#aarkein devaed

[laireshi]

caeden | tal'kamar is so very normal about his identity

this is probably an incomplete collection of quotes. he's so messed up. i love him.

“And my name is Caeden now. I’ve changed. The man I was before is gone.” Meldier shook his head. “No. Here, your name will always be Devaed,” he said quietly, bitterness in his tone. Caeden grimaced at that, glancing away.

(An Echo of Things to Come, chapter 15)

“Why do you never refer to me as Devaed?” he asked quietly. Garadis cocked his head to the side. “Because that is not who you are—and it never was. It is the name you chose in order to instill fear in us, the name you chose because you wanted to pretend that your sins were not yours to own. But when we speak of you, Tal’kamar, we speak of you—for better or worse. Whether destroyer or savior, we will never let you hide behind another name.”

(An Echo of Things to Come, chapter 40)

“You need…” Asha trailed off with a humorless laugh. “Of course you do.” She looked him in the eye. “The thing is, Tal’kamar, I’m not sure that I want anything to do with you.” Caeden flinched. “Tal’kamar,” he repeated, shaking his head. “That’s not my name now.” Asha’s lip curled. “How about Aarkein Devaed?”

(The Light of All That Falls, chapter 15)

Davian shook his head bemusedly and focused back on the man, who had paused a few steps away and was examining him dazedly. “You’re Aarkein Devaed.” The man blanched. “Tal. Just… Tal, please,” he said with a wave of his hand.

(The Light of All That Falls, chapter 26)

“Your choices, Tal. Always your choices. Influences don’t get blame or credit.” Caeden grinned suddenly, the conversation evidently straying into territory familiar to both men. Then he stopped, putting a hand on Davian’s shoulder to halt him as well. “Caeden,” he said firmly, taking a deep breath. “Caeden has always been the best version of me. Tal… Tal died in there.” Davian gave him a lopsided smile, clapping him gently on the back. “Caeden.”

(The Light of All That Falls, chapter 48)

#licanius trilogy #licanius #caeden #tal'kamar #aarkein devaed #*lies down* #him...

[incorrect-licanius]

The gang: Hey Caeden! Did you get your memories back?

Caeden:

#licanius trilogy #the licanius trilogy #caeden licanius #tal’kamar deshrel #aarkein devaed #you know he’s not fine because he has so many names

[starsailores]

rereading licanius, and i don't think i will ever be able to get over the prologue. obviously it stands out as an excellent introduction on your first read - it sets the tone for the rest of the series, and generates a lot of intrigue and angst in only three pages - but the pain hidden between every line comes through so clearly when you already know how the series ends. 'this time, i go where aarkein devaed cannot follow', as well as being subtle foreshadowing, is absolutely agonising when you know the extent of tal's regrets, and the pain only increases with his reaction to the mention of 'davian'. he knew what that man would mean to him, and he believed that he had already killed him. but he forces himself to enter the unknown so that he can finally make it right.

there is so much regret in three pages, and it gives you such a good insight into caeden's character and thought process that you can only really appreciate with hindsight. not to mention the way that book three ends with the very death that shammaeloth references at the beginning of book one. you restart the trilogy where it ends. i may cry

#kind of screaming into the void here because the licanius fandom is criminally small #but i adore this series. and i adore this man. the quality of world building + foreshadowing + character development is #absolutely incredible. especially for a debut #and i will continue to be annoying about it #licanius trilogy #licanius

[bitegore]

woah I just finished reading licanius and I'm feeling lightheaded. do you want to yell about licanius because I want to hear you yell about it. I'm prepared to be so so normal about nethgalla

GOD. AHAHAHAHAA. i always want to yell about licanius

okay first my personal hashtag licanius hashtag experience is worth adding because it explains a lot about which parts i am most insane about. So I first found the first book Shadow of What was Lost back in the ancient years of like 2015 or 2016 or whatever before Islington got his book deal while it was still self-published on Kindle Unlimited instead of being published by any kind of publisher. Back in these years it was just the first book and the others weren't out.

....and surelyt you remember that fucking epilogue thing that Islington loves to do where he puts the Big Reveal right at the end of the book, right? So i spent like a full three or four years going absolutely Bat Shit about just the whole "caeden is also aarkein devaed" bit and then . book 2 comes out and. AUGH. AUUUUUUUGHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAAAAAA the fucking. MALSHASH is CAEDEN is AARKEIN DEVAED is TAL'KAMAR why does this man need to be every character. and THEN the fact that CAEDEN DOES NOT KILL DAVIAN. HE GETS HIM FUCKING SELF.

insane. this series makes me insane. literally foaming at the mouth insane.

nethgalla was just like. okay actually i cant lie i kind of love that she fucked up every romantic plotline caeden/tal could've been involved in because i am so glad he did not have any actual romance plot with karaliene or anyone else but how do you invent a character as cool as The Demon Shapeshifter From The Torture Dimension and then fuck it up by being like "and she's obsessed with this guy and exists mostly to be a femme fatale" like come ON. come ON you FLUBBED it. i wish she had more going on with her because even just the idea that she's tied to bhim because he summoned her by fucking up resurrecting his dead wife is like spicy as fuck but then the actual execution is so. like. mid at best? it truly saddens me especially because when Tal shows up she's lame about him but every other time she is SO badass. when she's pretending to be that one hunter she was so badass. when she was tormenting ashalia in the name of making her stronger that kicked ass. they should've kissed. i said what i said

also FUCK LMAO MELDIER AND ALARIC AND ISILIAR AND THE OTHER VENERATE i am SO not normal about them I am obsessed with them I want to put them in my mouth and EAT THEM. i wrote a crossover where Vortex gets recruited into their ranks for an exvent once. i love them so dearly. i spent multiple years bullying my girlfriends into reading the books exclusively so i could get them to write fanfiction about them for me. i love them i want them so dead i'm so glad the story went the way it did but also they deserved better and i wish it didn't happen in the first place. literally the best fucking tragedy ever. i wish we got to watch Wereth's death and Andrael's betrayal and i also wish everything were worse and there was more bad. i am so normal about them.they are so important to me

the fucking shape of this narrative also. this is so circles ever. it makes me lose my fucking mind. look at it it is a self-contained loop (derogatory) (aspirational) this thing is soooooooo the chicken and the egg. its so. its so! i am normal and not insane about it i promise come closer etc etc

#red replies #licanius spoilers #under the cut anyway #garden-ghoul #i am SO GLAD you've read them :D i fucking LOVE these books they make me so . extremely

[laireshi]

can't sleep and was rereading and uhh i'm horrible at names, okay. i usually have to double check everything with islington's guide.

so i only realised now that darecians used to live in the shining lands. the same shining lands that alaris used to be the king of. (and then abandoned, and then wasn't welcome to anymore? and we have that darecian fairy tale about him that isn't really positive either.)

so my question is, did aarkein devaed destroy the descendants of alaris' kingdom

(i feel like islington would've made it more obvious if it was supposed to be a Thing. like we don't know almost anything about cyr but we know he came from the city of Silence and then helped destroy it. but it's still interesting to consider)

#licanius trilogy #licanius #I was actually rereading the malshash part though #bc it's a lot of fun to go back to once you know everything

[laireshi]

i've been thinking about tal/alaris some more bc they absolutely Ruin me

and now i'm wondering. what if they never got together-together. because they definitely love each other and are the closest of friends. so what if their love was a slow, slow burn. and by the time one of them even started to think about confessing, tal becomes aarkein devaed. and then he's too ruined by guilt for anything else, for a long time.

and then the slow burn continues. but by the time tal realises his feelings, he also makes his choice about el/shammaeloth. and then it's obvious alaris chooses the other side. and tal keeps lying about everything... but he can't lie about everything and them, too. not when he knows how it must end. maybe alaris asks; maybe tal says no. maybe he doesn't need to ask, or maybe they both pretend they don't want more.

and then tal wipes his own memories, and caeden doesn't remember anything but gets all those feelings in his chest when he sees alaris, and maybe he remembers a moment when they were close for whatever reason, and he draws his own conclusions.

maybe he kisses alaris, very sure it's not the first time, wanting a moment of comfort among the heartbreak of fighting his friend. and instead of recognition, he's met with such a naked shock in alaris' face, and longing, too, and neither of them knows how to proceed.

#licanius trilogy #licanius #caeden #tal'kamar #alaris #don't mind me i'm back on my rarepair bullshit #ugh i love them

[laireshi]

every now and then i also cry about asar and caeden bc by the time the books started, asar was the only person who was alive/not trapped and sided with him completely (and of course therefore had to die)

and he waited for so long and then he got caeden instead of just amnesiac tal that he expected and had to deal with caeden’s breakdown about his own identity, and--

it wasn’t exactly new for him, was it? like, the fact that tal’kamar even went by the name aarkein devaed to begin with was bc he couldn’t bear using his real name for what he did. i think all the venerate knew tal’kamar can’t deal with his actions. the fact that tal’kamar’s big plan was to delete his own memory and not have asar show him everything. in a way that part of his plan succeeded the most. he changed. but even as caeden he never learnt to deal with himself.

but the thing is. asar knew it. and knew exactly what demons were hidden in caeden’s past. and he hated what aarkein devaed had done. but he loved tal’kamar! they were friends, and asar didn’t want to lose his friend (or, lose him prematurely, considering their endgame). he didn’t want to see that friend hate everything he used to be, without knowing what it even was. he loved him!! it hurts me!!

#licanius trilogy #licanius #asar #caeden #the venerate were all so INTENSE about each other i Cannot deal

[laireshi]

caeden and names continues to kill me, bc like

tal’kamar picked aarkein devaed to dissociate himself from all the horrors he wrought. and he hates aarkein devaed so much.

and then he made himself forget, and now that he’s remembering more, caeden hates tal’kamar almost as much as he hates aarkein devaed. isn’t it lovely :)

#licanius trilogy #licanius #caeden #tal'kamar #one of these days i will remember which tags i use #i reread some parts of book 3 yesterday and the feels #the feels were too much #he keeps asking people to call him sth else it's amazing he's such a mess

[incorrect-licanius]

Tal’kamar Deshrel. Aarkein Devaed. Malshash. Caeden.

#my sweet baby boy who’s committed so many war crimes #licanius trilogy #caeden licanius #the licanius trilogy #tal’kamar deshrel

[laireshi]

licanius timeline?

i’m trying to make sense of licanius timeline re: andrael and licanius the sword and aarkein devaed.

so some ~~2900 years before the main timeline of the books, tal’kamar is ordered to destroy dareci. he’s told he can change his name to do it. so he becomes aarkein devaed and commits genocide. and when meldier sees him just after the deed, he doesn’t know of ‘aarkein devaed’ yet.

the venerate fall apart after that. andrael leaves. some 300 years later he meets tal’kamar during the destruction of Silence and calls him ‘kein (a fact which i’m not normal about), which is an established nickname. how. when. did tal randomly tell everyone he was changing his name while (secretly) working on the columns and doing some other stuff in the meantime?

andrael shows him licanius. they haven’t seen each other for 300 years preciously; tal hasn’t known anything about andrael’s experiments with blades. (i am also not normal about andrael killing tysis and yet just telling tal about the sword?? like. it was tal’s actions that made him even forge it in the first place.)

yet at some point caeden remembers andrael showing him Whisper as the prototype for licanius? i mean i guess that could’ve happened later as a ‘hey here look what ELSE i’ve forged while trying to destroy myself and also all of us’. also that one vessel-weapon the venerate ran into when they’d all been happy together, that came before aarkein devaed and before they made the kan signatures. so was it unrelated? it’s said the venerate were already coming apart when aarkein devaed happened to finish tearing them apart, but... idk.

(also how did andrael die. at this point my headcanon is that he killed himself, between meldier’s comments and andrael’s law being a thing and licanius staying with the lyth??)

#licanius trilogy #licanius #am i thinking too much about it #why yes i am #BUT REALLY I JUST WANT A PROLOGUE BOOK ABOUT THEM ALL #I WANT ALL THE UNHINGED IMMORTAL RELATIONSHIPS

[bitegore]

may i ask what licanius is? 👀

book series! starts with “the shadow of what was lost” by james islington and continues for two more books. they are chonky, thick ass bulky ass giant fuckin books that take a while to read unless you’re like me and will happily and absolutely read 700 pages in like three hours as long as you’re engaged (and you will be engaged, they slap) and they are very good

#red rambles #anonymous #red replies #licanius trilogy #listen this is my smallest fandom #theres like 2 people in it #i once straight up paid someone $60 to BUY the book so i could then commission them to write a 1k fic for me #i love this series so much and its just........ so smol #also aarkein devaed best antagonist (/j but i cant tell you why bc spoilers)

[bitegore]

hi hello caeden being aarkein devaed is the best sequel hook ive ever read and then caeden killing davian is the second best sequel hook ive ever read and as such i don’t fuck w people who don’t like books that put sequel hooks in because the structure of those flashbacks makes the entire story better

#red rambles #licanius spoilers

[bitegore]

its been years since i wrote a songfic but now i just wanna do. aarkein devaed. being angst. lookin at a mirror. coming to grips with his own sins. rip. much sorrow. many sads. gotta do it. 

shame i was supposed to write PFC TONIGHT LMFAOOOOOOO FUCK ME UP THE ASS WITH A CACTUS HOW DO I ONLY SPAWN WIPS WHEN I DONT NEED THEM