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#not spoilering the third person just lying there
fluffyfangirl · 6 months
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@bylerween2023 Day 2 - Slashers, Gore & Body Horror (Mind the tags please before opening!)
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Inspired by @light-lanterne's ficlet "Anthropophagy" I changed the hammer out for the axe tho, I'm still sorry for that Angel ;-;
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double--blind · 7 months
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(SPOILERS) breaking down how obsessed Andrew is w/his sister bc he's a repressed lil liar and I'm going insane
This post got longer than I intended it to
1. He claims they don't spend enough time apart from each other to even begin missing her so he doesn't even know if he would, but just earlier in the game he was apart from her for probs like 30 mins tops to investigates some cultists and guess what???? He was already missing her 😒
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2. Says "I thought you grew out of this touchy-feely crap" when Ashley asks for a hug, but earlier when he was cooking dinner, he was the one with the inexplicable urge to "pull this broody bitch into [his] arms and force her to stay until she smiles" 😒
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3. Piggy-backing off the last screenshot: WHAT OTHER THOUGHTS, ANDREW??? yOU WERE JUST THINKING ABT HUGGING HER. WHAT DO YOU EVEN MEAN. THESE ARE SIMPLY INNOCENT BROTHERLY THOUGHTS ARE THEY NOT????? 🤨🤨🤨
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4. Bro just can't keep his hands off her. And everyone thinks Ashley's the clingy one jeez (lol the way he springs apart from her when Mom catches them is definitely definitelyyyy not worth analyzing. nope. not even when it happens a second time on the couch. nope. nooope)
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5. What. What is he thinking here. Don't think I don't see those grey lil blush lines. Is this connected to my third point somehow bc like... 🤨😬 Is "Andrew" is gonna start doing and being what "Andy" was too spineless and afraid of doing?? That's what the vow was partly abt right?? Does that include—
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5. WHEWWW BOY that little flashback with his gf has so much baggage in it I just wanna dissect. His girlfriend's tryna have a serious discussion with him abt his weird sister for the sake of bettering their relationship bc she genuinely loves him, but he just gets caught up in fondly talking abt said weird sister instead??
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6. He's awfully hesitant abt Ashley learning some independence, bc y'know what?? I think he doesn't really want her to stop relying on him. But what do I know y'know
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6. Wants his gf to put tie her hair up in a ponytail, then when she refuses bc he'll pull on it, says it's just "how boys express their love". Well. You know who else puts there hair up in a ponytail??? You know who else's hair he's always pulling on and touching???
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7. The voicemails in his gf's phone left by Ashley are heard by him in his dreams, and his dreams are a construction of his mind utilizing his memories, personal hangups, and knowledge of Ashley. The voicemails irl were left on his gf's phone, and for all we know, he never actually listened to them in person. Bearing this in mind... odds are the things Ashley's saying contain bits of truths he believes within himself, filtered thru her crude, hateful dialogue.
Here. I transcribed one of them...
"DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't? You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that. He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything. I am the secrets you'll never hear. When he lies in bed at night, and when he needs someone to hold on to… It's not you he seeks out. It is me."
8. Claims Ashley's the one with the jealous streak, not him, but I think he's just as bad. The only difference is that Ashley's never given him reason to act on it since all she's ever wanted was him, but at the slightest mention of her gettin it on w/someone else, even as a joke, he gets mad. "OVER MY DEAD BODY!!" he says, when she's jokingly contemplating getting knocked up via the neighbor so an ambulance would come for her. "I wouldn't let them," he says, when she's complaining abt not being pretty enough for the wardens to bang her
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9. Going hand-in-hand with that fact, he's intensely protective of her. Didn't hesitate to cleaver the warden who found her in the closet (probs didn't even BLINK lmaooo he chose VIOLENCE), and when the cake-stealing cultist insulted her just once, he stepped forward just like that
10. In their apt, when they were lying on the floor talking abt jumping off the balcony, he was really caught up in the "romantic" fantasy of them committing a double suicide and dying with their bodies entwined so irreparably by the impact they form one unified corpse "never to be separated!" and they get buried in the same coffin together. UM??? Bro fr thought he was the sane one of the two. That wasn't even true before the cannibalism and demon summoning 😭😭😭
BONUS:
11. This might just be me, but his reaction to seeing the post-sex vision doesn't strike me as someone who's inherently opposed to the idea. Instead of disgusted, he was... flustered?? He acted like she walked in mid-guilty pleasure wet dream. This wasn't a "GROSS THATS INCEST" reaction which is... the most normal reaction to have. That's the face of a man that got CAUGHT bro.
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He asks "we're not like that, are we?" and "why are you like this?" and questions the veracity of the vision, but he never actually explicitly denies wanting the vision to happen, more focused on Ashley and her reaction. He buries the elephant under the rug as fast as he can, bc yeah, it struck a landmine, but it probably wasn't a landmine for the reason Ashley thinks it is. I bet the vision just hit a little too close... :P
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cherubfae · 2 months
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how they cuddle || slashers x reader
With Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Brahms Heelshire, Billy and Stu, Art the Clown, Vincent, Bo, Lester, Sal Fisher, & Thomas Sawyer
tags: AFAB reader (not specified), cuddling, affection, rz!Mikey, art is his own warning lmao, terrifier 2 spoilers, little spoon!slashers, nightmares (Sal), comfort, poly!Ghostface, I low-key rant about art in Vin's lmao
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Michael
Exhaustion isn't something he's used to feeling so heavily in his bones. He feels the heavy weight rippling across his broad shoulders and spiraling down his spine in white hot pain. He's not a tame being, but he is a bit more docile in the months before and after Halloween. His knife doesn't thirst for blood quite as much as on the 31st.
Seeing you in your bed is a welcomed sight. Michael doesn't say much more than the soft grunt of acknowledgement as he sheds his coveralls from his dirt-caked skin. He has a lovely warm bath that loosens all the tight muscles of his lower back. You'll have his head later for leaving a ring of grime in the tub; Mikey doesn't care about that right now.
The fresh sheets are so comfortable, accepting them fully as Michael tucks his face into your side. His recently cut hair is still long enough to form a fringe curtain over his grey eyes.
Jason
Softly leans his chin to your shoulder. Depending on how far along you two are into your relationship, Jason might feel comfortable enough to have his mask removed. He's aware the material probably doesn't feel too pleasant being pressed to the side of your face or lightly digging into your skin.
His arms wind around your waist, happily sighing as he leans himself against you. Jason also doesn't mind if you switch things up and hold him in return, stroking the top of his head softly.
Brahms
If there's a way where he can wind his body around yours, Brahms will find it. He definitely likes keeping you away from all of the noise of the world, and while he's not mega happy about it, he knows you need trips into town sometimes. He likes seeing what kind of food items you bring back because the meals you make are simply delicious!
After dinner and bathing, Brahms snuggles beside you, clinging to you like you've been gone for ages. The chill of his porcelain biting into your skin as he happily huffs behind it. He's so glad to have you. <3
Billy and Stu
The pair are constantly together, if not with you, then they're almost always flanking each other's sides. The other is often not far from the first. Adding you into their duo to form a trio didn't change much of their dynamic. Instead of the two boys slinking around, they've got you as their third and final confidant.
Billy isn't the most touchy-feely person-- that's what he likes to claim. He doesn't really know how to ask for the things that he wants. He's different to Stu in the way that he's silent when you press your hand to the brunette's cheek, smiling as his eyelids flutter closed. Subconsciously leaning into your touch, chasing the feeling when you pull away.
Stu likes to be what he calls the mega spoon. It's him behind you, snuggled at your back, and with Billy pressed close to your chest still too proud to say that he enjoys being taken care of as the little spoon. You three make a nice, lovely three-person sandwich. Even when lying down, you're in the center with the boys wrapped around you like snakes. There is no them without you; you are their missing piece.
Art
This man is mostly, if not always, within your personal space. 'It's not yours, it's ours'. Art is rarely a being ever to break character or change out of his damned costume, and his hygiene is quite questionable sometimes; though he does in fact bathe and wash his suit. Just not often.
He's a man of very few words, especially when he's deep into his clown character and doing what he does best. Being immortal has its advantages, but his fight with Sienna really put him through the ringer. Art was decapitated! What a riot.
With his strength slowly returning to him, Art is always almost underfoot. In your bubble, seeing what you're doing. Snuggling up to you in a rare moment where his costume is off, leaning his head into your chest with an exhausted expression. It seemed that Pale Girl was allowing him some respite with you for a bit.
Vincent
He is a busy man, constantly sculpting and creating. His sketchbooks are filled to the absolute brim of beautiful works of art in all sorts of mediums: charcoal, graphite, watercolor, and ink. You're his muse, his favorite subject of which his art circulates. There's something so breathtaking about you, minute details that only an artist can see within people. An eternal, everlasting beauty.
Vincent is quick to jot down the rough outline of your sleeping form resting against Jonesy. He's smiling behind the wax mask, skilled fingers shading the crease of your eyelids then moving to sketch the curve of your Cupid's bow. When he felt it was finished enough for now, Vincent sets his book aside in favor of crawling into bed beside you.
His broad frame dwarfs yours as he curls his body around yours, his large hands slide beneath your sweater pressing across your tummy. Vincent really adores you, you know?
Bo
Not much of a cuddler, but if you get especially pouty about it Bo will roll his eyes and tug you to him. He can be a major asshole but he doesn't like seeing his baby upset.
He tucks you beneath his strong arm, his mechanic's hat resting on top of the back of the sofa. Waiting for you to settle down doesn't take long as you're soon drifting off with your head on his chest, focusing on his hand placed on your knee; gently stroking the skin there. His eyes begin to droop, feeling heavy. Cradling the back of your neck, Bo allows himself to drift off, too.
Lester
Long days certainly do get to him sometimes. Tiring him out something awful. He's prepared enough roadkill and deer for his brothers and you, enough to satiate any hunger for the time being until he finds time to run into the nearby town again.
Lester finds you lounging in his bed with Jonesy, Vincent must be working hard and the pup sought out attention where she could. He had no idea where Bo was or whatever the hell he was up to.
Collapsing onto the bed, Lester sighs deeply when you immediately comb your fingers through his messy short hair. He's out like a light soon after.
Sal Fisher
Poor guy has so much going on that sometimes he just wants to crash and sleep for one-thousand years. He doesn't sleep well on the best of days, plagued by frequent nightmares that not even the warmth and comfort of your sleeping form beside him can quell.
Another nightmare yanks Sal out of a fitful sleep. One that has him patting the sheets, searching for you. The heat of your skin against his hands sends a calming peace over him. He's scooping your sleeping form in his arms, his face hidden in your neck. Sal gives a weak smile as you snuggle into him. He focuses on your even breathing, allowing himself to fall asleep soon after.
Thomas
It's incredibly hot on the best of days in Duller County, the Sawyer family set up several oscillating fans that constantly work overtime without a proper functioning air conditioning unit.
Even the lackluster cool breeze and the sweltering Texan heat aren't enough to have Tommy pulling you into his lap and nuzzling his masked face into your hair.
You're much smaller than him. It gives Tommy a sense of pride knowing that he's your big, strong protector. :)
Patrick
He is such an enigma, a contradiction. Patrick isn't much of a cuddler or snuggler but he wants to play the role of being a dutiful partner. He is quick to become a jealous lover if you were to find someone else to give you attention while he's fretting over what sort of shade of cream or white Paul Allen's next business card will have.
|| I DON'T GIVE PERMISSION FOR MY WORKS TO BE REPOSTED, RESHARED, OR EDITED. TUMBLR IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT AND THE ONLY PLACE WHERE I POST MY WRITING. ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNERS, THE STORY BELONGS TO ME. || CHERUBFAE © 2024
A prideful, vain being such as himself would never admit how much he truly does enjoy having your curl up next to him. The warmth your body exudes is a comfort, one he finds him seeking out more and more even though your relationship is still within its earlier stages. Patrick hates that he finds himself being so undone by you, but he can't find it within himself to stop either. There's something inside of you that his fervent bloodlust can't be satisfied by.
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Group H, Round 1, Poll 9:
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Propaganda under the cut
Ianthe Tridentarius
She is trying so hard to be the main character by lying and manipulating her sister, her cavalier, her mentor, her ?love interests? (Spoiler???) And also god. Not sure how it's working out for her but she does love to lie and manipulate
Worstie Ianthe is the DEFINITION of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. She is one of a set of necromancer twins that are the heirs to their houses rule. Except wait, only she is a necromancer and she has spent their entire lives doing necromancy for the both of them. She is constantly mean to their cavalier, Naberius, who she occasionally nibbles on like a chew toy, before eventually killing and eating him to ascend to sainthood. She goes to gods spaceship with another woman who ascended to sainthood who she has a crush on, this other woman is like…. Both incredibly mentally unwell and also haunted by at least 211 ghosts. Ianthes method of flirting with her? Gaslighting her about the corpse that keeps moving around and hiding under her bed. For no real reason tbh. She is clearly plotting to overthrow god, and at the moment that consists of her manipulating him while he’s too sad about his long term partners betraying him and subsequently exploding to really care. She dresses in terrible outfits and makes soup by burning onions to the bottom of a pot, putting meat in and some vegetables and then it doesn’t taste like anything so she puts in a few teaspoons of salt so it tastes like a few teaspoons of salt. She had her crush amputate her arm and regrow her a new one out of bone and it’s one of the horniest things I’ve read in my life.
"Gaslight = told her lobotomized (she helped), schizophrenic girlobsession that there was no corpse under their bed, even tho there totally was. Gatekeep = girl did NOT share the secret to god-like ascension. She kept that shit to herself until it was time to eat her boytoy, and by then everyone knew already. Girlboss = she has a non-necromancer twin sister, and literally Everyone thinks they r both necromancers because Ianthe is so good at it. She reverse engineered ascending to the aforementioned ascension without even completing any of the supplementary tasks. She held her own in a fight against a 10k year old lyctor. She becomes the figurehead of her entire empire. "
She uses a man as a chewtoy in the first book, literally gaslights the protagonist of the second book about a corpse, and elder-abuses God when he gets depressed in the third book. Nobody is doing it like her.
Dives headfirst with no regrets while basically laughing and covered in blood into murdering her cavalier once she realizes what the gothic locked room mystery/competition leads to while everyone else is questioning it, helps perform lobotomy on harrow so she doesn't remember the person she loves, manipulates everyone to get to the top
idk just everything about her
her relationship with her sister is incredibly Bad, she fosters codependency and views Corona(the sister) as an extension of herself. This does not stop her from keeping up the con that Corona actually has magic (She doesn't, it was always just Ianthe) for 22ish years and every single person who interacts with them falls for it. She killed a man against his will (most dying for this purpose specifically go willingly) and she consumed him and she will be burning his soul for eternity. She's completely repulsive and still somehow incredibly hot.
she takes advantage of the fact that the main character is prone to hallucinations. at one point she gaslights the mc into believing that the corpse under her bed isn't real just because she can. she reverse engineered a set of very complex trials on her own without anyone realizing she had the skills to complete them normally. she's also babysat god through his drunk and pathetic era.
Artist:@starcanist
Remy the Rat
Gaslight- 'hmm? Me? Steal papers? I'm just an innocent little ratty rat.' Gatekeep- I would debate he's gatekeeping food and taste from the other rats because they just don't GET it. Ugh! Girlboss- doesn't he own a rat restaurant at the end?
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gallantys · 2 months
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Fem!Mc, who has a child, and somehow the child is hurt by the third human exchange student, this is how I see this going:
Brothers: Mc! Wait!
Fem!mc: STAY! She said, completely blind by rage, her power out of control, Lucifer who tried to hold her, and any of them close, flied away hitting hard the wall.
Diavolo and Barbatos had to stop mc, Barbatos holding her with magic chains.
I can almost hear Solomon jokingly saying "The anger of a mother huh :D"
Mc saying to Diavolo chose between her and her child or the other human, pointing the finger to his face and saying "You can see lies huh, so hear carefully, I gonna fucking kill that person next time I see them. You better chose" (spoiler, she wasn't lying)
To Lucifer and Barbatos? "I'm not scared of your "scary" expression, I'm talking to the fucking prince not any of you. He better hear the fucking truth sometimes" (I'm Portuguese there's a expression that I love: "Ta achando que a vida é um morango? / do you think the life is a strawberry?" it's basically "do you think the life is easy?" it fits perfectly, I would totally say this to them)
Bro-- I pray to see the Mc saying that to barbatos-- i love them, but can we all agree that Diavolo has to hear the truth sometimes? He probably never heard a no in his life
Anyway, this was completely random. Sorry any grammar mistake and if you ever write this, you have my full support, just let me know pls ♡
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yazthebookish · 3 months
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House of Flame and Shadow
Prologue and Chapter 1 reading updates
(Warning: spoilers below!!)
Prologue (Lidia's POV)
Morven and Einar are pieces of shit.
I guess Cormac is gone for good 💔
At least we got some descriptions of how some of the other Asteri look like. It still bothers me Rigelus chose the form of a 17-year-old boy. Ugh what a creep.
"Quinlan and Athalar are mates. She will return to this world because of that bond. And when she does, she will go straight to him."
THEY 👏🏼 ARE 👏🏼 MATES 👏🏼
"Athalar and Baxian dangled unconscious from the ceiling, their torsos patchworks of scars and burns. And their backs..."
The Asteri better start counting their fucking days.
"Lidia couldn't look at the third figure hanging between them. Couldn't get a breath down near him."
UGH!!!!
"Baxian still hung unconscious. Pollux had beaten him into a bloody pulp last night after severing his and Athalar's wings with a blunt-toothed saw. The Helhound didn't so much as stir."
Pollux I hope you'll burn in the deepest pit of Hell and get to have the worst death in the history of SJM character deaths.
"They'd never spoken mind-to-mind outside of their dreaming, but she'd been trying since he'd arrived here. Again and again, she'd cast her mind toward his. Only silence answered."
This sounds a whole lot like a Daemati. Like I'm still not sure if she is but it seems like it.
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Chapter 1 (Bryce's POV)
"The darkness seemed inherent to the three people standing across from her: a petite female in gray silk, and two winged males clad in black scalelike armor, one of them-the beautiful, powerful male in the center of the trio— literally rippling with shadows and stars. Rhysand, he'd called himself. The one who looked so much like Ruhn."
Let's fucking gooooo!!
"You said your name is Bryce Quinlan. That you come from another world —Midgard." Rhysand murmured to the winged male beside him. Translating, perhaps.
Yes Rhys show us how useful your Duolingo lessons were.
Rhys seems to be agitated about her.
Master of spinning bullshit, indeed. "So maybe I'm here for that. Maybe the sword sensed that dagger and ... brought me to it." Silence. Then the silent, hazel-eyed warrior laughed quietly. How had he understood without Rhysand translating? Unless he could simply read her body language, her tone, her scent—The warrior spoke with a low voice that skittered down her spine. Rhysand glanced at him with raised brows, then translated for Bryce with equal menace, "You're lying."
Bryce, honey, that's the Spymaster of the Night Court.
"I just watched my mate and my brother get captured by a group of intergalactic parasites," she snarled. "I have no interest in doing anything except finding a way to help them." Rhysand looked to the warrior, who nodded, not taking his gaze off Bryce for so much as a blink. "Well," Rhysand said to Bryce, crossing his muscled arms. "That's true, at least."
Not Azriel functioning as Rhysand's personal lie detector. Impressive though.
" I do not pry where I am not willingly invited." Bryce lurched back in the chair, nearly knocking it over at the smooth male voice in her mind. Rhysand's voice. But she answered, thanking Luna for keeping her own voice cool and collected, "Code of mind-speaking ethics?"
LOLOLOLOLOL 🤣🤣🤣🤣
"So this is it, then. This is where we-the Midgard Fae— originated. My ancestors left this world and went to Midgard. .. and we forgot where we came from."
The theory I had since before even HOSAB came out is finally confirmed. I mean it was semi-confirmed in HOSAB but some readers still debated it.
The corner of Rhysand's mouth curled upward. "We will not torture it from you, nor will I pry it from your mind. If you choose not to talk, it is indeed your choice. Precisely as it will be my choice to keep you down here until you decide otherwise."
Bryce couldn't stop herself from coolly surveying the room, her attention lingering on the grate and the hissing that drifted up from it. "'ll be sure to recommend it to my friends as a vacation spot."
Of course Rhys has to pull the "choice" speech whenever he can 🤣 also, BRYCE LOL!!!
"You haven't seen it in fifteen thousand years, or spoken this language in nearly as long-which lines up pertectly with the timeline of the Starborn Fae arriving in Midgard."
So they exist in the same timeline then but Midgard happens to be more advanced.
"It is in our history, Rhysand," Amren said gravely. "But the Asteri were not known by that name. Here, they were called the Daglan."
Asteri are the Daglan, we guessed as much in HOSAB but that's another theory confirmed now!
"Azriel, without Rhysand to translate, watched in silence. Bryce could have sworn shadows wreathed him, like Ruhn's, yet... wilder. The way Cormac's had been."
Ruhn's darkness seemed more similar to Rhys, but Cormac was close to what we know of Shadowsingers. But if Shadows are an Avallen Fae's gifts then how is Azriel one? We're told Shadowsingers are not specific to any courts but there are no Shadowsinger Fae in Midgard than Avallen Fae. But Azriel has a unique way with his shadows (given that magic is more powerful in Prythian.
"The Veritas orb?" Amren said, and Azriel lifted an eyebrow.
Oh damn.
Rhysand mastered himself, a cool mask sliding into place. "You live in such a world." It wasn't entirely a question. But Bryce nodded. "Yes." "And they want to bring all of that ... here." "Yes." Rhysand stared ahead. Thinking it through. Azriel just kept his eyes on the space where the orb had displayed the utter destruction of her world. Dreading-and yet calculating. She'd seen that look before on Hunt's face. A warrior's mind at work.
She showed them the destruction and all the weapons the Asteri have. She even showed them Rigelus. Rhys, Azriel, and even Amren seem at a loss for words.
Bryce examined the silver bean that lay smooth and gleaming in her hand. Amren said without looking at her, "You swallow it, and it will translate our mother tongue for you. Allow you to speak it, too." "Fancy," Bryce murmured.
Of course they have a pill for translating any language and here we've been pondering about how they would communicate.
Amen turned to Rhysand and said in that new, strange language -their language: "The glowing letters inked on her back... they're the same as those in the Book of Breathings."
Oooooh Leshon Hakodesh 👀
Then Azriel said in a soft, lethal voice, "Explain or you die."
Holy hell that's hot—I mean—Azriel that's not a way to treat a woman chill the fuck out.
---
And we got to the end. This is what SJM only had available on her website. 4 more days until I get the full book and continue then 🤩!!
Also, Azriel's shadows seem to be around and thriving after all 😌 I recall being told they're gone for good based on HOSAB's ending, not that I took it seriously Lol.
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|| My fellow Colonel
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Y’all asked for it and here it is. Whew, I wrote all of it today so here’s to hoping it is tolerably alright. Also, as an aside, I am just shy of 1k followers and that’s astounding to me. I had to rebuild this blog from scratch in December after two previous deactivations where I lost a similar amount collected over a far longer time. I’m truly so grateful for each of you who take an interest in sharing this little corner of the internet with me. Thank you, thank you!
Warnings: usual universe warnings apply, 18+ with additional chapter warnings for gore and violent character death, brief mention of racial discrimination and a very dark headspace for Ida at times including brief yet crassly recollected sexual assault
April 1945, escape spoilers ahead
“Bitte.” Ida kept her hands placating, outstretched and harmless by her side, the most open expression on her face that she could summon as she stared the woman down, “Bitte nicht!”
For eleven days she and Smith and Cleven had managed to scrounge their way westward, evading recapture or altercation. But eating from the dead horses on the side of the road was out of the question, agricultural fields were churned to sludge by Amtrak’s and the small amount of wheat berries they found in one abandoned supply truck had long since ceased to fuel their weakening bodies.
They had passed by a camp, one that they observed from the shelter of the woods to be abandoned or liquidated, once used for civilian labor, judging by the signs. After a careful reconnaissance it was agreed that Ida should go and act on her hope that the commandant's empty dwelling may not have been completely ransacked. That there might be some leftover provisions either there, or in the homes of the other personnel. She had had no luck at the commandant’s, it had been empty, no luck in the next idyllic little shack either, only the eerie knickknacks of some bygone person whose vocation it was to deal in pure evil.
In the third house she had found jars of spoiled milk, tubers of some sort gone to sprouts but she did not care, she grabbed a ratty towel lying on the floor and made a sling for them. She was in the process of prying a loose floorboard up, anticipating some root cellar below when the whining creak of a sneaking step sounded behind her in the still place.
She whirled around in a crouch, half expecting either one of her companions or else one of the many starving children they encountered on the road. Instead, silhouetted inside the bright doorway there was a woman, in the uniform of a guard and with a Lugar poised at the ready. Ida felt a cold spike of fear at the flashing recollection of her last encounter with such a female, at the horrid misery that was Ravensbruck, the complete and entire lack of respect shown to her or her girls by these indoctrinated tools.
Ida’s grasp of German had been sufficient enough to keep herself and her companions away from suspicion in their occasional interactions with passersby. While she wore the heavy overcoat of a military man, it had no markings, and it was just as likely for some freezing civilian to steal it off a carcass as it was for an American female officer to be on the loose. Ida knew this and she tried to play at being dumb, pointing to the food, explaining in unstudied desperation that she was starving.
The female guard observed her coldly, her impassive face showing a certain lack of curiosity or even remote interest in Ida’s narrative that made her heart quicken with a presentment of a swift and sudden execution. She has seen these guards lift a gun, squeeze the trigger, and move on boredly all in the matter of a second. What about her own features or story were so compelling to prevent it?
“Bitte nicht!” She repeated again, choosing to take a step forward, eyeing the woman’s grip and posture, professional, soldierly, the woman left little opening for Ida to capitalize on, but she would rather get a bullet in the gut while fighting than be shot hunkering over stolen potatoes.
There was a darkening in the doorway, it caught Ida’s eye right before she timed her launch. It was Cleven. His appearance made her hesitate a moment too long. He had his arm barred around the guard’s throat in an instant but the pistol was out of his reach and one stride too far away from Ida’s grasp. Unlike the hapless children in the forest that had attacked them days ago, this officer had bullets. Ida felt the searing tear of its bite smart her shoulder, blurring her vision in pain before she rushed in, clasping her own hands around the pale wrist.
Cleven had the woman’s eyes rolling back with his grip, her grapple at his forearm growing feeble as her oxygen ran low. Another shot rang out, a bullet embedding in the ceiling rafters as Ida managed to wrench it away at last. She turned it on the woman and fired, only to find her luck run out again, as well as the chamber.
There was a knife in the guard's boot, both women seemed to think of it at the same instant as the guard became possessed with a final animated struggle to reach for it, desperate to break out of Cleven’s strangle. But Ida wasn’t about to watch another friend die, or miss her chance to go home, to bear witness to what her girls, her men, her brother were yet enduring, not to spare herself a fleeting moment of misplaced mercy. She dove for the boot, wrenched the knife free from its sheath and drove the blade in under the sternum, carving it upwards as she herself rose to her feet. Her wrist was fully in the chest cavity, arm covered with warm still living blood, by the time she saw the guard’s head loll impassively against Cleven’s chest, the soul finally gone dim behind the eyes.
“Sweet Jesus.” He stepped back from the corpse, letting go. Ida felt the weight of the body in her wrist as her grip on the knife was all that kept it standing. She tore the weapon free with another sickly gush, and blearily observed it crumple to the floor.
“There are spuds.” she told Cleven as she braced her hands on her knees, nodding to her abandoned sack of potatoes. The edges of her vision were blurring from the exertion, her coat sleeve was soaked to the elbow, but she had a weapon now and a dead Nazi at her feet. Both sat well with her.
The potatoes bought them another days walk, with Smith using the ratty towel to wrap Ida’s shoulder, it was only a flesh wound. That evening they had another run in, but this time it was with the friendly faces of gum chewing yanks who were welcoming with their smokes and their K rations. Poor infantry boys, they were bamboozled by the existence of a female officer, the experiment of integration having only added to the flyboys somewhat derisive glamor. But it was mostly awe, and a healthy amount of respect, that they showed for the blood smeared lady Colonel.
“That make you one of Brady’s Banshees?” one bright corporal made conversation with Ida as he allowed her a seat beside himself on the hood of a tank, it was a hitched ride into Belgium.
“She is Brady.” Smith drawled for her, enjoying far more than Ida how gobsmacked the man was to be in the presence of feminine greatness.
They were welcomed warmly everywhere by their fellow allies, ferried like heroes on any conveyance possible. Smith was their cheery intercessor, knowing her superiors were of so torn a spirit and conflicted of conscience as to be half inclined to go back to where they came from. In truth, Ida could hardly bring herself to board the last plane -an unbelievable courtesy taking them from Paris straight to Thorpe- as all she could think on were what repercussions might have been exacted on the others for their escape. And what cruelties she had left her brother to endure without her.
Cleven was not much better; Egan, Maureen, all of them still left behind. As they took their seats on the benches, felt the old nostalgic rumble of the engines, not of a Fort but of a Gooneybird, what should have been a lightening of spirits as they soared over the channel was instead a dismal camaraderie of guilt.
That fateful night when they had all agreed to escape before crossing the Danube, the organization had been infuriatingly chaotic yet the groups were chosen with emphatic pragmatism. The guards were used to watching certain persons in company with their favorite fellows. The Bradys, the Buckys, Smith and Murph, each had some comrade the Germans expected to be their partner in any subversive endeavor. With this in mind, their agreed-upon groups were intentionally fractured to confuse their captors, each hoping to meet up somewhere on the road or in the forest.
Cleven and Ida had waited only a few hundred yards in the tree line for over an hour, hoping to be joined by their fellows. In the end only Smith came, with the word that the gig was up, Egan had been detained, John Brady never even began to saunter off before they closed the perimeter. No more were coming. It took all of Smith’s vicious logic to keep the officers from going back, she had to lean on reminders of reprisals and certain death, how they could in no way alleviate the suffering of the others by rejoining them.
What they could do was carry through, escape, go back to England, spread the word, liberate.
Despite this inner turmoil, Ida felt like kissing the ground when her feet landed on East Anglian soil. Or, rather, the cement of the old familiar runway. Instead she settled for Crosby‘s cheeks, the beaming fellow being so utterly honest in his welcome that some tiny part of her melted in momentary relief at having actually made it. That hadn’t really sunk in, not until there was an English mist pelting her face and Harry’s crinkled cheeks between her hands.
“A major?!” she repeated his rank and felt prouder than his mother in that moment while Harry blushed scarlet under the affirmation.
“A-and a father.” tumbled out of his mouth as a deflection except, that subject made a great hullabaloo too, with even Cleven growing exuberant in his congratulatory shoulder slapping. “What am I doing makin’ you stand out here, get in the jeep sirs, I’ll take you to a hut, or-or the club? Or the doctor?”
Both Ida and Cleven stiffened in their swing into the jeep at the last suggestion, a brittle defensiveness tightening their smiles, “Bed and board are all we need, thanks Crosby.” Gale gave him one of those devastatingly final little nods of his.
They kept him occupied and rambling on the ride, updates on new crews, new buildings, Jeffreys, Meatball, the improvement of rations, tales of bombing Berlin, the prospect of victory within reach. By the time he’d parked outside Cleven’s old barracks, Harry knew next to nothing about their own experiences, and he felt that somehow to have been quite calculated.
“There’s still a ladies sector, Colonel,” Harry assured Ida, much to her confusion as to why there wouldn’t be, “I’ll take you and Smith there.”
The old hut was as she remembered it, same as all the others, curved metal amplifying the patter of rain and the monotonous comfort of Air Force regulated bunking. It hit then, no more wooden combines or roadside shelters. She was really back.
“Where the hell is everyone?” Smith asked, the place eerily quiet, even for midday.
“There at- there at work.” Crosby offered haltingly.
Suspecting something dreadful, or as Bucky liked to say of her instincts -sniffing out bullshit- Ida slowly turned to Crosby and gave him a stare, one she recalled having once effectively shrank the man by a few literal inches. Perhaps because it was remarkably similar to her brother’s. Harry bore up under it better now, oak leaf cluster on his breast or a hard three years adding some spine to him, she didn’t know, but still his expression wavered guiltily.
“At work?” she repeated his phrasing, “That what the kids call war these days?”
“A few, a couple, -some,” he settled on, “are on missions. We’ve been uh, we’ve been running a lot of missions. Picking up prisoners -like you guys.”
“The rest?”
“At work.”
“Where’s this work?”
“Uh, well, various posts, you know how it is-“
“-grounded?” She supplied.
“Well, yeah. Just like Douglass and me and-“
“They badly hurt? Who’re we talking about?”
“Colonel,” Harry begged her, looking mildly close to drowning on dry land and sending a wet eyed sos at Smith, “dozens of them are posted here. Grounded yes, but, in good positions, required positions-“
“Did they get corresponding promotions?” Ida hit back, “Were they grounded because they were too valuable or were they hurt? Or did they just get squirreled away in some cupboard with a typewriter?”
“Look, uh, sir,” Harry chuckled nervously, “a lot of them are on missions, some of them are at their jobs -where I should be right now. But, it’s true, uh, the brass thought that, well they weren’t sure, Ida, when we got word you’d escaped we wanted to welcome you back right and uh, we didn’t know what to expect. We’ve had a lot of reports. Some reassuring and a lot…not. Not reassuring at all. And uh, we didn’t know what to expect, they didn’t know and uh, depending on how you were, it could affect the morale. So they thought, clear the place out a little, yeah? Make sure you were -you were…”
“Didn’t wanna scare the kids.” Ida supplied, tone softened, suspecting she probably did look half witch from all her trials.
“We didn’t know what to expect.” Harry repeated, a significant amount of relief bleeding into his voice, like he was going to get choked up on her mere continued existence.
“Well I need a change of clothes, and I need a shower.” Ida smiled at him until he gave her a fastidious look while glancing at her blood stained coat and she sent him a sour glare in return, “And a nap. And then I dare say nothing about me will be cause for alarm, not even for general LeMay.”
Harry was back to chuckling nervously as he walked his way backwards out the hut. “Of course, yeah, uh, we tried to supply uniforms, laid them out -best we could scrounge, for now.”
“Thanks Croz.” Smith offered, trying to soften the ending of this interaction.
“Before you go,” Ida stalled him, “tell me a little about the new ones? Who should I know? What should I know? Hate to wake up in here and have to start making acquaintances from scratch.”
“Colonel,” Harry answered her in the most mournful voice, “there aren’t any new ones.”
That old whiff of cold dread was back. “Crosby.”
“They uh, after you went down, colonel they, they scrapped the program.”
“You cannot be-“ Ida rubbed at her throat, trying to get it to open up, wondering what the hell it must be like to be Gale Cleven and get to come back to Thorpe Abotts and nothing be different, get to be home and get to find everything where it should be because your own higher ups aren’t fighting against you right along with the bastards with the flak and the barbed wire and the endless taunts about women being made for breeding. “Crosby what do you mean scrapped? They shut it down?” she wished she sounded angry, but she knew it was a cry, and to his credit he looked ready to cry for her.
“Colonel I’m so sorry, the reports were so alarming and the-“ he shook his head, “-they grounded all female servicemen right after. Cut the program, if it wasn’t for Kidd they might’ve sent them all back, discharged or moved to the WASPS. Well, they stayed, but, it’s not- it’s not what it was, colonel.”
Ida bit her lip, that old throbbing pain from the old injury of her cheek bloomed again, it felt like arriving at the stalag in one too many ways. “Y-you said something about, you said some were up on missions.” She wracked her brain for it and found it, that one bit of hope and she clung to it like a woman drowning.
“Yeah!” Crosby was over eager to soothe the pain with the modicum of good news he had, “They are! Rosenthal he uh, he’s over the squadrons now and uh, he’s seen to it they are allowed up. Mostly uh, mercy runs or behind allied lines, they don’t want anyone captured but, they’re up. They’re getting their thirty missions. They’ve uh, they’ve changed the number, since you were here.”
“Thirty.” she repeated numbly.
Harry’s footsteps had long ago receded along the gravel outside by the time Ida allowed herself enough movement to sink atop the pristinely made bed in her filthy clothes and just stare at the opposite bunk of equally pristine sheets and all of it so pristine and so rigorous and so proud and so pristine and so-
The echo of her own scream startled her, banging off the tin walls and circling back to her. Ida felt more than saw the implacable Tallulah Smith jump in fright beside her, but that level headed woman knew better than to soothe her officer. Not after what they’d just learned. She bit her tongue and busied herself sorting amongst the clothes and provisions for towels, combs, soap, toothbrushes. Ida watched this rich display of care on the part of their fellows with a snarl bending her lip, she could taste salt and knew she was also crying and all that she could hear amongst the cacophony in her head was a desperate wail -she didn’t want combs and towels, she wanted her squadron back.
Some aspect of this heartbroken petulance must’ve shown on her face as Smith extended both a comb and towel to her with forceful kindness, “LeMay didn’t lay these out.” was all she commented. “Think of it as Harry’s hospitality. You look a mess, and won’t get any respect for it.”
Smith had some vantage point from which to speak, Ida knew. Native American with bronzed skin just shy of being segregated twice over, getting screwed over was something Smith had made into an art form of cat and mouse. Ida had long admiringly observed it; she never thought she’d need to adopt a similar posture to this degree. Not when she felt like grabbing at the knife still in her trench coat pocket and making a charming scene and all it would get her was confirmation of the reports.
Whatever those were. Alarming reports, apparently. It was so very upper brass of them all to find the enemy’s methods unfortunate and so shoot themselves in the foot like it evened things out.
“I’ll be along in a minute.” Ida insisted to Smith from her bunk, refusing more than the towel and comb.
They’d all been through hell for daring to be combatants. But Ida, at this news of her loss, was beginning to recall particular parts of her own hell she had not dwelt on since they occurred.
Colonel -the way each had called her that, sneering at the mere concept of a colonel with a cunt, an officer so easily breached, a leader made by her Creator to be bent over and taken. She’d had a squadron then, and no amount of scorn or cruelty could take that from her; no, only her friends could take that away.
And they had.
Robert Rosenthal was giving himself a little pump up speech as he stalled outside with his hand on the door knob, knowing he needed to knock first and that knocking would buy him a little more time to ready himself, and so he really should go ahead and knock. The pattering drizzle on his hat brim should have been human incentive enough to get inside already, if duty and honor and admiration weren’t quite cutting it today. But he stalled, even went so far as to cast an indefensibly juvenile and furtive glance over his shoulder at the shrinking form of the accommodating lady who’d passed him on his march here. A Lieutenant Smith, who had told him she was glad to be back and that her famed superior was still inside-
“Angry as God after catching the Israelites worshiping cows at Mount Carmel.”
Rosenthal knew Ida Brady had every reason to be utterly furious, hell -he was furious for her, with her, about her. And he had no right to stand there and wish she wouldn’t take it out on him, to defend himself with shitty excuses like the fact a few of the girls got to see the top of clouds because he had put his shiny and promoted boot down and asked for it. He wasn’t exactly the problem, perhaps, but he was, by sheer implication of it being men like him unable to require better treatment, at fault. And so, Rosie stood in the drizzle and gave himself one last minute to think about Colonel Ida Brady as she had been the last time he’d seen her, terrifyingly formidable and utterly kind.
“It’s no worse than your dread of it, I swear.” she had told him and Nash that night before their first time up, “I was relieved to have seen it.”
What had she seen since? He stared at the little leather binder in his hand and scoffed at the administrative mission that carried him here. To hell with it. He knocked, he waited, he knocked once more, and he went in.
The stipple of rain on the roof of an empty Nissen hut was a calming background noise he himself savored whenever possible. Despite their bare aesthetic and extreme practicality, there was a serenity to them as well, and on spotting a seated figure a few bunks down from the entrance, he felt a pang of empathy for the desire to just decompress.
She looked up at the sound of his footfalls, not startled in the least. Not angry. In fact, she looked utterly dazed, like the men he’d helped out of their forts after a bad run of it. A face he’d seen in the mirror once or twice or a couple dozen. There was a docile listlessness in her gaze that he knew better than to be comforted by, despite the selfish feeling of relief at not immediately being eviscerated about her squadron. She was gaunt, understandably so, her strong jaw so pronounced he could cut his thumb on it, the pallor of her skin jarred unsettlingly with her dark brows, set off in stark relief by her tangled, jet black hair. Her overcoat was half muddy brown, half doleful rust. There was a bloody story there, a recent one, not washed away by a hard rain or bath. Rosenthal didn’t have any doubt how that struggle had ended for her assailant: she was here, wasn’t she?
He’d never seen anything more magnificent in all his life than this battered figure sat on a pristine cot with dawning recognition in her eyes.
“Welcome back, Colonel!” he ventured, keeping his tone soft as befitted the setting, yet unable to keep the creeping happiness at her return from showing in his voice.
“Mm, yes. Rosenthal.” Ida was straightening automatically, rising from her seat, shrugging off her clumsy overcoat and standing near to attention at sight of the brass on his lapel, “I remember you. A Colonel now, I see. Well done.”
Rosie felt his cheeks burn, another juvenile thing, her hand extended itself to his surprise and he clasped it warmly, maybe a little too firmly. “Well that’s kind of you, Ma’am. Very kind. Welcome back, Colonel.”
“You’ve said that already.”
“Apologies.” he stumbled, releasing her hand in hopes of regaining his thoughts. She didn’t look angry yet, she looked wary, “Just glad to have you back. There was…a lotta concern.”
“It was touch and go but -here I am.”
“Right.” There was silence after that, it was so thick that the quirk of his kind lips and the gleam of his eager eyes slowly dimmed and fell as no small talk resumed. “Uh, colonel,” he ventured, “due to those aforementioned concerns, uh, I’ve been asked-“
“Aforementioned? What kind of talk is that?”
“Ha, well, lawyerly talk I’m afraid. I need to get a report from you, colonel.”
“For God’s sake man, I just got here, maybe with a shower and a nap and a cup of joe I might have a report for you but- I just got here.”
“Yes.” he refused to wince, he refused to. He was a colonel now, he had to require unpleasant things every day from his friends. Today it was required from a hero. Small difference in a war. “And if it were up to me I’d give you weeks to do all that before asking a thing from you. But I can’t, colonel. They wanted an immediate, preliminary report. It’s -it’s the same as an integration after a mission. Less interaction beforehand, less time to confuse the details- you get my drift.”
“You’re under orders.”
“I am.”
“Why didn’t you say? God’s sake Rosenthal.” she was close to angry now.
“Sorry, ok, Colonel I-“
“Why the whole welcoming committee schtik? Just say what you mean.”
“It’s not a schtick, Ma’am,” he insited, heatedly, “it’s a genuine honor to have you back with us and a relief to see you safe. And yes, I have orders to get a preliminary report.”
“In future you can save us both precious minutes of our lives by being this forthright, please?”
“Understood.”
“Right, well. What’s wanted? What kind of report?” He didn’t fail to notice the sudden and very studied nonchalance that took over her gait, the way she leaned against the railing of her footboard, almost a slouch that made the lean line of her look entirely unperturbed. He wasn’t a good lawyer out of naïveté about such posturing. She was braced like hell for this, probably worse than he was.
“On uh, on your general treatment. Ma’am.” he decided to summarize it thusly.
“Well Colonel,” he had forgotten what a nice voice she had, it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t gruff, it was simply nice, “if Gale Cleven’s under eyes didn’t tell you the food was meager and hardly nutritious, I’ll go on record to say so. But they did try, I think I can give them that. Looked like everyone was starving by the end.”
“Conduct of your guards?” he had his stupid little leather case open on his forearm and the not quite soggy notepad in it was being dutifully filled with scribbles.
“I’ve little to say against the Luftwaffe, they were honorable for the most part. I think you’ll get that same report from the others. There were a few incidents, but we were enemies. To be expected.”
“Right, uh,” the pencil drug a little “this is a general report so I’ll spare an inquiry into those incidents.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course.”
“Anything else?” Ida tried to smooth her face, she really did.
“Colonel -yes.” she watched him as he deliberated for a moment before seeming to recall her scathing admonition of before, and carried on resolutely in the bluntest manner he could summon, “Regarding your prolonged detention before the stalag. It’s our understanding you were not always under Luftwaffe jurisdiction?”
“That’s correct. Combatant status was not recognized for four and a half weeks.” Ida gave a clipped nod. “We were even briefly detained at a concentration camp.”
“I can’t imagine what you must’ve seen there.”
Ida stared back with some slight emotion flitting over her mask-like face at long last and Rosie felt maybe his own showed it, too, “From what I’ve heard, we may be the only ones to have left alive.” she said at last.
“Your testimony, what you saw there, it could become-“ Rosie drew in breath, “-invaluable.”
“I’d do anything to see justice done, Major.” she agreed, “Sometimes I think I dreamed such mass cruelty. Seems too large to be real, too awful to be abetted for so long by so many.”
“I saw what was left of one of the smaller camps. In Poland.”
“Mm, so you can imagine.” she retorted, but it was a kind retort.
“I don’t see much else when I close my eyes.”
“Mm.”
“Right, back to this uh, report, the question is, how were you treated before civilian status was adhered to?”
“Is this a personal report or a general one?” Ida inquired suddenly.
“The assignment was to ask about your own observations as senior officer of the female contingent of-“
“-then in that case, the treatment was barbaric, Major Rosenthal.” Ida informed him forcefully, “The Luftwaffe used plenty of rough tactics and one officer was particularly cruel to Cleven. I was informed my brother was dying and that my obstinance in denying giving them information was prolonging his torment. All of that I was prepared for, it was one soldier’s attempt to break another. The gestapo, on the other hand, were beasts. And the SS -sadists. They dealt in cruelty for the pleasure of it and my girls went through hell. Once in the stalag there was a reprieve. Then the Luftwaffe were relieved of command and it began again- if you expect details, come back with a larger notepad.”
Rosie gave a curt nod of his own in understanding, his brow creased at the implication.
“No one wants to see justice done for them more than I.” Ida went on, “But they’re still out there, and I’m here. And I-I don’t know that those are my stories to tell, Colonel. What I saw is plenty enough to hang a village. And it wasn’t just toward my girls.”
“At…at a later point, you’d be willing then?” he ventured, softly, no longer professional, “To tell me what you saw?”
“Larger notebook, Rosenthal.”
“Yes ma’am.” he knew a dismissal when he heard one, he even felt a brief and heinous relief at the prospect of slipping away on a high note. The dreaded scrapping of the program still undiscussed. “I’ll uh, leave ya to that shower.”
“It’s good to be back, Colonel.” she called to him while he was still maneuvering through a somewhat meandering exit, she called out this concession as if it were meant only in regards to him, “Like what you’ve done with the place.”
Well now that was -that was kind and that was unexpected and Colonel Robert Rosenthal may have let the door hit him on the way out.
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weightedblankettt · 9 months
Text
An Analysis on the Literature Girl Insane MV!
Hey! You might not know me that much, as I’m not active in the DRDTheory community, as I’ve dubbed it, but my name is Blanket! Technically, this is a work of collaboration between the majority of DRDT Twitter, but it’s mainly just an analysis of stuff I couldn’t do by myself.
Okay, and now, onto the video!
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So we start off with the spoiler warning. Pretty standard stuff, of course.
Many of my theories beginning here will be based on the colors and what I, personally, associate them with. Of course, the actual MV’s contents will be looked at further down the line. 
As a bonus, take note of what pops up right after that. It’s a question: Do you want to forgive... someone? We’ll answer this question later on in the theories section.
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These are mainly just lyrics, but the “final verdict” part catches my eye, as I believe it isn’t in the lyrics further down the line. Perhaps it’s about the current trial? As many people believe, David did not kill Arei. His reasons for lying about doing so are unknown, but we can assume that the singer is calling the listeners idiots, because of their incorrect final verdict. Whatever David wants to do, it’s certainly not leading them to the right one.
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Next, these lyrics. While I believe it’s fairly obvious that the pink is meant to represent the typical Danganronpa-esque color of their blood, the color that the word “game” is in is probably relates to David. After all, his hair clips and star eyes, both prominent features of his “facade”, are in the same color.
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Here is where the most prominent part of the MV is, to me. The text that flashes across the screen during transition points. The first one, in white text, is an excerpt from Osamu Dazai’s “The Flowers of Buffoonery.” The book, while I’ll spare you the greater details, greatly describes themes of suicide. The story’s main protagonist, Yozo Oba, can be described as so: “-But the narrator, a self-conscious writer, makes frequent first-person asides, breaking the fourth wall as he comments on the quality or believability of the novel he is writing.” 
Something especially telling is this line, from an analysis of Yozo’s character. “Yozo is a person characterized by shame. Although I pretend to be someone who is confident and unabashedly themselves, that is not really true. I have always been ashamed of who I really am. I created a whole persona to interact with others because I believed my true self would never be enough.”
David’s character is someone very similar to that. Someone who has created a false persona to interact with others. Yozo is someone who feels resentful of other people, simply because he is forced to make them happy. “Yozo Oba is the tortured author and unreliable narrator of the three notebooks that comprise the bulk of No Longer Human. [That is the sequel to The Flowers of Buffoonery.] His appearance is depicted in three photographs examined by an unnamed narrator in the Prologue. These three photographs correspond to his appearance in each of the three notebooks. As a child, Yozo is precocious by design—an impish child who uses his antics to hide his fear, shame, and inability to relate to humanity. These fundamental flaws carry over into young adulthood; in the second notebook, he is a handsome young man whose smiling photograph lacks humanity, betraying the depth of terror and isolation that his comical persona seeks to hide. In the third photograph and notebook, he is only 27, but his gray hair and forgettable appearance prevent him from being labeled an ordinary human being.”
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The quotes in yellow are from Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express.” The full quote reads as follows. "If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, they usually admit it – often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect." I think the relevancy of this line in terms of David can be explained with his actions so far. Fun fact: Similarly to Danganronpa, “Murder on the Orient Express” is a murder mystery. 
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This is just a rickroll. DRDTDev thinks that they are FUNNY!? (They are.)
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The “an archaic personal pronoun rarely used in real life, but popularized in fiction by the book” is most likely referring to thou/thy/etc. I’m not sure what this correlates to, but it’s probably important. I couldn’t find the green text, but from what I can tell, the green text probably relates to David’s nihilistic point of view towards humanity. Update: Bleuflower on Tumblr has located the source to be I Am A Cat by Natsume Soseki, so go check her out for that! If I had to say anything about that, it’d probably be relating to MonoTV, however, there’s also a continuation of David’s nihilism towards humanity that was also found in the Osamu Dazai references. The book itself is described as a “mordantly comic evocation of Sōseki's deep pessimism about his own humanity and indeed about humankind in general.”
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The white text here is an excerpt from Osamu Dazai’s “No Longer Human,” which follows the same protagonist as “The Flowers of Buffoonery.” I’m sure you can all gather what that means in relation to David, but the main point is that he seems detached from his view of “normalcy.” @shidoutism on Twitter had this to say, as they’ve read the book itself: “OKOK so basically this first excerpt is from 'no longer human' by osamu dazai (its his last finished work because dazai sadly took his own life after publication of the book) now from the limited knowledge i have of david the meaning and message of the book might help in whatever analysis ur doing?? no longer human is about a man who never felt like he understood humans. like the title suggests, he never felt like a person. its revealed the protag was pretty sheltered and rich in childhood but experienced trauma from the familys housekeepers, but he never reported it. thats basically the start of it all as the protag grows up, he finds fear in communicating with humans. so he ends up either isolating himself and/or destroying all of his relationships with people. he's scared of people seeing the real him, so ever since he was a child he started putting up a happy, cheerful front. but it just creeped some ppl out bc it didn't feel genuine, it was more like a clown wanting to so badly entertain others. the protag starts resorting to bad coping mechanisms such as dr/gs and alc/hol and has many relationships with women to drown his sorrows and feel closer to being 'a human'. aaand the end of the book is kinda unsettling as the protag is sent to a rehab center and then when released, isolated himself somewhere far away without people, stating "everything passes. thats the one thing i learned in this living hell [somewhere along those lines]" and the book ends numbly like it feels like nothing”
I don’t know about you, but this sounds rather similar to our “protagonist.”
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This quote is from “The Setting Sun”, by, you guessed it, Osamu Dazai. It tells a similar story, albeit with a different protagonist, but I feel like this ties in more with his facade, and how his inspirational speaking comes off to other people. Considering he is in his facade at this time of the MV, it’s safe to say that that’s what this is referring to.
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And now, this all falls into place. These are the names of the Osamu Dazai books referenced in the text beforehand. The (I’m), next to No Longer Human, however, could signify how David views himself. Someone so sunken into depravity that they don’t register themselves as human anymore.
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The faded text here is the first sentence of Yasunari Kawabata’s “Snow Country”. I don’t know what this refers to in terms of David, but this also seems important.
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David still views himself as manipulative. Even if he does love people, even if he does have a semblance of care for those in his life, he views himself as an evil, irredeemable sack of shit, incapable of any emotion other than selfishness and cruelty.
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This part is especially intriguing to me. David still wants to live, as anyone else does, but he can’t bring himself to find a reason to leave. His career is dead. He’s worthless, and nobody needs him around. Where would he go? There’s no room for him anywhere, even if he escaped, he’d just be shunned for good now that his entire life has been thrown away. 
The excerpt from “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie, describes someone losing motivation to leave the island. The island is a metaphor for the building, that the students are trapped inside, and David has lost the will to leave in the first place. He doesn’t want to leave, because there’s nowhere else for him to even go. He doesn’t have a home. He doesn’t have a fanbase. There’s nothing left.
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The text here reads: “If you’re Hythlodaeus, then I must be Morus.” This refers to the work “Utopia”, written by Thomas More. The book follows Raphael Hythlodaeus, a man who claims to be from Utopia, a perfect place for everyone. His surname quite literally means “Bringer of Nonsense,” or something along those lines. While this may be a stretch, I believe that “Hythlodaeus” is referring to Pre-Reveal David, and “Morus” could possibly be either Post-Reveal David or someone affected by his speeches, for example Xander.
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Also, I find it interesting how the girl in this frame, most likely David’s “sister,” Diana, and David himself are both tilting their heads at similar angles. It’s possible that their relation is hinted at through this, but I’m not sure.
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The excerpt right here is from Kajii Motojiro’s entry in the Kyoto Journal, entitled “Lemon”. While some of the text has been altered, the main story is about a man who finds himself suffering, and walks through his neighbourhood only to find a greengrocer selling lemons. He goes home, and finds himself happier than before. I’m not sure what this means when it comes to David, however if you’d like, you can analyze for yourself and let me know.
https://www.kyotojournal.org/fiction-poetry/lemon/
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This part doesn’t have any external references, but I believe that the lyrics here reinforce David’s worldview, that no matter what you do and how hard you try, “nobody ever changes.”
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The star imagery here is a direct reference to David. Stars are representative of his happy facade, and when he loses the stars, he quits the bullshit. 
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…And this frame. Alright, let’s start from the top. The electrocution definition is a callback to Xander, who’s referenced quite a few times in the video. The yellow text, which is from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince”, is possibly a reference to David’s view on other people or himself- That nobody is special unless you were born special. However, the end of the text describes that if the boy were to tame the fox, the speaker, that they would need each other. I’m not sure if this is a description of manipulation, or a codependent relationship, but the David parallels are there. That, and the title of a “little prince” probably refers to David and how he’s idolized by many. The green text is, again, from “The Flowers of Buffoonery.” The full text is as follows. “A man crushed by reality puts on a show of endurance. If that's beyond your comprehension, dear reader, then you and I will never understand each other. Life's a farce, so we might as well make it a good one. But real life is a realm that I may never reach. The best that I can hope for is to loiter in the memory of these four days, so steeped with empathy. Four days that count more than
five or ten years of my life. Four days that count more than a lifetime.”
In reference to David, this is more representative of his true feelings. Not the asshole persona or the facade, but the genuine feelings he has. He already feels far too gone by his own standards, and constantly puts on a “show” for other people in the form of his speeches. 
The red text is possibly a person dealing with depression speaking on one of their symptoms. There’s no way I could find a source for such a short quote. A common symptom of depression is losing interest in things you previously found enjoyable.
The white text on the side describes someone who finds pleasure in solitude as opposed to being bossed around by other people. It’s a reference to David’s backstory, as someone who was pressured into putting on a performance for others, finding comfort in being alone rather than having to play pretend whenever around other people.
The white text at the bottom is a continuation of the white text at the top.
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The only theory I can think of for this is that it’s a foreshadowing to either gaps in their memory or the amount of survivors left in the killing game being four. Not sure.
Update: I don’t know how I missed this, but the “11” next to the suspicious gaps refers to this. It’s possible that the suspicious gaps are gaps in their memory now, being as he doesn’t remember having an older sister, but her existence is most likely confirmed, as we saw her. 
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This part here is referring to “Catch 22,” when the main character realizes that without a soul, humans are just… matter, if you will. Empty husks.
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For this part, I had to call upon my not-so-trustworthy old friend, Google Translate! The translation of this from Latin is “I think, therefore I am (not.)” That’s what makes the most sense to me. We’ll refer back to this part later, for I have a different intention for it in my mind than David himself.
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The dark blue text is another excerpt from “The Little Prince.” The prince in question is talking to a castaway, and the main takeaway of his words is that only your heart can tell you what you really need. If you were to simply look with your eyes, then what you truly need would be drowned out by the blinding light of superficial desires. I’m pretty sure that’s what that means. David is looking through his eyes, seeing a cruel world where nobody changes unless they were born to.
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Now, let’s get into the next big part of the MV: The crossword puzzle. You might be wondering how this relates to David, but its moreso his own commentary on his classmates. Let’s go back to the latin. Pay attention to this reference of the solved crossword by raspbeyes on Tumblr. It will be very important for you to follow along.
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Notice how there’s roman numerals in some of David’s lyrics? For example, this that we established earlier meant “I think therefore I am (not.)” This is referring to Rose. Her photographic memory can be linked to the description of “thinking.” The context of this may become clearer in future parts of the story. 
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III. That’s Charles. “If you doubt brittle things are broken.” Is, in my mind, referring to his memories. He has a recurring element of not remembering things, but he doesn’t seem to be aware of this until Chapter 2. For example, his secret- “Your older brother died, but you don’t remember him at all.”
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IV. Arei. Her breakdown sequence should be all you need to associate this with her.
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V. This is Ace. He’s going insane, obviously, because of the paranoia and failed murder attempt against him. That, and he’s become more disheveled as the game progressed.
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XIV. Veronika, correct? Substance to the arts relates to her talent as a Horror Fanatic. Naturally, she’d be related to things like that.
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XV. Whit’s refusal to accept his mother’s death, staying ignorant to the tragedies around him, is one of the “happiest” members of the cast.
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XI. Mai Akasaki is not mentioned in the current story, and all of her quotes hidden amongst the cast members describe her in past tense. She was someone everyone viewed as reliable, trustworthy, and perhaps, if you exaggerated it, as God.
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These two walls of text are both from the same source: Hamlet’s Solliloquy of “To Be, or Not to Be?”
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This is what the thing actually means, in case you aren’t aware, which even I wasn’t until just now. It represents David’s suicidal ideology, from what we can assume with the way he’s trying to get everyone to vote wrong in the trial for Arei, quite well. Whether he wants to live, or die, is most likely a constant struggle for David to answer.
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Which is why he leaves it up to… whoever can answer.
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This is an absolute reference to the trial. The class trial rules are overlaid over the death portrait texture, which is “conveniently” covering David’s face. The seventeen here is also telling, considering what the description has to say about it!
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This is what I believe is David’s end goal. To get everyone executed as a result of his own hopelessness. By pretending to be the killer and antagonizing the class, he believes he can easily sway the votes by “manipulating the public” as he always believes he’s done. By getting everyone to vote for him, he can end the killing game and his own “pathetic life” in one fell swoop.
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After all, it’s not like he believes they have a chance of winning and escaping in the first place.
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And here, is where we left off in Episode 11. David completely drops his facade in order to effectively kill himself, along with everyone else. After realizing the hopelessness of his situation, he makes a drastic turn to accept it readily. Someone who self-sabotages continues to do so because they develop a warped perspective of having control.
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And again referring to the description, the 12 near the “Tallying Votes” caption refers to this. It’s David’s way of justifying his selfishness, with a diluted form of justice serving as an “ultimately fair verdict to the trial.” 
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However, David has always wanted to be loved. It’s why he even bothers with his facade, because he’s been putting it up for so long that disregarding his persona would effectively ruin everything he’s worked so hard to maintain in the first place. The repeated imagery of applause could also be a callback to his status as a celebrity, especially with how he reacted to Xander and Arei’s reliance on him.
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While this does have a small fade of text pointing out that the “degraded copy” is the cover, which is not true because the MV is amazing, but. I believe this–
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Oh. That’s literally it. Well, that makes one mystery solved!
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Hey, look, we’re already halfway through! nice! Eden’s optimistic personality can be referenced here. She wants to live with everyone, together, and make sure that nobody gets hurt. 
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This is another reference to David’s rambling on about how attempting to change is utterly futile, and that nobody changes. 
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The yellow text is the definition of a television show, I believe. The blue text is an excerpt from “And Then There Were None,” by Agatha Christie. The full quote is this: “Breakfast was a curious meal. Everyone was very polite…. Six people, all outwardly self-possessed and normal. And within? Thoughts that ran round in a circle like squirrels in a cage…. ‘What next? What next? Who? Which?’...” …Do you get it? It’s a parallel to the killing game. Or, rather, how David views it. Everyone is terrified and scared for their lives, but they still greet eachother with mock kindness.
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The blue text on the side is an excerpt from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”, and it goes like this: “I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er.” A critical analysis of the original work reads as follows: Shakespeare is saying here that Macbeth has involved himself in so many murders that it is as easy for him to carry on than to turn back. Macbeth compares his course of action with wading across a river of blood, creating a vivid image of his bloody reign. The word 'tedious' reveals the hardening of Macbeth's heart.
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And now, the moment I’m sure most of you have been waiting for. Xander. Something I took notice of was that the cracks line up directly with his left eye, while his right eye is the one that’s actually missing in the game. Nonetheless, Xander clearly did mean something to David. Whether it be through his idolization of David, or if he inspired David in some way, his death had an impact on him. Manipulative persona or not. 
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XVI translates to Hu from the crossword puzzle. He’s taunting her, similarly to how he did in the trial, although the ??? makes me wonder if it actually IS David…
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XII, that’s Eden. I assume it’s because of her optimistic persona that she is standing in someone’s way, although we’re not sure who. 
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For the next part, let’s say we take this at face value. It could definitely be referencing David allegedly pushing Arei to commit suicide, although this could also be something he internalizes, with the themes of suicide and wishing to be dead explored previously.
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These are all repeats of the previous works included in the MV, like The Little Prince, Ozamu Dazai’s series, Agatha Christie’s works, etc etc.
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Now, this is code, I’m assuming, but I tried translating it and couldn’t find anything. It’s a common encryption language. In case you want to translate it, it’s: 3aqxw97pktc8uki458fbdpfoacllex2f07bf8mg24b4mpfx2adc6v3f5yhxjd8i7sf11312zaj5lazet47jod5jczec5mvb6bz2o59r143sf2pe916sczcn7emvbl55ehe9iqb2708tt83482c8tw3c77gn47ojca634gbcfz0016s647wwlakcn46brcle0eam9
NOTE: @glorywelpchild on Twitter says… “For this, it may have been encrypted multiple times by different engines? I'm not a programmer so I'm not really familiar lmao. Another thing, it could be a type of programming the dev knows/commonly uses.”
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The VI here is Arturo, but I don’t know what this means. Perhaps the description can give us some insight?
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Hmm… Well, I don’t mind. Whatever you say.
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Nico’s number is VIII, and this is referring to the defense they put up when asked about their intentions against Ace’s life. They claim they never thought about it, and “even if they try to think, they don’t know.”
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This is Levi’s, as per the IX. 
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I actually managed to find the original image in the background. It’s a study on Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s orbit around Jupiter for several years before crashing into the planet. While the name, Shoemaker Levy, may be a play on Levi’s name, I believe this is also referencing that he may die soon. Maybe this is a stretch, but the symbolism of a comet named “Shoemaker Levy” crashing into Jupiter being right under a symbol that represents Levi, our prime suspect in a game where being caught results in death, is too far to be a coincidence. Part of my theory for Chapter 2 is that Levi is the blackened, after all, but that is in a previous post. Nonetheless, we can move on.
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This is “Enterance of the Gladiators.” While it is now associated with silly things like clowns, it was originally a military march song. Hmm, where have I heard this description before?
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Ah, that’s right! In the description!
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These two are relatively straightforward. The David we meet in the prologue is his facade, and it serves as an introduction. However, we are re-introduced to him with a whole personality change, and that comes delayed from all the others.
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This is a direct reference to MonoTV and the throne in the trial room.
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The truth bullets. Typical Danganronpa symbolism, and it’s also a neat little reference to Xander’s custom weapon.
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References to some of the students. The dresser is Levi, the bowl of fruit is Rose, the gun is Xander, the teapot is Hu, and the candle is maybe J?
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The clock is Eden, the portrait, maybe a reference to the game? The stupid kid’s toy might be Whit.
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Teruko and Mai. Teruko’s misfortune and Mai’s idealization are both key parts of their characters.
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The gavel, another reference. The kitchen knife, Min. The skull, Veronika. The mirror… Possibly Xander because we’ve seen him with broken glass earlier in the MV, but it might be David and his personas making another reference.
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The mastermind, sitting atop their comfortable chair.
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The noose is Arei, the gas mask is Charles, the mouse is Nico, the theater mask… Perhaps the mastermind again, or Veronika again. The safe is David’s locked away and suppressed emotions. These are all mainly theories based on observation, don’t take it as the wholehearted truth.
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David being mentioned again with the hair clips. The lemon has been brought up beforehand, it’s a callback to the journal entry. The dummies represent David’s detachment from his humanity, and the television is a callback to the fact that they’re on a television show.
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David views himself as a snake, a liar, a murderer. Snakes are common imagery to use when referring to the Devil as well. The blood is a callback to the killing game itself.
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Either a reference to Min, or the fact that all the books are empty could be visual dramatization of David’s feelings. There’s supposed to be something in them, but the books are empty. The “various kinds” could also be how many personas he puts on, if that’s a prominent part of his backstory.
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The killing game is being broadcasted, so that counts as terrorist iconography, if nothing else. Dandelions, while beautiful in their own way, don’t belong in a garden. The megaphone is David’s custom weapon, and it’s a way for him to broadcast his speeches to those around the world.
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The letters are from the joke comic that the dev released. You know the one, where Xander writes a letter for David and he accidentally throws it away thinking that it’s garbage. The popular toy refers to the commercializing of the Tragedy, as Veronika explained on the first day of Chapter 2. How horror movies will put black-and-white designs in their films to up the fear factor because of the subliminal/primal fear of the design back in the days of the Tragedy. The flowers… No idea.
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This is cleverly disguised, but it’s a reference to the debate between continuing to live and killing yourself. To be or not to be, to stop or to keep going, but they’re both lit up. How are you to do both at the same time? You have to make a choice.
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Main Roles are David and Xander. It makes sense, considering they both have full-body moments and we know who they are. The crossed out name is Mai Akasaki, but the cut off name is a bit harder to decipher. Thanks to some inspiration and help, I’ve come to my final conclusion regarding this.
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They are related to Arei, 100%. The letters match perfectly.
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Even in comparison to Arei, the “N” in her name starts only a bit earlier, but that’s because the first word is probably only two or three letters, in comparison to the four letters in Arei.
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Originally, I couldn’t translate any of these. All I could make out was that the first hand was Xander and the second hand was Min or Mai. However. @MAHIRUMILGRAM on twitter managed to translate them! They are as follows:
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After this point, the truth bullet breaks through David’s words, similarly to how Teruko is fighting against David, despite the truth bullet being in agreement towards David’s idea.
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There’s also this, which could be David trying to deflect us from the truth, or that the lyrics genuinely don’t relate to him. I’m leaning towards the former.
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The white text at the top here is from a story, entitled “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” It is about a beautiful city where everyone is happy. However, their city is not as beautiful as it seems. They tell the story of how the townspeople have locked a child in a basement, and left it to suffer. Their happiness, as they’ve been told, requires a sacrifice. “Inside the room, which is behind a locked door, there are a couple of dirty mops, a bucket, and a young child. The child is ten years old, but looks younger. The child is scared and completely miserable. It is never allowed to leave the room. Occasionally, someone opens the door and kicks the child to make it stand up. The person fills the food bowl halfway with corn meal and grease, fills the water jug, and leaves. The child can remember what the outside world looks like and begs and pleads to be let out. The child is naked and covered in sores, and it wails at night in its misery. The people of Omelas all know about the child in the basement. They all understand that everything good about Omelas, from their abundance of food to the good weather, depends upon the suffering of the child. They all understand this because when children are between the ages of eight and twelve, they are brought to see the child, and this tradeoff is explained to them. During this experience, the children of Omelas are disgusted. They want to help, but they are told they can’t. If anyone helps the child by clothing, feeding, or otherwise caring for it, then the perfect happiness of Omelas and its abundance would die. Therefore, no one may even speak kindly to the child.” I wanted to include this because it describes David so well. Someone who has been cast away because they’re deemed useless to society, someone who’s happiness would destroy the happiness of anyone else. I find the story truly fascinating, as it might describe David’s suppressed emotions and the depressive tendencies he indulges himself in.
“Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free.”
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“How you have felt, O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was—such was the effect of them; and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth [alēthēs]. But many as their falsehoods were, there was one of them which quite amazed me—I mean when they told you to be upon your guard, and not to let yourselves be deceived by the force of my eloquence. They ought to have been ashamed of saying this, because they were sure to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and displayed my deficiency; they certainly did appear to be most shameless in saying this, unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth [alēthēs]; for then I do indeed admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have hardly uttered a word, or not more than a word, of truth [alēthēs]; but you shall hear from me the whole truth [alēthēs]: not, however, delivered after their manner, in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases.”
Do you remember, in the prologue, where Xander describes the “rumors” against David’s positive front? This is a direct parallel. Here, Socrates denounces the words of his attackers, similarly to how nobody truly believes the rumors except for the critics themselves. Even Xander was fooled by his charisma.
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“Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet: If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes, 240 Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd; His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.”
Hamlet blames his own insanity for the death of Laertes’ father. Just like David tries to get everyone killed, and blames himself for murdering Arei, because of his own insanity.
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This is a line from the poem “Be Not Defeated by The Rain,” by Kenji Miyazawa. It describes a man wishing to become someone strong, someone who cannot be bested. I believe this is exactly what David wants, too. To be as strong and as hopeful as he is forced to pretend to be, instead of a hopeless mess who would rather die than be seen as worthless.
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David reaches the height of his insanity, before finally quieting down after being basked in green light. I don’t know if this was intentional, but I believe that it represents how he’s given up on even death after the students manage to vote correctly, hence the green coloring.
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And now, number 19.
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I severely doubt that David will actually die in Chapter 3. That is not “foreshadowing,” that is just giving out the answer, and DRDTDev is much more careful than that. I believe this is a final representation of David’s suicidal ideologies. He says he will forget, he says guilt will not weigh him down, but he’s lying to himself. That’s why the stars are still behind him, because he’s still lying. He says he is satisfied, he says he’s okay with death, but when has David ever been truthful with us?
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And he leaves an empty throne behind. Not because he is dead, but because he has relinquished his career and his reputation for nothing.
Even though he is missing, nothing else has changed. That is how he views his life.
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And that concludes the main analysis of David’s MV! It’s such a beautiful thing, really, I don’t know how to phrase any of it properly. Thank you to everyone who’s read this far, and everyone who helped me out. The decoding and puzzles? Ah, I’ll let you all do that… But, maybe I can help a little! Blanket, out~! See you all next time!
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enha-cafe · 1 year
Text
ENHA Legal Line vs No Nut November
happy november in honor of such i bring you my headcanons on how I believe the legal line would survive this challenge
Heeseung
thought jake was joking when he said they should do no nut november and agreed AS A JOKE
didn’t even jerk off on Halloween because he thought that
he’s going through it
took four days before he started meditating
the current main thing that’s keeping him going?
beat jake, he just needs one win
he doesn’t have to win; he just doesn’t want to be the first one out
one day the meditation just stopped working and he was lying awake at night questioning his own sanity
didn’t get much sleep that night
woke up to a text in the group chat from jake saying he had lost
that was all he needed and more
days lasted 11
honestly its a win in his book
Jay
he also said he’d do it AS A JOKE
doesn’t even know why he went along with this anymore
he’s the main one in the group chat that’s counting the days until December
this is his first time actually participating and now he’s determined to win
he doesn’t have a very high sex drive so he’s doing just fine
whenever he has too much free time and his mind starts to wonder he practices or just works out
invited sunghoon to work out only for him to get taken to an ice rink
never again
jake tried to get him to break once by sending him a porn link
jay then refused to make him dinner that night
jake apologized the next morning
laughs each time one of the guys loses nnn
once sunghoon got out jay realized he won
still went the remaining days for bragging rights
days lasted 30
oh and that porn link from jake was used during destroy dick december
Jake
it was his idea for him and the other guys to do it
quickly realized it was a dumb idea
his libido is just too high
please each time jake sees something remotely lewd he thinks he’s going to bust
feels like a horny church kid all over again
tried and failed to pray the horny away
one night he genuinely can’t fall asleep and he’s just staring at the ceiling of his room
his insomnia gets to him and he decides there’s only one thing that can help him fall asleep
days lasted 10
gets bullied in the group chat for being the first one out but doesn’t care
there’s always next year
Sunghoon
honestly thinks he could win this against the others
is confident he could make the full 30 days
spoiler alert, he does not
culprit #1 of bullying jake in the group chat after he lost
after two weeks it finally hit him that he can’t jerk off
decided to go ice skating more often to help fill the void
even invited jay one time, mainly because he wanted a good laugh
is good at keeping himself in check unless something really gets him going
unfortunately for him, he decided to start having a personal movie marathon of things the other members had recommended to him
and every single one of the recommendations had a steamy scene
after the first one, he was fine but then they just kept coming (lol puns)
days lasted 23
Sunoo
thinks this is beyond stupid
still wants to win though
culprit #2 of bullying jake in the group chat after he lost
honestly, I don’t think his libido is that high, to begin with
this boy is coasting until halfway through the second week
everything has just been stressing him out and the poor kid needs relief
the fact he can’t get off is slowly eating away at him
not to mention the fact that there are already two people out and now he’s thinking what harm would it be
starts rationalizing the pros and cons of being the third to lose
realized being third is still a triumph
days lasted 18
hoon and jay bullied him in the group chat
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nicolloyd · 26 days
Text
just finished the season WOW that was intense!!! 😭 i collected my thoughts as i was watching it too heres all of it: (spoilers ahead ofc!!! btw this is really long you were warned)
episode 1 (the blood moon):
• lloyd saying uncle is sooo crazy
• WU IS DEAD I SWEAR ON MY LIFE ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY NO MORE 😭
• can these ninja get pyjamas. please.... they had those in ns1 now they just sleep in armour 😭
• bro cinder sounds like.. macaque??? is that weird.
• lloyd gets to have funny quips 🔥🔥
• HAHAHAH I LOVE THE SMOKE EFFECT AND IT JUST CUTS TO THEM LYING FLAT ON THE GROUND 😭😭
• THE BLOOD MOON IS COMING 🗣🗣🗣
episode 2 (shattered dreams):
• YOOOO its the uh i forgot what place its called but yes 🔥🔥
• drs2 spouting out words like panic attack and nental health gee wowzers
• also this is the second time lloyd has been forced to eat strange food first it was dareths pocket gyoza
• deffff arin and sora getting in a fight
• LLOYD U ARE SUCH A SHOWOFF STOP FLIPPING AROUND
• rule number 1 never trust a snake hehahehaha
• really encouraging the lloyd nya sibling dynamic i love it
• callback to torunament of elements im not ok.
• ommggg i actually hate the way ras' beard thing jiggles around its unsettling
episode 3 (beyond the phantasm cave):
• so the dragon released was the lightning
• life symbol???? thats mad lloyd is fr life and not energy
• i feel sooo bad for arin bro if i had like 10 friends with powers and i didnt i wld be pissed too
• this is literally that swamp episode from avatar
• HELPPP is this the memory loss thing pr is it actually like. real
• it would be the funniest troll tho
• oh nya you beautiful genius
• jay the loml 😭😭 toooo cute omgee
• def foreshadowing
• my other family thats sooo funny
• is this the magic man.
• yoo arent those the water villagers
• OMG IT IS THE MAGIC MAN I ACTUALKY HATR HIM BRO
• HAHAHA PROFESSIONAL ACTOR
• yesss cole was never the performer
episode 4 (force from the east):
• geooo omg their actually in love shut up
• i thimk this is ice dragon??
• NINJA BASKETBALL 🔥🔥
• SECRET THIRD WAY!!!!!!!!!
• YO ITS COLE
• also bonzle is important somehow
• aww theyre at the monastery
episode 5 (the spell at the waterfall):
• MASTER WU 😭
• garmadon :**(((( IT MAKES ME SO SAD SPINJITZU BROTHERS UUURGGHH
• hehe i love these siblings
• how are they literally husbands bro what the flip this is so noooottt censorship
• old days :,,)))) soooooi sad bro onfdhsbs
• SACRIFICE???
episode 6 (to mysterium)
• lowkey wtf is egalt yapping about
• omg this is literally beyblade.
• cole in a hood is cray cray
• also zane will not give up thag detective outfit.
episode 7 (fugitive from madness):
• blood moon more like sozins comet aha aha aha aha i miss atla
• bro the music is so good do they get an orchestra for these or what
• lircherally wjats going on
• ADMIMISTRATION!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSS
• ZANE IS SO PROUD OF THE 9% 😭😭😭 I LOVE HIM.
• crazy how theyre training again tho. good ol days
• nya and kai :'((( not having to worry about saving the world oh my poor sweet kai
• FLASHBACK. NO FRWAKING WAY
• STOPPPP THIA IS GONNA MAKE ME CRY OMG TJA WAS SO SWEET 😭 KAI AND NYA U HAVE MY HEART
• as mean as it sounds im so glad it was kai first and not lloyd it makes sense
• THE BLOOD MOON IS NO LONGER COMING ❌️❌️❌️ ITS HERE
• ohh thats why they turn to stone??
• ZANE IS A PERSON 🤬🤬🤬🤬 stopp hes always so willing to sacrifice himself
• SHUT UP THATS LITERALLY JAY OHHH MYYYY GOLLY GEE.
• i need a good 1 minute break to process everytime jay appears like actually
• ohh myyyyy goooodddd its jay pls stop stop stop stop STOP
episode 8 (secrets of the wyldness):
• forbidden five is lwk scary
• hehe i love their stupid quips and someone else saying "really???"
• oh jay oh jay oh jay oh jay oh jay oh jay he actually lost his memory im soooooo oooooohhhhhh nooooooo
• hes sooooo jay.
• so he knows he can lightning????
• zane. buddy. you cant keep doing this like actually would it kill you to stop dying
• now we're safe 😃 x4 (they were not safe)
• werent tbey in this situation before???? the tipping ship or am i just tripping
• ohhh my god the bounty died again
episode 9 (the forest of the spirits):
• THEY SACRIFICED EUPHRASIA??????
• NO DONT DO IT NO DONT WEAR THE MASK 😭😭
• resting my leg actually healed it is maadddnnnessss
• OHHH MY GOD ZANE IS MINIFIG SIZED HAGAHAHAHAHHAA THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER
• IM ALWAYS ADORABLE 😭😭😭 COLE U ARE
episode 10 (rising ninja):
• NOOOOO I SAID DONT DO ITT NOOOOOOO BUT YES BECAUSE EVIL KAI AGAIN SOUNDS AMAZING 😭
• yo. this fight is cool asl
• NO DONT KAI PLEASE MY MOUTH IS AGAPE
• omg they are both dragons rising rn
• what is going awn rn
• jordana is going freaky!!!
• ras master giving bird box icl
• AWW LLOYD COLE HUG 😭
• im assuming kai got out!
• HELLO ARE WE NOT GONNA GRIEVE KAI FOR A MINUTE???? im sure theyre all numb to death by now
• wowww 10 episodes gone just like that
• kai did not get out ❌️
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sparkanonymous · 5 months
Text
Let me ramble about my ship opinions real quick. I gotta say something to somebody while my siblings procrastinate watching what's available.
⚠️ Total Drama Reboot Season 2 Spoilers ⚠️
We're gonna talk about the canon ships this time. It makes it easier to talk about.
Caleb x Priya
They might not have gotten together yet, but Millie said that Priya has a crush on him. I really don't see this one. She showed no interest in him the first season - probably didn't help that he was only in one episode - so the first sign of interest from her was when Priya had mentioned looking him up on social media. I don't like Caleb as a character very much; I think he's kind of boring. Plus, it still feels like the writers don't really know what to do with him since he's barely done anything yet, besides literally carrying his team in the third episode. The writer's paired them up as the strong couple and haven't really gone beyond that yet. I personally would've wanted Damiya because there was a more interest last season and because Damien is just a better character, in my opinion.
0/10
Raj x Bowie
This relationship is by far one of the more nuanced ones we've gotten out of Total Drama as a whole; Gwent and Duncney were great in their first season, but after that, they made it so painful for me to like them. If you look at my profile, you can tell Rajbow is one of my favorites. I think they're cute, and I hope that we get to see them be assholes to other people together at some point. Maybe even with Wayne included. Hell, I'll just take fanfiction if the writers don't provide. I like that they're spending more time together doing various things and that Raj isn't afraid to scold Bowie when he thinks he's doing something wrong. I think they have an easier time discussing things, even if Bowie is technically lying to Raj right now about not cheating. A lot of their bonding felt a little rushed last season. There was the scene where they were going to talk by the lake, right before Julia found out about the video posted on her social media account (does she still have that account?). That was only a ten second scene. There were so many quick moments, blink and you'll miss them. They're more obvious now, longer too. I like that.
10/10
MK x Julia
I know I said canon ships, but... but COME ON. This is canon. I'm not taking any other opinions. Anyway, I did notice when people started shipping these two last season, and I'll be honest; I didn't see it. This new season, though, has made me see a new light. I think the writer's felt like they had more leeway and like they had a better grasp on these two's personalities. MK was always a bit of a troublemaker and thief, and she would definitely take the easier way of winning than to actually try if she had the choice. Julia doesn't want to get voted off, so she'll take cheating to win, knowing that she's always on the chopping block when Bowie has both Raj and Wayne on his side. The writer's are really playing up their flirting, too, so whether they actually get together in the season or not, their relationship will not be forgotten.
9/10
Ripper x Axel
I'm gonna be so for real right now; this caught me so off guard. Out of all the characters they wanted to pair up, I didn't think Ripper would be an option. I do like him more this season, but he still makes me kind of uncomfortable, especially in the second episode where he butters himself up while only wearing his swimsuit. I cringe. Axel being into him? For why? I don't know what's going on up in that brain of hers, but this is awesome! I didn't expect to like their relationship as much as I do, and when I found out it was canon, I was buzzing. I don't know why I was so excited, but I was, and that's all that matters to me. I don't like poetry, and neither does Ripper, but the fact he put that aside to impress Axel is really sweet to me. Ripper has officially gotten himself good points and is no longer my least favorite character. I hope these two get along well and don't do the thing Emma and Chase did, where they constantly try to get a rise out of the other and break up every twenty minutes. I do believe we should've gotten more interest in them last season, but I think the only interaction they got was when Axel kicked Ripper off the ship.
7/10
I do feel bad for the Axel x Nichelle shippers, but just because it's not canon doesn't mean that you should stop shipping it. Both Axel and Ripper are a bit fruity anyway, so even if they hadn't gotten together, they would've been shipped with other characters by the fandom regardless.
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Note
So... It's the person from the hypothetical thing about the Balor. Here's the whole thing, as it is.
See, I'd just got done with a job along with my Lance: Things were great, I wound up seeing what happens when a Balor literally pulls itself back together from a front-row seat (spoiler alert: It was fucking awesome), and I wound up getting enough cash to do some... Acquisitions.
So! I decided to stop by a black-market scrapyard I knew about: Odd spot ran by an unshackled NHP everyone calls "Mamaw": She heard the term on an out-of-the-way planet, liked it, and decided to use it as an alias. Lotta people dump mechs that are too junked-out, expensive, or time-consuming to repair there: Wear-and-tear from a death-world, too much damage from a job gone horribly wrong, used for something horrible by a rich ass-hat... You name it, Mamaw's got it lying around there for resale and trade.
It's like a Flea Market for mech parts!
... And also maybe ship parts butlet'snottalkabouthat-
ANYWAYS. Stopped by to say "Hi!", ask around about any good deals, and she'd told me that she had pretty much just gotten in a Blackbeard from some salvage crews. I was interested, so she guided me to it.
When I tell you this mech was fucked, I mean it was Capital-F FUCKED. Missing a leg and both arms, any armor was molten slag, wiring was shredded, the works. According to Mamaw, somebody had let their Sekhmet-Class off the hook, ejected, and just ran away. Left 'em behind to fight while they fled for the hills.
The mech got damaged enough that the Sekhmet-Class couldn't move an inch more, and after the battle the Salvage teams moved in to do their job. So, imagine their surprise when the wreck they go to grab starts swearing the air blue at them. Just... Absolutely laying into them. Insults that I could not repeat in polite company, according to Mamaw. They tossed the whole mech off to her, she got the Sekhmet outta there with some conversation and offers of therapy, and everybody turned out pretty alright. She's apparently a very good underground fighter now.
Where was I? Ah, right! The Balor eating the Blackbeard.
So! I'm sitting there haggling the price with Mamaw, and she's making sure to get a good list of what I want off of the BB. Mid-conversation, she trails off while looking over my shoulder after we've finally got the price figured up and paid. I turn around, and my Balor's just... Eating the Blackbeard.
Greywash fully in effect, swarming the wreckage: It was like watching a swarm of locusts pull apart a 3-D puzzle. They'd find the weld-seams and bolts, pull 'em apart like a damn surgeon, pulled the whole chunks into the swarm, and then go back for seconds and thirds.
Weirdest part was, the Balor seemed almost... Gentle, as it worked. Held the parts it was pulling in almost reverently, and when the Blackbeard was down to just the framework and wiring, it picked it up and... hugged it. Held it, like a close friend instead of a meal.
And as it ate, it just got... Bigger. Went from standing with plenty of room in the warehouse we were sifting through to scraping the ceiling. And then...
VRRP. No more Blackbeard.
I turned back around to Mamaw, and she seemed pensive about the whole thing for a moment or two before she started smiling.
"A good eating young-'un, there. You take good care of them, you hear me?"
Well. I couldn't help but agree.
So, yeah: That's how my Balor hypothetically ate a Blackbeard. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go see somebody with a hypothetical Goblin to work on some hypothetical VPN-work. TTFN!
Ok so I’ve got corporate distracted for a bit so I can post this because letting this be my sole spoils of war here would be unfair to everyone on the Omninet
Also I’m gonna kick this down the road back to @horus-unofficial to please explain to me what’s going on with that Balor
That kinda sounds like it’s alive
Anyways back to standard corpro-posting love you guys
—the intern
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Group H, Round 3, Poll 4:
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Propaganda under the cut
Nadja of Antipaxos
Gaslights her fellow vampires when she knows she's wrong, gatekeeps info from familiar Guillermo, girlbosses by running her own doomed nightclub
She is the Girlboss, but also Girlloser of the show. Turned her own husband into a vampire (taking charge in a male-dominated field!) And further, in Season 3 she came out on top when her and Nandor were fighting over who would truly lead the Vampiric Council. Opened her own Vampire Nightclub! (Which she embezzled to death but shhh!) As for Gatekeep, she definitely gatekeeps both vampirism (Guillermo) and her friendship (The Guide). Does hypnosis count as Gaslight? I'm gonna count it in because she does hypnotize a lot of people. I could go on and on, but anyways Nadja is an icon and a queen and I love her.
Ianthe Tridentarius
She is trying so hard to be the main character by lying and manipulating her sister, her cavalier, her mentor, her ?love interests? (Spoiler???) And also god. Not sure how it's working out for her but she does love to lie and manipulate
Worstie Ianthe is the DEFINITION of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. She is one of a set of necromancer twins that are the heirs to their houses rule. Except wait, only she is a necromancer and she has spent their entire lives doing necromancy for the both of them. She is constantly mean to their cavalier, Naberius, who she occasionally nibbles on like a chew toy, before eventually killing and eating him to ascend to sainthood. She goes to gods spaceship with another woman who ascended to sainthood who she has a crush on, this other woman is like…. Both incredibly mentally unwell and also haunted by at least 211 ghosts. Ianthes method of flirting with her? Gaslighting her about the corpse that keeps moving around and hiding under her bed. For no real reason tbh. She is clearly plotting to overthrow god, and at the moment that consists of her manipulating him while he’s too sad about his long term partners betraying him and subsequently exploding to really care. She dresses in terrible outfits and makes soup by burning onions to the bottom of a pot, putting meat in and some vegetables and then it doesn’t taste like anything so she puts in a few teaspoons of salt so it tastes like a few teaspoons of salt. She had her crush amputate her arm and regrow her a new one out of bone and it’s one of the horniest things I’ve read in my life.
"Gaslight = told her lobotomized (she helped), schizophrenic girlobsession that there was no corpse under their bed, even tho there totally was. Gatekeep = girl did NOT share the secret to god-like ascension. She kept that shit to herself until it was time to eat her boytoy, and by then everyone knew already. Girlboss = she has a non-necromancer twin sister, and literally Everyone thinks they r both necromancers because Ianthe is so good at it. She reverse engineered ascending to the aforementioned ascension without even completing any of the supplementary tasks. She held her own in a fight against a 10k year old lyctor. She becomes the figurehead of her entire empire. "
She uses a man as a chewtoy in the first book, literally gaslights the protagonist of the second book about a corpse, and elder-abuses God when he gets depressed in the third book. Nobody is doing it like her.
Dives headfirst with no regrets while basically laughing and covered in blood into murdering her cavalier once she realizes what the gothic locked room mystery/competition leads to while everyone else is questioning it, helps perform lobotomy on harrow so she doesn't remember the person she loves, manipulates everyone to get to the top
idk just everything about her
her relationship with her sister is incredibly Bad, she fosters codependency and views Corona(the sister) as an extension of herself. This does not stop her from keeping up the con that Corona actually has magic (She doesn't, it was always just Ianthe) for 22ish years and every single person who interacts with them falls for it. She killed a man against his will (most dying for this purpose specifically go willingly) and she consumed him and she will be burning his soul for eternity. She's completely repulsive and still somehow incredibly hot.
she takes advantage of the fact that the main character is prone to hallucinations. at one point she gaslights the mc into believing that the corpse under her bed isn't real just because she can. she reverse engineered a set of very complex trials on her own without anyone realizing she had the skills to complete them normally. she's also babysat god through his drunk and pathetic era.
Artist: @starcanist
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velvetlilacsdaisies · 2 months
Text
Flames & Weapons pt. i
OC!Fem!Reader x Garrick Tavis, OC!Fem!Reader x Bodhi Durran
Word count: 3.5k
Synopsis: What happens when you attend Basgiath war college as an infantry cadet with your lover, your ride or die best friend and your twin brother? Alot of fucking shit. Follow the story of our oc’s Allie Henrick and Katia Lalley as their bond of friendship remains strong as their dynamics of life change around them. What happens when they meet two fellow first year riders in their first year? Will their world change forever? Then again nothing can be as expected in war college. Stay tuned as our oc's become badass infantry cadets.
Warnings: swearingggg (a lot.), iron flame spoilers???, NO USE OF Y/N!!, mentions of cheating, let me know if we missed anything 🤭
Author’s Note: SURPRISE!! A month in the making thx to my procrastination hehe sorry allie. This is a self indulgent fever dream of a collab between @garricks4thwingqueen (president of the garrick tavis fan club fr) it’s first person original character fic. Primarily focusing on GarrickxOC but with side quests of BodhixOC as well. It’s an entirely new perspective for me to write bc i do y/n pov or third person so this was a treat. We hope you all enjoy!
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Three years…three years I had spent in that toxic cesspool of a relationship. For what? For everything I had an intuition about to be true? Fucking incredible. Nothing like being right and a fool, maybe once RSC started Malek could put me out of my misery, and save me from the overwhelming amount of embarrassment I felt. The clock tower in the courtyard sounded alerting it was a quarter to 8, indicating it was almost time for Battle Brief as the chatter in the halls started to die down outside my door.
I sighed, finally rolling myself out of bed after lying there, staring at the ceiling replaying the events of last night since the alarm on my bedside table went off an hour ago, but I was numbly stuck in the warmth of my blankets. What a waste of time… I’ve repeated that to myself for what felt like the umpteenth time that morning.
I barely had enough time to get dressed in the navy blue uniform I grew accustomed to, and put my auburn hair into the slicked-back bun I had to wear, my hair was barely unkempt and uniform not as crisp as the codex required. I was sure to get yelled at by one of the executive lieutenants today, but I didn’t quite care, too numb to feel the usual anxiety I would feel about abiding by the stupid little handbook we were given in the beginning of the year. I dreaded every second of the thought of going to Battle Brief. Being forced into proximity with Zachariah made my stomach churned at the flashbacks of last night.
Minimal conversation was my goal for today, I thought, setting the agenda internally for myself as I walked to Battle Brief. Just make sure my battalion doesn’t do anything stupid and stay in line. I didn’t need to get reprimanded anymore than I probably already would be today. Plus after the night I had prior, I just couldn’t bother with much interaction with anyone. It’s bad enough I had to show up for classes. I put my bag on my shoulder and made sure that my door was locked as I made my way to the academic wing of the infantry quadrant. I was never more thankful for having my own room, one of the primary perks of being a Battalion leader.
I entered the somewhat crowded hall that was used for Battle Brief. A giant map in the middle of the room, showing all of Navarre. Keeping my head down as I made my way to my usual spot.
"Allie you missed breakfast." My best friend, Katia, said concerned. I slid into my seat between her and my twin brother, Drew. He offered a tight-lipped smile in greeting. “You’re going to be sluggish through morning lessons.” She added.
"Fuck off, I’m not gonna die if I miss breakfast." I whispered snappily.
"Eat this," Drew said with a roll of his eyes, ignoring my foul mood, tossing an orange to me.
It landed on my desk with a thud, as I wasn't paying him any mind, no, my sole attention at this point was on my ex and the girl that had her arm wrapped around his waist as they walked into the enormous classroom. "Fucking hells, Chiara Reid?” Drew hissed lowly to us as they walked by.
"Oh shit?" Left the girl besides me lips as they both realized the cause of my current mood. Katia’s eyes now set to a death glare at the pair that passed by.
“I saw them kissing in the library last night. Dumb ass tried denying it all.” I sneered, pushing the lump that had formed in my throat down.
It was the last straw of the tension that had been building between us in the last few weeks. We had been together since we were teenagers, but I guess that hadn’t accounted for anything when you attend war college together.
The last few months were filled with fighting and arguing over his lingering eyes and neglectful behavior. It had driven me mad to the point that I felt crazy for even accusing him of such thoughts of cheating, but last night had confirmed my intuition was right. Fighting the burn in my eyes as silver tears lined them, threatening to spill. I would not get upset over some loser. Katia grabbed my hand, rubbing small circles on the back of it.
“I’m gonna beat his fucking ass.” Drew glowered, gripping his notebook until his knuckles turned white.
"It's not worth it Drew, he's in our squad you know the penalty," I murmured, glancing his way. "I guess I'm out of a best friend now.” He mumbled, slouching in his seat. I placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, feeling guilty that I got in the way of their friendship.
Katia scoffed, “You’re more worried about losing a best friend than the fact he treated your sister like shit? Unbelievable Drew…”
“Yeah, well he was my friend first, and I warned him—” My twin grumbled, leaning over me to glare at her.
“Warned him? I fucking told him I’d castrate him if he ever did something to Al. And unlike your pansy ass I fully intend on keeping my promise.” Her green eyes were darkened.
Drew continued to haughtily argue in a hushed whisper with her trying to prove whatever point. I kept opening my mouth to try to shut them up, but they just kept volleying back and forth retorts to one another before I could get a word in.
I rubbed my temples, trying to focus on what our professor was debriefing instead. I didn’t expect my breakup to cause a full argument between the two people closest to me. Any other topic? Yes. Not this though.
Their voices started to raise as they used meaningless insults as jabs towards one another, causing the attention of the cadets around us to look at us. Including Zachariah and Chiara. The girl only had a smug smirk on her face, which made the impreding frustration that had been rising since I woke up grow even more.
“Silence.” Our professor yelled across the room. I slid myself down into my seat, making myself as small as possible in the crowd of infantry cadets now looking our way.
"Henricks', Lalley I didn't realize this was a socializing hour." The professor shouted mockingly. Instantly, Katia and Drew shut up, muttering coy apologies, both embarrassed they were caught.
“Now can we turn our attention back to the map.” The professor continued the lesson. I had to pinch Katia’s arm as she reached behind me to flick Drew on the side of the head. An “ow” leaving her lips as she finally stopped and actually started to take notes for class.
These two would be the death of me…
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"Look I know you guys dated for years, but you had a hunch. Think of this as a celebration of a new chapter?” Katia sighed, stopping mid-route in our evening run.
"I just don't feel like doing anything extra this weekend, especially socializing." I groaned, lifting my hands and resting them on top of my head.
"Which is exactly what you need, to socialize." A mischievous glint sparkled in Katia's hazel eyes. I didn't like that glint. She had always been the rebellious one since we became friends years ago. She always got into trouble, and then I had to bail her out or succumb to her ideas. “We should definitely go to Chantara tomorrow night.”
She used any excuse to find a way to party or sneak off campus. I’m surprised I’ve upheld my titles with her as my executive squad leader with the antics she always seemed to get us into.
"This is the one weekend I'd rather just stay in my room—" I started to protest going back into a jog.
"Just humor me, Henrick." She rolled her eyes. "Besides, I'm finding the infantry dating pool rather incestuous at this point." She pointed in her mouth, making a gagging noise as she kept up her pace with me. "Anddddd Garrick and Xaden will be there and you're finally a single woman." She wagged her eyebrows at me. I just rolled my eyes at the suggestive expression on her face knowing what she was thinking.
"Fine." I huffed in the refreshing air of a late summer evening.
"Yay!" She squealed excitedly. "We're gonna have so much fun! Not to mention Garrick looked like he wanted to beat Zach's guts out before Drew stopped him; after the little spat you two had last weekend."
Garrick and Xaden…Any mingling between Riders and Infantry was frowned upon. The codex even goes as far to state there will be no toleration of inter-quadrant dating during a student’s attendance at Basgiath. But that hadn’t stopped us from becoming friends with riders. The four of us hit it off the first night we met.
I thought to myself silently as I thought back to that first night out in town during first year.
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"Damn, we both clean up nice." Katia whistled.
She wasn't wrong, despite wearing our infantry winter fur-lined jackets, we looked good. We didn't have to wear our typical uniformed sleek buns, and finally could let our hair down for once. Despite the anxiety that brewed in the pit of my stomach, I was excited that my best friend had convinced me to sneak out.
I shook my head, "You're crazy, you know that right?" She linked her arm with mine, grinning maniacally in response as we left the barracks.
She led me through tunnels and stairs I’ve never been in since we started infantry a few months ago. “How do you know about this?” I asked again. She’s been rather elusive and secretive on how she even learned about Chantara, the town older Basgiath students would frequent on the weekends to drink, party, and shop at.
She pushed her brunette hair over her shoulder, shooting a wink at me. “It’s amazing what intel you can gather with incredible charm, good looks…a few gold coins.”
We reached an ancient iron gate that a couple second years were standing at. The smell of churam filled the air, making my nose scrunch up. The codex said the herb was forbidden from school property?
One of the second years grinned seeing my best friend. “Lalley, you’ve got some guts. I didn’t think you and your friend would actually show up.”
She walked up to the man, her smile alluring radiating under the dim patterns that lined the stone walls. “My promises and threats are never empty.” Reaching into her pocket, she set two gold coins down into the guy’s hand.
He handed a coin back to her, “promise me a game of darts later at Féasta?”
“Yeah, sure.” She replied coolly, her tone sultry. Though I could tell by the look in her eye, that was one promise she wouldn’t be following up on. I was ready to lose my composure, biting my lip to stifle the laugh about to fall from my lips.
His grin grew even broader. “Sweet, just follow the path through the clearing and you’ll see a fork—take the left. We just let a group of riders through not too long ago. Just follow their obnoxiously loud yelling if you’re unsure.”
She linked her arm with mine, using her free hand to wiggle her fingers at the man in goodbye. “Thanks Trey.”
She discreetly dragged me outside a reasonable distance from the gate before I burst out in giggles. “Thanks Trey?” Mocking her flirty tone.
“Listen,” she giggled lightly herself. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. And I’m desperate for a drink and a dance.”
“It must be so hard to be single.” I said sarcastically.
“We all can’t be fortunate to have their hometown sweetheart attend War college with us now can we?” She used her linked elbow to nudge me, causing me to shy away from her. She just pulled me closer. “You owe me the favor of being a wing woman tonight, I’ve covered for you and Zach too many times this year… and we haven’t even made it to squad assignments yet.”
“Whatever you say Kati.” I just rolled my eyes, shaking my head at her.
The walk into Chantara was brisk, as we giggled about what we should expect for our first night out of Basgiath. The town was lively, citizens of the town and students all throughout the town square browsing the market stalls that lined the cobblestone. Strings of lights glimmered lining the stalls, while musicians played on the corners. Everything was so lively to what we were expecting. There were three different taverns in the town square: Féastas, Lúchás, and Doyle’s. We decided to try Lúchás first seeing the group of riders Trey was talking about wandering in there, along with some couple infantry and healers.
“I knew I should have ordered food when I was up there because I’m starving.” My best friend said as she came back to our table with Lavender Lemonades.
The bar wasn’t crazy packed due to the cold weather, but there was a sizable amount of patrons in here. It was cozy, we had a table right next to the hearth, and I could see why most of the patrons were Basgiath students. The music from the band wasn’t ancient sounding, and the barmaids weren’t either. It was very youthful and merry than the taverns we had back home. Scanning over the decent sized room, my eyes landed on the opposite side of the room. On two riders more specifically, the one looked to be Katia’s type. Tall, tanned skin, dark hair. Though a scar marred his eye, it didn’t take away from his handsomeness. He would be perfect for her.
I did promise an attempt at being her wing woman tonight. My eyes kept lingering on the man next to him. He had an inch or two on his friend, longer dark hair that was more styled than his friend's unruly short waves. The most built man I’ve ever seen, Amari had to have designed her herself, his relic a masterpiece expertly marking his bulky biceps. I have a boyfriend…
“Huh?” I said as she was trying to get my attention, my gaze not leaving the far left corner of the room.
“For once would you not be in a daydream!” She chuckled until her gaze followed mine. “Oh wow, they’re hot.” She blurted.
"Shh, don't be that obvious," I said, slapping her shoulder while we both took in two very tall and handsome riders in their black leathers.
“Oh please like they aren’t even looking our way.” She scoffed, taking a sip of her drink.
But they were, well at least the taller one was looking directly at me as his friend tried to get his attention. And I couldn’t help to unabashedly stare back.
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Garrick’s POV
“Garrick!” Xaden half raised his voice snapping his fingers at me, drawing my attention back to our usual corner of the tavern.
“What?” I peered over to my best friend.
“Were you even listening to what I said?” He acted annoyed.
‘Don't lie, you weren't.’ Chradh chuckled.
‘Are all dragons as sarcastic and grumpy as you?’ I chidded back getting only a huff of hot air as my answer. "Yeah, something about… OK yeah no."
Xaden chuckled, finally noticing what had caught my attention across the tavern floor. "You're obviously looking at the shorter infantry cadet, aren't you?” He nudged my side. “Only you would be the one to be six-six, and have a thing for extremely short girls, dude. She can’t even be more than five foot nothing dude.” He rattled off.
Xaden had a thing to point out the obvious and be rather talkative once he had a couple drinks in his system. Reminding me of his younger cousin, Bodhi, every time I had drank with him. I paid no mind to his rambling as I walked to the table the two infantry girls sat at.
“Where are you going? You don't even know if she's single." Xaden started to say as I couldn't help myself. I heard my best friend mutter a curse and his footsteps behind me.
"Could I fancy you two ladies to a friendly game of pool?" I asked the two girls. The taller one looked like she was about to speak first, but the shorter cadet with auburn hair was the first to open her mouth.
“Not even a ‘hi what’s your name?’ Typical rider fashion.” She had a brow arched in my direction, causing her best friend to giggle as she teasingly scoffed in my direction. Holding out her hand she beamed up at me. “I’m Allie, and this is Katia.”
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That evening was the first night of what started the friendship of two first-year infantry cadets and two first-year rider cadets. Our friendship only grew over the last year as Drew and Zachariah started joining us. Though Drew and Zach were wary of the riders at first due to silly rivalry between the quadrants.
The next night, Katia met me outside in the alcove of the infantry courtyard like we always had since that winter in first year. The only difference was we no longer had to cough up gold coins to pay our way into town, and could go freely.
Our walk into Chantara was enjoyable as today had been the coldest day in July after our new cadets had joined us just a few weeks ago. My heart rate was almost pounding in my chest as we neared the tavern. Why was I so nervous? Yes this was my first trip into the town as a newly single woman, but that didn’t change much? It already felt like I was single by the end of first year anyway, and we’ve been to Chantara plenty of times since then.
We made our way to our usual end of the tavern where our crew usually hung out which now consisted of Drew, Katia, Xaden, Garrick, and myself. I noticed three extra bodies, two I didn't recognize at all but one had a shorter but similar build to Xaden, the second a female abou Katia’s height with short pink hair that was half shaven. Of course, Drew was shamelessly trying to flirt with her. Then there was the familiar mop of curly-haired dirty blonde 20-year-old I'd recognize anywhere.
"Sawyer!" I said excitedly, wrapping my younger cousin into a tight hug.
"Missed you too, Big Al." He chuckled. I flicked his ear at the mocking nickname.
Sawyer was all that Drew and I had left for our family. Our parents were in infantry while Sawyer's were riders and we lost all of them in an ambush on an outpost several years ago, including Katia’s; her mom a rider and father an infantry cadet. The four of us easily had become a found family of our own.
We were introduced to the other new first-year riders; the man that looked like Xaden was his younger cousin, Bodhi, and the pink haired girl was Imogen. I remember Garrick and Xaden telling us stories about them, so it already felt like I somewhat knew them. Bodhi seemed more eager to talk to us than Imogen. She stood by Sawyer and Xaden’s younger cousin a majority of the time. Even as Katia tried to compliment her hair, she offered dry responses. But everyone fell into a familiar session of banter and catching up on what's been going on for the last couple of weeks.
Throughout the night, I got lost in my thoughts. The summertime had the bar packed to the point everything was so overstimulating. The music, the loud chatter, it was too much. Why did I even come here? It was stupid to listen to Katia, I should have just stayed back in my dorm. Everyone seemed to be having a great time, but I wasn’t.
Then I saw the familiar sandy brown hair at the entrance to the tavern. Zachariah. Chiara in tow with him, as I made eye contact with my ex. His face looked as if he saw a ghost, and quickly pulled her to the other side of the bar.
“Allie, what the fuck?” Sawyer was the first to speak up.
“Yeah isn’t that your boyfriend?” Xaden offered a glare towards the shorter man across the crowded room.
“Was her boyfriend,” Katia sneered. “Two timing piece of worthless—”
“Kati.” Drew gave her a look of warning.
“I still haven’t got to fulfill my promise.” She leaned back in the booth, crossing her arms. Xaden, who sat next to her, playfully shoved the side of her head.
“Pipe down, firecracker. You’re not going to do shit.” He smirked, as she swatted his hands away.
“Riorson, it was hair washing day.” She groaned. I rolled my eyes at her dramatics. At all my friend’s dramatics actually. I didn’t want to discuss the newly ended relationship tonight or have it made a big deal. But also I certainly wasn’t expecting Zach to show up with his new girlfriend to the tavern he knew my friends frequented at.
I felt a pair of eyes glance towards me from across the table, looking over I saw Garrick looking at me. His usual hardened look was replaced by a look of concern, his hazel orbs intently focusing on me. He cocked his head towards the back door, signaling me to join him outside. I followed him towards the door, once he got up, and into the cool evening air.
I didn't realize by now that I had tears threatening to escape until Garrick pulled me into his chest and wiped a tear from my cheek.
I had been so focused on lessons and training the past couple days, I hadn’t realized how much I bottled up trying to play it off. I was upset, frustrated, and beyond done.
“It’s okay,” he whispered as my shoulders began to shake from my quiet sobs.
Garrick had always been the one that I was closest to. He always somehow caught a glimpse of the ugly side of things in my relationship and was always conveniently there to pick up the pieces when Zach would storm off.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against my hair.
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Feedback is always appreciated, likes, and reblogs as well!! 🫶🏻🫶🏻
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TWD: Daryl Dixon “Paris sera toujours Paris” Review
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☕️Beware of Spoilers☕️
Last week we finally learned how Laurent was brought into the world and we now reach the third leg of the journey for Daryl Dixon and the location this time is Paris. Before Isabelle and Daryl reach the city they come across the town of Angers to one of Isabelle’s allies who has a radio, or so she leads Daryl to believe. Sylvie and Laurent stay behind armed and ready. I’m not sure if this was the brightest move on their part leaving them out in the open but Daryl and Isabelle venture into the theater to her contact and he’s one strange musician.
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Of course, we reach the never-ending saga of French radios that do not work, which is becoming way too predictable at this point. Daryl remains more than irritated that the radio has been used for nothing more than to feed this man’s musical obsession. Instead of trying to help, the man leads them to his stage of zombies in an orchestra. The bodyless head playing the strings was a nice touch but this was undoubtedly one of the strangest scenes in The Walking Dead and one giant waste of time as the crazed man was no help at all. And just as predicted the kids got in over their heads with walkers coming their way. Daryl must save the day and he has had enough of Isabelle’s leadership. It’s time to do things his way now. Though I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing given his track record so far in France.
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Soon the group reaches Paris and it’s a homecoming for Isabelle. From afar Laurent admires the Eiffel Tower for the first time, much like Daryl did upon his arrival. But Paris brings back a lot of memories Isabelle would rather not relive. It’s the very reason why she spent the last decade avoiding it.
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As they march on Isabelle shows Laurent some of her mother’s old stomping grounds. It’s not quite clear if Laurent knows Isabelle is his aunt. She has been lying about so much already so that wouldn’t be surprising. She then tells Daryl about the “pourvoir” movement. During the outbreak in desperate times, people think to order..”Yeah or God.” Daryl remarks back. That line makes it evident that Daryl doesn’t believe in either side of the fight in France. It makes it really hard to fight for something you don’t believe in.
The group stumbles upon the grave of American Rock star Jim Morrison after Laurent tells another story that nobody asked for about the fortitude of a weary woodsman. How death came for him and he had a change of heart. It is nice to know Laurent has so much “useful information” but I’m not sure that it adds any value to the story. Laurent assures Daryl that he will not face the same Morrison fate and die in France. Unclear if he thinks he’s a psychic or trying to ease Daryl’s fear but I think we all know Daryl Dixon is untouchable and not going to perish anytime soon.
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Another ally comes along just in time, Fallou. He has heard the story of Laurent but not seen it with his own eyes and he is mesmerized by the child as are all his people. They’d been waiting a long time to meet the miracle boy. It is a small community of 64 members and Sylvie quickly catches the eyes of a young man.
And on come the homing pigeons. They are used for messaging because they always find their way back home. Daryl thinks this idea is crazy and to get a message to America, it would just take too long. What came next was the most interesting part of the show. Carol is alluded to throughout this episode but this was the moment that screamed her name. While the trainer is holding one of the pigeons to be released he looks at the small creature and says “Maybe he has a girlfriend..we all have a person who waits for us somewhere.” And as Daryl listens he drops his head in both sadness and guilt. He’s dying to get to a radio to send word back and the further they keep going the more walls he is running into. I do however think the girlfriend line is very interesting. They didn’t have to throw that line in if they were trying to stick to the platonic soulmate trope.
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Another fun fact is when pigeons mate they mate for life. Which is how Norman Reedus always saw the character of Daryl. No matter where they go they can always find their way back home to their mate.
At this point, Daryl is over the games. These people are no use to him if they aren’t living up to their end of the deal. Daryl knows that Fallou can get them to The Nest the rest of the way and if there is no radio then she can’t help him. Fallou lets him know there are people in Paris that trade for all kinds of things but he will need currency. He’s ready to steal so he can make a trade to get back home but Isabelle said she will get what he needs. After all, it is the least she could do after the amount of times Daryl has saved them.
Now here lies two major problems in this spinoff:
1. The lying to Laurent, these are supposed to be people of God and Laurent's life is nothing but one big lie. I felt for the kid last week in “Aloutte” when he told children all the lies he’d been told about his past. They only knew him for 5 seconds and knew it was fabricated. They are putting a lot of hope and pressure on Laurent when he doesn’t even know he’s the face of humanity in France. Daryl thinks they should be honest with him. Laurent has strong empathic abilities to read people but I don’t think he’s a miracle child by any means. Everyone is given a gift.
2. Isabelle believes Daryl was sent to her by God to deliver Laurent to revive humanity. However, she seems pretty capable of handling bad people on her own. She’s been out there a long time growing the Union of Hope. The “killer nuns” know how to defend themselves so I don’t see why they needed to use Daryl as a man who can escort them. It seems very outdated. On the other hand, Isabelle does a horrendous job at fighting walkers even if she can kill humans like it’s nobody’s business. At this stage of the game she should be experienced in that area.
Codron is still after Daryl and he’s not going to rest until revenge is served. He comes to Genet with information and Genet hires him to find the American. Strange experiments are going on with walkers/burners and I get the vibe these are not being done to free the world of tyranny. I believe there is a dark purpose behind it all. If you look back on the burner walkers that is not something that just naturally happens.
Now we have reached the infamous Demimonde underground nightclub club which Quinn of all people owns. There are acrobats, a drag queen, and performers of all kinds. A lounge-type singer named Anna has a miraculous voice and seems to be somewhat of an item to Quinn.
Eventually, they get to Isabelle’s to gather some things to trade. There is a line from Isabelle that just clarifies how much Isabelle doesn’t know Daryl..” you seem like someone who’s always thinking” She is glad the two of them crossed paths she tells him but he refuses to share the same sentiment. He isn’t happy to be there but in the same turn, he doesn’t hate her for it. She’s not the reason he ended up here. He must play nice for now to garner a ticket back home.
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Isabelle is admiring some artwork on the wall. A piece by Monet called “The Water Lilies.” She tells Daryl she used to go visit the museum every weekend and admire it. It was like a port in the storm for her. “It kind of reminds me of home,” Daryl replied to her. Upon those words, Isabelle looks like him with a hint of remorse for even pointing it out to him. There’s a tinge of jealousy every time Daryl talks about going home. But there are two very interesting things regarding this scene that are written subtly in the script. “A port in the storm.” We know that Daryl and Carol are each other’s safe harbor. Carol has always anchored Daryl. “The Water Lilies” also reflects home making him think back to Carol and the Cherokee roses by the water. She is his home and just as Isabelle walks away to speak to Quinn Daryl takes one last look back at the painting missing the happiness he was so close to having.
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Quinn lets Daryl know it’s not impossible to get to America. He’s heard things and they travel to his office to talk about it in a deeper capacity. He offers champagne to which they decline. Quinn starts to lay into Isabelle that she should have told him about Lily and the baby. Isabelle is not sure why she would because he didn’t even want to help Lily back in the day. Then it is revealed that Quinn is the father of Laurent leaving Isabelle in an alarmingly shocked state. It was Quinn who saved Isabelle’s life before when she tried to take it and Quinn never lets her forget it. Daryl doesn’t like the way this is heading and tells her he doesn’t need a boat from them this badly. He can find another way. She is irritated with Daryl at this point because she’d come all this way to help him to help him keep his promise. “That’s all you care about isn’t it?” She asks him and Daryl doesn’t deny it. Well of course not his plans are not going to be changed over a group of strangers he just met. Isabelle’s constant annoyance with Daryl wanting to get back to his family and fulfill a promise is very peculiar. What else would she expect? “Oh since you said so I must be a messenger of god and I’ll stay with you forever and do everything you ask?” Come on now.
On a side note I don’t think it’s a huge deal Daryl was not prepared to have Isabelle go through pain to get a boat. Daryl has always been a good judge of character. There’s nothing shippy about him not wanting to be a jerk to get what he wants. Isabelle doesn’t exactly exude the same energy though.
Just as Daryl is about to leave for the second time this episode he tells Isabelle she should stop lying to Laurent. Quinn being his father will just be added to the mountain of lies. I love seeing the old Daryl shine in this episode especially when he tells her Laurent deserves to know who he is. Maybe that’s something she needs to believe, that he’s a gift from God. He can still be a miracle and not be the messiah he tells hers just as hell broke loose. Laurent overhears them and gets furious with them both while Codron has tracked him down regardless of the deal Genet and Quinn had to steer clear of each other's territory. Daryl goes on the run and it becomes another glorious beta vs. Daryl battle before he falls through the floor in a cliffhanger. My favorite part of this scene was Daryl dropping his knife that resembles Carol’s. The camera really panned in on it which purposeful symbolism.
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My takeaways:
Too much inconsistency with Daryl. He’s a hero one minute then seems incompetent on his own at other times. The amount of times he says “I’m better off on my own” and it’s proven otherwise is countless.
Isabelle is often the same, she comes across as a strong and capable woman but then acts as if she needs a man to get her from point A to point B. I don’t think she needs Daryl at all so it does beg the question as to why is she trying to hold onto him and control him? However, I do understand the script had to be written a certain way to prolong Daryl’s stay in France to give Carol time to arrive. It would be devastating if he left when Carol arrived.
There is no chemistry between Isabelle and Daryl. I know that’s what some of you are worried about. With any Daryl/Norman Reedus ship they are going to try and point fans in that direction for drama and attention but I just don’t see it. Especially not with Carol returning. This is not Daryl’s happy ending…a happy ending is not something that you have to be forced or guilted into. A happy ending is not an obligation because you get stuck in a place you don’t belong. I think deep down it feels good for Daryl to help people but he wants to carry on paying it forward. He’s not looking for a place to hang up his hat just yet. Though we all do wish he would hang up that scarf.
We have not seen the last of Quinn. He still has feelings for Isabelle. Isabelle has shut that part of herself off. But I do think it’s a little hypocritical of her to judge Quinn’s lifestyle when she used to be the same. She was the one who wanted to give Daryl the benefit of the doubt and compassion even if he didn’t believe in God. It is pretty clear she’s a master manipulator and does exactly what she needs to get her way. Whether that is towards Daryl to get him to babysit them all across France or to her ex, Quinn to get what’s needed to secure a boat. For me, it all looks like a game to Isabelle. I’m not sure how much she wants to get a boat for Daryl but as a Christian, it is her duty to be a woman of her word.
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Now call me crazy but I thought Nuns were supposed to be as honest as possible. Isabelle lies to Daryl from the start to manipulate him into helping them get to The Nest(and you will see how in a later episode.)She has not only lied to Laurent about who he is and where he came from but also created stories about a pseudo-father. Laurent doesn’t know she’s his aunt or that he is going to revive all of the humanity of France. All she tells him is that he’s special. Meanwhile, everyone they cross looks at Laurent like the angels are singing when he walks.
Fallou did say the radio hasn’t worked in a long time. That had to be information Isabelle was privy to. Much like how she led Daryl on at the Abbey about their radio only to tell him it doesn’t work. I don’t think Isabelle is a villain but she does too many selfish acts for me to like her. It doesn’t matter if she’s a nun now it’s like this selfish manipulative side was something engrained in her from before that’s never gone away, not even with the cloth.
The best takeaway from this episode is Daryl’s heart and his willingness to get word back home. He can only imagine what is going through Carol’s mind right now. Daryl always checks in with her and he does seem frantic about getting to a radio. Every hurdle he jumps over to get radio access comes to a screeching halt so now his best bet is to find a boat to travel back home. From there he can radio out to her.
“SAY HER NAME”
The Carol writing is all over the wall but it’s not definitive enough for my liking. Anybody who knows how to follow a narrative is going to know the safe harbor, home, the promise, and sadness that washes over him is because of Carol. And just as The Walking Dead usually does with the most popular ship of the show they don’t make it obvious enough. There is always that wiggle room. I do understand the poeticness of it but we need both Carol and Daryl to lay their hearts on the line once and for all. But I do however love all the symbolism. Famous french paintings that remind him of Carol, the pigeons, the girlfriend call back, and the knife.
I hope you enjoyed the Caryl hints in this episode. I know I did. There’s a scene coming up in Episode 4 that will completely warm your heart and I believe is another nod to Caryl and their future! Feel free to ask me questions to dive in deeper. Xoxo
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1moreff-creator · 6 months
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Happy Birthday Arei Naegishi!
I am so bad at remembering birthdays I almost missed this one. But it's still the third in my time zone, so I'm still gonna do it! Arei's our birthday girl, and the best character ever (<- her opinion) gets a birthday post too! Spoilers below the cut as always.
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-Arei's backstory was revealed in CH 2 EP 5. She was bullied heavily by her sisters, Fuyuko and Natsuko, and we see an example of them doing so by forcefully cutting part of the right side of her hair. You can even see, to this day, she seems to have more hair on her left than on her right. She also mentions "If [she] had to go to the hospital once or twice, then it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience for [her sisters]." Which, uh, huh. That's... quite awful. The point is that Arei hated her life back then, and rightfully hated her sisters as well.
-Despite that, it seems Arei tried to be kind for the longest time. She's far from an innately cruel person, but eventually, she felt the only way out was turning the table on her sisters and starting to bully them. Her secret is "Blackmailing, rumors, lying, stealing, slander. You did everything you could to ruin your sisters' lives" and she confessed that she framed them for everything she could to get them unlawfully sent to reform school. This included planting things in their bags and lying to authorities, as well as driving her mother's car into a ditch and blaming it on her sister drunk driving. Okay so bullying is maybe an understatement but the idea stands.
-And it worked! She managed to get them sent to reform school, and her life improved drastically. Morally dubious queen shit, etc. However, this made her develop a harmful ideology that being kind is a weakness and will get you treated badly. Which is why she acts unnecesarily mean during the killing game.
-However, deep down, Arei is still nice. She doesn't really like doing the things she does, she just feels they're necessary for her to survive. Even right before her secret reveal, she was trying to justify her actions to herself, saying it's normal for people to be like her:
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Arei (laughing nervously): You [David] do want to hear my secret after all. As I guessed, everyone has that burning curiosity inside of them to hear bad things about other people. It's not just me.
-Which is why Eden's existence led her to a breakdown. Because Eden is nice and kind and is exactly the type of person Arei thinks would be destroyed in """the real world.""" And yet, Eden keeps going, she's still nice. Eden is what Arei wishes she could have been, she sees her past Arei in current Eden. Which is why she bullied her originally; to "teach her how the world works." Because Arei doesn't want to do real harm, so it's better if she does it than someone else later down the line.
-That doesn't go well. She breaks down in front of David, who comforts her quite successfully... so much so that she seems to forget she wanted to talk to David about his secret oops.
-This is what leads to her apologizing to Eden and promising to be her friend and a better person... and then she died. Well, under the most common interpretation.
-Her birthday lands on November 3rd, just three days after Ace's. This coincides with:
+Fountain Pen Day (Min reference?)
+National Sandwich Day.
+National Homemaker Day.
+Jellyfish Day. (?)
+Give Someone a Dollar Day (??)
+Love Your Lawyer Day (???????)
Among other things. I still have no idea where these come from.
-The roman numeral assigned to her in the LGI MV is IV (4), a number associated with death because yeeeeaaaah... This is: "right now, why do you cry?"
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Ignoring the intentional mistranslation, this is probably just referencing Arei's breakdown in the playground.
-Color Theory (I'm sorry but I'm done linking that post) assigns her... well, I believe dark blue, so I'm going with that. This is cry, big and the Mandarin laugh (哈哈哈) in the rain scene.
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(The good thing about having done this fucking video is that I have all the damn screenshots you could ever ask for in relation to it)
"Cry" for the same reasoning as her numeral. "Big" in this context is "proud", which fits. And the laugh is long to explain, but basically it's the "applause crew" (Cheery David, Xander, Hu, Arei) overwhelming David. Watch that part of the video for a better explanation.
-Arei had an FTE with J, which she starts off by tickling her, later claiming she would, uhm.
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Arei: I'll tie you down and force you to wear maid dresses and bunny suits until you change your mind! [About acting girly]
Arei what. This screenshot feels like it should be fake what do you mean it's canon. It's great, don't get me wrong, it just feels extremely outta pocket. Listen, I (aro/ace) don't feel qualified to unpack whatever the fuck is going on here, I'm just gonna leave this to the shippers.
-What I will unpack is the other stuff in the FTE related to Arei. Which is-
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Arei: C'mere! I'll tickle you until you laugh so hard that your heart stops! Then I'll defibrillate you and tickle you some more! Tickle tickle tickle!
I said the OTHER stuff
-Mainly, that she feels like being the favorite child would be great (you can figure out why yourself I imagine), and she likes acting girly.
-We also learn she categorizes people based on how she likes to bully them. "Cool and suave wannabe boys" like J (as in, she acts like a boy who tries and fails to be cool and suave), "spineless pushovers" like Levi (she "uses as maids"), "adorably sweet people" like Eden (she """likes""" to make them cry), and the people who don't like her, which would presumably include her sisters, as she says she likes to destroy these people's lives. Foreshadowing!
Fun facts!
-She likes gossip and dislikes being ignored.
-Her subtitle quote in the cast page is "If I tell you a secret, will you promise to keep it?" Which is insane foreshadowing given the chapter she (allegedly) died in.
-Her secret quote is "Because that’s what friends do", which she said to Eden in the trial flashback. The quote associated to her in Mai's page is "She doesn’t like it when her friends fight." Friendship is evidently something of a running theme.
-She likes "cute" food (?), her favorite color is azure (because she's blue), her favorite ice cream flavor is birthday cake flavor (oh, fitting!). Her least favorite color is green because it "looks like puke", which... I wonder if it has something to do with being bullied by her sisters given the apparent hospital visits.
-Her name in Kanji is written 投石【なげ ・ いし】亜鈴【あ ・ れい】. Cool! Don't know what any of that means.
-Like most of the cast, her hair color is natural and she's American.
-She's ambidextrous! The only ambidextrous person in the cast, in fact, and the only one apart from Teruko to not be a righty.
Finally songs!
+Candle Queen by Ghost & Pals (literally her song, don't @ me)
+Those Who Carried On by Ghost & Pals (it's sorta a similar attitude to how she felt about Eden, do you see my vision?)
+SCAPEG∞AT by Ghost & Pals (I will make you all listen to Ghost & Pals!)
+Perfectly Sweet by Vane Lily
+Karma by CreepP
+Bad B!tch Magic by HalaCG + others
+i DO what i WANT by KIRA
+Aishite by Kikuo
+It's Not My Fault by DECO*27 (listen Milgram had to bleed into these eventually)
+Teen Idle by Marina and the Diamonds (again I think it works)
+Pyrite Girl by RIProducer / RIP (I think it works kinda at least)
And Happy Birthday! Hope you enjoy some birthday cake ice cream, girl! Go do it!
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