#“You sacrificed someone in an attempt to chain me and it was pointless!”

[satisfactionbroughtmeback]

Danny stared at Ra's. Danny stared at the baby. This entire infant and now the second child of his created without his knowledge or consent.

At least this one was young enough to have not suffered as much damage. He had destroyed the first and largest Lazarus Pit a bit under 2 years ago and this child looked maybe a bit under a year. Or just over a year? He had not had enough time to pay attention with attacks happening during the unit for baby care in high school, and he could now say for certain the flour sack had not prepared him for this. Hopefully Frostbite would be able to help because otherwise he had no idea how he was supposed to figure out how to take care of an extremely liminal child not yet capable of expressing its desires.

"Yeah, no. I came here to close the portals and no, creating a baby me will not give you a weapon that will be able to open them again. How long have you even been planning this? And how did you get the material needed? Did you think I wouldn't be coming back to check my work when I noticed Realms energy that shouldn't be there? Just... what the fuck man."

Ra's glowered furiously. "You stole my pits! You had no right! And I will get them back. If it necessitates the creation of a child to remake them, so be it. You left through similar portals after destroying my property! Do not expect me to believe that they cannot be remade!"

Danny held the child closer. It's eyes were wide but they weren't fussing yet, thankfully, despite the shouting. "Portal creation is an extraordinarily difficult and rare ability! Even if you managed to create an exact clone, which this child clearly is not, they would not have been able to recreate those cesspools you were using."

Ra's expression, disconcertingley, lightened. "Maybe not for a being of your limited intellect, but I have worked to remedy the issue. Young Timothy may have refused to be my heir but I have ample genetic material and something with your abilities and his brilliance will no doubt be able to solve the issue. But further discussion is unnecessary. You are correct that the creature you are holding fell short of expectations but my research has found a way to contain your kind and I will be able to make better versions soon enough. Shadows!"

Phantom darted backwards scanning the surroundings as the ninjas he had seen previously at the locations he had been to destroy the faulty connections to the Infinite Realms filled the room. Ritual markings for bindings lit up the walls and floor and Danny was horrified to see one of the individuals kneel at cult leaders feet only for Ra's to slit the man's throat to power the binding. "What the hell are you doing!"

"Containing something that has caused enormous harm to my organization on a degree almost as destructive as the Detective. Fitting that a combination of the two of you will be used to bring it back to, and greater than, it's previous glory!"

The bindings grew stronger and settled into their final configuration. Phantom settled with eerie stillness in the center. Then the shadows cracked around him.. ̸͚̈"̵̨͖̤̓̆͐H̶̦̳̍̈̑ȧ̴̝d̴̩̀̓ ̸̤͕͖̽̌y̸̹̐̈́o̴̼̎̏̚ŭ̷̮̹͌ ̴̧̰͑̇͝a̵̞͑͛͘c̴̡̦͖̚c̵̡̝̯̈́̏ē̷̡͎̣̂p̵͉̻̻̅͒̄ṱ̸̛̮̿e̸̗̱͐d̵͕͊ ̸̟̬̬̋l̷͖̜̹͊́o̴͉̚s̶̲͇͔̓̄͒ȉ̴̭̑̓ͅn̸̯̮̣̅͗͘g̶̢͖̼̐̓̊ ̵̤̙̚ț̷́h̴̪̦̓é̸̪ ̵̘̻̋̋h̶̡̼͉͆ǫ̴̰͗́l̴̡̲̚ď̸̺ ̴̪̼̄͒o̷̖͗̋́f̴͓̳͒̑͜ ̵̣͕̠̾̚ţ̸͗͝h̴͈͗̑͑e̵̡̨̻͝ ̷̫̈́͜Ȋ̷͉̭ͅṉ̶̚f̶̖͖͚̐i̴̪̇̉͠ǹ̵̬í̸͉̐ͅt̶̳̭͋̂ȩ̵̘͒̆̄ ̷̪͒R̴̹̠̩̂̃e̵͎̺͑͠a̴̯̱͂͝ļ̴̮́̂̽m̶̼̬͆̿͌s̵͍̓ ̵͚̆́̚w̴̯͛e̸͓͊́ ̴̠̦̏̿̚w̸̟͗̋o̵̮̐̅û̶̡l̷̡̼͍̐̈́ḋ̷͍̖ ̸̛̣̍̆h̴̻́a̸̽̓͝ͅv̶͉͈̊͆e̸̺͊̈́̿ ̸̺͇͔̅͆̿n̷̻̙̬̾͊̾e̵̙͝v̸̖̘̿̏̚ͅḙ̷̙̭̏r̴̬͓̻̉̔̎ ̵̨͉̽̈́̓ͅn̴̢͎̓͋͝e̶͙͒͒ḛ̸̮̹͒̈d̷̤̯͋͝͝e̵̺̗͗ͅd̷̠̝̜͆͆ ̶̟̹̂͒̈t̵͇͎͋̆o̵̢̠̗͆͝ ̶̧͎͖̋͂m̵̛͔̟é̶̹̮̈́͐e̶̯͑t̶̩̑̏ ̵̇ͅa̵͎̪͔͝g̷̻͗̉͊a̸̫̐̾͝i̸̗̇ņ̸̮̍ ̶̦͈̖̑̉̿ö̶̞́͝ṇ̶͉̰̔ ̴̢̹̭̓̇͠t̵̼̘̑͒͜h̷͓̻̋ͅe̷͕̾̒̉ ̵̳͇̌M̶̙̦͔̉͌o̵̥͎̤̾r̷̯͗̾̕ͅṫ̸̤̈́̈́ä̶̧̻̹́̇ĺ̸̠̭͌̈́͜ ̸͈͛̚P̶͉̩̗̈́̃͌l̸͔̘͎̀͐͗ă̶̠͈̈̈́n̵̞͉̱͘e̷̘̍.̵̼̟̥̽̂̃ ̵̘̘̿U̵̗͐͠ͅn̴͎̊f̶̛̬͙̃o̵̧͎͓͆r̸̯͕͍͌t̸͙̾̈́̎ͅǘ̶͙͎͉̃́ṉ̷̆ͅa̶̖͍̗̔̈͝t̶̨͈͗ę̴̣̌̒l̸͙̹̓y̶̝̰̺̿̂͂,̵̺͍͊͑̀ ̸̭̹̰̃͊̚y̷̺̭͝ö̴̯͚́ų̵̯̱̔͆͝ ̸̰̯̋͊͌h̸̢̪͖͆ā̶̩̣́v̶̳̼̍̾ͅe̵̯̞͆̔ͅ ̷͙͆͋c̷̢̱̺͂h̸̫̐o̸͍͕̓̋̕s̸̲̞͗̉é̵͓̮̀n̸̢̛̜̑͘ ̵̪̞̃͑t̴̪̽́̚ȏ̸̲͙͖̅ ̴̗͎̏͌c̶̗͊̒a̸͉̿ụ̷̋̊͘s̴̪͌͌̀e̸̯̹̾ ̶̞́̒̀m̷͚̓́̍e̷̢̅̀ ̷̟̿ẖ̶̔͝a̸̢̗̪̾̈́r̵͓̳̳͒̌m̵̘̳͓̀̅ ̴̼̚ä̴͙ͅn̶̰̘͇͝d̸̺̞̍́ ̴̝̅̂͠h̵̙͖̆̈́a̶̼͆̐͝ŕ̸̡̤̳m̵͈͔̰͆̈́̽ ̶̳͇̻̑a̶̮̪̓̈́ ̶̳̬̖̓͆c̶̞̈́͑͑h̶̛̖̣̟̀̾î̵̜̤̘l̶͈̱̉̽d̵̝̜̙͗̌.̵̲̍͝ ̶̝̑Ť̴̫̜̮h̷̗̆͗͂i̵̳̋̈́s̷̹͍̑͊ ̴̹̈͊̓ỉ̶̯͍s̸̫͋̐͗ ̴̝͍̝̆̿͆u̸̔́��̼̺n̶̮̣̅̏f̶͕̮̪͂̌̈́o̶̳͉̮͒̃r̷͖̥̈͑̄ǵ̵̤̼̿͐ḭ̸̘̥̄̈́̿v̵͓̏a̶̹͑̐́b̸̨̜͊l̸̙̟͕̓ę̶̀̀.̵̨̆"̶͙̅̿̕

Ice crept from the corners of the room and fractures of green light became apparent as Phantom's form warped, child still held safely against what had been his chest before his being had changed into an ever shifting nebula.

̷̧̛̖̗̜͒͋̉̓̒͑̑̄̓̚̚"̷̤͛͌͐͂̐Y̷̗̱̯̞͔̖̱͍̯̜̣͐̉̓͐̾̓͝o̴̡̡̨̝͓͖̭͓̗̣̮̰̞͚̰̺̿͗̐u̷̢̨̡̬̪̞̟̙̯͖͙̘̲̭͕͋͑̋͝ ̴̢̟̺̦̤͍̭̥̥͕̯̩̥̪̮̥͉̒̇̀́̑͘s̶̜͌̇̈́͂͋̆̅͊̃͌̑̚͝͠͠͠a̵̢̻̭̮͓͙̙̗̩͌c̶̨̡̠̤̞͓̥͖̞̗͙͉͆́́̓̐̈́̓̏́͆̄̄ͅŗ̶̜̳̤̠͇̦̰͕̭̼͙͈̟̹̙̪̓͋͗ì̴̡͈͈̀͐͒̈́̋̽̅f̸̠͓͕͕̼̣̦̲̗̙̰̮̱̙̳̏̔̐̃̈́̎̾̈́͜͜͝͝i̵̧̤̠͖̿͐̑̓̾͂̇͒́́̉̎͗͘͝ͅc̸̢̛̬̳̯̀̋̿̓̏̽͛̔̈͂̎ę̵̈́̀͐d̸̙͐͌͗̈́ ̵̛̳͗̌͆͑̽̿̑̒͗͂̅̕͝s̵̢̛͕̘̯̹̻̰͍͍̠̆́̈́̆̇̔̌̄̏̿͌̀̆͒̈́̊o̴̦̳̘̝͛̓̆̿m̷̥̠͔̻͙͖̖͕͇͈͙̹͉̅̓̐̋̔͗͋̄͑̓͛͗̊̆̕ͅé̶̢̻̖̲͖̈́̎̓͋̉̆̍̍̅̌͊̎͆͜͝o̶̜̅̋̌̏͑̄̎̐̾̇̓͑͌̓̊̌͘͠n̷̛͚͍̥̘̱̲̘̟̲̉̃̿̇̑̓̿͋̊̐́͆͘̕ë̶̢̻̬̙̖̬̪͇̝͇̘̫̙̬͚̪̪͚́͆̃͋̄̈̃̆̌͛̈̊͛͘͝͠͝͝ ̴̢̡̡̛̠̝̩̼͔̩̰̼̦̘̣͍̠͑͐̀͗̎̽͂͘ȉ̷̞͉̳̳̹̏̄̈́͝͝n̴̢̢̧̧̯͙͍̥̹̺̞̭̱̱̽͊̾̈͒͒̽ͅ ̷̳̣̱̳̟̥̎̄̒̔͛́͒̀̉̓̇̕̚͠͝͝a̶̡̢̙̞͈̹̠̜͓͚̠͈̦̰̓͑̌̓̄̋̊̐͑̉̓̀n̷̢̢̧̡̰͉̙̙̤̺̩̟̲̝̱̽͊̄̏͐͒͋͌̀͆̊̎̚͜ ̸̡̜̙͇͔̣̭̝̞̖̈́̀́͑͝ͅạ̷̢̯̙͍̹̦̳̤̫͙͆̽̂͛̌̿̈́̾͐̒͊͑̌̀̒ṱ̶̪͋t̵̛̛͉̭̳͕͉̟̔͂̍̚͜e̴̛͎̟͕̗̣̣̭̣̱͔͓̰̬̐͂̆̇͆̕m̵̡͙̱͎̬̮̠̾̀̈̇̍͂͗̏̋̀̍̍̕͝͝p̸̢͎̲̗̟̞͌̂̒̉̄͆͘̚t̵̡̗̬̲̞̫͈̜̺͍̫͂̆̋̐̑̌͊͊͠ ̶̛͚̜͚̯͔̼̼̍͒̓̓̾́̍̈́͗͌̈́́̄̓̍̕ṫ̵̞̋̈̓̅͆̏̾̓͐͑̓́̑̚͘ö̶̯̤̜̘́̚ ̵̧̮͉͇̦̤͔̠͉̺̹̝͈̝͙̖͐̈́͒͊͆́̎͒̾̒̚͠͠c̶̜̝͙͍͙͍͈̬͍̔̔͜ḩ̴͙̬͈̪͈̻͙̻̯̭̲͍̻̤̞͎͎̌͋͂̉̅̓̐̓̀͋͠a̶͉͙͍̒̂͝��̼͔͎͇̫̫̭̝̪i̶̧̛̠͉̳͎̣͐͐̓̄̓͊̎̓̚͝ņ̸̡̡̛̼͉̲͇̗̄͌̃͗́͆̒̎̋̌̕͘͝ ̵̢̘̼͓̤͕͔̦͍̱̞̝͎̮̬̥̠̈́̏̈́̾͂̚̕m̵̢̧̜̤̦͒̈̈́̅͒̌̓͒̓͜ȩ̴̨̢͚̥̘͉̲͉̙͇̮̳̰̦̱̔͜ ̷̛̼̪̮͉̰̰́̋̋̈̍̆̈̽͗̕a̵̩͓̯̤̼͉̰̦͍͔̻͔͋́͒̾̒͒̂ń̴̻̩̳̙̼̝̄̊̃͒̇͆ͅḑ̶̢̢̛͍̞͉̘̬̜͕̪̟͉̲̬̼̥̟͗̔͊͋̄̂͊̾̍̂́̿̃͘͝ ̶̳͉̬͍̮͓̟̹͌̃̽̾̀̏̑͛̈͝î̵̝̣̝̼̠̱̅͋͘̚͝t̶̢̰̲̼̩̬͕̗̘̺̑̏͂̆͐͂̄͂̚͝ ̷̼̄̂͗̆̉͂̿͊̉̓̈̑͆͂͋̚w̴̘̮̲͎̝͇̠̗̫͎͓̣̙͋̄͒̔́̏́̈́̈́̓̔̂̉̿͒͘͝ͅȁ̷̧̢̡͔̼͍̺̱͈͉͚̹͉̈́̓͑͂̑̓́͂̅͗̿̌͝ͅs̴̨̛͎̭̦̯̜̻͔͔̈́̓͋̆̇͗̃̽͑̅́̚ͅ ̷͎͕̲̤͔̬͖͎̙̎̓͋p̵͖̃̆̂̔͋̎̏͌͠͝ǫ̸̧̰͚̰͍̗̺̞̣̒͊͛̉̀͋̃̄͆̓̐͑͑͝͝i̶̢̼̱͙̱̘̘̠̣͚̙͙͙̤̙͕̻͍͊̂͌n̴̢̻̰̜͇͚̝̂̏͜͜͜ẗ̸̡͓̰͔͍͈͔͙̦͖̩́̽ļ̸̧̢̛̻̣͖̤̃͋̀͋̇e̸̡͍̰̹̯̱̯̫̹̼̹͍͗͆͒̚ș̷̊̀̽͒̌̋͂̔͛́͌͂̾ș̷̦͔̘̀̓́͂́̉͑͋́̃́͘͜ͅͅ!̴͍̜̤͎̯̠̥͙̀̈̿̿̈́̽̊͝"̵̭̻͑̉͑

Phantom's voice could no longer be considered human. It crackled like electricity. Like ice breaking. Like the sun as it burned.

"̴̥̞̘̠͉̠̬̞̗̻̝̫̥̘͔̟̣̪̫͈̘̟͈̯̺̞̎͋̐̌̽͗̓̽̀̕͝I̵̡̨̧̪̗̳̬̠̫̱͍̝̬̝̗̥̗͕̯͇͆̏͑̈́ ̶̝̥͕͔̫̪̳̥̜̠̘̫̹͇̋w̸̧̮̣̙͚͓̦͖͙̘̼͉͔̼̜̭̗̣͉̲̜͈̘͊̈̈̓́͊̔̕͜͜ͅi̵̢̢̲̼̭͙͙̥̪͔̣̭̥̤̤̠̯̩̭̗̭̠̳̘̤͙̇̃̒̏͜ͅͅl̴̡̡̢̳̘̖̟̻̥̲̤̼̬̫̺͎̣̗̭͉̩͍̱̞̼̈͊̒͂̑̐̽̂͗̍̈̐̚͘͜͜͠ľ̵̛͇͙̭̪͍̱̬̒̈̓̔͗̏̐̈́̎̋̈́́̓͐̽̈̄̅͘͘̕̕͝͝͝͝͠ ̸̡̡̠̼̤̯͙̳̣̤̼̰̗̣͗̽͊̓̑̾̈͂̐̾̅̚͘͠b̵̨̨̡̛̫͕̮̘̣̺̳̖̠̜̻̠̗̘̖̭̯̳͙̫̱̪̱̺̥̟͙̻̗̲̓̌̓̆̀́́̿͒̾͋̋́̽̊̀͌̈́̒̅̆̓͛̊͗̃͂̚͝͝͠͝͝ͅȩ̷̧͉͍̼͉̙̘͓̯̻̻̣̤̣̩̗̹̬̙̪̺̼͊̓͋́̈̊̑̒͛̔̾̐͑̊̂̕̕͜͝͠͝͝ ̷̛̮̠̜̼̌͌̏̀͐͛́̌̊̉̅́̈̓̏͝͠b̴̛͇̮͈̥̥̣̯̫̻̞̙̟̼̹̞̈́͂̅̍͛͑̆̅̆̂̄̈͛̅̄͌̂̂͜͝͝͠͠ͅą̴̛͍̳̰̰̩͓͇͕̳̠̭̠̜̦͂̊͊̏͐̀̓̇͝ĉ̵̠̰̣͈̘̰̞͈͎̙̖̖̰̬̬͐̈́̾͆͋͂̊̂̀̍̈́̏��k̴̡̨͉̪͔͎̼̳̖͈̥̝̺̟̝̭̩̮̣̳̼̻̮̹͗̈́̔́̿͛̂͐̓̒̊͝͝͝͠.̶̢̨̫͚͔͖̩͚̖̱̱̣͓̳͖̗̞͎̬̳̬͒"̵̢̢̛̙̦̝̘̣̳̖̤̯͖̜͖̙͓͖̤̹̹̖̎͛̽̇͊́̊̒̏̀̀͊̑̌̈̌̅͐̒̄͛͌̒̀͒͋́̐̑̈́̕͜͝͝ͅ

A portal opened behind him and the ritual shattered, room breaking around it.

The portal closed leaving nothing but rubble behind.

Project R au except Danny is not the clone.

Instead Danny gets Ras Al Ghuls attention after overhearing that the baby in the tube was made from a bunch of "Robins/detectives" and a little of Phantom himself and looks the guy in the eye before using his intangibility to grab the baby-still not breaking eye contact- and saying, "Mine now." before disappearing.

Danny comes home and explains the situation to his sister and parents and they welcome the new baby into the family with open arms. When asked why they took dna from Danny, Jack immediately jumped in with, "Because we're Fentons!" As if that was all the reason needed.

Elsewhere Ras tells the bats about the clonenapping, conveniently leaving out the part about Phantom also being one of the babys dads. The bats go a little crazy trying to find out where thier baby is and why some no name villian (cause thats what they believe he is due to what little media coverage Amity Park has on him) wants with thier baby.

Then they learn about the ghost thing and then the research. At first they didn't believe it because they had dealt with ghosts before and they were nothing like that. But the more they looked the more they realized these weren't the kind of ghosts they were used to...

[prose-for-hire]

An impassioned debate

Pairing: Giles x Spike (”platonic” but they’re arguing lol)

Request: Spike & Giles bicker fest a la missing moments from when they were housemates, please?

Requested by: @staycalmandbeafan 

Warning: Sex references.

A/N: Sometimes when I write I assume the attitude of one of the characters. Therefore, Spike doesn’t always appear in a good light lol (It was fun to write though and I got a little carried away sorry) 💜🖤

Giles liked to live alone.

He had grown up living with his parents. He had roommates in university. He even flat-shared in the communal house him and the friends he hung around at the time broke into and claimed as their own in his early twenties.

And that, is exactly how Giles knew he liked to live alone. Some days he could barely tolerate the young people that no matter how fond of them he was, would go on about pointless and often arbitrary nonsense in his presence.

His home then, became his sanctuary. A place where he could shut out the world.

That was until one fateful day in the all-too recent past. Thanksgiving day. A day where the Americans gave thanks for the parts of their lives they are grateful for. He thought he ought to partake in tradition and suggested how grateful he was for Buffy and the others.

A silent, more self-indulgent thanks was to the peace and quiet he would get at the end of the day. His house to himself, not shackled by parents. Kept up all hours by housemates or forced into copious amounts of overly emotional performance at the hands of the well-intentioned Americans.

This silent thought was shattered as a thud at the door announced an unwelcome visitor.

That’s how Giles ended up with a new houseguest. The vampire chained to his tub. A tub he had been very fond of until Spike had come in and ruined with his stench. He was probably the only person that smelt this bad after spending this amount of time in the bathtub.

It would be fair to say that Giles hadn’t been a very welcoming host, but to put it in context, despite being ‘harmless’ Spike had tried to bite Giles not once, but twice. Upon the first attempt being a near-miss and the second ending in blinding pain for the corpse-faced lunatic, he had the gall to tell Giles that he would taste like a dried up old prune anyway.

There was also the incident on Thanksgiving day itself where he managed to eat half a plate of cookies before anyone had the chance to stop him. A miraculous feat when you note that his hands and feet were bound tight.

These were, for the most part issues that Giles could look past. Especially now he was sure that Spike was unable to actually harm him. But what he couldn’t get past were, well, every other area that involved living with Spike.

The issues could be divided as such: Eating habits; sleeping habits; general depravity and what one could only describe as ‘The Passions debate’.

We should probably begin with the sleeping habits:

Or lack thereof. Spike was cat-like in the sense that he didn’t usually get a full night’s, or days, sleep. He tended to sleep a couple hours here or there seemingly whenever he pleased. Which meant that when he was tied up after dark, the vampire had a whole lot of thoughts and nowhere else to go so he seemingly spoke them out loud.

Giles tossed and turned in his bed desperately clinging to sleep, able for the most part to ignore the constant babbling of Spike’s innermost thoughts. Which actually amounted to shagged someone, shagged someone oh I drank some blood, shagged someone.

It was utterly mind numbing and Giles was beginning to feel that should he ever get out of this arrangement alive he would look into finding a house in the middle of a deserted island. Never to return to civilisation.

Giles managed to mostly ignore the fanged menace. Until the singing started. Or, what Giles would only call tuneless hollering. He butchered every punk song known to man and some surprisingly sugary pop ballads that Giles wouldn’t dare comment on, less he revealed that he himself knew the songs lyrics too.

He actually started singing to pass the time, it was lyrical to begin with but as the night wore on he started to shout the words, the tune lost. Sacrificed to a greater goal. Irritation.

He grinned when Giles padded downstairs to try to silence the din.

“Alright, Rupert? Here for dinner and a show?”

“I’m going to gag you” Giles warned. Something they had already had numerous arguments over.

“Well, you’re really gonna have to take me out to that dinner then” Spike smirked at Giles’ disdain for his words, moving his head slightly at the man’s reaction.

“Will you shut up! For God’s sake, man, be quiet!” Giles shouted, sleep-deprivation and living with someone that had more fangs than brains made him more and more irate. It made Spike smile even further, his next words making Giles about three seconds from throttling him (which, wouldn’t have killed him but it would have been very satisfying for Giles).

“Well, seein’ as you’re awake and all and got nothing better to do, be a love and get me some blood?” Spike cackled. Giles stopped himself from going near Spike and instead trailed to the kitchen, hoping it would at least shut him up for five minutes.

Which brings us nicely along to eating habits:

“I like a bit of texture in it!” Spike had shouted one morning. His blood was steaming but Giles had returned back into the kitchen with it to add something to try and get a moment’s peace.

He had been playing a very enjoyable game of see how many times he can send the same mug of blood back before Giles realised he was only doing it to annoy him. The highest score had been 3 times and only, in Giles’ defence, because the man hadn’t been properly awake that morning.

Giles had hit Spike twice (which was very tame considering the horror that was a feral vampire that wasn’t used to being in a domestic setting). Once because of the aforementioned incident and the second time after a particularly heated debate that we will discuss later.

Spike had been lounging on the sofa again, getting crumbs all over his chair. Giles swung his feet and made him sit up as he spoke.

“Will you bloody-”

“Oh don’t start conjuring those sweet massacres in my mind, Rupes, makes a fella’s hunger unbearable” He rubbed his stomach that did in fact appear to be gurgling at the mere mention of the word.

Spike, when he was allowed out of his restraints and Giles saw it was too much like hard work to be waiting on Spike all of the time, began to make his own meals. Which, really, just created more of a mess. And a distinct lack of Weetabix around the house.

He created the worst combinations known to man, sometimes to annoy Giles and other times to just see how it went. He sprayed cans of whipped cream in his mouth left over from Thanksgiving, ate crackers with every topping he found in the house and made sure to use the least amount of manners as possible whilst doing so.

Which brings us onto the section Giles would entitle, Spike’s ‘generally depraved character’:

Giles was still in the habit of tying Spike up at night, but he had subsequently allowed him to walk around in the day after a while.

There had been one evening where Spike ran through the entire house, struggling at every turn so that Giles couldn’t tie him up again. He was bored and it was fun making the human chase him. Eventually he was cuffed and tied to his chair and left there through the day so that it didn’t happen again.

Luckily, Spike had gotten bored of that game and just let Giles tie him up at night again now. Not without comment, of course.

“Call that a knot? I’ve had tighter curls, mate” Spike rolled his eyes as Giles looked over the glasses perching on the end of his nose. He then reached and tightened the knot by a lot making Spike yelp and scowl at him.

“Hey! You can’t just leave me like this – I’m getting’ rope burn here!” he shouted as he struggled, thus giving himself worse rope burn.

“Ah, yes and what’re you going to do about it, Spike, hm? Serenade me to death?” Giles rolled his eyes in disdain. He rolled his shoulders, adjusting his position with a scowl stamped on his face. 

He watched Giles get back to reading his paper. He let him get a few lines in before he interrupted him this time.

“Not exactly the five star digs I’m used to” Spike said which made Giles scoff. He had seen many of the places Spike had called home and none of them were fit for burying a corpse in let alone housing a living one.

“I can untie you and you can just leave, Spike, I’m sure burning to a crisp would really show me what for” Giles muttered, focusing on the paper he had been trying to read.

“Oh, I see you. Thinking you’re better than me – smarter. Anyone can read books, they don’t make it their whole sodding personality. You’re a good ol’ British stereotype, Rupes,”

“Ah, yes, well, many people can read Spike but it takes a particularly impervious individual to be so oblivious to their own misgivings that they result in insulting themselves in the same breath as their foe”

Spike rolled his eyes at the use of the word ‘foe’ but kept silent for a while. It was a rare silence and Giles made the most of it. Savoured it. He wasn’t sure if it was the big words that had evaded him or just the fact that his insult had resonated. But he didn’t say these thoughts out loud, less he would have to listen to Spike’s sparkling wit.

However, lo and behold, Spike suddenly spoke up again. 

“You know what I miss?” Spike asked, leaving Giles sighing audibly and putting his unread book back down. He had tried several times to read the same line.

“No, but I assume that you’re about to enlighten me”

“Civil wars”

“What?!” Giles asked incredulously, taking his glasses from his face just so he didn’t have to look at the vampire who appeared to be staring up at the ceiling and reminiscing.

“Yeah” No nodded, “There’s just something about a civil war… could be the fear. Aphrodisiac, it is”

“I’m not sure I agree-”

“Probably ‘cause you’d be the one doing the fearing you great ponce”

“Now-” Giles was ready to launch into a barrage of insults, using all of his wit to ground Spike into the pile of dust and ash he was destined to be. But then, he took a breath. He decided to hit Spike where it hurt, “That’s it! No more television”

“What?!” Spike shouted, his eyes bulging in horror, “You can’t do that, I’m dyin’ here gramps-!”

“You’re already dead”

“Yeah, well, now I’m rotting away here with the living. I mean, you’ve aged – I saw your graduation photo in the hall. It’s like lookin’ in a particularly haunting mirror when I see you” Spike spoke smugly of the way his face hadn’t aged despite being older than Giles.

There was a stony silence for a while. Giles went quiet. When Giles went quiet, he was mad. The kind that could become insidious. His fists curled and his mind raced. Blood pumping hot around his body.

But, after a moment, he resolved himself. Spike wasn’t worth Ripper making an appearance. No, Spike wasn’t worth anything.

“Why don’t you read something, or perhaps figure out how to count past two?” Giles offered, stepping away from where the tv was now staying off. Spike’s face turned sour at the prospect of another afternoon with his thoughts.

“How about four?” Spike asked, flipping the v’s with both arms raised at the man who looked like he was about to thump his guest yet again.

“You’re a piece of work, Spike”

“Thanks” Spike nodded, still looking at Giles expectantly, waiting for the television to be turned back on. But when he turned way and started to look busy Spike’s mood changed.

“Come on, it’s telly time!” Spike shouted but Giles just took his jacket and left the house for the rest of the day. Leaving Spike bored and trying to avoid the patches of sunlight where Giles had ‘accidentally’ opened some of the curtains on different levels of the house.

When Giles eventually began to turn the television back on for Spike, it leads us on to ‘The Passions debate’:

“Are you blind willingly or are you truly this ignorant?!” Giles shouted, his words directed at Spike but his eyes were glued to the screen. No matter how much he had fought it, Giles had been well and truly sucked into the fictional world.

“Don’t be a bloody idiot! It’s clear as sodding day that they’re meant to be together” Spike gestured wildly at the screen.

“Their relationship is forced – there is no real meaning there!” Giles insisted, much like most shows on television in his opinion.

“You got it all wrong - it’s fate, destiny or any of that bollocks”

“Ah, yes, that would be the latter”

“Don’t be daft, Ripper – have you seen them?! Pure chemistry. Nobody can act that good either, they’re shagging behind the scenes – mark my words”

“You really are as perceptive as a wooden spoon, Spike” Giles berated him.

“That’s rot, that is! They’re shagging no two ways about it”

“Two people can have chemistry and maintain a platonic relationship” Spike raised an eyebrow at him and Giles had become heated in the debate, “They are not bloody shagging!”

“Aw, does it bother you that fictional characters are getting more action than you?” Spike mock-pouted. Trying to rile the man up further. This was where it descended into chaos.

“Ah, fortunately I’m satisfied in the knowledge that there will always be someone that is worse-off than myself” Giles paused before asking, “Is Drusilla well?”

“Bugger off! That was low for an ex-watcher who gets all his happy feelings from a group of school children” Spike pounced on him, going for the jugular, “You spend an embarrassing amount of time with dear Buffy. I wonder, what could you be doin’ behind closed-”

Spike was cut off by a blow to his face. It sent him flying backwards and splintered the wooden chair he had been sat on into pieces.

“Out!” Giles demanded, face like thunder, “Out before I do something I wouldn’t regret!”

Both Spike and Giles eyed the weapons chest that was on the floor between them before looking back at the other. Both were trying to calculate how long it would take the other to get there. After a moment, Spike got to his feet and just slinked off to a different corner of the house until he got hungry and Giles went to walk off his anger.

That had been the last straw. Soon after this particular incident, Spike was shipped off the Xander’s basement. Giles finally got his house back. His wooden chair however, unfortunately never recovered.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

The New Nihilism

It feels increasingly difficult to tell the difference between—on one hand—being old, sick, and defeated, and—on the other hand—living in a time-&-place that is itself senile, tired, and defeated. Sometimes I think it’s just me—but then I find that some younger, healthier people seem to be undergoing similar sensations of ennui, despair, and impotent anger. Maybe it’s not just me.

A friend of mine attributed the turn to disillusion with “everything”, including old-fashioned radical/activist positions, to disappointment over the present political regime in the US, which was somehow expected to usher in a turn away from the reactionary decades since the 1980s, or even a “progress” toward some sort of democratic socialism. Although I myself didn’t share this optimism (I always assume that anyone who even wants to be President of the US must be a psychopathic murderer) I can see that “youth” suffered a powerful disillusionment at the utter failure of Liberalism to turn the tide against Capitalism Triumphalism. The disillusion gave rise to OCCUPY and the failure of OCCUPY led to a move toward sheer negation.

However I think this merely political analysis of the “new nothing” may be too two-dimensional to do justice to the extent to which all hope of “change” has died under Kognitive Kapital and the technopathocracy. Despite my remnant hippy flower- power sentiments I too feel this “terminal” condition (as Nietzsche called it), which I express by saying, only half-jokingly, that we have at last reached the Future, and that the truly horrible truth of the End of the World is that it doesn’t end.

One big J.G. Ballard/Philip K. Dick shopping mall from now till eternity, basically.

This IS the future—how do you like it so far? Life in the Ruins: not so bad for the bourgeoisie, the loyal servants of the One Percent. Air-conditioned ruins! No Ragnarok, no Rapture, no dramatic closure: just an endless re-run of reality TV cop shows. 2012 has come and gone, and we’re still in debt to some faceless bank, still chained to our screens.

Most people—in order to live at all—seem to need around themselves a penumbra of “illusion” (to quote Nietzsche again):—that the world is just rolling along as usual, some good days some bad, but in essence no different now than in 10000 BC or 1492 AD or next year. Some even need to believe in Progress, that the Future will solve all our problems, and even that life is much better for us now than for (say) people in the 5th century AD. We live longer thanx to Modern Science—of course our extra years are largely spent as “medical objects”—sick and worn out but kept ticking by Machines & Pills that spin huge profits for a few megacorporations & insurance companies. Nation of Struldbugs.

True, we’re suffocating in the mire generated by our rule of sick machines under the Numisphere of Money. At least ten times as much money now exists than it would take to buy the whole world—and yet species are vanishing space itself is vanishing, icecaps melting, air and water grown toxic, culture grown toxic, landscape sacrificed to fracking and megamalls, noise-fascism, etc, etc. But Science will cure all that ills that Science has created—in the Future (in the “long run”, when we’re all dead, as Lord Keynes put it); so meanwhile we’ll carry on consuming the world and shitting it out as waste—because it’s convenient & efficient & profitable to do so, and because we like it.

Well, this is all a bunch of whiney left-liberal cliches, no? Heard it before a million times. Yawn. How boring, how infantile, how useless. Even if it were all true... what can we do about it? If our Anointed Leaders can’t or won’t stop it, who will? God? Satan? The “People”?

All the fashionable “solutions” to the “crisis”, from electronic democracy to revolutionary violence, from locavorism to solar-powered dingbats, from financial market regulation to the General Strike—all of them, however ridiculous or sublime, depend on one preliminary radical change—a seismic shift in human consciousness. Without such a change all the hope of reform is futile. And if such a change were somehow to occur, no “reform” would be necessary. The world would simply change. The whales would be saved. War no more. And so on.

What force could (even in theory) bring about such a shift? Religion? In 6,000 years of organized religion matters have only gotten worse. Psychedelic drugs in the reservoirs? The Mayan calendar? Nostalgia? Terror?

If catastrophic disaster is now inevitable, perhaps the “Survivalist” scenario will ensue, and a few brave millions will create a green utopia in the smoking waste. But won’t Capitalism find a way to profit even from the End of the World? Some would claim that it’s doing so already. The true catastrophe may be the final apotheosis of commodity fetishism.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this paradise of power tools and back-up alarms is all we’ve got & all we’re going to get. Capitalism can deal with global warming—it can sell water-wings and disaster insurance. So it’s all over, let’s say—but we’ve still got television & Twitter. Childhood’s End—i.e. the child as ultimate consumer, eager for the brand. Terrorism or home shopping network—take yr pick (democracy means choice).

Since the death of the Historical Movement of the Social in 1989 (last gasp of the hideous “short” XXth century that started in 1914) the only “alternative” to Capitalist Neo-Liberal totalitarianism that seems to have emerged is religious neo-fascism. I understand why someone would want to be a violent fundamentalist bigot—I even sympathize—but just because I feel sorry for lepers doesn’t mean I want to be one.

When I attempt to retain some shreds of my former antipessimism I fantasize that History may not be over, that some sort of Populist Green Social Democracy might yet emerge to challenge the obscene smugness of “Money Interests”—something along the lines of 1970s Scandinavian monarcho-socialism—which in retrospect now looks the most humane form of the State ever to have emerged from the putrid suck-hole of Civilization. (Think of Amsterdam in its heyday.) Of course as an anarchist I’d still have to oppose it—but at least I’d have the luxury of believing that, in such a situation, anarchy might actually stand some chance of success. Even if such a movement were to emerge, however, we can rest damn-well assured it won’t happen in the USA. Or anywhere in the ghost-realm of dead Marxism, either. Maybe Scotland!

It would seem quite pointless to wait around for such a rebirth of the Social. Years ago many radicals gave up all hope of The Revolution, and the few who still adhere to it remind me of religious fanatics. It might be soothing to lapse into such doctrinaire revolutionism, just as it might be soothing to sink into mystical religion—but for me at least both options have lost their savor. Again, I sympathize with those true believers (although not so much when they lapse into authoritarian leftism or fascism)— nevertheless, frankly, I’m too depressed to embrace their Illusions.

If the End-Time scenario sketched above be considered actually true, what alternatives might exist besides suicidal despair? After much thought I’ve come up with three basic strategies.

1) Passive Escapism. Keep your head down, don’t make waves. Capitalism permits all sorts of “lifestyles” (I hate that word)—just pick one & try to enjoy it. You’re even allowed to live as a dirt farmer without electricity & infernal combustion, like a sort of secular Amish refusnik. Well, maybe not. But at least you could flirt with such a life. “Smoke Pot, Eat Chicken, Drink Tea,” as we used to say in the 60s in the Moorish Church of America, our psychedelic cult. Hope they don’t catch you. Fit yourself into some Permitted Category such as Neo-Hippy or even Anabaptist.

2) Active Escapism. In this scenario you attempt to create the optimal conditions for the emergence of Autonomous Zones, whether temporary, periodic or even (semi)permanent. In 1984 when I first coined the term Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)

I envisioned it as a complement to The Revolution—although I was already, to be truthful, tired of waiting for a moment that seemed to have failed in 1968. The TAZ would give a taste or premonition of real liberties: in effect you would attempt to live as if the Revolution had already occurred, so as not to die without ever having experienced “free freedom” (as Rimbaud called it, liberte libre). Create your own pirate utopia.

Of course the TAZ can be as brief & simple as a really good dinner party, but the true autonomist will want to maximize the potential for longer & deeper experiences of authentic lived life. Almost inevitably this will involve crime, so it’s necessary to think like a criminal, not a victim. A “Johnson” as Burroughs used to say—not a “mark”. How else can one live (and live well) without Work. Work, the curse of the thinking class. Wage slavery. If you’re lucky enough to be a successful artist, you can perhaps achieve relative autonomy without breaking any obvious laws (except the laws of good taste, perhaps). Or you could inherit a million. (More than a million would be a curse.) Forget revolutionary morality—the question is, can you afford your taste of freedom? For most of us, crime will be not only a pleasure but a necessity. The old anarcho-Illegalists showed the way: individual expropriation. Getting caught of course spoils the whole thing—but risk is an aspect of self-authenticity.

One scenario I’ve imagined for active Escapism would be to move to a remote rural area along with several hundred other libertarian socialists—enough to take over the local government (municipal or even county) and elect or control the sheriffs & judges, the parent/teacher association, volunteer fire department and even the water authority. Fund the venture with cultivation of illegal phantastice and carry on a discreet trade. Organize as a “Union of Egoists” for mutual benefit & ecstatic pleasures—perhaps under the guise of “communes” or even monasteries, who cares. Enjoy it as long as it lasts.

I know for a fact that this plan is being worked on in several places in America—but of course I’m not going to say where.

Another possible model for individual escapists might be the nomadic adventurer. Given that the whole world seems to be turning into a giant parking lot or social network, I don’t know if this option remains open, but I suspect that it might. The trick would be to travel in places where tourists don’t—if such places still exist—and to involve oneself in fascinating and dangerous situations. For example if I were young and healthy I’d’ve gone to France to take part in the TAZ that grew around resistance to the new airport—or to Greece—or Mexico—wherever the perverse spirit of rebellion crops up. The problem here is of course funding. (Sending back statues stuffed with hash is no longer a good idea.) How to pay for yr life of adventure? Love will find a way. It doesn’t matter so much if one agrees with the ideals of Tahrir Square or Zucotti Park—the point is just to be there.

3. Revenge. I call it Zarathustra’s Revenge because as Nietzsche said, revenge may be second rate but it’s not nothing. One might enjoy the satisfaction of terrifying the bastards for at least a few moments. Formerly I advocated “Poetic Terrorism” rather than actual violence, the idea being that art could be wielded as a weapon. Now I’ve rather come to doubt it. But perhaps weapons might be wielded as art. From the sledgehammer of the Luddites to the black bomb of the attentat, destruction could serve as a form of creativity, for its own sake, or for purely aesthetic reasons, without any illusions about revolution. Oscar Wilde meets the acte gratuit: a dandyism of despair.

What troubles me about this idea is that it seems impossible to distinguish here between the action of post-leftist anarcho-nihilists and the action of post-rightist neo-traditionalist reactionaries. For that matter, a bomb may as well be detonated by fundamentalist fanatics—what difference would it make to the victims or the “innocent bystanders”? Blowing up a nanotechnology lab—why shouldn’t this be the act of a desperate monarchist as easily as that of a Nietzschean anarchist?

In a recent book by Tiqqun (Theory of Bloom), it was fascinating to come suddenly across the constellation of Nietzsche, Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, et al. as examples of a sharp and just critique of the Bloom syndrome—i.e., of progress-as-illusion. Of course the “beyond left and right” position has two sides—one approaching from the left, the other from the right. The European New Right (Alain de Benoist & his gang) are big admirers of Guy Debord, for a similar reason (his critique, not his proposals).

The post-left can now appreciate Traditionalism as a reaction against modernity just as the neo-traditionalists can appreciate Situationism. But this doesn’t mean that post-anarchist anarchists are identical with post-fascism fascists!

I’m reminded of the situation in fin-de-siecle France that gave rise to the strange alliance between anarchists and monarchists; for example the Cerce Proudhon. This surreal conjunction came about for two reasons: a) both factions hated liberal democracy, and b) the monarchists had money. The marriage gave birth to weird progeny, such as Georges Sorel. And Mussolini famously began his career as an Individualist anarchist!

Another link between left & right could be analyzed as a kind of existentialism; once again Nietzsche is the founding parent here, I think. On the left there were thinkers like Gide or Camus. On the right, that illuminated villain Baron Julius Evola used to tell his little ultra-right groupuscules in Rome to attack the Modern World—even though the restoraton of tradition was a hopeless dream—if only as an act of magical self-creation. Being trumps essence. One must cherish no attachment to mere results. Surely Tiqqun’s advocacy of the “perfect Surrealist act” (firing a revolver at random into a crowd of “innocent by-standers”) partakes of this form of action-as-despair. (Incidentally I have to confess that this is the sort of thing that has always—to my regret—prevented my embracing Surrealism: it’s just too cruel. I don’t admire de Sade, either.)

Of course, as we know, the problem with the Traditionalists is that they were never traditional enough. They looked back at a lost civilization as their “goal” (religion, mysticism, monarchism, arts-&-crafts, etc.) whereas they should have realized that the real tradition is the “primordial anarchy” of the Stone Age, tribalism, hunting/gathering, animism—what I call the Neanderthal Liberation Front. Paul Goodman used the term “Neolithic Conservatism” to describe his brand of anarchism—but “Paleolithic Reaction” might be more appropriate!

The other major problem with the Traditionalist Right is that the entire emotional tone of the movement is rooted in self-repression. Here a rough Reichean analysis suffices to demonstrate that the authoritarian body reflects a damaged soul, and that only anarchy is compatible with real self-realization.

The European New Right that arose in the 90s still carries on its propaganda—and these chaps are not just vulgar nationalist chauvenist anti-semitic homophobic thugs—they’re intellectuals & artists. I think they’re evil, but that doesn’t mean I find them boring. Or even wrong on certain points. They also hate the nanotechnologists!

Although I attempted to set off a few bombs back in the 1960s (against the war in Vietnam) I’m glad, on the whole, that they failed to detonate (technology was never my metier). It saves me from wondering if I would’ve experienced “moral qualms”. Instead I chose the path of the propagandist and remained an activist in anarchist media from 1984 to about 2004. I collaborated with the Autonomedia publishing collective, the IWW, the John Henry Mackay Society (Left Stirnerites) and the old NYC Libertarian Book Club (founded by comrades of Emma Goldman, some of whom I knew, & who are now all dead). I had a radio show on WBAI (Pacifica) for 18 years. I lectured all over Europe and East Europe in the 90s. I had a very nice time, thank you. But anarchism seems even farther off now than it looked in 1984, or indeed in 1958, when I first became an anarchist by reading George Harriman’s Krazy Kat. Well, being an existentialist means you never have to say you’re sorry.

In the last few years in anarchist circles there’s appeared a trend “back” to Stirner/Nietzsche Individualism—because after all, who can take revolutionary anarcho-communism or syndicalism seriously anymore? Since I’ve adhered to this Individualist position for decades (although tempered by admiration for Charles Fourier and certain “spiritual anarchists” like Gustave Landauer) I naturally find this trend agreeable.

“Green anarchists” & AntiCivilization Neo-primitivists seem (some of them) to be moving toward a new pole of attraction, nihilism. Perhaps neo-nihilism would serve as a better label, since this tendency is not simply replicating the nihilism of the Russian narodniks or the French attentatists of circa 1890 to 1912, however much the new nihilists look to the old ones as precursors. I share their critique—in fact I think I’ve been mirroring it to a large extent in this essay: creative despair, let’s call it. What I do not understand however is their proposal—if any. “What is to be done?” was originally a nihilist slogan, after all, before Lenin appropriated it. I presume that my option #1, passive escape, would not suit the agenda. As for Active Escapism, to use the suffix “ism” implies some form not only of ideology but also some action. What is the logical outcome of this train of thought?

As an animist I experience the world (outside Civilization) as essentially sentient. The death of God means the rebirth of the gods, as Nietzsche implied in his last “mad” letters from Turin— the resurrection of the great god PAN—chaos, Eros, Gaia, & Old Night, as Hesiod put it—Ontological anarchy, Desire, Life itself, & the Darkness of revolt & negation—all seem to me as real as they need to be.

I still adhere to a certain kind of spiritual anarchism—but only as heresy and paganism, not as orthodoxy and monotheism. I have great respect for Dorothy Day—her writing influenced me in the 60s—and Ivan Illich, whom I knew personally—but in the end I cannot deal with the cognitive dissonance between anarchism and the Pope! Nevertheless I can believe in the re-paganaziation of monotheism. I hold to this pagan tradition because I sense the universe as alive, not as “dead matter.” As a life-long psychedelicist I have always thought that matter & spirit are identical, and that this fact alone legitimizes what Theory calls “desire”.

From this p.o.v. the phrase “revolution of everyday life” still seems to have some validity—if only in terms of the second proposal, Active Escapism or the TAZ. As for the third possibility— Zarathustra’s Revenge—this seems like a possible path for the new nihilism, at least from a philosophical perspective. But since I am unable personally to advocate it, I leave the question open.

But here—I think—is the point at which I both meet with & diverge from the new nihilism. I too seem to believe that Predatory Capitalism has won and that no revolution is possible in the classical sense of that term. But somehow I can’t bring myself to be “against everything.” Within the Temporary Autonomous Zone there still seems to persist the possibility of “authentic life,” if only for a moment—and if this position amounts to mere Escapism, then let us become Houdini. The new surge of interest in Individualism is obviously a response to the Death of the Social. But does the new nihilism imply the death even of the individual and the “union of egoists” or Nietzschean free spirits? On my good days, I like to think not.

No matter which of the three paths one takes (or others I can’t yet imagine) it seems to me that the essential thing is not to collapse into mere apathy. Depression we may have to accept, impotent rage we may have to accept, revolutionary pessimism we may have to accept. But as e.e. cummings (anarchist poet) said, there is some shit we will not take, lest we simply become the enemy by default. Can’t go on, must go on. Cultivate rosebuds, even selfish pleasures, as long as a few birds & flowers still remain. Even love may not be impossible...

[pandoraborn]

17 - I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING. || wrongfully accused. ||

-----------------------------------------------------

Back at Henrik’s, Marvin remains by Jackie’s bedside. He knows he should go rest and care for himself, but he can’t resist. He runs a thumb down Jackie’s cheek, taking note of his sleeping for. Jackie still hadn’t woken up properly yet, but according to Henrik, he’d stirred briefly, and was still steadily improving. He didn’t need an oxygen mask anymore, he didn’t need to be hooked up to several machines anymore, it seems as if Jackie is finally going to recover wholly. Marvin can tell that Jackie’s own healing is finally kicking in, as well.

He glances up when he hears footsteps shuffle in. He stiffens when he sees it’s Amon, but Marvin refuses to get up. “He’s okay, Amon, I’ve got him.”

“I know. I heard from Henrik and Chase. You could have told me too, you know. Considering I was just as concerned for him.”

“You’ve been giving me the silent treatment for several days, I didn’t think I’d get through to you. I have no reason to talk to you now. Now go away and let me spend time with my husband.”

“The one you abandoned, you mean,” Amon quips.

Marvin flinches. “Can we not do this in here? I don’t want Jackie to wake up to an argument.”

“Okay, so let’s go upstairs then, because I have a lot I’m finally ready to say to you.” Amon’s voice goes flat. “You do not get to tell me no, you have a lot to answer for.”

Marvin says nothing in response. He knows Amon is right, they need to have this conversation. Marvin didn’t think he’d feel so sick all over again. With a quiet sigh, he bends over to give Jackie a small forehead kiss, whispering a promise he’ll come back soon. Jackie murmurs quietly in his sleep, twitching once before going still. With that, Marvin gets up and follows Amon out of the lab and back up into the living room. The only other occupant is Erin, who’s playing on his phone.

“Can you go outside for a bit?” Amon asks politely. “Your dad and I need to talk.”

“This…” Erin starts to argue. He glances up when he sees the expressions on both their faces. “I just remembered I wanted to go see Jackie too, so. You know what? Bye.” He gets up and zooms out of the room in a hurry. 

The two men watch him leave before turning back to face each other. “Okay,” Amon says. “Talk to me. Tell me how exactly you didn’t abandon Jackie because from where I’m standing, it’s pretty damning.”

“I had no choice!” Marvin snarls, losing his temper. “I was backed into a corner, okay?”

“No choice? Damn it Marvin, this was Jackie! I’m have a really hard time not blaming you for his current condition. You have fucking magic, you could have slowed down time to grab Jackie and run. Instead you fled like a coward!” 

“You’re always going to worry about Jackie, aren’t you?” Marvin blurts. It’s inappropriate, he knows. It’s a pointless deterrent from the main conversation, it’s his own jealousy coming out. Is he even jealous of their friendship? He doesn’t know anymore. “I was held prisoner too.”

Amon storms forward, grabbing at Marvin’s wrists. He turns them over, looking at the healing bruises that still remain. “Yes, I can see that. Bruised wrists, chained to the wall, what a tragedy. So sad, definitely more important that your fucking husband who is in a coma from being tortured. You have no fucking shame, Marvin. Then you have to fucking nerve to throw this back in my face like somehow this is a ‘me’ problem.”

“You’d have done the same in my shoes! I made a split second decision to get help, and look, I found you and Chase! You can’t tell me I completely messed up.”

“I never would have left Jackie.”

“You weren’t in my shoes, Amon! You’re sitting there on some high and mighty throne, acting like you would have been all sacrificing for Jackie’s sake. You don’t think I hate myself over what happened? Of course I blame myself! Of course I’m aware Jackie’s upset with me, I’m aware you’re pissed! You fled a scene too when you needed help, when you have your own set of powers to easily defend yourself with. I would give anything for Jackie, and I am.”

“I want you to hate yourself. You deserve to feel guilty, you know why? Because Jackie’s in a coma. He could have avoided meeting Merlin at all had you thought just a little bit harder over your actions. What if Jackie had died? What if-”

“What if, what fucking if,” Marvin snaps. “You’re not married to Jackie, I am. I’ve been beating myself up for days over this, agonizing over your stupid potshots against me, feeling like the most worthless human alive every time I look at my husband! I get you would do everything for Jackie, hooray for you! Get over yourself, acknowledge Jackie has a new life that doesn’t always revolve around you, and let other people love him for once.”

Amon stares for a long minute. “I don’t expect Jackie’s life to revolve around me. I’m well aware he lives a different life now. I just want…”

“So back off me! Yes, I left him. I left to find help, and we all saved him. You kicked ass, Amon. You were there when I needed you, so drop this self righteous act and forgive me. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I left Jackie, I’m sorry every day that I left him in Jason’s hands. I’m always going to blame myself even without your judgement, so just. Back off. I already know.”

“I guess I got a little...carried away,” Amon relents. “I was so focused on Jackie’s condition, I never stopped to ask how you were doing.”

“I’m aware.” Marvin’s voice is short. “I’m traumatized, even though you didn’t ask. Watching Jason torture, poision, and kick Jackie around for two days is not my idea of fun. I close my eyes and wonder if Jackie would have died if not for Henrik. Would he have died if I wasn’t able to find help? Would he have died even if I had taken him with me, miraculously?”

“Marvin…”

“I’m furious, Amon. I’m angry and heartbroken. Because of everything I went through, the most scarring moment was hearing Jackie whisper that he doesn’t trust me anymore. I can take your pot shots, I can take your judgement, I can take everyone hating me for getting myself out of there. Jackie’s opinion is the only one who matters, and he lost his trust in me. That kills me.” He wipes his eyes, turning away. “I want to go sit by my husband’s bedside and watch over him before Henrik wakes up. If you’re done yelling at me, then I’m-”

His phone rings then, and he pulls it out of his pocket with a frown. Is Jackie calling him? No, Jackie’s asleep in the lab without a phone, Erin with him. Confused, Marvin answers. “Hello?”

“Oh, good. Marvin, it’s Vin.”

Marvin blinks as he turns his gaze back toward Amon. “Vin, why are…?”

“I’m at your apartment. Sorry for crash landing in there, but I needed to portal myself somewhere with a special someone. Where are you right now? No one’s here and I only found Jackie’s cell phone.”

“We’re at Henrik’s.” Marvin turns away to ignore Amon’s frantic gesturing. He can still hear the entity slapping at the walls, probably testing for potential portal openings. “We’re all here.”

“Okay, describe the room you’re in. Can we safely portal in?” 

Marvin’s anger is fading, replaced now with a burning curiosity over who Vin is with. Last he’d heard, Vin had been Cian’s prisoner and now he’s in Marvin’s apartment? Marvin turns back around to face Amon, who’s gesturing toward one blank wall, behind the couch. “We’re in the living room,” he begins. “There’s a couch in front of a blank wall, you can portal through it.”

“Describe the room in more detail, I need to be able to see into your head.”

“How can you do that over the phone?”

“I don’t know, I just need to picture it.”

Marvin rolls his eyes, but begins describing the living room, with as many details he can give. He barely finishes his last sentence when a bright green circle of fire appears on the wall. Both Marvin and Amon scramble back just in time for two figures to tumble through, one more gracefully than the other.

Vin is still on his feet, moving closer to Marvin to hand Jackie’s phone over. “Sorry for taking that, but I needed to call someone and you’re in his favorites.” He steps back and grabs at the second figure roughly, hauling her to her feet. “Also, we need a place to store her. I would very much like to keep her with us for a while.”

Marvin blinks, before turning to stare at Amon. Amon is staring at her with blackened eyes, looking ready to lunge at any second. He turns back to Vin, then the woman in his grasp. She, of course, is screaming and swearing angrily, thrashing in an attempt to pull herself free. Her shortened height against Vin would be hilarious in any other situation.

“Certainly,” Marvin finally says, adopting a charming grin. “Welcome to our clan, Danielle, we’re happy to have you.”

“Oh fuck off,” she snaps. “Get this lunatic away from me! Did you know he pushed me out a god damned window?”

“Oh, don’t mind her,” Vin laughs. “She’s a jokester. Now, a place?” 

Marvin sighs. “I’ll go get Jameson.” He turns and leaves the room, figuring if she was trapped with Vin and Amon both, there’s nowhere she can run to.

----

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[tantkill]

I've got a fairly cruel question: what would have been going through your mind if it had been you heading down that conveyor belt towards the trash compactor instead of Naegi? Would you have been terrified of your fate? Perhaps despised him in your last moments for not letting go of your lie and getting you executed for his own safety? Or regretted treating Alter Ego as a mere "machine" if that somehow led to his not saving you? Or would not solving the mystery have been the worst of it?

                  ‘ CRUEL ’   IS   ONE   WAY   TO   GO   ABOUT   DESCRIBING   IT   …

                  ❛   …   it’s   hard   to   say.   ❜   ENVISIONING   ONESELF’S   DEMISE   IS   NOT   PREDICTABLE.   no   one   departs   this   world   with   their   own   crafty   death   being   THOROUGHLY   PLANNED   OUT   ,   let   alone   feel   the   sensation   of   death’s   grip.   had   it   been   her   instead   of   ‘ him ’   proceeding   forward   …   defeat   ;   it’s   over,   would   run   through   her   mind.   what   else   is   there   left   to   say?   exaggerated   panics   to   a   paled   complexion   sinking   in   …   /   the   list   extends   /.   all   the   obvious   human   emotions   come   to   play   before   drawing   close   to   a   trash   compactor’s   DEADLY   TOUCH.   naturally   she   wouldn’t   put   an   obvious   face   of   dread   towards   death,   not   when   ‘ his   touch ’   remains   strong   to   this   very   day.   it   hovered   over   the   lilac   woman   without   leaving   her   to   rest   ——   a   happy   ending   doesn’t   entitle   full   peace   of   mind   .   she   lived   with   torment   over   that   day   …   helplessly   witnessing   someone   who   went   through   SACRIFICING   himself   for   her   (   the   strong   belief   he   carried   )   …   it   was   truly   cruel   to   ‘ reawaken ’   this   memory   by   posing   curiosity   behind   a   switched   role.

                  she   was   asked   what   thoughts   would   arise   at   the   moment   it   crashed   down   on   her?   every   assumption   laid   out   turned   to   be   …   ironically   INCORRECT.   ❛   you   say   this   as   if   i   would   have   regretted   putting   my   trust   on   naegi-kun   because   …   it’d   mean   he   signed   my   very   death   ——   you’re   wrong   .   if   i   feared   my   fate   of   dying,   i   would   have   carried   this   sentiment   from   the   very   beginning.   at   the   time,   there   was   a   ‘ different   fear  ’   consuming   me   rather   than   fearing   of   my   plausible   death.   we   all   had   an   equal   amount   of   opportunities   where   death   would   overcome   us   …   even   someone   as   myself.   ❜   death   always   WRAPPED   ITS   COLD   ARMS   around   her   /   this   wasn’t   new   /.   only   the   sensation   felt   unwelcoming   when   leaving   this   world   without   the   mystery   being   solved.   that   sole   motivation   is   what   brought   to   the   ‘ desire   to   live ’   out   of   the   lilac   woman.   a   decision   to   later   torment   her   with   nightmares   …   oh,   how   forgiveness   would   never   cope   to   ease   her   troubled   heart.   no   words   or   atonement   could   ever   make   her   forget   ;   i   won’t   allow   it,   she   thought   intently.   her   fate   of   dying   in   his   shoes   wouldn’t   have   changed   enough   ——   shoulders   would   remain   at   ease,   desperately   awaiting   for   a   beauty’s   petals   being   crushed   without   remorse.   the   moment   of   death   is   swift   …   only   left   to   truly   depict

                                                                        despair   in   porcelain   features.

                                                                        what   more   is   there   left   to   say?

                  hard   to   imagine   such   a   scenario   without   reminiscing   a   horrid   event.   within   this   line   of   consideration,   PLAYING   OUT   THE   ROLE   …   wouldn’t   it   be   a   laugh   if   her   answer   was   proven   wrong?   no,   of   course   not   /   she   is   not   one   for   ‘ lies ’   /.   no   doubt   a   strong   lilac   sleuth   would   have   boldly   accepted   her   fate,   her   defeat   (   gave   over   ),   without   any   rejections.   the   sunken   faces   dropped   among   those   classmates   of   hers   …   specifically   him   …   might   be   the   last   thing   she   witnesses   alive.   it   was   already   difficult   being   front-row   of   all   those   cruel   executions.   before   resuming,   sudden   words   provoke   a   subtle   TRIGGER   underneath.   almost   appalled   with   having   to   mutter   out   those   despicable   accusations.   ❛   despise   …   naegi-kun?   not   at   all.   ❜

                  HESITATION   MERELY   ARISES   from   breathing   out   such   things   against   him,   her   reason   to   die   live.   that   moment   wouldn’t   be   any   different   —   except   not   having   a   chance   to   live   beside   him,   embracing   those   warm   hands.   prolonging   everything   left   lilac   hues   to   avert   away   with   no   interest   in   imagining   the   ‘ what-if ’.   yet   gloved   hands   rest   to   each   side,   firmly   spread   out   with   head   tilting   upward   slightly.   HEAVY   WAS   HER   HEART   over   envisioning   any   kind   of   hatred   for   him.   it   hurt   worse   than   experiencing   her   own   downfall   ;   the   lilac   woman   had   well   enough   reason   considering   a   chain   of   events   that   brought   her   to   a   comatose   ‘ sleep ’   …   forever   .   ❛   the   purpose   of   that   trial   was   no   different   than   its   usual   circumstances   where   all   our   lives   were   at   risk.   when   reviewing   it   like   that,   it   only   made   sense   for   everyone   else   to   be   saved   …   if   they   either   SACRIFICED   me   or   naegi-kun.   i   already   knew   the   trial   was   a   ‘ trap ’   with   the   intentions   of   getting   rid   of   me   underneath   everyone   else’s   noses   —   i   wouldn’t   have   blamed   naegi-kun   if   he   saw   through   my   lie   and   revealed   it   with   the   one   piece   of   evidence   to   sentence   my   death.   bearing   any   kind   of   hatred   on   naegi-kun,   even   if   i   understood   everything,   would   have   been   pointless   because   it   wouldn’t   have   saved   me   from   being   executed.   it   would   have   meant   I   LOST   THE   RISK   I   TOOK   for   this   trial   …   and   the   very   chance   i   had   to   solve   the   mysteries   surrounding   the   school.   ❜ 

                  WHAT   ELSE   IS   LEFT   TO   JEST   AS   A   HEAP   OF   DISCARDED   FLESH?

                  ❛   alter   ego’s   presence   only   took   its   form   because   of   naegi’s   ‘ stroke   of   luck ’.   i   doubt   he   would   have   appeared   to   save   my   life   and   that   wouldn’t   have   changed   my   opinion   on   him   regardless.   it’d   be   childish   for   me   to   blame   an   INNOCENT   CHILD   like   him   for   not   getting   me   out   of   the   execution.   unfortunately   i   didn’t   have   the   same   optimism   as   naegi-kun   to   have   a   shred   of   belief   behind   everything   being   alright   —   i   would   have   …   willingly   accepted   my   fate   to   die,   no   matter   how   frightful   it   would   be.   ❜   a   pause   from   her   final   confession   ——   acknowledgement   almost   made   the   lilac   woman   carrying   an   actual   heart   /   it   was   hidden   from   a   stoic   form   /.   of   course   she   experienced   fear   as   any   ‘ regular ’   human   ;   she   was   not   an   inhuman   beast   who   can’t   feel.   lilac   hues   enclosed   accompanied   with   a   light   sigh,   resuming   her   response   towards   a   cruel   inquiry.   at   least   this   proved   to   provide   what   was   truly   at   risk   of   incomplete   resolve   (   her   greatest   fear   ).   it   had   nothing   to   do   with   her   life   but   …   ❛   …   not   solving   the   mystery?   that’s   right   ——   that   would   have   been   the   worst   of   it   all   than   my   death.   because   …   i   have   a   feeling   everyone   would   have   not   attempted   to   pursue   the   truth   behind   hope’s   peak   academy   and   our   imprisonment.   ❜   and   that   mentality   is   what   drove   her   to   a   LIFE-REGRETTING   CHOICE.

[sg2tiger]

I don’t want to spam up the tag with such a pointless collection of posts, but old habits die hard...so while I know that we now know the truth behind these answers thanks to the manga, and it’s all probably really obvious to most people now, I still want to go through all the mysteries myself before ‘confirming’ the solutions with the manga. Maybe it’s because I just finished that rambling post about what things were like back before we had such answers...but I feel like I can’t just...read this section without actually analyzing it on my own. So I’m just gonna dump them all here in one post under a Read More. Honestly this is more for my own satisfaction than anything, so feel free to ignore.

Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch

Starting things off super obvious. Illusions to illusions = something that was complete fantasy and didn’t happen. There are of course only five corpses in the shed - Shannon is absent, with Yasu instead as Kanon standing over the spot where Shannon is supposed to be. Hideyoshi, the only other witness, was bribed by Yasu in Episode 1 and asked to play along with the ruse to convince George not to confirm Shannon’s corpse with his own eyes. It was left to the roulette whether or not George would listen to his father, but ultimately he did, and Shannon’s true fate remained undiscovered.

A chain of illusions. The chain was never set in the first place. Kanon and Genji were the ones who discovered the crime scene - both accomplices in the crime itself. Yasu went to Eva and Hideyoshi’s room as Kanon after the commotion in the parlor about the receipt. As Eva and Hideyoshi were both bribed in EP1, they undid the chain (assuming they even set it to begin with) because it was someone they believed they could trust. Whether they knew Kanon = Beatrice or simply were told that the servants of the one wing were trustworthy, it’s hard to say, but they did invite him in willingly. Of note is the fact that there were no signs of struggle in that room - so the fact that Eva, a martial arts master, would not have put up a fight against her killer, is one hint to the fact that the killer was someone she trusted enough to turn her back to.

Eva let Kanon in and returned to her position relaxing on the bed, turning the volume on the TV low while they discussed the next step in the plan. Hideyoshi was most likely in the shower at the time and hadn’t even heard Kanon enter over the sound of the running water - after all, all the mansion’s guest rooms have roughly the same design, and from EP6 we know that Erika didn’t notice the sound of Battler leaving the closed room and exchanging places with Kanon while she was distracted by the trap. We also know fromConfession that Yasu hid the guns around the mansion at places she would need them in advance, so most likely there was already one inside Eva and Hideyoshi’s room - Kanon would have thus been a lot less suspicious entering the room without a weapon (otherwise it’d be weird that Eva sat back down on the bed, right?). With Eva’s guard down, Kanon grabs the rifle and shoots her in the head. It’s unknown whether or not Hideyoshi heard this and attempted to leave the shower, but he was also shot before he could even get dressed. Kanon then placed the two stakes into the gunshot wounds of their heads, left the room, and drew a magic circle on the door...and finally, placed the Third Twilight’s letter underneath it. They could then have cut through the unset chain at their leisure to maintain the story that it was set and they needed the chain cutters to get through. By the time the others were summoned everything was already set up, so the story about the chain being set when Genji and Kanon arrived was swallowed easily. No one would ever doubt Genji, who had been such a loyal servant since before most of the survivors were even born.

Kinzo has been dead for two years. His body was grabbed from the freezer in his study and stuffed into the boiler where it was set to burn slowly, so the smell didn’t reach the others too quickly. Of course, Natsuhi already knew he was dead, and the servants were playing along with the ruse that he wasn’t (while simultaneously playing along with the murder game), so it came off as a ‘surprise’ after the whole receipt situation talking about how he could have left the study. What interests me about this is why Natsuhi would then continue to willingly stay in the group with the servants. Surely seeing Kinzo’s body stuffed in the boiler would be a sign to her that says ‘whoever did this is someone who knew he was dead and where to find his body’, right? Based on EP5 and how she began to suspect the servants after finding Shannon’s card in her room, I would certainly think Natsuhi is astute enough to start finding them suspicious. Was she really just that confident that they wouldn’t make a move if they stayed together, and had faith in her gun...? Only the catbox knows.

The witch and stake of illusions = there was no one there who attacked Kanon. The illusion they pierced = Kanon himself. Basically Kanon runs down th the boiler room to stage his own death. It’s debatable (especially since EP1 is just a story) whether or not his argument with Beatrice really happened, though I personally like to believe that was a sign of Kanon’s self trying to pierce through the ‘fate’ that his creator (Yasu) and Beatrice were trying to force him into. This is the side of Kanon that was moved by Jessica’s words after the cultural festival and wants to live his own life...the Kanon that is refusing to simply go along with this farce of a roulette, hence his speech. That’s what I believe. However, he’s not strong enough to win against the roulette, and ultimately ‘Kanon’ is sacrificed - Yasu either stabs herself (shallowly, just enough to bleed a bit and be convincing) or uses fake blood (less likely IMO) and stages the whole thing.

Kumasawa does her part and screams to get everyone else’s attention so they see that Kanon is down. Oh, and Yasu already opened the courtyard door before the stabbing to make it seem like the culprit got away. Nanjo, who is also in on it, comes along and says ‘oh no we better take him in for emergency care’. However neither of them probably expected Jessica to cling on and follow them, so Nanjo ends up taking Kanon into the servant room and closing her out so he can die ‘offscreen’. This leaves Yasu’s two personas on the board dead, giving her an alibi to move around freely as the others head off to Kinzo’s study.

[Kinzo’s study is skipped here, but let’s cover it for completeness’ sake. Of the four people who could have placed the letter on the table, three are possible candidates - I’d rule out Maria because she wholeheartedly believes a witch is doing this. Most likely it was Genji, but it could have been Kumasawa or Nanjo as well. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, Natsuhi was correct in her reasoning, and thus the four were booted from the room. But of course this too was part of Yasu’s plan...as we see from the Discord circle. The entire purpose of the letter was to stir up chaos and cause someone to get kicked out of the room. I don’t think it mattered who got ousted, since it was just a coincidence that Battler, Jessica and George had alibis (though I think Jessica would have been safe from suspicion no matter what since her mom is the one calling the shots), but all that mattered was that at least one person got kicked out by the others. She just happened to get three sacrifices in one go to finish the twilights, but assuming less than three got kicked she probably still had other tricks up her sleeve to get through the 7th and 8th twilights too]

I’m not entirely sure of the meaning to ‘illusions are the blind girl’s song’...but ‘illusion of a closed room’ is the same deal as the chain. The room was never closed. Yasu’s own accomplices were the ones inside the room, and they let her in willingly. Since she only needed three and didn’t want to kill Maria until the end if possible, she had her fuck off to the corner of the room and sing loud enough that she didn’t hear what was going on. Is that what ‘illusions are the blind girl’s song’ means? just the fact that it kept Maria from knowing what happened?

Anyway then she was all like ‘okay time to die’ and what followed is pretty much what Maria said. Kumasawa and Nanjo protested - after all, they never knew the full extent of Yasu’s plan or that they’d be getting killed off for real in the end - but Genji was like ‘yeah sure I’m ready’. So she shot all three of them dead while Maria just kept singing her song, and then stuck stakes in their wounds. Then she called the study and left the phone dangling there so they could hear Maria singing...like a more twisted version of the prank on Jessica in the VIP room (man can you imagine how that made Jessica feel though? Talk about an unpleasant way to be reminded of that experience). Then she...uh...I actually can’t remember if the room was locked when Natsuhi and co got there...actually, wasn’t the parlor not even supposed to have a lock on it at all? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Either way, by the time they got down from the study, Yasu had already left her letter there and made her exit.

[...and now we’re onto EP2...but I swore the ending with Natsuhi’s duel came up at some point. Hmmmm...well, I’ll cover it anyways. We don’t ever find out the contents of the letter as far as I know, but it’s not hard to imagine. It was probably written for Natsuhi specifically (unlike the one Jessica got in EP2 that was written vaguely enough that any of the cousins could have picked it up and gotten provoked by it) and said something like ‘if you want to settle this in a duel meet me in front of my portrait, alone’. So she leaves when the kids are distracted and barricades the door so the others can’t follow her.

I have to wonder...we know Lambda’s game took a very different perspective as a more human revenge than a witch fantasy, but is it possible that Natsuhi had reason to suspect the culprit was the baby from 19 years ago? Would certainly make it more personal, and EP1 definitely feels very personal against Natsuhi and may have been some form of Yasu venting her grudge against her. Either way Natsuhi doesn’t seem to buy into this witch bullshit at all, and raises her gun against the darkness - in which she probably really does see the figure of another human raising a gun against her (and not a magic pipe). They shoot simultaneously, but...from EP7, we know that the guns all had defects. It’s possible that Natsuhi got the one that jammed, and wasn’t able to fire when she tried to pull the trigger (not like she tested it beforehand). So Beatrice shoots and that’s the single gunshot that is heard. Yasu then switches the guns, leaving the warm, smoking one next to Natsuhi, and hides.

All that’s left after that is to wait for the clock to strike midnight...and the bomb to go off, taking the rest of the survivors, including Yasu herself, with it.]

Episode 2: Turn of the Golden Witch

A more difficult Episode, but not impossible. However, I’m not referencing anything but my own memories here, and EP1 is actually more vivid in my head (I blame dragging out my EP2 reread for two years) so I’m probably more likely to make a few mistakes here.

What stands out to me here is the use of ‘the gold truth’ which Will uses again later as well. I don’t recall ever getting a concrete explanation on the gold truth - all I know is that it can sometimes be more true than the red, but at other times not as powerful. Two statements we see in gold are the factual guarantee of Kinzo’s corpse in EP5...but then in EP6 when Big Sis Beato calls the candy in the cup trick a splendid magic. There’s a pretty clear difference in the veracity of both of these statements...so based on that, and Will’s statement here, I’m going to take it like this. The red truth (though it can be used within loopholes) represents objective, factual truth, but the gold truth represents a subjective truth. The Umineko mantra is basically ‘a lie that everyone believes in becomes the truth’, a sort of ‘truth in the eye of the beholder’ sort of thing. Though that’s not completely satisfying either because it makes me wonder why Battler guaranteeing Kinzo’s corpse was somehow truer than red, but...this is what I’m going with right now.

As for the lock of illusions, it’s just the same tired trick again - the door was never locked in the first place. This one is funny to me because I remember back in the day how furiously people debated over the issue of the chapel door and its key...like, I remember the arguments about that one issue going on for pages and pages, more hotly debated than any other one particular mystery that I recall. And yet I don’t really remember anyone considering that the door may not have been locked in the to begin with - the simplest explanation was completely ignored in favor of much more ridiculous theories!!

In any case, the adults confront Genji about the Beatrice situation and that’s her cue to show up in the flesh and wow them all with her spectacular golden magic (read: cold, hard ingots). They ‘acknowledge’ that she is a witch because thEY ALL NEEDED A LOT OF MONEY RIGHT NOW and she’s waving all this golden bling in their face, telling them all they have to do is play along with her little murder game. Only SURPRISE it’s not a game at all, and she kills them all for reals.

One point I have always been set on, though, is that Rosa didn’t know this would happen until she saw their corpses the next day. She reacts with quite realistic revulsion when she realizes they’re actually dead and I just don’t buy that she was that good an actress that she was vomiting on cue and everything. So it was probably agreed that, since Beatrice had given the letter to Maria the previous day, Maria’s mother should be the one to ‘discover the corpses’ while the other adults stayed there to play dead. Rosa leaves, Yasu...I dunno, I guess just shoots them all in the stomach? Their guts were hanging out and all over the place so I’m pretty sure whatever she did was pretty damn fatal, and I think they even made a point of how there were no other wounds and they just looked like they were sleeping (so she didn’t shoot them in the head and then disembowel them after they died). She probably poisoned them beforehand to make it easier, considering she did have to kill a whole six adults which may have been not so easy if they were fighting back...so she invites them to the chapel where they agree to play dead, poisons them, waits for them to pass out and then, uh, ‘decorates’ the scene. 

Just like Eva and Hideyoshi’s room in EP2, the one who first discovers the magic circle on the chapel door is Yasu herself - Shannon, who claims she saw a note that said ‘chapel’ on it. So she and Genji go to wake up Rosa because they ‘couldn’t find’ anyone else, and what follows is basically as seen. Rosa, who thought this was just gonna be a harmless prank, is shocked, but she’s also in too deep at this point and can’t easily go against the person who bribed her, so she ends up playing along for most of EP2.

While I think that any one of the siblings could have found the provoking letter, it’s Jessica who ultimately gets riled up and runs off. Kanon and Gohda follow after her, and Kanon asks Gohda to leave them alone so he can comfort her, wink wink, nudge nudge. He manages to calm Jessica down and get her to drop her guard, then shoots her in the back and shoves a stake in her wound. Then, having finished his job, ‘Kanon’ dies in that room and his corpse is ‘erased’...Yasu becomes Shannon, exits the room, and locks it with her master key while leaving Jessica’s own key inside her pocket.

Rosa’s argument for Kanon being the culprit ends up being correct, though how much of the ensuing argument is genuine and how much is scripted is something I’ve always had trouble really picking apart. I’m pretty sure I’ve even got a whole page of notes just about that particular conversation in Jessica’s room from when I was doing my on-again-off-again EP2 reread.

This was always the hardest mystery for me in EP2 for one reason - I did dispute that the closed room was a coffin. I never imagined that the culprit actually did shut herself up inside the room and killed herself...even when I knew the culprit was Yasu. I don’t think it was until I read Confession that I actually understood this, despite Battler himself seeing the gaping hole in Shannon’s head.

But it’s that simple. Shannon, George and Gohda enter Natsuhi’s bedroom and lock the door behind them. I’m not sure what order things happen in next, but let’s say she kills Gohda first. George is all WHAT THE FUCK SAYO and they talk. Maybe she tries to convince him to run away with her but he’s like DUDE YOU JUST KILLED THE CHEF and none too happy with her as a result. Maybe she’s trying to work up the courage to tell him about her body and that’s what the argument with Beatrice represents as she convinces Shannon to feel awful about herself. Either way, whatever happens, George is having none of that...so she realizes that her roulette didn’t land on Shannon and George after all and kills him.

Confession shows how distraught she is over having to do this. I feel like that’s probably why the magic version of their scene is so flowery and romantic...she paints a beautiful picture of them dying together, though still kills them before George can honor her last request and say he loves her (I actually like the anime version of this better where Beatrice outright interrupts them) because of the part of her that’s still unconvinced. Ditto the scene with Kanon and Jessica, probably - she tries to give them a tragically romantic goodbye, but it still ends on a bittersweet note. Once she finishes writing this, she sits herself down in front of the mirror and does that trick with the gun, shooting herself in the head and letting the gun ‘hide itself’. Since the room was already locked and the culprit herself is now dead, the locked room is nothing but a coffin...but even after her death, the mystery game continues.

Earth to earth - Nanjo and Kumasawa were killed in the same place we saw, in the same manner (necks sliced) we saw. Illusions to illusions, no illusion can create a corpse - Phantom Kanon was not the one who did it. It was probably Genji, who shows us that he’s actually quite skilled with a knife, hint hint. Yasu and Genji are totally cool with this because they’re in on this murder plan together...but Gohda...???????? The scene in Jessica’s room earlier tells me that he and Kumasawa are both terrible liars were both playing along already at that point in what they believed was a murder game. But seeing Genji slash those two before his eyes was just ‘2hardcore4me’ so he’s just literally flabbergasted by what the fuck just happened. Hence his incredible confusion and realistic fear when he tries to describe it to Rosa - but also, he’s probably (understandably) terrified of Shannon and Genji now and none too eager to betray them and risk his own neck, literally. So he plays along when they’re like ‘we thought it was Kanon but it also wasn’t Kanon’ and he’s just like YEAH YEAH W-WHAT THEY SAID PLEASE DON’T KILL ME. He realizes he’s in a little too deep but can’t exactly get out either, so he has to play along.

I think also at this point Rosa is in the dark on what’s been happening and whatever extent her alliance with Beatrice was is starting to fall apart, and she starts acting on her own instincts - like confiscating the master keys, which IMO was probably not inherently part of Yasu’s plan. Rosa in hindsight was probs just not the best choice of a potential accomplice because she’s not the type who can easily be bribed into following orders now that the siblings that always kept her timid are out of the picture. I feel like Yasu maybe didn’t count on that, but still managed to make it work so it was all good.

[What follows is also not covered, but we basically know the rest. Battler and Rosa fight and end up splitting apart while Genji is still off doing whateverthefuck...does he know Yasu is even dead? He must, right? Rosa probably tells him when he calls them to see Nanjo and Kumasawa’s corpses? Did he know her plan was to kill herself in that room all along? Why does he continue to carry out her plan even after her death? Just because he’s just...that loyal? It’s so hard to see inside Genji’s heart and I honestly would love an Umineko Gaiden that shows us some of the key events of the various Episodes from his POV...but in any case Battler goes and gets drunk and literally everything after that from his POV is super unreliable. Meanwhile Rosa and Maria are trying to run away because Rosa must know about the bomb, which is what the goats chasing them represent. But she was so fixated on the gold that she twists her ankle and they can’t escape on time...she regrets her decisions and I do like to believe she and Maria reached that little understanding there, in the end, before they were taken to the Golden Land.]

Episode 3: Banquet of the Golden Witch

By this time I had started getting more serious in posting about my reread, so I actually tackled a lot of these crimes in posts last year. I’ll summarize but also link to my older theory posts where applicable.

It’s funny how the most impossible closed room if you don’t know the truth about Yasu came from one of the forgeries...but once you do know, it’s not only one of the best closed rooms, but also one of the easiest. 

Shannon ‘dies’ in the most obvious and visible room in the mansion, the parlor. She does this so her body can be seen easily from the big glass window outside...where the adults are forced to go, because she’s locked the doors all over the mansion. Since Nanjo is in on it, it’s easy for him to say ‘oh yeah, she’s dead’. Then they open the letter and get the key and begin following the trail she laid out for them.

Kanon is at the very end of the loop, giving her plenty of time to change clothes and go play dead in the chapel while the adults are busy investigating the other rooms. If I recall, all the other rooms are also in the mansion...giving her plenty of time to slip away to that out-of-the-way building. And just like the shed in EP1, if the adults for some reason decided to double back and return to the parlor, and see that she wasn’t there any more, that’d just be the way the roulette fell. But it didn’t, and they followed her trail perfectly, winding up on Kanon at the end. Thus the chain of closed rooms is perfect and unbreakable...and is an illusion where the end and the beginning overlap.

Earth to earth = they’re actually dead and it basically happened the way we saw it. Likewise, no falsehoods. Rosa gets fed up with Eva for still not having told the others about the gold and they have a bit of back-and-forth...then Eva shoots Rosa. I’d like to believe that Eva hadn’t completely fallen to The Dark Side at this point, and this was probably the same sort of trigger slippage that lead to the disaster in the EP7 tea party...but of course, it happened in a lot less isolated of a location than that. And then you have to worry about Maria screaming her head off about MAMA MAMA UU UU!!! and well...someone has to shut that brat up before everyone comes running out to see you with a gun in your hand standing over Rosa’s bleeding corpse, right?! So she strangles Maria and lays her down next to Rosa, then zooms back to her room where she has to explain to her husband how she just accidentally murdered her sister and on-purposely strangled her daughter. 

I also think that the scenes of Hideyoshi trying to comfort and calm Eva down make a lot more sense if you consider that these deaths were a lot more accidental/spur of the moment and she was freaking out about what she’d just done and where they go from here. Of course, a good husband stays by your side in sickness, in health, and apparently in murder, so...Hideyoshi ends up covering for Eva and trying to give her an alibi for the time while they wait for someone else to discover the crime. And after all, they were all together all night long when the first series of murders happened, so since we already know there’s another killer hiding on the island (and no one else knows about the gold yet now that Rosa is kill) no one really has any reason to jump to suspecting Eva just yet.

...that is, until Kyrie finds the cigarette butts and starts to formulate her theory for why Eva should not have actually been in that room as they claimed. She comes up with her plan to get the three of them to leave the guesthouse where she and Rudolf plan to question Hideyoshi. As for what follows, I made a theory post about it last year, which you can find...here, and also here (note the ‘keep reading’ tags all over because I was trying to truncate the post so you might have to click a few to see all the things). It ended up becoming a chain of back-and-forth reblog discussions (I think it was before Tumblr added the conversation system to posts) so it’s a bit disjointed, but I’m pretty sure I still believe in, uh...whatever it was I came up with to explain this last year. I’m honestly too lazy to reread these posts right now but I don’t currently have any new info that would likely contradict what I came up with a year ago, though once I reread the EP7 tea party that may yet change.

[these solutions also skip over George’s death in the parlor, which is funny to me because it’s one of the few crimes in EP3 committed by Yasu, who is the one Will is supposed to be showing he understands...but basically I believe that Yasu and Nanjo had been in touch throughout EP3. Nanjo is actually the one who locks the window behind George after he escapes, and then he goes to the mansion where OMG SURPRISE SHANNON IS ACTUALLY STILL ALIVE WHAT ARE THE CHANCES. Only unlike when they’re alone in EP2, George is just so elated to see that she’s still alive that he drops his guard entirely, and she shoots him. 

I wonder if she was more resentful to him in EP3 than EP2, because she isn’t distraught enough to kill herself after killing him this time around...and she had to have called Nanjo and specifically told him to let George come over to the mansion herself. Though to be fair (as I mention in one of the above posts) she also shouldn’t have yet known that Eva solved the epitaph, otherwise she would have kept her promise not to kill anyone else...so George was probably originally meant to be one of the twilight sacrifices. Hence, when she realizes she fucked up because someone solved the epitaph, she leaves the bank code behind for Eva as compensation (because nothing says ‘sorry I murdered your son’ like fat wads of cash).]

The ‘mutable blade’ is either a rope or a wire or whatever is being represented by the Siestas’ gold thread...and the ‘obvious culprit’ is Eva, because at this point, she is the only one who could have done it. But I remember being bothered by this because I can’t figure out a real good reason for why she killed them, and my thoughts and discussions thereof can be read here (mind the ‘keep reading’) and here.

[we also skip over the finale of EP3 here, which is extremely funny to me because of the huge emphasis put on Nanjo’s death in the other arcs. But I suppose once Will has proven he understands this much the matter of ‘who killed Nanjo’ is trivial. It’s Yasu. Since ‘Shannon’ and ‘Kanon’ are both dead, we get to play fucking hopscotch with loopholes in the red, and Yasu is the only entity who is still alive and alibi-less that is able to kill Nanjo at that time.

Then at some point she realizes that Eva solved the epitaph and she shouldn’t be killing people anymore in the first place...so she leaves the bank code behind on the door. And then, when Eva shoots Jessica in the face...she can’t let go of her lingering feelings, so she ‘revives’ Kanon and tries to guide her to ‘safety’. The reason Kanon warns Jessica not to touch him is obviously not because he’s a ghost, but because he’s not a ghost and she’d realize that immediately if she felt his physical body right there. Also she probably had no intention of being Kanon anymore once Kanon was kill so I’d imagine she’s still dressed as Shannon after having met George like that, so it’s a damn good thing Jessica is blind right now...either way, she knows they’re all about to die from the bomb real soon, so I think it’s more of a last-minute comfort sort of thing at this point, not only for Jessica, but also for Yasu. Final, lingering regrets as Kanon, much like we see in EP6, about not deepening his relationship with Jessica while he still had the chance.

Then Eva shoots Battler and fucks off to Kuwadorian, escaping the blast, while Kanon and Jessica stay behind and die. The end.]

Episode 4: Alliance of the Golden Witch

Like EP3, I already covered some of these in more detail when I did the EP4 tea party last year and will link to those posts when applicable.

EP4 is just one big farce so the fact that there was a massacre at all is the illusion. Didn’t happen. And in accordance with my personal interpretation of the gold truth from above, the fact that ‘everyone agrees that it’s true’ (since they’re all collaborating on the lie) makes it true. They all tell the same story of Kinzo showing up and summoning bunnygirls in the middle of the dining room table (rude tbh) and everyone getting their heads shot off, then getting sucked into magical pitfalls and trapped in a dungeon. I can imagine Krauss and Kyrie rolling their eyes at such a ridiculous story, but when someone offers you 10 tons of gold to play along with their script, you do it. My post from last year can be found here, though I haven’t reread it myself.

I have a problem with this because Will labels similar cases of thinly-decorated-but-ultimately-true scenes as ‘earth to earth’ (ex. Rosa and Maria’s EP3 death, as well as Kyrie/Rudolf/Hideyoshi’s EP3 deaths). If those interpretations get labeled as ‘no falsehoods’, why is this considered an illusion with the gold truth spinning a false tale? Seems really inconsistent to me.

Either way, the cousins are the only ones who aren’t in on this little prank of Yasu’s, and are convinced to go to their respective locations for their ‘test’. I went into more detail on my thoughts about what happened here in my post from last year. The test is legit, though - not an illusion - so perhaps the illusion is that they don’t actually die simultaneously the way we’re shown in the magic scene? Because otherwise I don’t feel as though the gold truth line really applies to this scene as well as it does to the first twilight.

[Then Yasu dresses up in her Human Beatrice outfit and goes to test Battler. At the time she’s drunk as Hell and in a pretty cheery mood - my belief is that she needed to give herself enough courage to test Battler and thought getting wasted was the best way to do so. It does not go so well, and she just completely gives up at that point, ready for the roulette to take her away...]

This is both earth and illusions because they are dead (silent corpses), but it didn’t happen at all the way we’re shown (adorned by fiction). And also because Kanon obviously didn’t leave a corpse behind. 

I made posts last year going through each of these twilights individually:

Kyrie

Krauss

Nanjo & Shannon

Kanon

This isn’t specifically a question about Kumasawa and Gohda, but since they’re in the picture and not otherwise covered specifically here’s my post from last year covering them. 

As for what we’re being asked here specifically, it’s the same reasoning that applies to the end of all of Beatrice’s games - the answer is the bomb. The bomb that kills everyone and wipes out all evidence without a trace at midnight, October 6th, without fail. Earth to earth is the fact that none are left alive (except Eva in EP3 and Prime). Illusions to illusions is the fact that the truth is sealed away by the bomb, inside the catbox, with Eva as the only surviving witness...who dies without telling a soul of the truth. The message bottles sent out by Yasu, of which only two were ever discovered, represent possible truths that may have happened on those two days, but are also just fictional possibilities. It breeds an environment where any fictional forgery based on the Rokkenjima incident may become the truth, forever shrouded in illusion.

And finally...

I originally thought the answer to this was ‘the bomb’ (just like when she asks this in EP4) but that’s the answer to the last question...and also, ‘regardless of the witch’s will’ doesn’t really make sense when realistically Yasu could have shut the bomb at any time if she so chose. 

The promised reaper, then...is Kyrie. Or in theory, any of the adults who could have taken advantage of the situation to spark a massacre (like Eva in EP3). The fact of the matter is that the adults solve the epitaph...and once that happens, the tragedy is inevitable. The one outcome of the roulette that Yasu least expected to happen is the one that did. The fact that, despite Yasu being the one who masterminded the whole crime, she ultimately did not end up being the actual culprit. The real culprit is whichever one of the adults takes advantage of the confusion and murders everyone, sealing the truth away inside the catbox. In Prime, and apparently also Lion’s world, this is Kyrie. 

Or maybe it really does mean the bomb. I dunno. Neither of those is really the answer to who Clair is, though, so much as the answer to ‘then what killed everyone’, anyways. But by solving all the other mysteries, Will proves that he understoof her heart, so I guess it’s all cool in the end. 

What matters is that the tale of those two days is destined to end in tragedy, ‘regardless of the witch’s will’. By the time we reach October 4th, all those complicated factors have piled up so much that a happy ending is pretty much impossible. It could have been prevented so many times, in so many ways, but by the time it gets this far it’s basically too late.