#absolution trio

[taag-the-withering]

Taking “haunting the narrative” way to seriously

[imsosleepyofyourbull]

HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE VSMP FINALE/EP8, ESPECIALLY FOR THE ABSOLUTION TRIO (ABOLISH, OWEN, AND LEGUNDO)

OKAY!

For everyone who is either alright with spoilers or have already seen the finale; It’s ramble time… and I do mean RAMBLE time. I have what amounts to an incalculable number of thoughts and feelings that I really should be making their own posts, but refuse to because I’m Like This. If I have to parse through everything I want to say to actually figure out which ideas match with which, I think I might explode into a million pieces on the spot.

There just a few really big points I want to hit, so I’ll run through them in the order they occurred to me as I watched Abolish and Owen’s videos (also in that order, because I NEEDED to see Abolish’s video first or I would die.)

First and foremost, the way that Owen’s personal perception of both Legundo and Abolish changed over the course of the series is genuinely one of the most fascinating arcs to me. When he met the doc for the first time, he was still looking for the ghost of the one he had loved. Legundo, who had been kind and friendly and reasonable and all of the things Owen had used to make a martyr out of Louis, was an easy target for feelings he had yet to fully process. The grief that his massacre hadn’t done a thing to satiate. This dynamic, established not only by Owen’s anguish but Legundo’s guilt and desperation, was never going to work out the way they wanted it to. Not when neither of them were seeing the other as who they actually were or wanted to be, but as a chance at redemption for things that had already happened.

This misunderstanding forms the foundation of their confrontation in EP6 and Owen’s decision to find out what exactly Legundo was running away from by trying to cure him. When he shattered the image Owen had of him as a version of Louis that he could save, it convinced Owen that he’d been fooled by him. That Legundo had been lying from the moment they met, despite the fact that — as Legundo himself says — he never claimed to be a good person. This projection made the final reveal of what Legundo had actually done as a soldier all the worse. If he and Legundo had only disagreed over the cure and there was no deliberate cruelty in Legundo’s past, Owen might’ve only hated him for that. For not being who he’d wanted him to be, and then for trying to take away all that he had left of the only one that could be. Legundo still would have been considered a good or “decent enough” person in his mind.

But then Owen actually finds out.

But then Owen realizes what atrocities Legundo had committed.

But then Owen knows Legundo was a monster.

And it makes him so, so angry to think that a man just as bad as him is spending his time preaching about redemption and second chances. Going on and on and on about who Owen could be like he has any room to talk. He wants Legundo to suffer for his hypocrisy, and, truly, what greater suffering is there than the one Owen has had to endure for the last two hundred years? The guilt. The anger. The fear. The hunger. All of the horrid things they feel in the present, stretched out into the infinite eternity of immortality. The torch passed on from one monster to another, so that Owen can finally let his burn out. Move on. Knowing that someone out there is hurting “justly.”

This is where Abolish comes in.

I’ve made numerous posts discussing my interest in Abolish’s pacifism and sympathy for vampires in the context of his character arc, explaining that his resistance to fighting any of them isn’t a strict boundary so much as it is his preference. A stance he took when the situation was more salvageable, in accordance with his desire to not stand out and his prior information on vampires. But when the chips are down, his own survival is his top priority. He wants to give his parents a grave. He wants to find the cure. He wants to go home. He is not in the interest of ingratiating himself to anyone that he doesn’t need to, and hasn’t been from the very start. That puts him in a unique position relative to Owen, while his occupation as, effectively, a child soldier turned professional “hunter” connects him to Legundo by their ruthless militarism.

Starting with Owen; @lxrd-ren has an AWESOME post about their most significant conversation in EP7 and how Abolish stands in the way of Owen’s philosophy, and I’ve made a few myself about CC!Abolish’s response to what V!Abolish would do if he were turned. He doesn’t hate vampires — really far from it — and he knows better than perhaps anyone else that being one doesn’t mean losing all that he is. Theoretically, he shouldn’t care whether or not he’s turned… and yet CC!Abolish made it abundantly clear that he would actively hunt down whoever turned him if it happened against his will. What matters to V!Abolish is his voice. His choice. He wants a say in whether or not he’s turned, and he doesn’t want to be turned. Having anyone strip him of that is the one thing that would actually kill any sympathy he felt for them.

Owen — neither the version of him who believed that everyone would come around to the “gift” or the angry, bitter version of him who arose in EP5 with every “betrayal” — can say anything to that. Because before him stands a man who only wants for the same choice that HE did… he’d just choose a different answer. And can he ever fault Abolish for that? Can he say that Louis, when he was alive, was wrong for asking instead of taking? To do so would be to deride the light of his life of one of the reasons Owen had adored him so. And I think he realized that early. That’s why he offered Abolish, out of everyone, continuous chances without even really thinking about it; he responded to Abolish’s sympathy in EP3 with confirmation that he didn’t want to hurt anyone, then told him that he’d give them all a chance to run. When Abolish expressed his incredulity at Owen’s desperation after killing Legundo over the cure in EP6, it snapped him out of his hysteria just long enough to tell Abolish that only one side could be left. Even when the town was being burned down in EP7, Owen was trying to converse with Abolish in a way he didn’t with nearly anyone else in the cast.

Owen is fond of Abolish.

And I don’t mean in the way he’d been “fond” of Legundo — no, I think he has a genuine interest in Abolish that is largely separate from the ghost of Louis and his own grief. He often tries to convince Abolish that he should just become a vampire if he wants to leave. He trusts that Abolish will keep control over the townsfolk and their movements. He’s delighted when he’s told of Abolish’s raid on the castle. He’s fascinated by the secrets Abolish holds close to his chest. And a lot of that can be attributed to Abolish’s disinterest; his lack of fear, and how his sympathy never actively impedes his ruthlessness. Abolish never treats Owen like he’s an omen OR a victim, but just another resident of this town that’s tearing itself apart. An enemy if he were to act on it, but little more than a passing acquaintance otherwise. When Owen tells all him about what happened to Louis, Abolish treats it as the tragedy it is separate from their conflict.

Owen’s relationship with Abolish is a mimicry of everything he wishes he had with the people that ousted him for his illness.

He wanted to be like them.

He wanted to be normal.

He wanted to walk down the streets of Oakhurst without anyone staring at him or fearing him.

And Abolish, though wary (and for good reason), gives him just that. That’s why Abolish is the only one, by the finale, who I think could have offered Owen a cure and been considered. Legundo was close, but Owen’s efforts to see another Louis in him combined with their mounting issues meant that such an offer was doomed to fail before it was even spoken. Especially because the crux of Legundo’s offer wouldn’ve been that he believed Owen being cured was the right choice. The one he should pick. When Abolish offers it is nothing but a choice — the choice Louis gave Owen when he was turned and the choice Abolish wants in his own vampirism. Given for no other reason than that Abolish thought he might want it and without the pressure of expectation. If Owen told him no, Abolish never would have held that over his head. When he said yes, Abolish didn’t plead with him to pick being cured over dying as a vampire. From beginning to end every part of this one interaction was up to Owen and Owen alone, which Abolish made clear from the moment he offered.

And that plays a very interesting role in Abolish and Legundo’s endings. CC!Legundo said outright that V!Legundo is seeing the shadow of his former self in Abolish; a ruthless, intelligent, calculative young soldier who has more talent than empathy. A man who could be convinced do terrible things, and probably already has in the name of whatever cause he’s been fighting for. If Owen sees Louis and the townsfolk in Legundo and Abolish, one worse and one better… then Legundo can’t help but see the people he has failed and himself in Owen and Abolish, both worse. And he has no will to fix it when he himself is reverting back into the man he never wanted to be again. Forced to the brink when Owen turns him, and wilting by the time a deathless solution is proposed. This is his final salvation. His only chance at redemption, now that he’s been made a ticking time bomb of rage and cruelty that is fate-bound to poison yet another village. So he offers Abolish what little he has left: freedom, at the cost of his own life. And, really, Abolish is the only human he saves.

Abolish grants Owen resolution, Owen grants Legundo damnation, and Legundo grants Abolish continuation.

And at the end of it all is Abolish; backed by the sunrise Owen died watching and made something semi-immortal by the vampirism which still flows through him from Legundo. Alive and well in the modern day, fulfilling the promise he had made to those left of the coven to keep watch. Living on as Owen and Legundo couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Might not ever have been able to in peace.

[veylocke-murderbox]

my duo (shatter duo) content but at what cost bro

It's sad but overall also, I think really good.

We all knew after episode 6 that Bloodletting was never going to save one another. We all placed bets on if they'd kill one another outright or if one would murder the other, or if theyd kill themselves to go out on their terms.

Abolish being a part of the equation is huge.

Abolish who has been so close to Legs up until the end and who in so many ways could have been like Owen, caught up in grief and perpetuating a cycle of violence and prejudice out of trauma and loss. Abolish could have hated vampires for his parents loss, but he doesn't. Owen hated humans til he met Legs and Abolish who treated him with genuine kindness and regarded him as "people" rather than "monster." Where Legundo failed, Abolish succeeded. He talked to Owen about Louis and did not throw Louis's name around in vain but treated it with reverence. Because he understands Owen's perspective in a way Legundo cannot. Abolish could hate all vampires, but why would he? He held Owen's trust in that moment like a delicate thing.

One thing about Legs is he had told Owen, "I'll keep helping you whether you want me to or not." And Owen had placed his boundary. You can help me but that doesn't mean you have to "fix me," his emotions were what was damaged but his vampirism doesn't make him broken. Abolish saw Owen's boundary, regarded it, respected it and then offered alternative solutions that Owen could choose from. He met him in the middle in a way Legs had trouble doing.

Abolish in my mind is such a perfect mixture of Legs and Owen's traits, similar damages, similar attitudes, thought processes, past experiences, etc. But he balances these things in ways neither Bloodletting could properly balance and keep at a healthy level. Abolish figured it out. He broke a cycle neither could escape from and they would have ceaselessly spun round and round in it.

What Legundo couldn't do, Abolish finished for him. Abolish has always helped Legundo, and he helped finish the one task Legundo could not but wanted so badly to do. He helped bring Owen to peace.

[edgypaladin]

Shoutout to @jackdaw-sprite and @catsafari25 for feeding me Absolution Trio in their latest fic updates! Love it when these guys get into Situations (usually caused by being in proximity to each other)

Everyone should go read Circulatory and The Work-Afterlife Balance if you haven't already!

[imsosleepyofyourbull]

It’s midnight, I’m tired, but I had some thoughts to add to the massive post I wrote after the finale so I am online.

Woooo!!!!!

It occurs to me now that Owen and Legundo are in disagreement about who Abolish is as a person and the state of his morality. When Owen has his final confrontation and tells Legundo that there was always something preventing him from truly believing the doc when he said that both humans and vampires could be nuanced, the implication is that it’s because Legundo is a “bad person.” His words can’t be trusted, because he’s not saying them out of belief so much as he is trying to sweet talk Owen. This does a few things, but the most important to this discussion is that it implies that Owen thinks Abolish is a GOOD person. The fact that Abolish is ruthless doesn’t disqualify him for that title to Owen. In fact, I think it could be said that Owen actually appreciates that he isn’t easily swayed by emotion (something Owen and Avid shared) or “cowardice” (Legundo.)

On the other hand; Legundo sees the shadow of his former self in Abolish, and is terrified by it. He knows the things a young, talented soldier could do given just the right incentive. He worries that Abolish will do something he can’t take back in an effort to return home. He might have seen Abolish as a peaceful, kind man prior to the reveal of his true identity as an agent… but his clearly military background (even if it isn’t the military Legundo is familiar with) and his perceived apathy associates him too closely with Legundo’s past. A version of himself that he could never see as redeemable, for all his efforts in the present to heal instead of hurt. He can’t look at Abolish as he is without feeling haunted by who he was.

But Owen doesn’t even consider that Legundo and Abolish could be similar. Thinks Legundo and his past, to some extent, beneath Abolish.

An inherent disagreement on morality. Hm.

[imsosleepyofyourbull]

Last thought related to my Vampires EP8 Ramble (and first extra) before I sleep because I’ve been rolling it around; Owen talks about Louis a lot over the course of the series, often to justify his actions and convince people to join him. However, as far as I can remember, he only ever tells Louis’ NAME to Legundo… and to Abolish.

That feels pointed.

Especially because there’s really something to be said about the way those two talk about Louis and vampires as a whole. Legundo vocally states that he doesn’t think vampires and humans are all that different, but also advocates for curing all of them despite their protests. When he tries to convince Owen in particular, he appeals to Louis’ character as a kind, gentle person to say that Louis wouldn’t want Owen to be the monster they accused him of being. Associating vampirism with monstrosity. Louis with cruelty. Owen told him about Louis and their story when he was still trying to see Louis in Legundo, and neither of them actually discussed its contents so much as used it as a battlefield for their moral debate. A theme which mainly appears in Owen’s discussions with Shelby and Drift after Avid’s death, or other cast members with whom he has a negative relationship.

But when he and Abolish talk about Louis and the tragedy of two hundred years ago, it’s only in the context of Abolish’s desire to understand Owen as he is. He asked purely because he was curious. He didn’t know, but he wanted to… and Owen’s odd fondness for him in addition to his exhaustion at the time meant he was willing to tell. An act which is rewarded(?) by Abolish’s genuine interest in his thoughts on the matter. The way he immediately gathers why Owen is so attached to his vampirism in a way that Legundo just didn’t, or at least didn’t grasp the same way. Only offering Owen a cure when Owen expressed his interest in “letting go.”

Fascinating how the two “pacifists” have turned out in the long run.

[imsosleepyofyourbull]

Absolution Trio with Good Riddance from the Hades game soundtrack…

[veylocke-murderbox]

I cannot emphasize enough, this song always ALWAYS conjures up the entirety of the v!Legs, Owen, Abolish and Pyro dynamic to me. PLS SEE MY VISION.