looking directly at you. i am opening this can of worms. tell me
Ok, i needed to warn you beforehand though. For some reason i had to warn you in a cryptic and convoluted method, i think i was possessed.
Noel/kayne aka divine punishment bc in typical malev ship fashion it needs a strange over dramatic ship name.
This is a relatively small ship, i got into it in October and refused to shut up about it because i got brainworms (my greatest achievement is that there are now 13 fics on ao3 from the 3 that were there in October, 3 of these are my doing- anyway thats my showing off done).
I also would like to specify that when i say ship i mean it more as the pair of them as dynamic, i often forget that people usually use ship to refer to romance. My interpretation of them is definitely a more weird take on it , ship is used as shorthand for the pair of them interacting (personally i think Noel is slightly ace-spec and Kayne as an outer god has no understanding of anything like the human concept of love ..due to not being human — yes i did shove my aro-ness at kayne because i love him and no one can stop me).
OK now onto the fun bit. Theres lots of “versions” of them which each lead to slightly different scenarios and interactions between them. Everything i list will include my own interpretations of the start point, there are more interpretations and ideas than the ones here but these two are the main ones.
The most common (at least the one that the first fic of them was based off of and then became a slight baseline for them) version of them is based off the idea that it was Kayne who got Charlie out of the prison pits, either by breaking him out himself or sending Lorick. This means that more of part 40 is orchestrated, Kayne being the one who told him to look for Jarthur. It also means that Charlie was not alone for those 2 years after the dreamlands. This both gives and takes away some of his stability since he has a constant figure in his regrowth back into a person but that figure is kayne who is not a constant person at all and wildly unpredictable. It also gives them a rather close relationship, with both the typical power imbalance that comes with Kayne but also potentially Noels gratitude for being freed from the king. A constant throughout a lot of this is the idea that noel belives himself safe with kayne bc of both his power and the fact hes certain the king could not play kayne due to kaynes kayneness. Often this situation is alongside some sort of deal that Noel made with Kayne (usually for vengeance against the king)
The second most common one is that Kayne talked to Noel after part 40 and the two of them made a deal then. This makes the two of them a newer situation where neither of them but especially noel knows where the line is. Its exploratory prodding at Noel and Noel in turn biting back at Kayne (let me tell you how excited i was/an about the insolent detective line). Noel is much less likely to go along with Kayne than he would be where hes known kayne for a long time. A common idea alongside this is that Noel was kept as a backup if Jarthur failed to get the blackstone, he has much of the same criteria as Jarthur (has seen but not touched the greystone, is a detective with knowledge of the eldritch and specifically the king).
A subsection of both of these that can fit in with but is not nessesary is the idea that the pyramid with the greystone was that of the black pharaoh aka a nyarlathotep avatar and that Kayne or at least a Nyarlathotep was there when Noel stole the stone. It depends on the story as to how much of an interaction this was.
Dynamic wise its not love. There is no love here theres not hate either. It isnt a romance. I imagine Kayne is more forthcoming with Noel than he is with Arthur, not about anything that might be useful to kayne but when around arthur the god is blinded by obsession, this is not a problem when around Noel. He’s interested in him and Noel passes the time but hes no arthur, noel also knows this. He also knows that whatever kayne has about arthur is different to what the god has about him, it doesnt stop it hurting slightly, the hurt also hurts, why should he care? I like to hc that kayne is the only person who can get Noel out of his spiralling without having to resort to shaking him out of it, simply talking at him until he returns to himself (occasionally they can be sweet), plus noel couldnt hurt him unless he wants him to even if it did go wrong. It can also work as a way of noel working through his memories of the king, my favourite things with them is the idea of kayne reopening old scars and “taking them for himself” setting the memory in a better light, plus kayne is a god who he can hurt as well as plot with against the king. Theres a lot of noels hatred for the king at the surface here, which kayne probably keeps up to both keep him in his past and therefore around and wanting him as a reminder of his life without the king. Creating this idea that noels life is either with the king or with kayne (this works better in a situation of the first). Its also fun when Noel gets the better of kayne and the fact kayne does actually want the detective around even though he tries to hide it. Basically theyre fucked up and fun to work through the layers of lies and manipulation to this core of caring about the other even if that method is weird and abnormal (we all know that noel’s idea of of a normal way of showing affection is also gonna be fucked up bc of the king, and kayne also is a healthy outlet for any part of him he deems inhuman/a consequence of the king)
I have not re-read all of this but i hope it makes sense. Would you believe me if i said i tried to keep it brief?
Reading the Inquisition by Taran Matharu and I gotta tell ya, when that review on the back said it has a bit of Pokemon to it, was not lying and I freaking love it.
