Cregan was upstairs. The door was open, but you still knocked on the doorframe, announcing your presence. Cregan turned, and you had to fight the smile from your lips. It’s been a while since you last saw him — you missed him.

He greeted you with a hug, which you accepted. It was a brief but warm embrace, the scent of his pine cologne faint, yet familiar.

As he pulled back, you saw he was wearing shorts and a hoodie, a strange combo for late November.

‘’Thanks for coming,’’ Cregan said, not really knowing what to say.

‘’Well, you said you had some of my things,’’ you replied softly. The silence that filled the space was a tad uncomfortable, and you shifted your weight on your feet.

He nodded, remembering why you were there in the first place, and grabbed a bag — which contained your things. Cregan handed the bag to you, and as you took it, your fingers brushed lightly. A brief moment of contact, that sent a subtle spark through your fingertips.

The bag was light. Probably just a thong or two, and maybe a hair scrunchie. ‘’Is that everything?’’

He nodded again, but before you could turn on your heels and leave, Cregan stopped you. ‘’Actually, there's something else," he said slowly, his hand moving to rub nervously at the back of his neck. ‘’Can we sit down for a minute?"

You were momentarily thrown off by the request, but nodded nonetheless and took a seat on the edge of his bed, while Cregan sat beside you, leaving a small gap between the two of you. The last time you sat on that bed, Cregan’s cock was deep inside you and you were clutching his sheets.

‘’I want to apologize for how I treated you when we were…together-but-not-together,’’ Cregan began, snapping you out of your dirty thoughts. ‘’I didn’t realize I was hurting you when I was correcting people. I was just making sure people wouldn’t label us something we were not. I’ve never been with a girl outside a relationship before, so this was completely new to me. I didn’t know the dos and the don'ts, or how it worked…other than the having sex part.’’ He let out a dry laugh, then continued. ‘’I know it’s not an excuse. What I’m trying to say is, I truly didn’t mean to make you feel unworthy.’’

You listened as Cregan admitted his mistakes, and fidgeted with the hem of your sweater’s sleeve to keep your hands busy — to stop yourself from reaching for him. He hadn’t intended to hurt you, his lack of experience in situationships had gotten in the way.

His words hung in the air, and you could hear he was struggling to find the right words. It didn't feel rehearsed, he was genuinely apologizing and opening to you. Cregan was never one to lay himself bare like this. Feelings were not something he often discussed.

‘’If anyone is unworthy, it’s me. You’ve always been kind to me, even when I treated you poorly in your face.’’

You took a slow breath, steadying yourself. ‘’It’s okay, Cregan. What’s past is past.’’

He shook his head. ‘’No. It's not okay.’’

‘’We both agreed it was casual. I should have known better than to expect anything serious…’’

‘’What if I want something serious too?’’

You raised your head toward him, meeting his gaze for the first time in weeks.

‘’I didn’t ask you to come over just so you could pick your things up,’’ he admitted, his voice low. ‘’It was an excuse to talk to you, to see you…and hopefully fix what’s between us.’’ His hand inched a bit closer to yours on the bed, like he was considering reaching for you but hesitated. ‘’Being away from you made me realize what you meant to me and how important it was having you in my life, close to me. I miss your perfume lingering on my sheets and seeing your face in the stands cheering for me. I miss the way you feel in my arms. I miss hearing your voice, teasing me and making me laugh — I haven't laughed properly in weeks.’’ Cregan’s eyes were fixed on your face as he spoke, studying your reaction.

It was rare that you were speechless, but you truly didn’t know what to say. You came here to pick up a few personal items, and ended up listening to Cregan apologizing and confessing his feelings to you.

So you decided to make him laugh. ‘’I have to agree, your sheets do smell better after I’ve been in them. My expensive perfume doesn’t smell like sweaty balls.’’

Cregan cracked a smile, his eyes flashing with amusement. ‘’My sheets does not smell like sweaty balls.’’

They didn’t.

‘’But they do smell better when you’re there,’’ he added, his voice low and his eyes never leaving yours.

You tried to resist his charm and him, but he was just too good at working his way back into your good graces. With that irresistible northern accent, he’d flirt his way out of anything, his words always smooth and a little too convincing. And when he looked at you with those soft, pleading eyes and that crooked, boyish smile… Staying mad wasn’t exactly an option.

You leaned to kiss him, but before your lips could touch, Jace’s voice came from the hallway, asking Cregan about getting food.

‘’Oh, Sorry. I didn’t know you had a girl over,’’ he said, pausing in the doorway when he spotted the two of you. It was clear he’d interrupted something, hence why he apologized.

‘’No just a girl. My girl,’’ Cregan corrected, making you smile.

—

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ratatattouille · 4 months ago

Text

Why Arcane's Finale Fumbled Pt. 2

In my last post, I argued that Arcane's second season was artistically beautiful and thematically cheap. I broke down where I believed the writers fumbled with Vi's, Jinx's and Viktor's characters, and how the conflict of season 2 should have centred around a war between Piltover and Zaun rather than Piltover/Zaun against Ambessa and cosmic robots. I asserted the the real let-down of Season 2 had to do with its themes and its refusal to commit to the political story it had set up.

Well, folks, on further examination, it actually looks worse than I thought, and I'm going to use two characters--Silco and Mel--to break down what makes the message of Arcane so hollow and even a little dangerous.

Let's get into it.

Silco: The First Proposition

Silco and Vander:

Silco is a character CENTRAL to the themes of Arcane. The setup of the entire drama of the show, the central theme, are these questions: what is the price of progress and are we willing to pay it? Should we pay that price? Or as Silco says it quite bluntly to the first kid we see him give shimmer to: “Real power belongs to people who are willing to do anything to get it.” This story isn’t merely about ambition, but a dialogue on what actual progress costs and looks like. What does a better world look like? Is the better world we’re fighting for better for us or others? And what (or who) are we willing to sacrifice to achieve that goal? Vander, when faced with that question on the bridge answers, “No dream is worth the loss of those we love.”

The death on the Bridge of Progress during the early war/conflict had too high a cost to Vander. Silco, however, “had enough.” Unlike Vander, what happened on the Bridge of Progress radicalized him. Silco, while being drowned by Vander, realized in that moment that he would do anything, not just to live, but to achieve his dream of a free Zaun. With or without Vander. Even if he had to sacrifice Vander. And we soon see, that while Vander dedicated the rest of his life to keeping the vulnerable in The Lanes safe (even if it meant making deals with enforcers), Silco was willing to throw citizens of The Lanes to the wolves on his way to achieve independence for Zaun. Silco calls it, “The necessary violence for change.” And in this episode (3 of Season 1) Silco sets forth a proposition for the entire show: does the path to a better world require violence?

Silco and Sevika:

Silco’s new approach to crossing the bridge of progress, the path to freedom is winding and twisted. Silco embraces that, because only the goal matters: an independent Zaun. Silco won’t be at the mercy of the Council or anyone in The Lanes, and Sevika is into that shit. We saw that she percieved Vander as weak and servile to enforcers. Who she deems abhorrent without remorse (Vander and Grayson are both despised by Sevika and Marcus because they are percieved as being too lenient with their enemies). Silco, however, has an ACTUAL plan.

He creates a shimmer enterprise because having this control not only gives him a monopoly on The Lanes (and the gangs within), but leverage when it comes to manipulating the Council. Violence and the threat of war are the official languages of both Zaun and Piltover. It is how anyone bothers to listen to Silco both in The Lanes and within the Council. We know that the rich Piltovians (like those IRL) only speak money. “Progress” to them is prosperity and legacy (and I’ll get more into that later).

By creating the shimmer enterprise, Silco not only gets his foot in the door, monopoly over the other gangs and factions (thus uniting them), but a metaphorical seat at the table. His name has weight now, which positions him to make demands of Piltover and give Zaun a thriving industry (at least when it comes to money). Especially because (as we see with Salo and Lest) shimmer is also used by the elites. Silco is a brilliant tactician who exploits the hubris of Piltovians (like Marcus, who wanted to be in charge so he can neuter Zaunites indiscriminately), and manipulates them to his own advantage (much like Mel). But when Renni’s son is killed in the mines, Silco’s proposition is confronted once again: isn’t it easy to justify necessary violence when no one you love is the collateral?

Silco doesn’t care about Renni’s son, doesn’t see himself as remotely near Renni’s position. When Twitch calls Jinx his “dog” (something Sevika herself wanted to do lmao), Silco gets twitchy. He doesn’t recognize any similarity between his relationship with Jinx and Renni and her son. Jinx is not someone he would ever consider as up for debate. Which was the point of tension between him and Sevika (a Sevika who’s loyalty he KNEW he needed in order to keep control, especially in the wake of Jinx’s volatility and unpopularity). Nevertheless, Sevika doesn’t betray him in that moment, because she still sees Silco as stronger (even though she believes Jinx is a weakness he needs to get rid of). As with Vander, Sevika views affection for their own at the cost of freedom as weakness.

Yet, funnily enough, she is fiercely loyal. She, like Jinx, is Silco’s “dog.” She shares his weakness, the weakness that makes her zealous for a better world in the first place. But what Twitch and Renni pose to both Silco and Sevika is the unsettling question of: are you really willing to go far enough? Or do you still see yourself as an exception? Regardless, when it comes to Silco’s proposition, Silco WAS SUCCESSFUL (and also accurate in his deductions on what would get both cities to respect him and eventaully give him what he wanted - Zaun). His determination and focus paid off, indeed, it’s hard to see how he could have been successful without the “necessary violence”. It is clear that he wouldn’t have. No shimmer, no independence. Silco, for all his gruesome methods, WAS RIGHT. Except . . .

Silco and Marcus:

By exploiting and manipulating the vulnerable of The Lanes, Silco also ensured he would suffer the same fate as Marcus. Unlike Silco, Marcus did horrible things to protect his daughter. Marcus, at first, had started out as a zealous enforcer, eager to clean out the rats of The Lanes. Although he didn’t plan for Grayson to be killed, he was willing to get rid of her in order to ensure that he would get into a position that allowed him to do what he wanted to do: exterminate rats and be the hero of Piltover.

Silco offers him bodies for Stillwater in exchange for ease of shimmer distribution. Silco is willing to sacrifice his own people, the people Zaun is ironically for, in order to gain influence in Piltover. Silco, however, did the opposite. Because he loved Jinx, he recognized her deepest insecurity and sought to assuage it (inadvertently weaponizing it against her and those who loved her). He let Jinx get close and gave her responsibility so she could feel like she belonged (he let her drug his eye, a delicate process, while she was still thought of as reckless and untrustworthy). He brought her deeper into the heart of the violence and taught her to embrace it. He made her a child prodigy of warfare.

He takes a different approach to Vander (who kept telling the kids to stay out of trouble where they could and used himself as a buffer). So was Silco wrong? Was Vander? The answer was, quite poetically and profoundly, their deaths and the resulting silence. Both died, more or less, at the hands of their daughters. This is something overlooked often by fandom. It was Vi’s choice to lead her brothers and sister into Jayce’s apartment that would eventually bring the enforcers down to The Lanes, sparking the chain of events that would lead to Vander’s death (or had things gone “well,” his arrest). Vi is also how Powder got the arcane stones in the first place. Vi’s encouragement (well-meaning and innocent as it was) played a hand in the disaster that followed.

But the fact that both Vander and Silco die regardless, paints an excellent portrait of the constraints of oppression. Both tried different methods when it came to rearing their daughters. Both methods got them killed and thrust their children into peril. Vander could only have shielded Vi for so long, and Jinx could only have taken so much so young before she broke down completely. The fate of the girls is not merely their fathers’ fault, nor their sister’s. The tragedies of their lives happen due to the simple fact that they were born in The Lanes. No choice, on either Vander’s, Silco’s, Powder’s or Vi’s mattered in the end.

They were always playing a losing game, which is what makes it so fucking INFURIATING when S2 comes along and suggests that “ACKTUALLY the reason everyone’s happy in Ekko’s AU is because Vi died/hextech was no more/Silco and Vander made up).” All of those were symptoms of the bigger issue, not the issue itself. And that is the horrible irony of Silco’s story. He WAS right. But his folly was viewing himself and those he loved as exceptions to the rule. For when Zaun demands the final price, when Jayce asks for Jinx in exchange for his dream being realized, he isn’t willing to pay anymore.

Marcus only crossed the bridge of progress into Zaun for the sake of his daughter (as is shown in a chilling scene where he finds Silco playing with her in her room). Likewise, when Silco FINALLY finishes, after all those years, his march on The Bridge of Progress, like Marcus, he dies in a swarm of bullets. But unlike Marcus, he is afforded time to tell his daughter, “I wouldn’t have given you to them. Not for the world.” Not for his dream. So what did Season 2 do with that?

Summary of Fumblings:

-I’ll tell you what Season 2 did. Season 2 took the biggest shit on one of the most fascinating characters in animated history. The reason I didn’t put that much critique up there was to show you how complex, layered, deep and thoughtful Season 1 was with Silco’s character. Silco in S2 became a cheap gimmick flung in our faces like the marketing team was trying to sell Silco plushies following the release. His back-story in Season 2 clashes horribly with Season 1. If Vander, Silco and Felicia were such chums back then, why did neither Silco nor Vi recognize each other when they met in Season 1? They were quite grown by the time the March on The Bridge of Progress happened. Honestly, there’s too many mistakes and inconsistencies with how Season 2 handles the backstory I don’t even see a point in getting to it

-(excerpt from one of the writers) I can't BELIEVE MY FUCKING EYES! Silco’s respect for Vander, despite the fact that Vander tried to drown him (most likely after the carnage on the Bridge of Progress where Vander realized the cost of war), was that Vander remained dedicated to Zaun’s independence, at least, until he began prioritizing the safety of the children over Zaun’s freedom. Silco’s respect for Vander had never been a goal or motivation. Silco never expressed any desire to be respected by Vander. He merely expressed respect, ONLY because Vander, up until he became the enforcer’s “lapdog,” shared his pursuit of a free Zaun. Silco killed Vander for the same reason Vander tried to drown Silco: they had become a threat to what they held dear - Silco, his pursuit of Zaun, and Vander the safety of his adopted children.

-”We build our own prisons. Bars forged of oaths, codes, commitments.” This conversation is SO FUCKING—rips into mattress and pulls out stuffing Jinx hallucinates Silco from within the cell she’s in at Stillwater, maybe the same one Vi had been in. Silco starts off saying something like “It’s funny how Marcus thought putting Vi in this cell was a greater mercy than killing her,” cluing us in to not just Jinx’s mental state but the very real torment it must have been for Vi as a child as well. SO JUST TO RECAP, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE PRISON OF THE CYCLE OF KILLING AND VIOLENCE, OKAY. In addition to that already horrible quote above, Silco says, “. . . and it will continue, long after the two of you.” So, folks, IN CONCLUSION, this cycle of violence (which I have already established like a fucking broken record is EXPLICITLY started and perpetuated by Piltover) is eternal and inevitable. Just let that fucking sink in. Let it settle nice and sour in your gut and then tell me how that GERD feels. Not only is that an appalling thing to suggest about any oppressive regime, it’s also untrue. Yes, humanity has not gone a decade without some form of conflict and struggle, but individual societies have been PROVABLY capable of both progress and regress. Both of which require the agency and active participation of others. And Arcane seems to want to show that progress is indeed possible, but it has already declared it, to some extent, a pointless pursuit in this conversation. Which is it, Arcane S2 writers? Is progress worth striving for, or is it pointless? “Oh my god, you’re so dumb ratatatouille!” you say. “Of course they answered the former! Duh! In Ekko’s monologue when Jinx is trying to kill herself, he tells Jinx that someone special once told him that no matter what happened in the past, it’s never too late to build something new - someone worth building it for.” GREAT! DELICIOUS, EVEN! Now why is it that Ekko says this instead of Silco? Why isn’t this something Silco would say, given that this was the entire point of his and Vander’s story? That this is what his arc embodied and explored? “You’re so silly! Obviously Silco is a hallucination!” The show explicitly frames Silco as RIGHT and tries to tie in what Silco says with what Ekko says. More sympathetic viewers will say that since Ekko discovered that Jinx was never the problem, that hextech was, and that Jinx was actually the path towards progress - a path Silco had walked so she could run - Ekko approached her as someone he could finally save (and oh boy am I going to get into why that doesn’t work AT ALL later). Is is not Jinx, but the hextech, the ARCANE, that is dangerous. The hextech is the true jinx. It is what will keep the cycle going. That’s why Silco holds the arcane stone near his eye like that in the scene.

And to that I say . . . WELL THAT’S FUCKING STUPID. I don’t care that “Arcane” is the title of the show. It is the cheapest story gimmick I have seen since vibranium, except vibranium REMAINED a plot device and didn’t usurp the theme or political/interpersonal conflicts in Black Panther. Hextech was a PLOT DEVICE meant to be used to explore the themes which became the ENDPOINT. And this story SUFFERS SO MUCH from that simple change. This is why most critics of season 2 say the story should have remained focused on the interpersonal and political reasons characters did what they did, rather than siphoning all their stories into a mission to stop the evil, mystical stones. It is a fucking stupid distraction in S2, where in S1 it had been a beautiful metaphor, a fragment of a mirror that the characters held up to examine their faces.

But by claiming the cycle was the hextech all along, you just shat on everything that made S1 good.

Which brings me back to what Ekko tells Jinx, that she can still build a better world for the people she loves (like Vi, I guess). That’s why she comes back to help her sister. She cuts her hair (a symbol of letting go of the past) and joins Vi to defeat Ambessa and evil Viktor. This is treated as some kind of continuation (or the true point) of Silco’s “ending the cycle” speech. By letting go of Vi (literally) and Silco (also literally), she can finally . . . er . . . stop “running in circles.” So the show tells us she is BOTH supposed to fight one more time to achieve an autonomous Zaun AND fuck off to a new land to escape said cycle—which, what was the POINT of fighting if she still had to “escape” it in the end anyways?

NO S2 HALLUCINATION SILCO, JINX AND VI DID NOT BUILD THEIR OWN PRISONS. THEY SURVIVED THE CAGES THEY WERE PUT IN AS CHILDREN AND THEY DESERVED BETTER THAN THAT GODAWFUL DUMBASS SPEECH.

Do you see why this writing is so horrible? It contradicts itself so many fucking times, no matter how you splice it. Whether it’s about the cycle of violence being the fault of unforgiveness or hextech. None of it makes any sense because none of it was ever established in season 1 as being the cause for any of those things. And by even SUGGESTING that either or both of those could be the cause, the writers send us two very troubling messages: oppression is inevitable and also, somehow, the fault (rather than responsibility) of the oppressed. Actually no, I think the suggestion from the writers is even stupider: oppression is an option and you can opt in or out.

And that is the ultimate insult to Silco’s character and what he did for the story of the show.

Mel: The Counterpoint

Mel and Jayce:

Mel is Silco’s thematic counterpoint. In the story, Silco proposes that progress costs some “necessary violence.” Mel is faced with this same question as a child, when Ambessa presents her with the last remaining heir of a nation Noxus had conquered. Ambessa asks young Mel if they should kill or spare the girl. “Kino says war is a failure of statecraft,” Mel had said, when her mother told her about how her father had made her retrieve knives on the battlefield at ten so she’d know death. War, Mel is sure, is REGRESS not PROGRESS. It is the breaking down of the state, not the making of one. It’s obvious to Mel that sparing this girl, who looks about her age, is the progressive, less barbaric thing to do. Yet Ambessa insists, “Your brother thinks he can talk his way out of anything,” Likening him to being a fox among wolves when a good ruler needs to be both. To which Mel goes on to describe the kind of ruler the new conquered kingdom will need. A woman “with a kind, fat face to charm her subjects”, but moldable, to which Ambesaa basically says “So basically you? Cool. I’m down, but you have to prove yourself to me. Prove you can take it.” This is when Mel is presented with the ultimatum: choose to spare the girl or kill her. “We can show the people we are merciful,” she pleads on behalf of the girl. But Ambessa is firm. If Mel kills her now (a symbol of the old “regime”), she won’t (maybe) have to deal with any uprisings and kill thousands.

But Mel doesn’t swallow this poison, insists that diplomacy is the superior way, and is banished to Piltover, where she undertakes the task of proving herself. She tries to become the fox. She uses her kind, fat face to charm the Councilors of Piltover and utilizes Jayce to use hextech for Piltover so that her work in the city becomes impressive, cements her legacy as a Medarda, validates her as one of them, and ALSO proves her mother wrong, thus liberating herself from her mother’s cycle of violence and re-instating her rightful station as a worthy member of the Medarda clan.

But it’s not JUST that, though. Jayce’s enthusiasm to improve the world with hextech inspires Mel and validates what she felt so strongly as a child that Ambessa staunchly denied. When Jayce shares his dream with her, she goes all soft and says, “We’re (the Medarda’s) not often in the position to give back.” Which is . . . funny, lol. I think she was talking about herself rather than her entire family. Anyway, to Jayce, Mel was the one who gave him a second chance. He and Viktor wouldn’t have gone anywhere without her help. Jayce is likely the first person she’s felt capable of helping (especially outside Ambessa’s shadow), and likewise, Mel makes Jayce feel indominable (remember: “Nothing feels impossible when I’m with you”). Jayce makes her feel good about herself, hopeful that her ways can work. After all, being the fox has worked for Jayce and Piltover.

But Mel isn’t just the fox, and not for the reasons S2 thinks. Why? LONG before Ambessa sets foot in Piltover, Mel receives a letter from a correspondent overseas. She despairs that Jayce is not ready to be the success she needs him to be. Even after he confides in her about Viktor’s illness, to her it is not a personal loss. Like no matter what the meljayvik or melvik shippers say, Viktor and Mel DID NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT EACH OTHER OUTSIDE OF JAYCE. Jayce wants to uphold his promise in helping Viktor, the man who saved him from his own death (AND TRUST ME, WE’LL GET TO THAT) but Mel wants Jayce focused on keeping her investment and legacy IN PILTOVER safe from Ambessa.

So what does homegirl do? She manipulates Jayce into creating hextech weapons. The reason she moves for a vote to make Jayce a councilor on Progress Day is in light of Jinx’s attack. The councilors are worried that someone in the undercity got their hands on hextech and can use it against them. Jayce, feeling responsible for the situation (and that probably having something to do with Caitlyn nearly dying in the attack), proposes to pause all hextech developments until the threat is neutralized. Instantly, we see Viktor’s and Mel’s reactions—panic. Both are running out of time. Mel to make Piltover a success (in that it is able to defend itself from Ambessa), and Viktor to help those dying in The Lanes. So Mel proposes Jayce become a councilor instead.

We next see her examining Jinx’s bomb with Viktor and Jayce. Jayce asks Viktor if it’s possible that Jinx could create something resembling hextech. Viktor, who is busy marvelling at Jinx’s ingenuity and feeling a little proud of his people, says very confidently that “It’s a leap.” Meaning it’s far away from what Jayce and him are developing. But Mel needs SOMETHING to intimidate Ambessa. That, or she recognizes the undercity as a real threat to her dream of progress and prosperity. Legacy. The undercity is ugly and she wants to neutralize it before she loses her chance. Regardless, here, we see her make the choice to be the wolf. The relentless and unmerciful. Focused and driven by her ambition. She will be a Medarda, unlike last time. Armed and prepared. When Jayce asks if she knows for certain that Zaun intends to turn the gemstones into weapons, Mel says, “That doesn’t matter. We’ll assume,” which pisses Viktor off. But then she performs the ultimate manipulation on Jayce. She uses Jayce’s care for the Kirammans and Piltover to convince him that it’s necessary to “protect your people” which, Viktor can tell, does not extend to the people of the undercity.

Once again, Mel is demonstrating that she doesn’t see Zaunites as people. She barely acknowledges Viktor when he protests, saying “That’s not what we invented hextech for!” She merely looks at him, then looks back at Jayce and talks to Jayce. She repeatedly ignores Viktor, talks over him, as if he isn’t there. Doesn’t matter. After all, Jayce is the only one in Piltover worth her time. Piltover is her project, not the dirty undercity. Mel had already sown the seed for Jayce’s rampage by the time Ambessa showed up.

“Stay away from Jayce!” she says, and yet Mel is what brought Ambessa close to Jayce both physically and ideologically. For hextech and Piltover (the City of Progress) to be safe, Jayce has to commit some “necessary violence for change.”

This isn’t only Ambessa’s fault, but Mel’s and Jayce’s errors as leaders. By neglecting the undercity, Jayce fails to see how his innovations could be weapons until it's too late. Mel is also so focused on Ambessa as a threat that she neglects the threat of the undercity, a place that only became a threat because of YEARS of failed state-craft.

Jayce acquiesces to Ambessa's rhetoric since the attack at the bridge, and proposes to the other council members to go into The Lanes with force, which they are all (including Mel) hesitant to do. But then Jayce goes ahead anyways, and kills a kid (which we’ll come back to), and he not only regrets it, but does a 180 and returns, like Mel, back to his core values — peace and progress over prosperity or legacy. He makes a deal with Silco and then goes and tells the Council what’s up. Mel, now utterly convinced of her position, is the first to cast her vote in favor of an independent Zaun, and removes the Medarda ring while she does so, signalling her disdain for all the clan represents. Not only that, but she smears gold over the Noxian ships in her painting, which her mother correctly reads as a rejection of Noxus and an embrace of the Piltover her and Jayce want to build. Mel does not anticipate the attack, and Mel, in the last frame of the finale of Season 1, is the first target of Jinx’s bomb, the first councilor it was going to hit while her back was turned to it.

Mel and Viktor:

Mel’s parallel with Viktor is interesting. Mel’s interest in hextech (and initially Jayce) are to her own ends, later becoming altruistic (Viktor’s interest in Jayce also starts as an interest in his theories although his motivations were altruistic from the start). Jayce reminded her what she wanted to be in the first place. That her family name, like Jayce’s was to his, was a ball and chain around her neck. Holding her back from true progress. From a better world. A better legacy. Viktor comes from nowhere-land. Viktor doesn’t have a family legacy to inherit. Viktor is a Zaunite. And soon, much like Viktor, Mel is going to have to work hard to create her own legacy. Both Viktor and Mel are sort of outsiders in Piltover. As is shown in S2 with Salo, Piltover, the Fake City of Progress, has no accommodations for the disabled, which makes Viktor stand out like a sore thumb (also, Viktor is the one who made his own leg brace). Mel is a foreigner who has to make a name for herself before she can latch onto the Medarda title. Viktor wants the city to be good, while Mel wants the city (and herself) to look good by matching the strength and prosperity of Noxus.

This is why Viktor gets so sassy with her lmao. He sees through her manipulations and notices that she is pulling Jayce away from what they’d set out to do together (he is also annoyed at how easy it is for Jayce to forget). Mel is the one who tells Jayce it would be wiser to let the council members get away with their criminality (all while cracking down on The Lanes), which makes them wealthier, something that pushes Jayce deeper into his own prejudices against Zaun, where he starts seeing himself as primarily a caretaker of Piltover rather than hextech, as a councilor rather than a scientist, and it jeopardizes his relationship with Viktor.

But Jayce helped her re-connect with the values all three of them shared deep down. The desire to help people and make the world a better place. After the bridge massacre, Mel wants to put her charm and diplomacy to good use, and she does so in the Council Room when she votes for Zaun’s independence.

But here’s where the FUMBLE happens. In S2, we see that Mel’s magic seems to have shielded Jayce and herself, but not Viktor. Not only that, but it’s hinted that Viktor’s magic is resistant to her touch. We don’t get any answer as to why that is (although I’d like to think that was Viktor being petty even while unconscious). This is especially weird since the arcane is alluded to be where the mages get their power (and isn’t it convenient that Viktor became a mindless war machine controlled by the corrupted/corrupting arcane instead of a mage when we see that in other universes he is indeed a mage already?). Not only that, but Viktor can clearly “touch” her magic through the puppet, later on.

Jayce keeps asking her why he was spared and Viktor wasn’t, and Mel, once again, cannot answer him. She knows that her magic protected her and Jayce, but once again, Jayce is lowkey asking why all these horrible things keep happening to Viktor instead of him. Why he is spared instead of Viktor. Unlike Mel, I have an answer. The answer IS PRIVILEGE JAYCE NOT THE FUCKING ARCANE AND THE MYSTICAL NATURE OF MAGIC OR SOME UNKNOWN FORCE OF FATE. Viktor’s tragedy was something that could be helped by both hextech and just Piltover not being a bunch of fucking asswipes. Viktor’s “bad luck” was actually just piss poor governance, or as Kino would say, “a failure of statecraft.” When Mel forsook her original ideals in order to pursue her mother’s acceptance and her family legacy, she did what all the other council members did: make themselves comfortable in places of power at the expense of the oppressed. In order for her to reclaim herself, she had to abandon Noxus and her dream of returning or belonging to the Medarda Clan. Mel has to choose between her family’s legacy and her own longing for progress and dedication to mercy over violence.

Mel and Ambessa:

While Jayce has to fight Victor (who is really now reduced to just another weapon Jayce created that’s gotten into the wrong hands - and more on THAT later), Mel’s task is facing down her mother. By removing the context of oppressed/oppressor inherent to the Piltover/Zaun dynamic, we fail to explore S1’s setup for Mel. IT SHOULD BE NOTED that the reason diplomacy worked for Mel and not Silco was because of their differences in power. When Viktor tells Jayce “There is always a choice” after Jayce expresses his doubts regarding what Mel said about the Zaunites making hextech, Viktor was talking about Jayce’s choice. Mel’s choice. Mel could have chosen to be diplomatic, even with the threat of Jinx. But instead she forsook her ideals in pursuit of her desire to become a Medarda and, like her mother in her dream, preferred to eliminate the threat rather than integrate (Zaun). Even if she back-tracked by the time her mom came back.

Mel has to face the fact that, like Jayce, she betrayed her values and initiated something horrible: the war she’d always dreaded and despised. Mel is why Ambessa heard of the weapons in the first place. But S2 doesn’t focus on this at all. It barely acknowledges it. Instead, Mel is sucked into the Black Rose and told she’s a mage and that her mother must die for the sake of nameless nations the Black Rose mentions. You see, Ambessa is a scapegoat. An excuse to halt and dissolve any meaningful discussion on Piltover’s (and Mel’s) hand in the plight of The Lanes.

By making Ambessa the big bad, the council members and other Piltovians complicit in Zaun’s desperation get a free pass. Both in the show and by fandom. In fact, Mel can now be regarded as a hero (one of the GOATs of Arcane, if I recall) for killing Ambessa, then being christened the wolf by her mother. We don’t have to reckon with the fact that for most of the time she ignored Zaun, and that when Zaun got her attention, her first instinct was to weaponize Piltover, saying, “The peace was already broken.” And I’m pretty sure the reason she did this was LARGELY for ambition, because not more than an episode later, she’s backtracking, insisting that Jayce doesn’t know war like she does, that they should simply give Silco what he wants.

So Viktor was right. She wasn’t forced to create hextech weapons. She wanted to do it for her own gain. And Jayce rightfully gets mad at her in S2 when he recognizes her manipulations (even if he himself was complicit). He does, however tell her that “No one can control you and you’ll never be a passenger.” Once again affirming her incredible power—only this time, the focus is magic and not her political prowess. AND ISN’T IT CONVENIENT THAT MEL “DOESN’T UNDERSTAND” HER EMPATHIC POWERS SO SHE CAN BE TECHNICALLY EXCUSED FROM HER DECISIONS IN S1? HOW COOL IS THAT?!

Lmao when Mel starts lecturing her mother in the finale with “Mother, look at the price of your ambition,” it’s like . . . okay? You exacerbated this war long before your mother, girl. You were the one on the council for YEARS before she arrived. Mel, like Caitlyn, gets to play saviour while barely taking any credit for the fact that she was largely responsible for where Zaun and Piltover ended up (sis literally determined council votes singlehandedly). When Mel stands on the other side of the Bridge of Progress, she sees a trail of violence. She decides to cling even more firmly to her core values. Silco was right, but so was Mel. You see, diplomacy wouldn't have worked for Silco, but it could work for Mel, because Mel had power.

Summary of Fumblings:

-And what was that, “(Piltover is) the city I built for my family” BS? By the end of S1, it is clear that Mel wants NOTHING to do with being a Medarda anymore. She wants to keep Noxus and Piltover SEPARATE. So why does she tell her mother, “You will never be a Medarda” as some kind of gotcha? Lmao, like why tf does that matter? How would she know? Why would she care? Other than her and Kino, what other benevolent Medardas are out there that makes her say this?

-The Black Rose warns Mel of Ambessa’s “thirst for legacy” (much like Mel’s) leading to a worldwide calamity. Mel wants to imagine that her mother prizes her own children over her pride, but the Black Rose insists that’s not true. That Ambessa is willing to sacrifice her children for more power and legacy. We do understand, however, that when Ambessa is confronted by the Black Rose, she is resorting to hextech so she can avoid using Mel (”she’s safer as our enemy”). AND THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE IF THE THIRD ACT ACTUALLY ACTED LIKE IT. How is Mel going to be this really great weapon that Ambessa doesn’t want to use because she loves her (which like, why didn’t she love Kino then if it wasn’t about magic?), but also simultaneously SENT AWAY TO A DISTANT LAND OUT OF HER WATCH? So now she’s hiding Mel, but she wants to pursue the arcane that is waking her mage-ness up and making it impossible for Mel to hide? Ambessa was literally there in the council room in the aftermath of the explosion. She knew Mel had used magic to protect herself and Jayce, but she didn’t do anything? Say anything?

Now most of this is clearly setting up another story in Runeterra (which means my criticism will ultimately be left to conjecture), so I’m going to focus instead on her last words to Mel: “You are the wolf.” The wolf being a symbol (at least in callback to season 1) of ruthlessness and fearlessness: the opposite of mercy. Why does her mother say this? Because Mel finally made a kill? Or because she killed to protect what she built? Finally embraced her power? Yeah, let’s go with that last one. Mel’s development in S2 becomes one where we focus on the power she’s always had, both magical and influential. Yet the show focuses more on the cool magic part than the rammys of Mel’s decisions in S1. It ignores her political power and frontlines her magical abilities, even making her political prowess partly due to her magical empath powers . . . like . . .

-Mel had dislodged her legacy from the Medardas by the time S2 rolls around. . . except no she hasn’t. In the end, Mel is sailing back on the Noxian ships she painted over, and she is doing so as the new Warlord (even wearing what looks like her mother’s cape) because she is the badass wolf, the leader that her mom wasn’t. And how did she achieve that power? Magic. Why does she want to go back? To reform the Medarda name? To take on the mission her mother couldn’t finish against The Deceiver? Because Jayce is dead? Who even cares at this point, this is mainly happening for the spinoff. It isn’t illogical, it’s just the least interesting approach to her character. Mel had much more agency in S1, and her political prowess made her formidable. But that doesn’t matter anymore.

-Her whole arc in S1 was all about her finding the courage to leave the Medarda name behind in pursuit of true progress, but then she kills her mother and sails away from Piltover, the city she fought to protect and killed her mother for and is all about probably reforming the Medarda name—and that’s her job done? Is it me, or is that a reversal of her—pardon the pun—progress? Also, she grew up in Piltover, it must be more of her home than Noxus ever was. Not only that, but making Ambessa go from an imperialist tyrant to this woman bravely fighting against a larger, more powerful threat cheapens what Noxus represented for me. Sometimes conquerors do be conquering, and they make threats up to justify their greed. Not the other way around. It’s not too egregious, but it would’ve been nice if the Black Rose had been more of an epilogue thing.

-sigh I know I’ve said it before but it’s because it’s true . . . the conflict should have remained between Zaun and Piltover and Ambessa was a cheap way out of what S1 was building up

-Ambessa was not who Mel needed to physically defeat, but someone she needed to ideologically defeat. And we don’t see any of that. By the time Ambessa calls Mel “the wolf” it’s hollow, because it’s about Mel being a more powerful combatant than a wise ruler. In this moment, her “foxness” is about how she figured out the “deception” of the Black Rose and not how she outmaneuvered her mother politically. Perhaps it would be epic if we knew what the fuck she meant by “I see your face deceiver!” and then super sayan-ing out of nowhere. Her not having mercy on her mother is about being a Medarda, a question that wasn’t the focus of season 1, merely a catalyst. Becoming a Medarda was the goal Mel had, not the need. She needed to learn how to rule. Instead, she learns how to kill. And then she’s off to her home in Noxus as more of a soldier and spy than a queen.

Which likely means two things:

-S2 got bored of Mel and just gave her cool reflective powers to make up for it. Making every interesting development about her character happen off-screen, in the writers room, or on another show.

-S2 was deliberately trying to communicate that it sided with Ambessa. That violence and combat, war, is not merely a failure of state craft, but necessary or inevitable to political growth. That militarism is the only thing that can answer militarism. That the only way to ensure the progress you make is secure is arming yourself. Even though this topic has some grey areas, Arcane explicitly picks a side by narratively using Ambessa to justify Piltover’s weaponization of hextech.

i know fandom has a lot to say about Mel being a “strong-black woman” character, but as a black woman myself, I hated how they stripped her of what made her such a strong, enigmatic presence in S1. Her prowess, her wit and cleverness. Her sheer intellectual power made her so FORMIDABLE.

She’s just a lost, hurt uwu little puppy for most of S2 before she’s given her US government assigned Avengers superhero uniform.

Mel in Act I was already using Lest to spy and we almost got a good story then—POOF!—Black Rose.

-Mel’s contribution to the development of hex-tech every step of the way is completely ignored. Instead Viktor and Jayce take full responsibility.

Conclusion:

Mel and Silco's arcs both ask: is violence necessary for progress? Both answer yes, but Mel's remains a little unsatisfactory. Because Mel had a choice. She had power. Power that Silco was willing to do (almost) anything to get. Both Mel and Silco's presence in S1 were formidable, and what made them so intriguing was there thorough understanding of people, both the good and the bad. But in S2, at least for Mel, what made her such an agentive character is thrust aside for spinoff hype. It's not that it isn't cool, it is. It's just one of the things that made S2 feel not only chunky, but disconnected from the roots of its story in S1. Both Silco's and Mel's characters in S2 reveal a very poor (or troubling) view of oppression, power dynamics and politics.

Anyway, that's just me. I was gonna do Ekko, Caitlyn and Jayce as well, but this post got too lengthy. I'll probably need to whittle it all down later. I've already cut so much.

#arcane #arcane season 2 #arcane critical #mel medarda #jayce talis #jayce arcane #viktor arcane #mel arcane

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dolicekiss · 10 months ago

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Sweet Little Lamb

first attempt at this, also requests are open ^_^

PAIRING: Dad's best friend!Duncan x Innocent young!Female reader

CONTENT WARNING: smut (18+ only, minors dni), sort of taboo, age gap (reader is nineteen), rough sex, mention of uncle and usage of the word cunt, hair pulling, choking, subtle manipulation (manipulative Duncan), religious themes, blasphemy mentioned, virgin reader, dirty talk (talkative Duncan), praise and degradation, slight blood, fingering, unprotected sex, sir kink.

SYNOPSIS: Duncan and your father were high school best friends, always getting into trouble and enjoying their youth to the fullest but they soon parted ways — adhering to their own priorities in their adult lives. But when your father runs into Duncan at the store, he invites him home for dinner. Duncan didn't know his high school best friend was married and had such a beautiful daughter, you. As he laid his eyes on you, he began to lose his grip on his moral compass.

Duncan was a mess.

No amount of cigarettes could calm the turmoil that had caused havoc in his mind and his body, all because of the daughter of his high school bestfriend; you.

The more he fought the disgusting thoughts, the more he felt repulsion crawl over him like a spider with its prickly legs, pinching into his skin. He felt sick and like a creep — preying on his best friend's daughter like that, thinking about you in such explicit ways. He'd excused himself from the family, using his unnecessary smoking habit as an excuse to get away from your sickeningly sweet presence.

He needed to calm his mind. He was all over the place, his mind a whirlpool of unwanted explicit thoughts regarding the girl. It wasn't the white dress that you adorned nor that you were a shadow of an angel but how innocent you truly were. Knowing his bestfriend, he was sure he must've kept you concealed from the outer world. Protecting you and forbidding you of the pleasures the outside world had to offer, keeping you safe against the darkness that lurked in the shadows.

But he didn't know he had brought darkness along with him, in the form of his bestfriend to his humble abode.

He let out a sigh of frustration, as he tossed his finished cigarette to the side. Before he flicked open his metal case to retrieve another one, he heard a soft voice interrupt his smoking session. “Uncle Duncan?‘

Oh how much he reveled in the feeling of you addressing to him as an uncle. You weren't related, no. But just the fact that he was older than you and you saw him as an uncle, it was enough to tighten his pants as he wondered just what sick and twisted part of him was clawing out to the surface.

“Yes, dear?” He always responded to you with such sweetness, his voice gruff but his tone soft and sweet. Like he didn't want to scare you away, like he didn't want his voice and tone to be an innuendo to his sick and twisted desires.

You smiled at him.

A fucking replica of the moon you were.

“Time for dinner, it's all set.” You said, hands conjoined behind your back as you stood with a rather shy posture — your demeanor dripping with the innocence that was an indirect invitation to the wolves of the winter.

To come and rip you apart. Limb by limb and piece by piece and oh, a wolf had indeed sniffed its way to your sweet energy, Duncan had found you.

You gestured for him to come inside before disappearing back inside the living room and he groaned in frustration, running a hand through his salt and pepper hair before walking in pursuit of you. You were such a dream, you glowed and he carried darkness that wished to bask in your light. Upon entering, he found the dinner table all set with his bestfriend already situated in the middle. He took a seat and then your mother and you joined as well.

You sat across Duncan.

Your gaze lingering over him now and then and you admitted, he was truly a handsome man. The fact made you flinch internally, as you had been told that finding another man handsome and attractive was a sin that god would never forgive. Your father had often told you to never indulge in boys or men, to never reciprocate their attention or love, to never ever pay them mind.

And you obliged.

You had never felt wanted in your life ever.

There sat a handsome man across you and it did things to you, things foreign to your small mind.

Your gaze found itself focused on how he extended out, his large hand covering the entirety of the glass of water as he drank it. The view did something to you, a weird feeling churning in your stomach. You found it alluring, that he was capable of completely having his way with you.

You shook your head, praying to God in your heart, begging for his forgiveness at the sinful thoughts that had consumed your mind in the presence of a man that was the same age as your father. You lifted your gaze up from the chicken you stabbed with your fork and a silent gasp escaped.

He was staring at you, as he ate the food your mother prepared.

Your heart leaped up into your throat and then you felt something against your leg, through the net material of your long, white dress. It was hard and rough, making you realize it was a shoe.

Duncan's shoe.

You swallowed the nervousness that was building in your throat. This felt wrong, this felt so forbidden but he wasn't touching you, was he? He wasn't directly touching you, it was his boot riding up your leg and then settling between your thighs. It wasn't sinful if he wasn't directly touching you. Your breath got stuck in your throat.

Duncan noticed the flushed reaction you gave and he suppressed the urge to let out a subtle grin. The tip of his boot pressed up against your clothed cunt, putting pressure against the sensitive area. You almost whimpered at the touch — at how repulsive it truly was. Guilt consumed you because you didn't feel gross, no. You felt good, as you parted your thighs open.

All while your parents ate their dinner, enjoying the company of the man that had sick intentions towards their daughter. Your fingers tightened around the fork as he pushed harder, the force causing pain to blossom on your cunt and you ached for more.

The dinner came to an end soon and your father insisted for Duncan to stay over, as a snow storm approached in all its glory and the man eventually gave in. You were told to show Duncan his room and you obliged, leading him upstairs. The vacant room was right besides yours and the moment you both traveled upstairs, all alone in each other's presence in the dimly lit hallway, the tension threatened to explode.

He acted as if he wasn't the cause of your aching cunt, as if he hadn't lured out a desire too sinful out of you. He only silently followed you and you stopped once you reached inside the room. “Here, I hope it is comfortable Uncle—”

You bit back your tongue. Calling him uncle didn't feel so appropriate anymore after your latest encounter with his boot pressed between my thighs. Duncan caught onto that and he leaned down at you, his muscular hand reaching to caress your cheek. His touch was so — gentle and full of tenderness. You didn't back off, when you obviously should've and it left you confused.

Did you crave someone's touch? Yearned for it secretly in your heart where no man could reach?

“Why'd you stop?”

You shook your head, the back of your calves pushed up against the drawer. You felt helpless in his grasp, like a lamb in the clutches of a wolf. “Feels— weird, Mr. Vizla.”

“Mr. Vizla is it now?” His voice had fallen a few octaves lower and you nodded. God, you were so fucking scared but there was excitement, sitting right next to the fear, smiling at it. Taunting it. His thumb swiped over your cheek and you let out a shuddered breath at the touch. The bare minimum but it had you breathless.

You'd never felt a man this close.

You'd never been this close to another man.

“W-What should I call you?” You stuttered, a mess you were. Your fingers conjoined behind your back, pressed into the drawer.

Duncan smiled. “How about sir? Try saying that, pretty girl.”

His compliment sent you over the edge, your mind clouded by the mist of a daze as you looked up at him. His dark, searing gaze incinerated you and your face burned when you made eye contact with him. His aura felt brooding and you couldn't tolerate it any further, feeling its hands choke you. Ridding you of any air left.

“Sir?” You asked, innocently tilting your head to the side.

He nodded and then stepped closer, shrinking the space between you two. “Did it feel good?”

You immediately nodded your head, as shy as you were. The feeling of his boot against your clothed center only increased your desire and curiosity to feel more, your body burning in need that was foreign to you. He leaned down, breath mingling with yours as his large hand dropped down to the curve of your throat. Circling around it, firmly but loose enough to allow you to breathe.

“Come to my room when everyone's asleep, Little lamb.” With that, he released you and walked off towards the bathroom leaving you completely out of breath.

You ran out of his room, into your own and immediately slammed the door shut, locking it. Your body felt different, like it was being burned but without the pain. You pressed your palm against your forehead, checking for a fever but there was nothing yet you felt so flushed. You dropped your frame onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, hoping that God was not witnessing all this. That he was busy with his other creations and not noting down the sin you were about to commit by going into his room at night.

— ♡ —

Night crackled with the storm, its silence snatched from it and swallowed whole by the loud howls of the wind. Your parents had fallen asleep and you tossed and turned underneath the blankets, changed into your little night dress. A satin slip up your mother had bought for you, with a little bow attacthed to its front. Trailing your eyes across the clock, you swallowed.

1 AM.

You ran your tongue over your lips, stomach burning with anticipation and desire as you slowly lifted the blanket off you. You found yourself right in front of his room and then you knocked, lightly, your frail hand shivering from what you were about to do. Just what were you doing? Going into the room of a man twice your age, all alone at night, barely dressed in anything.

Before you could change your mind or think your actions through, the door had opened revealing the man. His bare chest exposed — the body hair littered everywhere in striking contrast to your own body and you stepped inside. He closed the door behind you and then you felt as though you had stepped outside in the cold, bare footed and naked waiting for it to consume you whole.

Duncan walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, thighs expanded and parted as he gestured at you. “Come here.”

His tone reeked of dominance and you felt your knees give up on you. Nervously, you took a step and then another until you were right in between his thighs. His hands reached for your waist, holding the curve of it as he gazed at you.

“This is wrong.” You whispered.

He tilted his head, his hands slowly trailing upwards while he gazed at you. “Is it? Do you feel like you're committing a sin?”

You nodded and inhaled sharply, feeling guilt ridden because of how good his hands felt trailing up and down your sides. Duncan was wearing his glasses and you peeked behind him to find a book laying face down on the bed. He was reading. Was he keeping himself occupied for you?

“No, little lamb.” He reached for your hair with one hand, twisting the strands between his fingers. Caressing them with the pad of his thumb. “How is it a sin when God is all merciful? He understands you, he feels you, doesn't he? He's created you like this.”

His words were heaving down on your mind and you thought for a moment. He was right. You were not feeling this way on purpose, instead it was all coming naturally to you which meant that God had created you like this. In his image, and how could be his image wrong and sinful?

“But its a sin.”

“It is not if you don't tell anyone about it. If no one finds out about this, it'll only be an act buried in the past once its committed.” Duncan pulled you in closer with his one hand on your waist, his thumb caressing your stomach through the satin material. His hand on your hair traveled to your face as he brushed his thumb over your plump, saccharine lips.

“Open up, little lamb.”

And you obeyed, parting your lips in an invitation for him to press his thumb against the flat surface of your wet tongue. You stayed like that, awaiting his next order and command. “Suck now.”

You closed your lips around his thumb, sucking as you moved your head back and forth. Your eyes didn't shut, no. You stared at him all the while sucking on his finger and Duncan’s gaze felt heavy with lust, mimicking your own. He could see he had you, right where he wanted. Just a mindless little girl who couldn't even understand the needs of her own body.

How fucking cute. He thought.

You were so pliant, so sweet and so submissive. He enjoyed every bit of it and he wondered if he'd ever let go of you after defiling you for his own good and pleasure? Duncan pushed his thumb further into your mouth, all the way to the edge and you choked a little. Sputtering and making a mess of saliva on his hand. Tears sprung out and you closed your eyelids, allowing a few to stream down.

He retrieved his thumb from your mouth and looked at you. “Have you ever kissed anyone, hm?”

You could only shake your head. He smiled and wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you onto his thigh. He loved how he was about to ruin your innocence, fucking mess you up and bask in the feeling of power over you. It was all too consuming and overwhelming, even for him.

You were perfect.

“Follow my lead, alright?”

You nodded, butterflies flapping their wings in stinging anticipation in your stomach. You felt his lips against yours and it felt, fucking, ecstatic. His lips were so soft, so plump and they felt like cushions against your own. One hand settled over your stomach, expanded palm caressing your flesh while the other slithered upto your hair, entangling in the softness of them.

He tugged and you whined into the kiss.

The vibration of it sending fire straight to his crotch, his own chest rumbling with desire as he kissed you. Gently prying your lips open, he entered your mouth and explored the untouched cavern of innocence with his vile tongue. Like a snake, he enveloped you and brought you deeper into the abyss.

“Sir—” You attempted to break the kiss but he didn't let you, delving deeper into it. His grip tightening on your hair causing you to cry out into the kiss, his tongue battling with yours. It felt so good, you could almost cry from how much pleasure only a mere kiss was giving you.

But Duncan knew there was more. And the more was as rough as he was.

His hands pulled back and then fell to the hem of your dress. “May I?”

You thought, for a single second before nodding your head. He immediately slipped it off you, discarding it to the side and then his gaze took you in. Your full, nude form. Your perky tits, the small bulge of your stomach, the pouch of fat resting there, how clean and unmarked your thighs were. Those little details drove him insane. He lost restraint — brawny hands grabbing at your tits and fondling them as you whimpered softly against him. It all felt too sinful, but too right to you.

Thumbs brushing over and over again against your hardnened peaks, standing erect demanding attention. He stalled for moment and took your small hand, bringing it to the raging boner protruding through the material of his jeans. You immediately gasped, shaking your head as you tried to pull back but he insisted. Grip tightening on your wrist.

“Feel it." He commanded.

You meekly nodded your head and then felt him, your palm pressed against how hard it was. The situation was so gross, so fucking repulsive but it felt amazing. How he toyed with your body, giving you pleasures you never even thought of. He pulled both of your thighs on each side of his lap, exposing your cunt.

Duncan almost growled at how it peeked out, pink and shaven.

He brought his fingers upto her mouth and tapped onto her lips. You were quick to catch the innuendo, parting your lips and sucking onto his digits. When he felt them wet enough, Duncan’s hand fell down and slithered between your thighs. His fingertips brushed against your clit and a loud squeal escaped you.

You quickly clamped your palm down your mouth, staring at him in confusion. It felt so amazing, a jolt of electricity sent through your veins when he brushed against your clit. He did it again but this time you were prepared and then slowly eased a finger into you. Your tightness around his mere finger let him know just how difficult you were gonna be, getting accustomed to his size.

“Sir, no. Hurts, please.” Your hand reached for his wrist, clawing and pushing at it but he didn't budge. He found your resistance adorable as he slid his finger whole and you cried out. Tears streaming down her face at the burning sensation but that was nothing in comparison to what the future held for you.

Duncan lightly tapped your cheek, a subtle slap. “You can take it, sweet lamb. It's one finger, you can't even take this?”

Voice laced with disappointment, he stared at you and you nodded softly, more tears streaming in rivulets. You back was arched and stiff, as he started moving his finger. To distract you from the burning sensation, he closed his lips around your peaked nipple, circling his tongue around it. The overwhelming pleasure sent you into a different world as your little body twitched.

He sucked and sucked, while slipping another finger and you pressed both hands against your mouth to supress your cries. You didn't wish to wake your parents, that was something you didn't want. It could put an end to this sweet pleasure that you desperately chased after.

“Gonna fuck your virgin cunt so good, I'm gonna dumb you down on my cock, little lamb.” He muttered against you wet peak, plunging his fingers in and out of you. You felt your stomach tighten, flipping in scary knots and the feeling was so strong that you could only cry. Hands falling from your mouth, they gripped tightly onto his salt and pepper hair, bunching them up in your fist. You buried your face in his neck and softly cried, the pleasure sending you into the oblivion.

All that at once — it was too much.

Your thighs convulsed, your body twitching and you could feel something coming, its intensity unbearable. “Sir, something's happening. I think I—” With a hot white intensit shooting through your core, you exploded. Your juices coating his fingers, his arm, his chest and more tears followed in pursuit of the trail left behind the old ones.

Your chest heaved up and down, body collapsing on top of his. Lips shuddering, releasing soft little pants as your arousal saturated everything.

His hand ran up and down your back, reassuring you, comforting you. As he slowly lifted you up, he laid you down on the bed and cupped your face. Brushing away the perspired strands of hair from your forehead and unveiling yourself to him. Duncan was going to explode at any minute and he needed to be inside you.

He discarded his own pants along with his briefs and exposed himself to you, his cock standing hard and curved against his stomach. It was too big and your eyes widening in horror gave away that much. Before he could proceed further, you had removed yourself from the bed, barely possessing any strength to stand still.

“It's too big.” You whispered, reaching for the door.

Duncan wasn't having it. You had your pleasure, now it was his turn and he felt entitled to his own orgasm. Before you could make an escape, he took a long stride in your direction and encircled his arms around you, throwing you right across the bed. Your body was still coming down from your orgasm, fear waking up in your eyes.

He fucking loved it. How panicked and scared you appeared, looking at him, realizing he had you trapped. “Be a good girl, little lamb. Let me have my taste of you.”

He crawled on top of you and your chest twisted in fear, eyes focused on his length. It was too much, you knew it but still you wondered, if his fingers could feel this good — just how good could his cock feel inside you?

Duncan parted open your thighs, delivering a little smack to your inner thigh causing you to flinch. “I'm fucking disappointed that you even thought for a single moment that you could escape me.”

His tone was full of annoyance, mixed with anger and heavy from lust. He aligned his tip at your hole, staring down at it like a madman, obsessed and infatuated. “I'm going to claim this pretty virgin cunt of yours and you'll take me like a good little girl, won't you, my dearest?”

You slowly dragged your head up and down, both fists resting at your chest in heavy anticipation. He slightly tapped his hand across your face, subtle but enough to let you know it was meant to be a damn slap. “I need words.”

“Yes sir."

“Good fucking—” he didn't finish his sentence, as he slid himself inside of you. He couldn't even get to feel you as a scream tore itself through your throat and the man quickly pressed his lips against you. Shutting you up, swallowing your screams and whimpers of pain that you so wholeheartedly were ready for the whole world to hear.

Your walls clamped down on him and Duncan felt as though you were gonna cut him in half from the sheer tightness of your pussy around him. He didn't move, breaking the kiss and slowly littering soft kisses all over your face, drinking up your tears. “You can do it, yeah? You're such a strong, beautiful girl.”

His words of affection warmed up your chest and you nodded, wrapping both your arms around his nape for support as you parted your thighs. An enticing invitation despite the throbbing sensation blossoming like a flower in your cunt. You braced yourself as Duncan moved and soon be bottomed out, a promise growl exploding from his chest.

How forbidden it was.

The girl that was barely half his age, calling him her uncle was now underneath him, naked and sweaty as he deflowered her little cunt. His thumb moved over your clit in tender little circles and your back arched off the bed, his cock shifting inside you. It pulsed and throbbed, becoming one with the throbbing of your own cunt.

“You're so pretty, so fucking beautiful. I want to claim your pussy every single day, ruin you to the point you only think about having my cock inside your little cunt.” He was a mess, forehead drenched in perspiration as he moved, his forearms resting on your sides. He pulled out, and you gasped at the loss but then he slammed himself back inside you. This time deeper, filling you up to the brim.

“Tell me, does the God you worship is capable of making you feel this good?” You shook her head, long gone in the wordly pleasures that consumed your mind. All you thought about was Duncan and how good his cock felt inside you. He began moving, snapping his hips and your walls clenched around him in need.

As he pushed — he encouraged a loud whimper out of you. High pitched and evident. Enough proof that he had found that specific sensitive spot and he rammed inside you, pounding you into the mattress. It was a blessing that your parent's room was downstairs, as they rested, oblivious to their daughter getting ruined by a man beyond her own years.

“Please— Duncan, it feels so good. Please keep going, give me more please sir.” You were a mess and hearing you moan his name made him go crazy. His hips picking up their pace, his cock pounding you into oblivion.

He stopped, turned you on your back and started fucking you relentlessly again. His hands reaching for your arms as he picked you up and pressed you flush against his brawny, scarred chest. This new position had more pleasure awaiting at its door and you couldn't even shut your mouth with your hands anymore, as he restrained you. Gripping your arms, fucking into your cunt.

“Such a good cunt.” He groaned, throwing his head back as he moved. “Takin’ me so well, like you were crafted for me. Pretty girl with a pretty cunt.”

His praises were so intoxicating and you were blitzed by now, without zero alcohol in your system. Duncan was fucking you so good, you'd lost all your senses besides ones that helped you in feeling him, hearing him, listening to him. You didn't care about your parents anymore, or God, or anyone. All you cared about getting fucked like some whore by Duncan.

Tears streamed down your face, your stomach once more churning in that sick feeling. Your thighs pressed against his, shivering and flinching everytime he thrusted up your cunt. Your heart was fucking throbbing in your chest, being able to feel its beating in your throat as he continuously bruised that spot of yours. Nearing you to your orgasm.

Duncan growled, right against your ear, leaving bite marks down your ear and nape, branding you. “You're mine, Little lamb. I'll visit your father more often just to fuck his little girl. You'll be ready for me, won't you? Let your uncle fuck you like this everytime he visits?”

You nodded, sobbing and sputtering broken sentences. Your face drenched in tears as you lost yourself in the bliss, body twitching and shaking from how overwhelmed you were. Then you felt him deliver a slap to your spine, grabbing your hair from behind. His rough demeanor sending a rush of need into your core.

“Say it,”

“Y-Yes, Uncle Duncan.” You cried out, your whole body had gone limp by now. The forbidden situation you'd gotten yourself in making you feel sick but instead calling him that name made your cunt tighten around his cock. “Please v-visit more— fuck me more, please sir.”

He felt himself close.

And so did you.

Both of them reached their highs but Duncan wanted her to cum first so his arm extended out, his hand sliding between your thighs to toy with your clit. He pinched and rubbed it, causing you to gasp. Eyes rolling back in pure bliss, your stomach tightening and cunt clenching around him. All hinting towards your upcoming orgasm.

And so you unraveled.

Eyes witnessing white, body ascending to heaven as intensity at its peak crashed down on you. All of it was too much and your body fell forward, face buried in the pillows and sheets to cry out the remnants of your orgasm.

Duncan picked up his face, feeling your juices coat his cock and then he soon reached his orgasm, his cock pumping loads of cum inside your little cunt. Filling you up to the brim, watching as some of it even leaked out and made a mess down on the sheets. He couldn't care less, his chest rumbling from gruff groans and moans. God, the high he felt with you was different — unique. Something he had never felt before.

He stared at you, spine exposed and erect as you laid across him, face buried in the pillows and he leaned down. Still inside you, he left bite marks down the bone of your spine, branding you as his. Claiming you as his forever. He felt something possessive consume him, something dark when he saw how vulnerable you were. He'd fucked you, defiled you, the blood of your virginity coating his cock mixed with your and his release but innocence still wafted off you.

It drove him insane.

Duncan fixed their position, laying next to you as he pulled you to him. You were out of it and he cupped your face, staring at you. A look of worry crossed his features, finding you this numb. “Little lamb, are you alright?”

You looked up at him and nodded. In reality, you were too fucked out. The ache in your cunt hasn't subsided at all and somewhere you craved for more. You leaned into his chest and wrapped your arms around him. “Sir, will you come back for me?”

“I might just kidnap you.”

You perked up at that. “Can I have my freedom then?”

Duncan let out a chuckle, nodding his head at her, aware of her living situation. “You can go anywhere you want, Little lamb. As long as it is with me.”

#duncan vizla #mads mikkelsen #duncan vizla smut #smut #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal lecter smut #hannibal lecter #tw dubcon #tw dark content #oneshot #age g4p #polar smut #duncan vizla fanfic #mads mikkelsen smut #mads mikkelsen fanfic #mimi writes ☆

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wolves-against-the-world · 1 year ago

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Lycanthropy and the Body in Medieval Europe

Sourced from: Riddarvold, Stian (2023): Medieval perceptions of the Other in an extranormal community: The Case of Cornelius Vogelsang. Journal of Lycanthropic History, 2(3).

The perception of Monstrosity and Otherness in Medieval Europe has been analyzed in literature from the Icelandic sagas (Merkelbach, 2014) to Beowolf (Fahey, 2019; Cavell, 2014). [...] The Army of the Night (Exercitus noctis) is not documented well, many documents being destroyed upon its dissolution in the 1300s. Despite this, there has been a recent uptick in research about this unique military and social structure. Exclusively consisting of lycanthropes, it was still largely governed by medieval perceptions of monstrousness contingent with human society. This study will examine the norms surrounding monstrosity and the body in a lycanthropic context and their enforcement through the documented court case against Cornelius Vogelsang. Additionally, interviews were conducted with three werewolves who witnessed the trial, which will be referred to as P, Z, and M.

The Army of the Night was a military unit founded and led by Emicho VI., also known as Emicho the Crusader (ca. 1050-2020), to aid the crusades. The Army of the Night is only scarcely documented in official church records, though Emicho appears frequently in the Gesta Francorum and Historia Francorum. He is described as a capable, if ruthless, military leader building a strike force apart from the main, i.e. human, crusaders. While the lycanthropic nature of that force is not named directly, Gesta Francorum indicates a level of disconnect between the fighting units, describing the Army of the Night as simply "strange" (prodigiosus). After the failure of the first crusade, there is a large hole in the documentation, with Emicho and his troops only appearing in fragments. For a more general overview see Vanderbilt, 1989.

Monstrosity and Monstrousness in the Army of the Night

In the Middle Ages, monstrousness was a metaphor as well as a real state inherently linked to the soul. Monstrousness as a whole was heavily confounded with race, disability, and marginalization in literature and was heavily linked to the body. It was assumed that wickedness or sin would show on the body, the damnation of the soul made flesh here and in the afterlife. Unlike in many Christian faiths today, the soul was not seen as separate from the body. The state of the soul was reflected on the body and vice versa. Another important component was the mind: Reasoning ability was assumed to be inherently human, while the monstrous only followed instincts. The damned were thus made monstrous by the rejection of their very existence as a thinking being.

In the period of the Army's assembly and operations, monstrousness was not seen as inherently damning, as in, it was reversible. Repentance could still save the soul.

As eldritch lycanthropes change on a molecular level, they were permanently made monstrous, and were thus damned by merely existing. However, the visible signs of lycanthropy progress with age, giving rise to the idea that there was a timeframe in which one could still reverse the process. (see document B26-3682)

[Fragment of latin text describing a transformation and the idea that there is a way to "save" a werewolf]

The timeframes vary between 30-100 years, which correlates with the lifespans of werewolves in the Army of the Night as estimated by my interview partners (transcripts in Appendix A-C).

Werewolf P was a high-ranking officer in the Army and worked closely with Emicho VI. In regard to the Army's concept of salvation, he stated:

"If they [the chosen recruits] survived the turning, they were brought into the camp. They were told it was a punishment for their sins - that it came directly from God instead of, hm, that they were just unlucky I suppose. [...] It was a sin to be a werewolf, and you became a werewolf by sinning, so unless you were saved before the beast took over completely, you would be damned forever. Of course people figured out that it was Emicho and his officers who were turning people, but the fear kept them in line. Turning someone without permission and hiding it was also punishable by death. Not that most lived very long. They thought dying for the cause could save them."

This idea was reinforced by a lycanthropic trait that has not been studied outside of folklore until the modern day. When dying, the body will take the shape that is most aligned with the phase of the moon. Calculating the moonphase for recorded battles shows that most were fought during half or new moon. A dying wolf would thus turn back to humanoid form and seemingly confirm that they had been saved. This of course was only true for wolves young enough to not show outward signs that a medieval person could pick up on. Once again, this reinforced the time pressure the recruits faced.

Burial, too, was contingent on their body's and thus soul's state.

[...]

The case of Cornelius Vogelsang

To show how monstrousness informed social relationships even within an extranormal community, I will now examine the court case against Cornelius Vogelsang, a member of the Army of the Night that was executed on the fifth of March 1218 on account of sodomy and heresy. What makes this case interesting is that it is the only one still preserved in some detail.

The person in question first appears as either Hussein ibn al-Rahmud or Hassan ibn al-Rahmad in the list of new recruits on the retreat after the disastrous loss at Hattin (1187). He was recorded to be 20 years old, which is not out of place in the Army of the Night. (See document A34-3442)

A supplementary interview with the werewolf Z confirmed that Vogelsang had likely grow up Muslim, but "he didn't like to speak of it". (Appendix B) The name Cornelius Vogelsang appears first in the Army's 1188 census alongside the older name. He seemed to have christianized his name in order to fit in with the Europeans. The appendix "Vogelsang" was apparently given in reference to his singing prowess. In between his recruitment and sentencing there is no surviving documentation of his existence or actions.

The trial commenced in early February 1218. The town cannot be identified conclusively due to damage to the parchment, but the record was found in the abbey of St. John in Alzey. While this abbey was only founded in 1290, it still points towards the trial taking place in the region.

Vogelsang was indicted on charges of heresy and sodomy. He was accused of preaching heresies to young recruits, such as lycanthropy not being a reversible curse, but a natural state of being. In a second charge he was also accused of sodomy with an unknown man that could not be identified in the course of the trial. Document A44-3448 describes the other person involved as "indictus" (unnamed), which implies that the identity was known, but the person was not to be charged.

[Scan and transcript of the page detaiing the court proceedings.]

Sodomy in this period was defined as any sexual act not intended for procreation. In the Army of the Night, this rule extended to all sexual activity, as siring children while monstrous was perceived as a major threat both theologically and realistically. This did not mean the werewolves did not seek out women, but by the decree of 1123, any offspring was to be killed as soon as possible. [...] The primary affront of homosexual acts was not its usually recreational nature, but the "perversion of natural law" of one person taking on the role of the opposite sex. (Hart, 1990) [...]

Vogelsang was described as a "large, blue man" with "shoulders like oxen and hands like shovels". Blue in this context refers to all darker colors and was often used in texts to also denote wickedness, possibly with a racialized undertone (Sigurdsdottír, 2018). The description of his strength also marks him as threatening. In the following paragraph, he is described as wearing his hair in the style of a woman, and his "beard [does] not hide his weakness". This description makes sense when connected with the accusations of an unknown witness, who claims to have found Vogelsang "subdued and taking the part of the woman", i.e. being the receiving partner.

Vogelsang was sentenced to death by burning, and his eyes were gouged out as to forbid him from seeing God's splendor. This sentence is notably brutal, as most other documented death sentences were either executed through beheading or a silver dagger to the heart. It is not too far-fetched to assume the sentence was meant to be a deterrent. The destruction of the body was a highly symbolic act. It proclaimed Vogelsang to be beyond salvation, thus he was considered to have lost his soul and the privilege of burial.

Assuming all accusations are true, Cornelius Vogelsang knew that the soldiers were being lied to, and tried to disprove or at least challenge the reigning narrative. With said narrative as his primary tool, Emicho had good reason to fear an erosion of his power.

Vogelsang's identity (in the modern sense) also made him vulnerable: While race was not conceptualized the way it is today, being Middle Eastern could have been a visible reminder of his status as a convert. Z, who described himself as a "half-gypsy", recounted several instances of prejudice because of his appearance being used to challenge his status as a Christian.

The last of my three interview partners, M, added a completely new and unknown perspective. According to him, while there certainly was "some political shit going on", the sodomy accusation had actually resulted from jealousy. The accuser had previously been rejected by Vogelsang, and the accusation had been revenge. (see Appendix C)

The only defending voice in the trial came from an unnamed officer, whose description has been erased, seemingly on purpose.

[Scan of a document that had an entire paragraph scratched out]

The remaining account merely states that he protested the sentence and was silenced by his superior, one Bishop Anghelescu. Despite the intervention, the officer was sentenced to whipping and being marked by claw, i.e. having a visible part of his body scarred. The nature of this punishment served to make his monstrousness - in this case supporting a sinner - physically apparent.

Monstrousness as a state of damnation-until-saved informed both the social structures of the Army and the identity of werewolves within the group. At the same time, these concepts were used by Emicho VI. and the Catholic church as a whole to enact control upon a highly organized and effective strike force. Monstrousness was tied to gender, sexuality, religion, and race. Deviations both voluntary and involuntary could be cause for punishment including death. The case Vogelsang illustrates this use of theology in the name of control and power, as enacted by Emicho VI.

#lycanthrope #werewolf #wolves against the world #worldbuilding #original character #academia #cornelius vogelsang #i rote this instead of my actual uni stuff

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