#arctia

[herpsandbirds]

Cream-spot Tiger Moth (Arctia villica), family Erebidae, found mainly in southern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa

photographs by Danny Chapman & Гал Ин Дао

[behehemoths]

Garden tiger moth Artcia caja

Caterpillars of the garden tiger moth are known as “wooly bear caterpillars” though they are different from another caterpillar species that are black with a single orange band, which is the Isabella tiger moth caterpillar.

Image credit: illuvis on Pixabay

[image ID: a small fuzzy moth with brown forewings with a white pattern and bright orange hind wings with black spots]

[snototter]

a Garden Tiger Moth (Arctia caja) in Dorset, England

by Alastair Rae

[knight-of-the-thorn]

The difference in the arctia dynamics across universes is fun because in Luminiferous Theitia is like "I'm the cool mysterious knight of the thorn what is my relation to the commander you'll never know ;)" while Arc is in the background eating drywall. Meanwhile in Tenebrous Theitia is like "I'm the cool mysterious pact commander, I accepted this role because of the tragedy of loosing my best friend, the only one I ever loved. The Arceidai I once knew is dead, I must carry on in memory of who they once were" while Arc is in the background eating drywall.

[herpsandbirds]

Garden Tiger Moth (Arctia caja), family Erebidae, near Warsaw, Poland

photograph by Piotr Pucek

[knight-of-the-thorn]

The development on the arc-tia dynamic is great because it's friends to enemies to "there is no way I can trust you but you're also the only person I can trust and we need each other to survive and if we go down we go down together because we are two sides of the same coin" to lovers to "I am looking at you for conformation it is socially acceptable to start biting people" to "we are lying to each other about the same thing that we think the other doesn't know and it would be funny if it wasn't the only thing holding back a full blown existential horror shitshow"

[knight-of-the-thorn]

Abstract (psychopomp) is Arctia coded for real

[knight-of-the-thorn]

1, 4, and 10 for the Commander love interest asks!

@mystery-salad

Sorry this took a bit I got stuck in wvw did you know experience boosters help with reward track gain I didn't

1. Who are they and what's their dynamic with the commander?

Arceidai's romantic interest is Theitia. Theitia had the same wyld hunt as Arc, and the two of them fought the shadow of the dragon in the dream together. They both trained under Caithe at first, they were best friends and practically inseparable, but Arc didn't necessarily pay as much heed to the dangers of their hunt as Theitia did. Where Arc cared about it a great deal, Theitia was hesitant. She was scared. So she ran. Faolain found her, took her in as an apprentice and pitted her against Arc as a way to get under Caithe's skin. The two had a really intense rivalry for a while, but it was honestly more like a game to them. Until Arc left to become the commander. Fortunately two of them would reunite once again. Unfortunately this was because Theitia was turned into a Mordrem and was hunting them down through Auric basin. They took her back to the silverwastes and the two begain the long journey of trying to trust each other again.

No one knows Arc like Tia, and no one knows Tia like Arc. The two of them are incredibly codependent and have, on multiple occasions, threatened to/actually proceeded to tear apart the world in order to get the other back. As they have been more open about the fact that they're in love the shit that they have pulled to make sure they are never seperated has got increasingly more insane. There's two Arceidais now because Theitia refused to let them die. There's an alternate timeline where Arc held an entire elder dragon in their brain and tried to sacrifice their live so she could live and never have to be under someone elses control.

Also an important part of their relationship is the constant monologuing.

4. What was their initial opinion of the commander? Has that changed at all?

Theitia has known Arceidai her entire life, and when they were young she took the fact that they would always be around, and that she'd always be their first priority. They would always be following her around like a lost puppy, and she got very used to that. She thought that they were entertaining, when they weren't being gloomy and serious or desperate to impress Caithe. There was a bit of a competitive element to their friendship sometimes, especially after she joined the nightmare court, and she did think that she was smarter than them, but that they were smarter than most of the other people around them, if niave and airheaded. When they left for the priory it completely threw her for a loop. Until that point, the idea that thet would do that was completely unthinkable and she hadn't really realized how much they meant to her. She definitely tried to underplay how much that hurt, and how much she wanted them back.

Both of them have grown up quite a lot. She definitely sees them in a way that she never did before. She has lost them too many times to take them for granted anymore, and while she still thinks they can be an idiot sometimes, she also views them as more of an equal and a partner.

10. Are there any events in the story that happen differently because of/to/involving them?

Oh boy, a couple ones! Knight of the thorn is the main one! Because if Arc had taken caladbolg it would gave fucking destroyed them, she took it in their stead. Of course there's the auric basin portion of the story where Arc is not only being hunted by every mordrem in the area but one very specific mordrem. Theitia acts as one of Faolain’s champions in Twilight Arbor at which point she realises that she joined a cult. She also did fully cremate their body after Balthazar killed them so Joko could not get them under any circumstance so they took much longer to come back to life than normal.

Around the middle of season 3, Arc and Tia almost kidnapped Aurene and ran away to start a new life. They didn't, but they got pretty far into planning it before deciding against this.