#captain vampire

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

various just-for-funsies sketches: kostaki & greg with facial hair, ioan & mitica prior to joining the army, Baby Relia, ladislas

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

The reported Liatoukin backstory, where he was killed during the Crimean war, made it sound like this wasn’t his first rodeo. He’s killed, and promptly waits for his killers to come back to find him alive. The pattern almost repeats with Ioan and Marioara.

He does seem pretty experienced at coming back from the dead. It makes me wonder if he repeatedly climbs the ranks of the army for fun, starting from a fresh identity every couple of decades.

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

"[Ioan], usually animated by the noblest sentiments, had taken on the manner and passions of a tiger." omg kostaki parallels (gregoriska calls him a devouring tiger)

and they're both hot for it 😌

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

now knowing mariora's tongue in canon when she's distressed, i'm lowkey worried she'll snap at either the scary maneater lady or the scary castle queen lady gfhfgdgs

the good news: both of them are mature enough to gracefully handle being snarked at by a 17 year old

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

I can't tell in the ending of Captain Vampire if the mother is mourning Epistimia, and on what degree as a person than ambitions, but nonetheless it shows a dramatic change. I wonder how she's taking Epistimia running away without a trace, since her sister probably has no idea either.

the Consequences of associating with liatoukine haven't really come home to roost for her yet the way they do at the end of the novel, so she's probably still angry-upset ("how could she do this"). some amount of worried, but mostly angry. probably reaching out to her entire circle to try to figure out where she went, with the goal of bringing her back home.

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

I may be the slowest person ever but I just noticed that the now-vampire minion officers have the cat-eyes that Liatoukine and Ioan have (when they are not split into two selves). So that means they each can also make themselves double (or also be forced to, in their case). Oh no.

yep, in the last panel of the latest update you can see he makes them all double

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

Some of Captain Vampire’s friends attempted to solve the mystery. Misfortune overtook them all. Liatoukine challenged Bogomil Tchestakoff and struck him dead. Stenka Sokolich, wrongly suspected of producing nihilist propaganda, was deported to Siberia. Yuri Levine was stripped of his rank; he was rumored to have gone insane.

He's sooo evil, he does not just kill, but also orchestrates the social and mental destruction of his peers, like through false accusations or psychological breaking to insanity. If you can put them under your boot and ruin them, why kill them?

And he had his killers shot by firing squad. For Ioan's interference over Relia, he chose whipping and prison, punishments meant to break their spirit (it only broke Relia's, but still). He seems to like mind-breaking, domination and making examples out of others most. Who knows for how long he's been doing so. He probably still isn't stone cold. During the Crimean War, when he beat the Cossacks, he was likely venting frustration (Russia was losing the war and, with it, the grip it had held over all of Romania for decades.) So I could see him whipping Mitica for revealing their location both as punishment and to lash out. So glad I found this.

He's the villain of all time truly. He's a walking metaphor, and a damn good one, but at the same time he's human in all the worst ways. Petty, vindictive, obsessive, prone to holding grudges; he's patient and calculating, but when the time comes he lashes out. He's self-indulgently cruel. He revels in enforcing power and hierarchy (of which he sees himself at the very top). And, most importantly of all, his actions are enabled by the system he is part of. The fact that he is killed several times, but never dies, and that he is said to have the ability to be in two places at once, is symbolic of the institutional nature of his evil. You cannot fix a broken system by removing a few bad actors; and in the story, no matter how many times you kill Liatoukine, he comes back. So long as the system persists, so does the monster.

[shallcohol-content]

With your love of Car Seat Headrest, you would probably like Captain Vampire. Their entire discography is only just over an hour long, but you would probably like it (try 'Farewell!' first).

Thanks anon!

Having consumed the entire discography yesterday I can confirm that: Crushed By The Sky is the best song