This is an attempt to summarize/source some of the recent Tumblr discussion of The Vampire Marleau and Cliff Marleau (Marlow) as The Immortal Warrior
The first mention on Tumblr of Cliff Marleau being a vampire was a reply by cephalopodie on this post on February 20, 2026, but the concept was developed by cephalopodie and clytemnestraaa via Discord messages prior to being posted on Tumblr. Since then, the fandom has come up with a lot of variations on the concept. If you know if any major variations or any notable posts that you think should be included here, please let me know so I can add them! This list is kinda biased towards my posts/my friends posts because that's what I'm most familiar with but I'd like to expand it if you have suggestions.
Rather than laying out a timeline, I'm grouping this list by major concepts.
"Cliff Marlow was turned in 2006"
I made a few posts with lore for a version of The Vampire Cliff Marlow who was turned in 2006.
Feb 22: "The Vampire Cliff Marlow, b. 1973, was turned at age 33 in 2006."
Feb 23: "When Cliff Marlow was turned in 2006, the first Twilight book had been published...The Vampire Marleau would eventually watch the Twilight movies in secret..."
Feb 25: "...Marley can never truly be ensouled because he was turned into a vampire in 2006."
Ancient Marleau
Once the idea of Marleau as a very ancient warrior vampire was introduced, this became the prevailing headcanon.
Feb 25, from clytemnestraaa: the introduction of The Vampire Marleau as an ancient warrior
Feb 25, from clytemnestraaa: introduces Scott Hunter as a vampire slayer
Montreal: The Vampire Lestat crossover
Feb 24, an oddly prescient post from cuppydogshane: "and thats without considering the vampire marleau"
Feb 25, a teaser clip for the new season of Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat was released, revealing that Lestat is living in Montreal
Post from me and cuppydogshane: Marleau's reaction to Lestat living in Montreal
March 6-7, 2026
TVM posting kind of exploded in the evening of March 6/morning of march 7. There are genuinely too many posts to link them all here, so I'm trying to stick to the most load-bearing ones that are needed to understand other posts. All of the following posts are from March 6-7 except where otherwise noted.
Marly's Scary Mirror
The concept of Marleau having a cursed mirror is most strongly associated with more ancient variations of The Vampire Marleau, but the original idea came from a tag on a 2006!TVM post linked above.
Tag from iwrotemrtambourineman: "#his soul is trapped in the cursed mirror he does coke off of"
Post from iwrotemrtambourineman: "ilya: marly, i told you to put the scary mirror away! it freaks out the hoes!"
Mine, with tag from clytemnestraaa: "Marly making the rookies stare into the Scary Mirror" / "#everyone on the raiders knows exactly where and when they are going to die"
The Immortal Warrior
As far as I can tell, the first usage of the term The Immortal Warrior was in this poll from gayhockeyshow. While The Immortal Warrior exists primarily as an offshoot of The Vampire Marleau, it's worth noting that some people prefer to imagine him as a non-vampiric immortal. March 8th, post from cuppydogshane and urlocalhotmess
Post from clytemnestraaa: "marleau is always calling his hockey stick his sword"
Post from clytemnestraaa: "marleau nearly slew the beloved of his brethren in battle"
Post from cuppydogshane: "his idea. I don't mind it."
My post: crossover with Serial Killer Scott Hunter/The Borgias
Other notable memes
Hrœrekr/Hrœker
Post from clytemnestraaa: "ilya who looks identical to his original best warrior brother from another mother hrœrekr who died of a sheep disease"
Twilight crossover
Post from clytemnestraaa, tags from cuppydogshane: "just realized the reason shane almost died when marleau hit him was the vampire strength…"
March 8, post from nonlynear: where the hell you been, loca?
"What Is It You Desire"
This post from cuppydogshane is a reference to this tumblr post and this tweet.
A Month in the Atlantic
Post from marbertyphoon: "marleau was on a galleon that went down in a storm in the sixteenth century so he spent about a month swimming out of the atlantic ocean"
The Vampire Cult
Post from cuppydogshane and catalpa-waltz
Arthuriana/Jackie Le Fay
My post, with tag from clytemnestraaa: I believe this was the first TVM post referencing Arthuriana. Tags from cly introduce Morgan Le Fay ("a MILF") into the mix
As far as I can tell, Jackie as Morgan Le Fay started with this post from cuppydogshane.
Post from clytemnestraaa: "the witch is HERE…. as the prophecy foretold…."
Post from graceebooks: "jackie le fay when she sees marleau: hey i heard you once spent a month swimming out of the atlantic ocean"
Crossover with Shane's Mysterious Powers
March 7 saw quite a lot of posts that referenced both The Vampire Marleau and Shane's Mysterious Powers. I think this one is the most notable.
Fandom Meta
March 7, from bedlund: XKCD 2501 with The Vampire Marleau, Serial Killer Scott hunter, and The Rick Owens
March 8, from dragonmuse: on "unhinged hiatus shenanigans"
marleau longs to taste a bottle of 1698 bordeaux (it was a dry year. good for the grapes) one last time but his wine cellar in the paris catacombs was destroyed in a fire in 1836. and don’t get him started on whiskey. oak just doesn’t grow like that anymore so the barrels haven’t been the same since 1785.
Shane’s still mad at Marly for the “brojobs” he and Ilya gave each other every now and then when they were on the road. No WAYYY is he gonna use his time travel powers to go back to the 17th century for that guy. No fucking way
Ilya you don’t understand how bad it is in the 17th century like everywhere you go smells sooo bad like it’s really sooo bad every time I go back there I want to puke. and it really smells bad everywhere you go in the 17th century but PARIS? fucking PARIS? maybe smells worse than any other city and you KNOW that Ilya because I’ve told you. I don’t even like going to Paris in the 21st century and you want me to go to PARIS in the 17TH CENTURY? for a fucking bottle of wine? For your “bro” Marly?
ilya that would put me in the exact time and place for the second plague pandemic. the black death popped back up like every three years in the 17th century. do you have any idea what it’ll do to our cup chances if i get the bubonic plague again
This is an attempt to summarize/source some of the recent Tumblr discussion of Shane's Mysterious Powers.
It sounds like the idea of Shane having time travel powers has been explored in fic (As of writing this, there are 88 Heated Rivalry fics tagged "Time Travel" on AO3) prior to our recent discussions on Tumblr, although I haven't gone through those fics to know which ones included Shane Powers. If you have more information on other origins of the ideas of Shane Powers, feel free to let me know. As with many memes, we have to allow for a level of convergent evolution and ideas evolving independently.
If you notice any egregious omissions or notable posts that you think should be included, please let me know!
Timeline
March 2, 2026: tumblr user shanyshko posted about Shane having a family genetic trait where he can time travel.
March 3:
This post from cuppydogshane is the first time I recall seeing the phrase Shane's Mysterious Powers, specifically in reference to the fact that Shane would not use his powers to interfere with hockey.
This post from smokingrozanov explores more time travel possibilities
March 4: shanyshko posted a more in-depth exploration of the Time Travel Gene.
March 6:
This post from kaijuerotica proposes Shane using his time travel powers to watch iconic hockey games, along with the idea of in-universe memes about Shane being a time traveler
Tumblr user emtmercy brought up the idea of Shane using his latent powers to interfere with Scott Hunter's killing (this refers to Scott Hunter as The Killer, which will have to be explored in its own post)
smokingrozanov suggested that Shane could use his mind powers to kill, which assures mutual destruction if Shane and Scott were ever to interfere with each others' activities.
This post from graceebooks with tags from shanyshko suggests that Shane could have used his powers to save Scott's parents but would not do so because it might interfere with the hockey timeline
Ilya's Powers
As of writing, the consensus seems to be that if Ilya has powers, they are something along the lines of a psychic shield he's unaware of (gonzocoded, likematingcall) which prevents him from being aware of the supernatural. Cephalopodie brought this up in connection with The Vampire Marleau and the idea introduced by clytemnestraaa that Ilya has never seen a horse.
ilya would have realized marleau was a vampire years ago but the same power that prevents him from ever seeing a horse in real life also stops him from perceiving the supernatural
as far as i can tell no one has discussed ilya's powers. i believe this is because he doesn't have powers in a way that manifests like shane's, rather, his powers act as an amplifier and perhaps even a psychic shield for those around him. he has no control and possibly isn't even aware of this, but marleau is, and this is why marleau stays close to him in the first place, before their souls even became bound together
Shane knows Scott would kill Ilya if he uses his powers to interfere with his murder sprees just like Scott knows Shane would use his mind powers to kill Kip if he ever tried to reveal Shane’s secret. And like they both have a game tomorrow anyway.
shane can time travel at will but he basically only uses it to go back and watch really iconic hockey games. unfortunately this means every now and then someone spots him in archival footage from a toronto game from 50 years ago or some shit. of course no one actually believes it's him but it means there's an ongoing joke that shane hollander is a time traveler. one time a reporter asks him if he's seen the jokes online and he almost throws up
I’m going to be playing in the time traveling sandbox today if you guys don’t mind. Situationship era Shane is horny about older Ilya because he’s a silver fox who has somehow only gotten bigger and Situationship era Ilya is horny about older Shane because he has to wear his glasses all the time now and he has a tan line underneath his wedding band
Older Shane is assuring younger Ilya that he is loved & safe & his feelings are valuable & deserve to be heard. Older Ilya is assuring younger Shane that everything works out okay in the end & it’s good to let go & live freely. It doesn’t really matter though because young Shane and young Ilya are both so turned on the only thing they can hear is the blood rushing out of their skulls and down to their dicks
This would of course end in a foursome where the Ilyas are trying to make each other jealous & competing to be the Ultimate Dom Top meanwhile the Shanes are like. Oh boy two Ilyas!
giving shane mysterious random powers is so beautiful because he wouldn't live life any differently he would still be a hockey obsessed freak and then he'd be like well yes i can read minds but it would be cheating to use that in hockey so i don't really do it
jackie pike attends one single metros-raiders game and marleau accidentally snaps his stick on the ice when he sees her. marly voice my liege. my liege the sorceress. the witch is HERE…. as the prophecy foretold…. ilya voice (too busy considering if shane will let him use his mouth guard as a gag later): mm ok yes marly
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