#vatsk

So for context, Team Radical is passing through a village (don’t know when this occurs, probably after or before the dark trial), and Varian sees one of his old wanted posters still hung up. He freaks out (his gang CANNOT know he’s a criminal) and rips it down before they can see. Yong notices this and is obviously curious so he pokes and pries into Varian’s space, but it’s all in good fun!! Not to Varian though (he can’t be normal for one second GOD I hate him) and he therefore flips out and goes off on his own through the village because he “needs space”. Team Radical is worried. Yong is wondering if he did something wrong.

So Varian (and Ruddiger!!!) are gathering supplies by themselves while he’s having an internal meltdown and therefore doesn’t notice someone who’s been following him around. Ruddiger points this out to him and he shrugs it off, but gradually he starts getting uncomfortable and wary. This stranger won’t stop following him so he sends Ruddiger to go find the others while he tries to get this guy off of his trail. After a lot of twists and turns, he makes it to a dead end of the village and turns to find a populated area before getting JUMPED. He puts up a good fight before getting his ass abducted by these random people in dark clothes that he’s never seen before.

After a clean knock out, he wakes up confused and tired and oh cool, look at that, he’s tied to a chair in a room he doesn’t recognize and he really wish he hadn’t separated from his friends. After sitting there for a while the door opens, and his good old friend Andrew walks into the room, locks the door behind him, and tells him that they have unfinished business. Varian, like any other normal person would do, freaks out, because he was pretty sure he’d never have to see him again and it’s so unfortunate that he just got kidnapped by the worst person in the world.

After a quick run down, it turns out that Andrew and his crew busted out of prison during Varian’s journey and they’ve been tracking him down ever since. Andrew’s gone from male manipulator to sadistic cult-obsessed psychopath. Prison made him 10x crazier, to the point where he started obsessing (even more) over the idea of glory and overpowering all kingdoms. However, he’s pretty incompetent in the field of alchemy and science, and the only reason he was even close to taking over Corona was because of Varian. His claim was that Varian had the tools and he had the vision. Andrew can’t overthrow god by himself, and he may be delusional (as hell) but he believes that Varian is the only person capable of helping him. And if he doesn’t, he’ll just kill him. His whole shmick is for Varian to work with him again or die.

Andrew has this twisted view of Varian in his head, and I feel like that is a very important part of their dynamic. He sees him as another thing he can control and use to get what he wants, and then when called out, he has a way with his words that convinces Varian to let him do what he wants. Like, “I basically saved you when we were put in the same prison cell together. I gave you a purpose when your friends left you in a cell to rot. I treated you with kindness when the world was cruel to you, and this is the thanks I get?” He has this narcissistic view of himself as being Varian’s savior in a way, and he has used this idea to manipulate him in the past. Andrew’s a gross little fuck and that is very important. He’s become obsessed with having Varian under his thumb and because of how long it’s been, he’s become a crazed insane loser who’s intimidating but really just can’t accomplish what he wants to without his ex-buddy kid genius partner.

He’s gone pretty nuts, and Varian’s obviously grossed and creeped the hell out by this. Honestly though, he’s pretty unimpressed. He would say something like, “You’re still on this whole taking over the world thing??? Really??? I thought we moved past this like four years ago.”

And I think because Varian’s older, smarter, wiser, and overall more mature, I feel like he’d put up a good fight. In a way that makes him feel a little more in power and in control compared to when he was a teenager. When he was 14-16, he stuck with Andrew because he was the only person who accepted him at his worst. He was the only one who offered him a chance when the entire kingdom was against him. And therefore, because of Andrew’s master manipulating skills, he became dependent on him and soon saw him as some sort of twisted father/older brother figure. Varian had NOBODY when he was a teenager and I feel like it makes a lot of sense for him to become reliant and attached to the first person to give him a chance, even if that person is a horrible human being and they end up making him worse. Varian didn’t know any better. He was a KID!!! And I feel like that is so important to his character. He got essentially groomed for 1-2 years and I think that needs to be discussed more.

Yeah so Varian obviously declines the offer. He doesn’t want to be responsible for warefare and he doesn’t want to help him, and Andrew does not like this. Yeah that’s kind of it, I’m still trying to figure out how to conclude this story. Obviously like the gang rescues him because Ruddiger notifies them that Varian is in trouble, hence the scene where they’re all freaking out and Hugo’s having an internal meltdown, but I have no clue how they’d do that LMAO. Maybe Varian would kick ass and slime out Andrew immediately before they even rescue him but idk.

I feel like this song really hits the nail on their dynamic though. Andrew manipulated him into thinking they were friends when Varian was at his lowest and in turn controlled him by fear and intimidation and anger and false kindness. “Don’t you forget, you’re on my string” is a line I thought was fitting because even after all these years, Varian still has unwoven ends with Andrew and Andrew isn’t really done with him yet. They are BEEFING it’s bad please help. “Don’t you forget, you ain’t won yet” and “you still need me like you did before” I thought were also REALLY good lines because I think Varian would get snarky here. Now that he’s older, I think he feels a little more confident and comfortable with being a little punk. Andrew NEEDS him and his alchemy and his smarts and it’s kind of pathetic. He needs to make that CLEAR. “I knew you’d need me here to be your unwilling audience when you lose your marbles in act 3” it thought was PERFECT for this because, like i said, Andrew has gone off the deep end. He’s gone nuts. He needs to feel in power and he’s chasing this impossible goal that is stupid and dumb and he’s so pathetic god I hate him. And also he sifts through Varian’s bag for resources and ends up finding a lot of alchemy and tools and stuff that he therefore uses to intimidate him even further. What a creep

So. Yeah. I’ve been thinking a lot about this story for awhile because it’s a pretty important part of Vat7k to me and I really wanted to do my own take on it but ehh idk if I’d write one. Maybe one day but today is not that day. ANIMATIC INSTEAD!!!! Working on this was rough but I’m relatively happy with it I think. Andrew is pretty difficult to draw so forgive me if he looks weird. Also sorry if this explanation is written weirdly, I’m so used to writing fanfic esc stuff so explaining this is a. Yknow. An explanation way and not a story way. Was hard. Um.

UHHH YEAH YEAH!! I’m quite fond of how this looks so HEHEHEHE THANK YOU FOR CHECKING IT OUT!!!! BYE BYE BESITOS BESITOS