So, if I spin this idea of Teia being a Dellamorte instead of a Cantori a bit further...
Teia, Illario, and Lucanis actually get along, they have their own ideas about the First Talon seat all figured out (Teia gets it, the boys get to be her left and right claws), they just need to get Caterina to agree, so there is no need for anyone to betray Lucanis.
But, Lucanis still gets the Venatori-killing jobs, and even the best mage killer can have bad luck. So he still gets caught.
Zara still tries to fake his death and Caterina still sees right through it, but this time around Caterina has a Teia she trusts implicitly because she's one of hers. So she grabs a grieving Teia, tells her the truth, and watches her get angry instead of sad because how very dare they take her basically-little-brother?
Teia then grabs Illario even if Caterina said this is need-to-know basis (Caterina doesn't know if it was an inside job or not) because Illario needs to know. That's his cousin, and Illario is already eying the high percentage alcohol, and if she doesn't tell him now he'll be too passed out later.
And now Illario is angry, too (so is Caterina when they storm her office to brainstorm a rescue and she realises Teia told him, but it's done now...).
So instead of Caterina having to gather Intel in secret she has her connections plus two very motivated siblings of her grandson's to help.
I guess Teia and Illario will spend a lot of time chatting up Venatori for information. lllario will still have to seduce Zara (he's not amused), but this time for information instead of help. Zara still falls for him hard, believes whatever cover story he tells her, and boasts about having Lucanis at the Ossuary (maybe she keeps mum about the demons). It takes every bit of self control Illario has to get out of there with the information instead of stabbing her and everyone else he meets on the way out.
He brings the information home and now they have a location, they just need a rescue plan. But they're Crows, and now Caterina knows none of her people sold Lucanis out, so they gather more information about the layout of the Ossuary and then they strike.
While a group of Crows take out every Venatori they find Teia and Illario go looking for their brother. Who's not been there a year this time, maybe half a year? But he's still been through it and he's still got a passenger. But neither Teia nor Illario are mages, so they wouldn't know about it if Spite keeps his wings to himself.
When Lucanis gets rescued by Rook the demon is out of the bag immediately so he doesn't really have to think about whether he wants them to know or not. They know, it's done, let's stab some Venatori about it.
But what if Teia and Illario don't catch him in an escape attempt but like pluck him off a torture table and never even realise Spite is there? So they drag a semiconscious Lucanis out of there while the rest of the Crows find a safe way to drown the place, destroy all the phylacteries, and kill Caliban.
And Lucanis comes too on the boat, realises his family came for him, and basically in the same thought decides he absolutely can not tell them about Spite. So he lets them give him healing potions but refuses to see a healer (mage, dangerous, might realise). Teia debates knocking him out again and dragging him to a healer anyway but Illario puts his foot down. His cousin just had months of no agency about anything, they are not being just as bad as the Venatori and forcing him into things he doesn't want. He's clearly not dying right now, the potions are helping, and they just drop him off in his bed to fetch Caterina.
As emotional a reunion as Caterina is capable off follows, some days of bed rest, definitely a long bath, and Lucanis is more or less back to normal. He's keeping the beard, tho.
When Teia asks him how he's doing he, in typical Lucanis fashion, tells her he's fine, he can work, give him a contract already. But Teia worries. They grabbed some of the documents from the Ossuary on their rescue mission, and when Lucanis won't talk about what happened to him she goes reading.
Maybe it doesn't say in so many words that they put a demon in Lucanis but it definitely says that's what they were doing to people down there. So now Teia worries even more. He seems fine, he seems like Lucanis. Maybe a bit more quiet, a bit more brutal when his contracts involve Venatori, but that's to be expected, right? It's definitely not a sign that her brother has been replaced by a demon...
Meanwhile, Lucanis has to constantly monitor what he and Spite are doing, make sure no one ever sees Spite's wings and lives, make sure Spite is never taking over where anyone can see. He's one very stressed out abomination, high on caffeine and adrenalin. Surely nothing could go wrong there...
Hm, will he manage to keep his secret until Rook comes around looking for a god killer or will Teia find him out? Still thinking about that...
welcome back to the madness, friends. as i do every time we get an appearance from bianca, i'm going to break down the new lore -- which is a lot more than usual, this week. not only did we get our first spoken lines from our favorite producer, we got a lot of information about her dad and her home life with host!vic. so... let's get into it!
i'm actually going to start out with an inventory of all our new information about bianca's father, aka the host's husband:
his full name is "david michaelis". this means i have something to write on the dolls i'm burning in effigy! yay.
he travels a lot for business -- he was a small business owner, but he "sold to a bigger business". this seems to confirm my speculation about the host's husband being wealthy.
he is one of ta'tania's regular suitors/clients (and thus cheating on the host in spectacular fashion), and has a thing for ketchup/squished tomatoes; he has talked about the host to ta'tania as well as requesting ta'tania dress in a suit like theirs during their sessions. i am violently holding myself back from kink-shaming this man.
the host has not seen him in six months. six months.
about bianca, we've learned:
she "hang[s] out all the time" with ta'tania. (learning this distresses the host to the point that their professionalism slips substantially; even hearing about their husband's cheating didn't prompt such a strong reaction, interestingly.)
the host has asked bianca to spend time with them, including a trip to new york city together. she has repeatedly declined -- despite planning her own trips. she and the host are sufficiently divorced from each others' schedules that the host had no knowledge of her trips to nyc (despite the fact that they live in the same house. alone with just each other. again, for six months).
bianca has explicitly asked the host to only use her full name rather than the familiar nickname "b".
we now have a clearer sense of the dynamic between bianca and the host: the host seems desperate for a closer relationship (perhaps in a bid to resolve the curse they received in season 1?), but bianca repeatedly and firmly shuts them down with thinly veiled irritation.
below the cut, i'll outline some of the questions raised by this episode in the interest of getting people's theory-brains going. do i have any answers...? nope.
so -- there's a lot going on here. let's take a look.
what is the nature of bianca and ta'tania's relationship? is bianca a suitor of hers? are they friends? if they met through david, is his relationship with ta'tania tight enough that he wanted her to "meet the family", or did he instead refer his favorite dominatrix to his daughter?? is it all a coincidence and this nyc-based fairy just happens to be particularly popular with this la-based family?
what specific kind of business is david in? when vic gets vague, i get suspicious that they're hinting at written-down lore.
six months. that's so long. this isn't a question i just feel like it bears repeating.
why does bianca dislike and reject the host so strongly? is it just a matter of them being an abusive boss with terrible politics and a personality that is, and i say this affectionately, bad? well... maybe. maybe. but with vic michaelis and talia tabin, i don't know if anything can be that simple.
if the host's investment in bianca liking them is motivated by trying to fix their relationship and thus the curse, how is the curse concretely manifesting? the episode where they receive it hints at a "crumbling life" and a monstrous transformation, and we certainly are seeing the former -- but it also seems like the host's life has been in a state of complete disaster and ruin from childhood to now, so i'm not sure if the current state of affairs would feel too new to them.
that's all i have for this post! if you have anything to add in terms of analysis, theories, or details i missed, please feel free to add on.
So after yesterday’s nervous breakdown I decided that in order to make it through the pandemic winter while living alone and under lockdown, I need to focus on what’s positive and what I am doing.
So, to wit:
Hey, I wrote the first part of my nanowrimo novel! Over 32k words, and it has a good character set-up and the setting is really working for me, so that’s all good. I’m going to put a pause on that one for a little while and come back to it when I’ve had a chance to give the next plot sequence some consideration.
I did about three days worth of work today (which was okay) because I have Wednesdays off on vacation through the end of the year (which is great) so all in all, things were accomplished.
Also I’m going to resurrect my Today’s Good Thing posts as internet therapy. More on that coming up next.
thanks to everyone here for being so helpful, it is much appreciated.
