#I think it's possible for both interpretations to be true at once

[wonder-worker]

It was perhaps unfortunate timing for the queen [Ælfthryth] that her son came into his majority just as her two closest allies died. It seems these two ideas were also tied in Æthelred’s own mind when he reflected on this period of his reign. In S876, the charter that attests Ælfthryth’s return to court in 993, the king recalls the angustiae (tribulations) endured by the kingdom following Æthelwold’s death. He goes on to state that England’s misfortunes stemmed not only from the loss of the long-time royal advisor, but also due to meae iuuentutis ignorantia (the ignorance of my youth), and the philargiria (avarice) of his new advisors. While these statements are largely made in reference to royal acquisitions of monastic lands in the preceding years, that Ælfthryth is brought back to court at this moment is significant. It suggests that the same factors influenced the queen mother’s departure from court in 984. Æthelred was a king newly come of age seeking his independence, Ælfthryth’s key advocates at court were dead, while few of the men who stepped into their places had any great affection for the queen.

Ælfthryth’s disappearance from the administrative record of her son’s reign also coincided with his marriage to his first wife in the mid-980s, another Ælfgifu. Rarely in the course of the West Saxon dynasty to this point had two royal women been at court. Though Ælfgifu leaves no contemporary evidence of political activity – her name is not even attested prior to the twelfth century – it may be that Ælfthryth’s departure from court had a voluntary aspect to it, seeking to avoid conflict. Little can be said of Ælfthryth’s activities, or even whereabouts, between 984 and 993. William of Malmesbury suggests that Ælfthryth spent ‘many years’ at Wherwell in repentance for the murder of King Edward (G.Reg. 162.4). This may be a reference to her retirement to the abbey, though that is not made clear and William’s description of the queen implies that he understood her to still be relatively young. If Ælfthryth had departed the court in 984 for the refuge of Wherwell, it may be that William believed this to be a penitential act. Though it should also be recalled that Ælfthryth was a landowner in her own right and no doubt had many estates on which she could have lived; she may even have moved between them rather than establishing a long-term household in any single place.

Wherever Ælfthryth resided after 984, there is evidence she was not entirely absent from her family’s life, even if her political involvement became less prominent. This is found in S1503, the will of the ætheling Æthelstan issued in 1014, the same year as his death. Æthelstan, born around 984, was Æthelred’s eldest son and probable heir had he survived his father. In the closing passage of the will, Æthelstan declares that his gifts to ecclesiastical foundations had been given for the soul of his father, for his own soul, and for the soul of Ælfþryðe minre ealdemodor þe me afedde (Ælfthryth my grandmother who raised me). If Ælfthryth’s departure from court was amicable, could it then be that Æthelred had entrusted her with the raising of her grandchildren? That, like Eadgifu before her, the queen mother was transitioning into a role as queen grandmother? This seems probable. S876, the charter attested by Ælfthryth in 993, is also the first charter witnessed by Æthelstan and his brothers Ecgberht, Edmund, and Eadred, who all subscribe directly after her. None of them appear in charter witness lists again until 996, when all four once again attest as a group (S878). The next time the brothers attest a charter is in 997, when once again they appear alongside their grandmother (S878). It is not until 998 that the brothers are found witnessing a charter independent of Ælfthryth (S893), and the queen dowager is simply absent from court that year, presumably ensconced in Wherwell by this stage. When Æthelstan’s statement that he was raised by his grandmother is considered alongside the fact that he and his brothers only appear at court in her company between 993 and 997, this suggests that Æthelred’s sons probably spent their childhoods in Ælfthryth’s care. In this case, her return to court in 993 did not simply mark a return to favour, but the fact that Æthelstan had reached an age where he needed to begin his political education. However, neither the queen nor the ætheling appear to have resided at or travelled with the court, rather making perhaps annual appearances.

By 999, the eldest of the æthelings were teenagers and had likely left their childhood home with their grandmother. From this year they are to be found regularly witnessing charters in the absence of the queen dowager. Ælfthryth only appears in a single charter from 999 (S896), once again suggesting only occasional attendance at court. The queen had never again attained the prominent status she had held in the early years of Æthelred’s kingship. Witnessing diploma S896 would be her final public act. Ælfthryth died on 17 November either of that year or of 1000 or 1001. By the time of her death, Ælfthryth, the once-powerful magnate and first-known crowned queen consort of England, like Eadgifu before her, had faded from view. Geffrei Gaimar records that she spent her final years at Wherwell Abbey, a penance which he states was placed on her by Dunstan on his own deathbed to absolve the queen of any involvement in Edward’s murder (EE ll. 4067– 4082). Geffrei goes on to indicate that the queen died at the abbey and was interred there. That Wherwell was Ælfthryth’s final resting place is seemingly affirmed by Æthelred’s statement in S904 that the lands and privileges he gave to the abbey were gifts for the sake of his mother’s soul.

— Matthew Firth, Early English Queens, 850-1000: Potestas Reginae

[wackywatchdotcom]

woke up like 40 mins ago at like 4:30 unable to fall back alseep so im once again thinking about ragatha and pomni as The Ocd Havers. its everything to me. oh whoops i ran out of tags on this post

[uvobreakmylegs]

As Fate Would Have it

red thread of fate soulmate! AU with Razor x reader

this fic now has a Part 2 written by @hypnoswrites! please read Man-Made Destiny once you've read this part!

Warnings: kidnapping, mentions of death

Word Count: 12.2k words

He hadn't said anything to you.

After returning to your hotel room only to immediately be jumped by the man who had clearly been laying in wait for you, he had yet to utter a single word, instead staying quiet through the process of grabbing and restraining you. Even when you had tried to kick and scream when you realized that you were being attacked, he didn't explain anything or mutter out any curses when you were successful in hitting him a few times. Not even to mock you when it was clear that you were lacking the strength needed to do any sort of damage to him.

It was only for a short period of time that your limbs were free, and now you were laying on the hotel bed, your wrists bound behind your back, your ankles tied together and a washcloth from the bathroom having been forced into your mouth in order to keep you quiet.

Earlier you were crying and screaming into the material of the makeshift gag, the terror of the situation overtaking you. But when nothing further happened, you managed to calm down enough to keep quiet, and now you were waiting for what he intended to do from here. With how tightly he had bound you, there was no scenario where you got out of your constraints on your own. Which meant there were only two possibilities: a third party would find and untie you, or he would untie you himself.

The first possibility seemed incredibly unlikely.

That second possibility seemed like it would only happen if he viewed you in a positive light.

So you stayed quiet, hoping that your silence would be interpreted as submission.

Currently the man was across from where you lay on the bed, sitting forward in the chair that had been placed in front of the window. In the initial attack, all you had truly registered was how much taller and stronger he was in the way he had picked you up and threw you onto the bed without any effort. Now that things had calmed down and you were trying to be smart about the moves you made, you were able to take in the details you hadn't noticed before. Like his short, spiky purple hair and his prominent cheekbones.

The way the light from the nearby lamp hit him somehow made him feel even more intimidating than he already was, the shadows almost creating an ominous aura about him. As if you weren't scared enough of him already.

At least he wasn't touching you anymore. After he'd gagged you, his hands stayed on you while you continued to struggle. And even after your struggles had died down completely, they stayed there, occasionally to gliding up and down your body while he stared at you.

What exactly those dark eyes were seeing when he stared at you in that way that felt so intense, you couldn't begin to imagine.

It was a relatively recent development that he'd had enough of it and moved away from the bed, shifting the blinds of the window slightly to peek out before sitting down across from you, watching you with a pensive look on his face.

Being that you were now in a calmer state, you wished you could ask him why he was doing this. What he wanted and what he planned to do with you.

…. It wasn't completely true that you wanted to know the answer to the last one; you were too scared that he would tell you that he planned on ending your life. Or maybe he was planning on selling you. Both of those things happening was also a possibility.

How much time had passed since you had first entered your room was unclear – you kept your gaze on him, waiting to see if and when he would act.

When that time finally came and he did speak, it surprised you.

“This must be terrible for you.”

You blinked when you heard his voice for the first time, but continued to keep quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“I kept thinking of what I should say,” he told you, “what I could say to make this easier on you, so you could understand what's going on. And while I don't think that I'm terrible when it comes to words, I've never found myself more stumped than I am right now.”

He sighed as he added “if only you could see it, or if I didn't have to get back so quick, it wouldn't be this way. I wouldn't have needed to do this to you.”

'Do this'?

Tears began to fill your eyes again, and despite how you had told yourself to keep quiet, you tried to speak. Desperation drove you to beg for your life, something that could've been a horrible decision if he was easily angered, but his eyebrows raised slightly while he hummed.

“You want to say something?” he asked.

You nodded eagerly.

He considered you a moment before he got to his feet, returning to sit on the edge of the bed and placing one hand firmly on your shoulder.

“I'll take this out,” he began, motioning to the washcloth before adding “but make sure you don't scream. It'll only end badly for you.”

You nodded again, this time in a much more steady manner as you were desperate to show that you were calm and wanted to cooperate.

The man was satisfied with that, and he pulled the washcloth out of your mouth, freeing your tongue from the taste and texture of the heavy fabric that had grown wet from your saliva. You couldn't help but cough for a moment, relieved to get that out of your mouth. All the while he kept that hand on your shoulder while also being prepared to gag you again if you got too loud.

But you followed his instruction, and he seemed to relax some when moments passed and you didn't start screaming.

Then you spoke to him.

“Sir,” you began, “please don't kill me.”

At that, he smiled.

“Ah, that was what you were worried about, was it?”

He squeezed your shoulder reassuringly as he said “don't worry. You aren't going to die.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

He pulled you up into a sitting position and moved your legs so they were placed over his lap. With how your wrists and ankles were still bound, it felt awkward, but you didn't dare make any move to try and free yourself. Not right now.

“It would be terrible for me if you died,” he said, “so believe me when I say that's the last thing I could ever want.”

You didn't understand how exactly that could be bad for him, but you nodded as if you did.

“Um, so,” you began, “can I ask what exactly it is that you do want?”

“For you to come with me.”

“Come with you? Wh-where?”

“An island.”

“… An island?”

He saw the way your eyebrows furrowed and patted you on the cheek as he said “I feel all of this is something that will make more sense if you see it rather than have me explain it to you. So while it might be confusing for now, I promise it will become clear in time.”

“For now,” he continued, “I need your full cooperation.”

“….. So you can take me to an island?”

“Yes.”

You wanted to ask what happened after that, but he spoke again before you were able to.

“You can't use nen, so we'll need to go the long way to get there,” he said, “we'll be leaving tomorrow.”

What the fuck is nen?

That thought flashed through your head before you focused on the second part of his sentence: leaving tomorrow?

“I-I'm supposed to head back home tomorrow,” you told him, “people will notice when I don't come back.”

“Then we'll have to get going early.”

He smiled as he said that, speaking as though this was a last-minute trip that you were a willing participant in and brushing off what you said completely. Like the fact that there were people who would notice once you were gone wasn't a concern to him. He didn't care that he was taking you away from them. He didn't care that you didn't want to go with him.

And there was nothing you could do about that. After all, the first thing this man had done was prove to you that you couldn't fight him off.

As much as you wanted to scream and yell at him to let you go or cry out for help in the hopes your neighbors would hear you and call for help on your behalf, at best all that would do was get that washcloth stuffed inside your mouth again, and that was at best. If you wanted any chance of getting away from this man, you needed to get him to trust you enough so his guard relaxed.

It was the only way.

“With that said, we should get some sleep,” he told you, patting you on the cheek again while he added “we have a long drive ahead of us, and once we start, I want to make as few stops as possible.”

He gently pushed you back onto the mattress before moving your legs off of his lap and standing back up.

You were compelled to speak again when he began to walk away.

“Can I ask one last question?”

He paused, turning to look at you as he said “of course.”

“Who….. Who are you?”

He smiled at you and answered with his name.

“Razor.”

There was little sleep to be had that night. While the bed in the hotel room was incredibly soft and comfortable, it was hard to sleep when you had a kidnapper nearly twice your size laying next to you. The feeling was made worse during the times of the night when he put a hand on you again, running up and down your side with experimental touches. He knew you were awake during those times as well, as more often than not you weren't able to keep in the scared noises that came from your mouth whenever his hand brushed near your neck or went lower than your stomach, still fearful of his intentions. He didn't reprimand you, likely because you were doing your best to be quiet. But he didn't stop either, not seeming to care at all how much this was distressing you. To top it off, your arms remained bound, forcing you to try and rest in an uncomfortable position that guaranteed you would lose sleep no matter how soft the mattress was.

Dawn had barely cracked when Razor got up, shaking you awake when it felt like you had just barely gotten to sleep. Your tiredness was definitely showing even with how hard you tried to be alert, because he chuckled at you.

“Don't worry,” he told you, “you can sleep in the car if you need to.”

However, the moment you were placed in the passenger's seat, you were wide awake again. And as Razor drove you away from your hotel and down the highway in the opposite direction of the airport, despair settled in the pit of your stomach. You were being kidnapped, and you were doing nothing to stop it because there simply wasn't anything you could do.

So you sat there silently with your hands bound again as he took you, and the only saving grace of the situation was the fact that he'd tied them in front so you were a bit more comfortable this time.

Razor stayed silent as well while he kept his focus on the road.

An entire day passed with barely anything being said. You didn't say anything unless he spoke up first, and when you did speak, it was just to let out a “yes” or an “okay” to whatever he told you to do. Like when he tossed you a protein bar and told you to eat, or when he told you to keep your hands on your lap so no one passing by might catch sight of your bound wrists.

Cooperate fully. Make him think you were too scared to go against him. Wait for him to let his guard down.

The worst moment was when he stopped the car to fill up the gas tank, and he allowed your wrists to be free once more as he let you out to use the nearby restroom. Before letting you go, he whispered a warning as he told you not to get any stupid ideas. You didn't need any clarification: there was only one person at the station that you could see, standing away from the pumps so they could smoke their cigarette in peace. With only them seeming to be present, trying to get help here was a stupid idea, and one you would only do if you had no care for the innocent bystander who would undoubtedly suffer because of it.

It was when you were leaving the bathroom and heading back to the car that you felt heavy. Razor's eyes were fixed on you when you stepped out, and the sight had you frozen for a moment.

You didn't want to go to him. Every instinct in you was telling you to run, run as fast as you can and don't look back until you find somewhere safe.

But he was expecting that.

Despite the laid back body language he displayed, a gut feeling told you that he'd be on you the instant you tried getting away from him. That same gut feeling told you that it was better not to anger him. Even if he said that he didn't want you dead, how the hell could you trust a man who had kidnapped you?

You walked back to the car, albeit slowly. If your pace was enough to annoy him, he chose not to comment on it, though the instant you were both back in the car he restrained your wrists again.

Razor drove well into the night, not stopping to rest even when you felt it was too hard to keep your eyes open. You fell asleep like that, and when you woke up early the next morning with an ache in your neck, he was still driving, and you wondered if he had slept at all that night.

After another breakfast of an energy bar and bottled water, you got up the courage to ask him a question.

“How far will we be driving?” you asked.

“Until we reach the coast.”

“Ah.”

That would take a while, then. You weren't that close to any oceans. So it would be a long time spent being around him in the small space of the car.

At least he couldn't do anything to you while he was focused on the road, right?

Turning your attention to the window, you saw that the highway you were on was now slowly filling up with traffic. It was still early morning, thus the morning traffic was merging on the road. Much to Razor's displeasure, as you heard him make an annoyed grunt when he was forced to slow down the speed of the car.

It was disheartening to know that the trip would last that much longer.

You expected that today would be a repeat of the previous: he would say very little aside from ordering you now and then, and you would keep quiet and do as he said. The less you needed to speak with this man, the better.

But then he spoke up.

“You seem tired; are you sure you don't want to sleep more?” he asked.

It took you a few moments to reply, and during that time he glanced over to you. That was what spurred you to respond.

“I don't think I can,” you answered.

“If the front seat is too uncomfortable for you, I can pull over and you can move to the back.”

“I'm okay.”

“… I see.”

You kept your eyes averted from him, not sure what all of this was about but not wanting to poke the bear to find out. Why was he pretending to look out for your well-being? God, all you wanted was to be away from him.

But now with the traffic forcing him to drive far beneath the speed limit and the already long road you had ahead of you, getting away from him wouldn't come any time soon. And now it seemed that your previous question had encouraged him to talk to you, as Razor broke the silence once again.

“You're free to talk, if you'd like.”

“…. I'm okay.”

You didn't say anything after that, and once a few moments had passed, you sensed his gaze on you again when he looked over to you.

“You're getting bored of doing nothing but sitting, aren't you? Why don't you tell me about yourself?” he asked.

The fuck did that mean?

You shook your head, and you felt his confusion grow as he continued to watch you.

“You seemed more eager to speak the other night,” he commented.

Probably because I was panicked from getting jumped in my hotel room, you thought to yourself. Now you didn't want to say anything, or even know anything about what would happen to you. The previous day you had spent in silent dread only built up your paranoia and your fear and you didn't want to hear some story from him that was undoubtedly untrue all to keep you calm for the journey.

You didn't need to know the details of what would happen, the scenarios in your mind that slowly began running wild being all that you needed to guess as to what your fate would be at the end of all this. You were definitely going to die; the fact that he didn't care about you seeing his face seemed like proof of that.

So why give him the satisfaction of feeding you false hope that things wouldn't be as bad as you thought they would be?

Although…..

You had to admit that the island story felt like a weird lie to feed you. Surely he could've come up with something better, some reason that wasn't quite so mysterious. Then again, you couldn't think of any good lie to feed to someone who was being kidnapped.

But again, why in the world would he say that?

The traffic around you was starting to get better when you voiced that thought.

“Why do I need to go to the island?” you asked.

“Because I need you,” he answered.

“For what?”

He didn't answer, and you glanced back over to find that Razor's smile had fallen as he kept his gaze on the road. It didn't seem like he intended on answering you. If that was the case, then you should leave it be. No sense in angering him unnecessarily. He was the one in control, not you.

But he eventually surprised you when he chose to speak again.

“Unfortunately,” he began, “that's one thing I can only explain once we get there.”

“Oh.”

That again.

“Is there a reason why you can't explain now?” you asked.

“Because it may be a bit too difficult to believe simply hearing it.”

“So leaving me without answers for however long you lug me around is the better option?”

Your regretted saying that as soon as the words left your lips. It had been too forceful, too angry and not in line at all with the role of captive you were meant to play. Him not doing much to you had you growing too comfortable, too bold, and Razor obviously noticed it too as he looked over to you with one of his eyebrows raised.

One look from him was all it took for every fear to return, and you went back to cowering in your seat, mumbling a soft “sorry.”

He hummed but said nothing further.

An uncomfortable silence was now in the air, interrupted only by the way Razor tapped his finger against the steering wheel.

You noticed something then: a piece of teal colored string that was wrapped around his pinky. One with some sort of design printed all over it, though it was too small and too far away from you to make out any details.

Your eyebrows furrowed. With the way he'd been touching you that first night, shouldn't you have noticed that before? Then again, how could anyone be paying attention to such fine details after what you'd been going through in that moment?

Ultimately, you took your attention off of that; whatever that was, it couldn't have mattered.

“Have you ever seen my face before today?” he asked.

It was late in the afternoon when he asked that, the third day since he had kidnapped you playing out without much talk aside from the orders he would give you whenever he stopped to refill the car's tank. Despite the talk you had the previous day, he didn't push further to make you speak to him. Maybe the last conversation felt just as strange for him as it had for you.

Evidently he was moving past that now as this new question hung in the air.

Your eyebrows furrowed, but instead of asking him why he was asking, you looked at him and tried to recall if there was any spot in your memory where you had seen his face before all of this. There was a reason he had asked, right? He wouldn't just ask such a thing randomly, right?

Maybe he'd been stalking you for a long time.

As hard as you tried, however, you came up blank in terms of any previous memories that involved your kidnapper, and after a few moments you slowly shook your head “no” in response.

For some reason, Razor actually seemed relieved at that, smiling as he said “that's good.”

“…. Why is that good?” you asked against your better judgment.

With that smile still on his face, Razor shook his head as he replied “I'd rather not go into it. I don't want your opinion of me to go any lower.”

…. What?

“Why would my opinion of you matter?” you asked.

Now Razor seemed confused, glancing over to you while asking “why wouldn't it matter?”

Why wouldn't it matter?

Was he fucking serious?

“Because I've been kidnapped?” you responded, “because I have no say in any of this? Because you were waiting in my hotel room for me, and then you tied me up on the bed? Because it's pretty amazing that I haven't died yet, and there's still a good chance that everything you've been saying to me is a lie so you can keep me calm before you gut me like a pig and dump me in a ditch somewhere.”

He wasn't smiling anymore, his expression now turned serious. You should've been worried about how it didn't seem like he was paying attention to the road.

You should also stop talking. The way you were going right now, you were liable to say something bad that would upset him.

But did it matter if you upset him if you really believed he was going to kill you?

“After you did all of that, why the fuck does my opinion of you matter?” you asked, “why do you care about how your kidnapping victim feels? If you weren't such an awful person, you wouldn't have kidnapped me in the first place. How the fuck can you sit there and be worried about if I like you or not?”

Razor pulled the car over to the side of the road.

Fuck

You averted your eyes as you started to shake.

He'll do it here. Shoot or strangle you and then dump you in the back. Take whatever it was he wanted from you and then throw you away like garbage. That would be the way your life would end, and you were powerless to stop it.

There was no chance of survival, and there was nothing you could do but prepare yourself for the inevitable.

He's gonna kill me he's gonna kill me he's gonna kill me

Razor placed his hand on top of yours.

Your heart leapt into your throat and you jerked your body away. The furthest you could go was the door, slamming your hands on the window as you ended up against it, pressing yourself against it as far as you could while tears began to fall. This was it. You shut your eyes, waiting for something bad to happen. Either metal being placed against your flesh or his hands wrapping around your neck. Maybe even a plastic bag placed over your head.

Why did he need to pick you?

Why couldn't he have left you alone?

You flinched again when you felt his hand on your shoulder. As this time there was nowhere else for you to go, his hand stayed.

Nothing more than that.

It took you a while to realize that he wasn't doing anything else. With however many minutes had passed with you hyperventilating and crying, he hadn't moved forward with any action other than the hand that he had placed on your shoulder.

After realizing that you were still alive when everything was telling you that you should be dead by now, you came to another realization: the way his hand was placed on your shoulder was almost as if he had done it as a way to comfort you.

His hand was warm where he touched you. Were it not for the horrible situation, it just might have made you feel a bit better.

By that point your cries had quieted down, and he took that as an opportunity to softly speak your name.

You glanced over at him through blurry vision.

He was frowning and his eyebrows were furrowed, but he didn't seem angry.

Razor actually looked sad.

“Are you really that scared of me?” he asked.

Tears continued to roll down your cheeks as you nodded, and that only seemed to discourage him even more.

“Even after I told you that I'm not going to hurt you?”

“How can you expect me to trust anything you say?” was your response.

Razor stared at you, his hand still on you. His lips began to part as if to speak, but then he turned his head away from you, looking out through the windshield and at the highway before him.

“Can't argue with that,” you heard him mumble.

Then he removed his hand and returned his attention to driving the car, pulling back out onto the road and continuing on.

Neither of you said anything for the rest of the drive.

It was late when Razor decided to stop for a bit, pulling off of the highway and renting a room from a small and rather seedy-looking motel. He'd left you in the car while he went to get a room, and while he still warned you not to try anything, his tone wasn't quite as harsh as it had been those times earlier. It was as though he was trying to be more gentle with you.

You didn't respond except to nod silently.

Now it felt like you were repeating the situation from that first night: the both of you on the bed with you feeling incredibly unsafe while trying and failing to get any sleep. The biggest difference this time was that the mattress of the motel was uncomfortable as shit, and you shifted every few minutes as you tried to find a spot that felt nicer.

At least you weren't sleeping in the car again, you told yourself.

He was still awake. Although you tried not to pay attention to him, it was hard to keep your eyes averted whenever you turned to face his direction. More than once the two of you made eye contact, and immediately after you would turn away. You would have stayed facing away from him if only the goddamn mattress wasn't so awful. And shouldn't he be asleep by now?

The fact that Razor was still awake and alert after three days of what appeared to be constant driving wasn't normal; who the hell could go that long without rest? How had the two of you not yet died in a car crash?

Maybe kidnappers were built different, you dryly thought to yourself.

“…. Do you want to watch anything?”

Razor's voice interrupted that thought train, and you noted that his tone was soft again when he asked, but you shook your head as you stared straight ahead at the wall next to you.

He hummed, and it sounded like he was disappointed.

But for some reason that wasn't the end of it.

“What can I do to make you trust me?”

….. He had some nerve to ask that, after everything. Was he aware of that? Probably. Despite that odd thing regarding your opinion of him, he was pretty self-aware on how wrong all of this was. You'd be justified in ignoring him, though. Razor would probably recognize and understand that, as well.

…..

Even if you were justified, what good would that do you?

After a moment, you remained where you were but pulled your arms upward, holding your bound wrists in the air for him to see.

A few seconds passed and nothing happened.

You figured that his lack of action meant “no”, and with a sigh, you began to pull them back down.

Razor grabbed them.

For a second, all you felt was panic at his sudden touch. You were reminded of that first night and how powerless you were.

It only lasted a moment, however, as Razor grabbed at the zip-tie and, with a slight tug, snapped the plastic off of you. Within a moment, your wrists were free.

… Were they supposed to break that easily?

“Is that better?” Razor asked.

“…. Yeah.”

He pulled away, his eyes remaining on you after. And now that he had done as you wanted, there was a certain level of expectation in the air, such as you would look at him and have a conversation. A proper one.

Continuing to ignore him now seemed like it would be a bad idea.

So you sat up, turning around on the bed so you were facing him. He seemed pleased by that, so that wasn't bad.

But fuck he was intimidating.

Surely after the past few days your fear of just looking at and speaking to him should have gone down somewhat, but no. Looking at him head on while he had his full attention on you had your palms beginning to sweat.

You grabbed the pillow you'd been resting on and wrapped your arms around it as you held it close. Maybe that was pathetic but it made you feel better.

“Ready to talk?” Razor asked.

“Depends on what you have to say,” you answered, “if you're going to tell me that you'll be knocking out my teeth before you feed me to pigs then I'd rather you not say anything.”

He let out an exasperated sigh.

“I told you that you're not going to die.”

The firmness was back in his tone, and you sensed that he was getting to the point of being aggravated.

You looked away as you held the pillow tighter.

“Okay,” you breathed out, “I'll believe you. But then….”

You inhaled before you spoke.

“I want to know why you're taking me. And I don't want an excuse about needing to wait until we get to wherever. I want answers now.”

“I've been pretty cooperative, so I at least deserve that much,” you added.

You glanced over and then away again, still nervous about his potential reaction. While he didn't seem to have anger issues, he more than likely had limits when he was pushed too far. If he wasn't going to kill you, he could keep you alive to experience worse.

A second quick glance revealed that he was staring at that string around his finger.

Then he made eye contact again as he asked “do you think you could listen to what I have to say with an open mind?”

“Uh, sure?”

Razor didn't seem as pleased about the uncertainty that made it's way into your voice, but after a moment's hesitation, he seemed to resolve himself as he spoke again.

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

You blinked.

“….. What do you mean?” you asked.

“That there are people in this world who are connected and are meant to be together?” he explained.

“Connected how?”

“By a force that's invisible to most,” said Razor, “like a red thread that you can only see if you have the ability to look.”

What

You blinked again, not sure of what to say.

“I… I guess I've never thought about it,” you began, “if I'm being honest, I'm really not sure.”

“I see.”

Again, there was disappointment in his tone.

Despite being worried to question him, you hesitantly asked “is…. Is there a reason why you asked?”

You had a bad idea as to why he'd mention such a thing. But you held onto hope that this tangent about soulmates was just his way of trying to make a joke so you felt better. Or maybe he was bringing up something this random just to fuck with you. Even that wouldn't be too bad.

He answered your question with a question of his own.

“What would you do if I said we were soulmates?” he asked.

“….”

…. Oh god.

This entire time you'd been convinced that Razor was going to kill you, no matter how much he said otherwise. And if not that, maybe that he would sell you off to someone. Now you were learning that all of this was happening because he was crazy. He'd seen you and was pushing some sort of fantasy onto you while justifying it with the notion of 'soulmates'. That had been all he needed to feel no guilt over tying you up and kidnapping you – because in his mind, what he was doing was right.

Of all the combinations he needed to be, why did he need to be both mentally unstable and unreasonably strong?

That was the other important thing: regardless of his sanity, he still posed an incredibly dangerous threat physically. As he continued to watch you while he waited for you to say something, you were aware that it would be a bad idea to flat-out say 'no'. Better to play along at least somewhat.

“…. I don't know,” you eventually told him.

Razor let out a soft sigh as he said “you think I'm insane, don't you?”

“N-no. Nothing like that,” you replied.

He hummed, and the way he hummed sounded as though he didn't believe you. Then he reached over and began to caress your cheek, making you cringe internally. While you wished you could get his hand off of you, you told yourself to deal with it for now.

“I wish I could show you proof – I really do,” Razor said, “but I'll get into some serious trouble if I use nen while I'm out here.”

That word…. He'd mentioned it before, though you still had no idea what it meant.

“So it needs to wait for the island?” you asked.

“Exactly.”

“…. Okay.”

Better to not make a fuss, you told yourself. Act like you're potentially open to the delusions he's spewing out. Delusional people prefer it when others agree with them, right?

Still, to find out that he had taken you because of such a reason….

The worst case scenario now was that you wouldn't get away and you'd be stuck playing out Razor's romance fantasy with him. At least you wouldn't be dead, right?

…..

It might be a good idea to get off of the soulmate subject, at least for now. And since he was mostly willing to be open and honest with you, now might not be a bad time to question something else he had said.

“Can I ask something else?”

The fact that you were changing subjects was obvious, but he seemed to accept it as he pulled his hand away as he answered “go ahead.”

“Why did you ask if I had seen you before?”

For some reason, that question was the one that had him frowning, and he tore his gaze away from you as he sighed.

“I don't know that you want to hear that answer,” he told you.

“Why?”

“It's not pleasant.”

“So?”

“… I'd rather we wait a while before we get to that discussion,” Razor said.

“I don't want to do that,” you replied.

He grimaced at your response, but oddly enough he didn't seem to be getting upset as he had been when you made that comment about him killing you. Maybe that was why you were spurred to push for him to speak.

“You said you want me to trust you, right? Why not answer?”

“Because you won't be happy with what I tell you.”

“Can it really be worse than what you've done to me so far?” you asked.

“If you can imagine the sort of crimes that get someone sent to death row, then yes.”

“…. Oh.”

Razor turned his head towards you, and you got a certain sense of “I told you so” when he looked over.

What he did couldn't have been any small crime – given how easy it had been to imagine him killing you, murder was the first thing you thought of. But even then, convicted killers didn't always get sentenced to death. There was that guy from Zaban who had literally torn his victims to pieces and while he had gotten over 900 years in prison, the fact that he hadn't been put to death was mind boggling to many.

So just what had Razor done to get himself on death row?

And why was literally everything about this only managing to become worse and worse?

“Why were you sent to death row?” you whispered after a few moments.

It wasn't much of a surprise when he took a bit to answer, frowning again as he stared off at the space in front of him. He didn't want you to know anything about this for some reason.

But eventually, he answered.

“I killed some people,” he said.

“How many?”

“You don't need to know.”

“Why did you kill them?”

“Because I could.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

That's horrible, you wanted to say. But you refrained. Not only because it would be pointing out the obvious, but it probably wouldn't do any good saying that to a man who admitted to something as awful as murder.

Because I could

The words echoed in your head, and you couldn't help but note how there had been a distinct lack of remorse in his tone. Almost as if he didn't care about the lives he had snuffed out for no reason.

A weight settled in your chest at that thought. Why it did remained unclear, but you found yourself wanting to make this better somehow.

“Do you feel bad about it?” you asked.

“What?”

His confusion was evident.

“Do you feel bad for killing those people?” you clarified, “if you could do it all over again, would you leave them alone?”

Why you now wanted so badly for him to agree with what you said was also unclear. Razor was a kidnapper and an admitted murderer – one who was bad enough that he earned himself a spot on death row. Why did it matter to you whether he was sorry for what he'd done?

But regardless, it seemed that was what your heart wanted.

Razor hadn't answered you, and in fact, he was looking at you as though you had grown three heads.

… That wasn't a good sign.

After a few moments where it seemed he was trying to pick his words carefully, he spoke up.

“I don't see much value in thinking about things I could've done differently in the past,” Razor answered.

Then he reached over to you.

While this time you didn't flinch or jerk away, you stiffened immediately, the pillow you held becoming squished between against you as you anticipated him putting his hands on you again.

Surprisingly, Razor paused when he saw your reaction, seeming thoughtful as he watched the way you sat, virtually petrified on the bed with a terrified look on your face.

Could he really blame you? He just told you a lot that warranted being worried about him. Even moreso than before.

Evidently he didn't, as he pulled his hand back and smiling at you again as he said “the important thing is what's happening now, and what our lives will be like from this point onward.”

“So let's not focus anymore on that,” he added.

Stop talking about it, was what he meant.

“Okay,” you whispered, nodding in agreement.

Razor seemed pleased with that.

Not long after he told you to rest up, and within a few minutes the lights were off. Once more you needed to try and get some sleep while you lay next to your kidnapper, and the only saving grace was the fact that he was keeping his hands off of you this time. But while you tried to get some meager amount of sleep, you weren't able to focus much on his semblance of respecting your personal space. Instead, there was only one thought going through your head in that moment:

He wasn't sorry

Your wrists weren't tied up when you left the motel the next morning.

That was nice.

And while Razor wouldn't let you out of the car, he did stop at a restaurant to get you a to-go order of pancakes when you asked him to. Eating them in the moving car was awkward but you appreciated that he humored your request.

That was also nice, even if it had the potential of being your last meal before Razor took you to that island.

The knowledge soured the meal somewhat, but as much as you hated to admit it, you weren't so sure now that you would be escaping him. Razor hadn't given you any opportunity to take advantage of, and even with him giving you a bit more freedom of movement, he made a point to lock you inside the car during the time he was gone.

That made sense. After everything, you couldn't see him being foolish enough to leave you alone without having taken some step to secure you beforehand. It was actually pretty surprising that he was giving you the freedom he was after what he'd told you in that motel room.

Though maybe it wasn't too surprising when you considered the fact that he wanted you to like him. While the soulmate thing was complete bullshit, that was what Razor believed. So it made sense that he would want you to feel good about him since he planned on keeping you with him from now on.

That last part had never been said, but you got the sense that would be what happened if Razor got his way.

The rest of your life being spent playing into this man's delusions….

You would have shuddered at the thought if not for your fear that Razor would notice it.

“We'll be driving through the rest of the night,” he told you some time later, “and by tomorrow morning we'll have made it to our boat. From there it won't be too long of a journey to the island.”

You nodded along, though hearing what he said caused a pit to form in your stomach.

Once you were on that boat, the chances of escape were next to zero. It would be better to throw away any thoughts of escape if you were to reach that point.

To try and get away while on the water would be suicide.

He asked you questions every now and then, and though it wasn't as strong as it had been the previous night, you felt that pressure like you needed to answer him in exchange for the kindnesses he had shown you.

So you did what he wanted, and every time you glanced to him after, you saw a pleased look on his face.

You should've felt bad for him. Razor was the one who clearly had a lot of issues – things that, if he was a bit more mentally well, he probably wouldn't have done. Maybe. But then again, you were the one being dragged along with him against your will, so your sympathy could only go so far.

The sun was setting when Razor pulled over to another gas station to refill the tank. This was probably the last stop like this that you'd be making, if what Razor said earlier was correct.

The hand drier in the bathroom was still roaring when you left, only to be muted once the door shut behind you. As you had done a lot over the past few days, you immediately headed back towards the car as you knew your kidnapper wanted you to.

Only this time he wasn't watching you like a hawk.

Razor was by the car as the tank continued to fill, leaning against it as he stared out into the distance. Your gaze followed his, and you found that he seemed to be staring at a factory that sat in the distance, if the long, rectangular building accompanied by several smokestacks were any indication. Or perhaps he was looking beyond that, at the city that which was several miles away but still visible from where you stood. Or maybe it was just the sunset. It was at the time of day where the sky was at its prettiest.

Instead of entering the car once you returned, you went to his side and stood next to him, copying the way he leaned on it. He glanced at you, but said nothing about what you were doing. He only returned his gaze to the sight in front of him.

And then an odd expression morphed onto his face.

One that was almost wistful.

“Are you okay?” you asked cautiously.

Razor seemed surprised, looking back at you as he asked “why?”

“You look a little sad, I guess.”

“Do I?”

He looked back in the direction of the factory and the city that sat far off in the distance, and that wistful expression returned. As much as you wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, that question felt like it might be too intrusive and could potentially cause a bad reaction from him, particularly if it involved his past. He really didn't want you to know much in regard to that.

He let out a sigh.

“I guess I am, a little bit,” Razor said, “this is the last time I get to be out and about in the world like this. Once we get back to the island, I know I'll never leave again.”

“Never?” you repeated.

“Never,” he said, “the purpose of leaving the island every so often was to find you, and now that I have, there's no reason for me to come out here like this.”

He leaned his head back, now looking at the darkening sky above him as he added “I knew it was coming, but I didn't think it would bother me, knowing that this is the last time I can walk around like I'm free.”

“… Are you not?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

“Death row convict.”

“Ah. Right.”

You went over the new information in your head.

“So you can't leave the island once you go back?” you asked, “is it a prison?”

He let out a short laugh.

“It's a prison for some of us, but even then it's nicer than any traditional prison you'll find,” he said.

“Us? There are others like you?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “but don't worry, you won't need to interact with them.”

You nodded, though your eyebrows furrowed as you thought on it a bit more.

“Will I be able to leave at all?” you asked.

“No.”

You sighed.

“Figures.”

Kicking at a bit of rubble by your foot, you said “so, the plan from here is to go to an island where we'll never leave, and then just….. Hang out there forever?”

“There's a bit more to it than that.”

“Hm.”

When Razor reached for you that time, you didn't flinch or shy away. And when his hand settled on your shoulder, you didn't give much reaction other than to look at him.

“It won't be that bad. The places you'll be able to go to are the nice ones,” he said.

“…. It's still really depressing that I can't ever leave once I get there.”

Razor smiled at you, and this time the sadness he felt was even more obvious.

“I know.”

Then he stood up straight, announcing “we should get going.”

You nodded, and you wordlessly walked around the car to get to the front passenger's seat.

When you were both in the car and after you'd buckled up, something else strange happened.

Razor reached out and pulled you towards him, your head resting on his chest while he kept you in something that resembled a hug.

“I do regret that you've gotten dragged into this,” he whispered against your hair, “I really mean that. While I can't do anything to stop it, I'll do my best to make it easier for you. I promise.”

In that moment, you had no insights as to what Razor was truly thinking or feeling, no clue that everything he'd just said was a genuine promise from him that he intended to keep. So you had no idea how his heart skipped a beat when he felt your hands reach up and hold onto his jacket. You had no idea of the relief that filled him when you moved in closer and reciprocated his hug.

“I trust you, Razor.”

As those words were whispered from your lips, you had no idea that, in that moment, Razor truly believed that he had your acceptance.

There was no one else on the docks when you got there in the morning, arriving early enough that the morning mist was still present as Razor navigated the car through various warehouses and massive walls of shipping containers. Was it unusual for such a place to be completely empty at this time of day? You weren't sure; you didn't know enough about this kind of place to be able to tell what was normal or not.

All the sight did was guarantee that no one other than Razor would witness the last moments you had on the mainland.

Eventually the car came to a stop not far from the edge. Just as he had said, there was a boat sitting in the water. It wasn't anything new as it looked quite battered, but presumably it would make the journey that Razor wanted it to.

Though it would be morbidly funny if, after all of his efforts, it were to sink in the middle of the trip.

“Let's go,” Razor told you.

He stepped out of the car, and after a few moments, you copied the action.

The smell of the ocean air hit you after you got out. You stood there, your hand gripping at the top of the door to keep yourself steady as you looked out at the water before you, and then the boat.

One last leg of the journey, and then you'd be stuck with Razor for good.

…..

No one would ever find you, probably. Your disappearance had more than likely been reported by now, but all efforts to find you would be focused on that hotel you'd been staying at and the surrounding area; who would ever think to look for you on the water? Even if someone remembered seeing your face and informed the authorities, how would they reach anything other than a dead end once they got to the shoreline? You didn't have the time to leave some sign of you behind, nor could you with Razor undoubtedly watching you as close as he had been. You couldn't do anything.

Once you stepped on that boat, you weren't getting away from him. To try and do so would be suicide, you reminded yourself.

Your grip on the door became harder and breathing became more difficult the longer you stared at the boat.

I don't want to go I don't want to go I don't want to go

And again you asked why he needed to pick you.

Razor's voice saying your name forced you away from your thoughts, and you turned your head to see that he had your luggage slung over his shoulder and a concerned look on his face as he watched you. Your internal freak out wasn't as internal as you thought it was, then.

Swallowing a few times, you eventually asked “can I just….. Can I have a minute?”

“…. Alright.”

Then, to your utter surprise, Razor turned and began walking towards the boat.

Leaving you behind.

……

Was this some kind of test? Or maybe…. Did he think that since you were now at this point, he could relax a bit in watching you? Was he that confident you weren't going anywhere?

Razor continued making his way to the boat without a single glance back at you.

Your heart began to beat hard against your chest as you realized: you could run.

If you waited until he reached the boat and then made a break for it, you might just have a decent head start. If not to escape the area completely, then to find someplace to hide. Maybe find a phone and call for help. If it was a landline phone, they should be able to figure out your location without you needing to try and figure out where you were exactly.

If he caught you, it'd be bad for you, sure. But….

As he went further and further away, you were acutely aware that this was the first chance you had gotten to make an escape. The only chance you had. Were you really going to waste it by being too afraid of him?

….. No.

For once, you were going to take control of the situation.

And you were leaving.

You kept watch as Razor stepped off the dock and onto the boat, your things still in hand as he made his way to the cabin. Your hand was still gripping the door, your knuckles becoming pale from how hard you held onto it.

When he went inside. That was when you would run.

Once he stepped through the low doorway of the cabin, you did just that.

You pushed off from the door and you ran.

All you heard was your shoes on the dock and your own heartbeat in your ears as you propelled yourself forward. That felt a bit odd; you would have expected to hear him call out in anger on seeing you running. But at you reached the end and turned a corner past a line of containers, you didn't hear anything from him. There was no indication he even noticed that you had fled.

That was even better. While he would notice soon enough, every second you got with him being unaware would help in aiding your escape. You could do this. With every step forward you took with no sign of Razor coming after you, your confidence grew.

And then, after exiting the row of containers and reaching a warehouse, you saw a godsend:

A man.

He stood at the end of the structure, standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on you once you rounded the corner. With black hair sticking out of a odd blue cap and the rest of his blue and white clothing looking slightly worn, he looked raised an eyebrow as he took in your disheveled state.

You, on the other hand, felt relief upon seeing him. This was someone who could help. If you could explain what was happening, he could get you away and call the police. Then all of your problems would be over.

You could go home.

So you ran towards him, calling out “sir! Please, help me!”

He said nothing, but when you stumbled as you reached him, he took his hands out of his pockets so as to steady you, keeping his hands on your arms while you grabbed at the long blue scarf that hung from his neck.

“Please,” you said again, gulping as you did your best to maintain your composure, “I've been kidnapped. We need to get out of here and call the police.”

“Kidnapped? Who would kidnap you?” the man asked.

“He-he said that he's a death row convict,” you began, “he was waiting for me in my hotel room, and he tied me up and took me with him. Now he's trying to take me to some island and he says I can't ever come back.”

When the man didn't immediately respond, you got a bit more frantic as you cried “I swear, I'm not making this up! I've really been kidnapped, and I need the police before he tries to get me again! All of this is true!”

The logical part of your brain knew that getting hysterical wouldn't help you. But you weren't able to be completely logical in that moment. Now that you were so close to escape, you couldn't control yourself. You needed him to listen to what you were saying.

Finally, the man nodded.

“I believe you,” he said.

Relief rushed through you as you smiled, and you held onto his scarf tighter, unwilling to let go of this lifeline.

You spoke to the man again, asking if he had a phone, or better yet, if he had a car, and if he knew how far away the nearest police station was. He didn't really answer, though perhaps he couldn't with the way you were rambling in that moment. But you noticed when he looked past you and down the path that you'd just come from.

Your eyes followed his gaze and just like that your words died in your throat as your grip on the man's scarf became tighter, this time from fear.

Razor was there. Staring at you.

And for the first time, you saw true anger in him. Those dark eyes glared at you across the distance as he saw you in this unknown man's arms.

He's going to kill me

You looked back to the man, ready to beg for him to help again, for him to get you out of here before Razor murdered both you.

The man spoke before you could.

“Is this them, Razor?” he asked.

…. Huh?

He knew Razor's name?

How? You hadn't told this man what your kidnapper's name was. You were certain that you hadn't.

“Yeah,” your kidnapper answered.

Razor was talking to him? Not flying into a murderous rage and killing you both? The nonchalance of his reply was also a shock.

“Huh. I'm a little surprised,” the man said as he looked back to you.

“Surprised at what?” Razor asked. He started to walk forward at a moderate pace, taking his time while he kept his eyes fixed on you.

“That they got away from you,” the man answered.

You tried pulling away from him then. But the grip he had on your arms was ironclad, and no amount of wriggling would free you.

This man was far, far stronger than he looked.

“That was an error in judgment on my part,” Razor answered, coming to a stop as he had now reached the two of you by the warehouse.

“I'm sorry to have made you step in, Ging,” Razor added.

Ging?

The man who held you laughed.

“I don't mind,” Ging answered, “saves you the hassle of catching them again, right?”

“Right…..”

Razor's voice trailed off as he stared at you again, and with him being so much closer this time, you felt your entire body shudder while your heart beat pounded in your chest again, now being caused by pure, unadulterated fear.

He was so, so mad.

Ging then smiled at your kidnapper.

“Well, aside from this little mishap, everything else work out well?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Razor answered. His attention finally went back to Ging, and you felt like you could breathe again.

“Glad to hear it.”

Ging was saying something else to him but you couldn't completely hear it. You still tried to slip your way out of Ging's fingers, but it was no use; he wasn't letting go unless he wanted to. Tears were welling up as you continued the futile effort. And somehow, the fact that he wasn't even acknowledging your attempt to get away only made it worse.

Why? Why did Ging need to be here to catch you? Why did you need to have such awful luck?

What was going to happen to you now?

You didn't want to find out, and so despite knowing that there was no hope of getting away now, you still tried.

If there was such a thing as divine intervention, you wanted it right now.

“Ah, Right. Before you go, I need to see that you haven't used your nen,” said Ging.

Instead of answering, Razor held up his hand, showing the teal bit of string that was still wrapped around his pinky.

“Just needed to check,” Ging told him, “we'd both be in trouble if that was broken.”

“I know.”

“Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way-”

Finally removing his hand from where he'd been gripping you, Ging unexpectedly turned you around and pushed you, causing you to stumble forward.

Right into Razor.

He wrapped his arms around you instantly, and his hold on you was immediate and unforgiving, gripping you to the point that it hurt. Like with Ging, you wanted to struggle. You wanted to try and do everything in your power to break free of him.

But unlike with Ging, there was an air around Razor now that felt dangerous.

No, worse than that.

It truly felt like he was ready to kill someone.

And with that aura that surrounded you to the point that you felt like it might actually smother you to death, you couldn't bring yourself to fight against him. It was all you could do to keep your feet planted firmly on the ground.

Meanwhile, Ging and Razor were continuing their conversation.

“Think your replacement will be happy to see you back?” Ging asked.

“They'll probably just be relieved that they'll be done overseeing my duties,” Razor answered, “it usually takes them a few days after before they're at one hundred percent power again.”

“Well of course. The emission system was designed with specifically you in mind. There's no way anyone can run it as smoothly as you do.”

“Yeah.”

Despite his short answer, there was a hint of pride within Razor's voice, and the heavy air around you lifted somewhat.

Ging then looked back to you, smiling as he said “and now we've got this one, it'll be even better than before.”

And just like that, the air was suffocating again. It was like Razor had briefly forgotten the way he had been upset with you only to be shortly reminded of it.

Did Ging know that would happen?

…. Did he do it on purpose?

“Well, I'll let you get going then,” Ging then said, “I'm sure there's a lot you need to talk to them about.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, and you're free to use your hatsu now if you need to.”

Razor nodded as he said “see you, Ging.”

Ging waved in response before he turned away.

Razor did the same, one hand remaining on your arm as he began to drag you behind him.

Except your legs didn't want to work, still feeling weak and like they would bend beneath you at any moment. You stumbled along for only a few steps before he bent down to pick you up and throw you over his shoulder.

He handled you roughly as he did so, the breath in your lungs pushing out with a sharp gasp before he continued along. Again he was holding you tightly after, as if with the intent to bruise, like he wanted to leave marks on your skin beneath your clothing. You frequently felt the way his fingers twitched, like he was fighting the urge to do something violent. You were crying now, but your throat was too clogged up to make any noise.

The position you were now in allowed you to watch Ging as he walked away from the two of you. His hands were in his pockets again and he walked at a relaxed pace.

If you weren't so terrified of Razor you might have screamed at the man who gave you back to your kidnapper. Maybe wish torture and death upon him.

But you didn't dare let any noise escape you now.

Why did this need to happen to you?

That thought repeated itself through the entire walk back to the boat while you quietly cried atop Razor's shoulder. Like that very first night, he had yet to say anything. And once you reached the small flight of stairs that led down inside the boat, he moved you off his shoulder.

He pushed you down the stairs just as quickly and you tumbled down into the darkness.

Despite the short fall, it still hurt when you landed, your arms taking the brunt of it. However, you barely let out a pained groan afterwards, instead quietly sitting upright before you curled in on yourself, nursing your bruised arms. It still felt like a bad idea to say anything. Even though Razor hadn't come down, you still felt that air around you. Something bad was going to happen shortly.

The sound of an engine coming to life and reverberating through the small vessel caught your attention, as did the way the boat began to move away from the docks and out onto the water.

Perhaps that meant he wouldn't come down. If he was too busy driving the boat, then you would probably be left here until he reached his destination. That wasn't bad. If he took some time away from you, then maybe he wouldn't be as upset when he saw you again.

Deciding on that being what was most likely to happen, you settled down on the floor, anticipating a long, lonely journey.

Someone's hand grabbed at you in the darkness.

Now you screamed.

On instinct, you tried to pull your arm away. Your attempt was unsuccessful, and the hand hauled you up to your feet.

Another hand grabbed at you, this time clamping down onto your leg. No matter how hard you tried to kick them away, you couldn't escape their grip.

Someone else grabbed your legs, wrapping their arms around one of your knees so you were unable to move. At that same time, someone else grabbed your free hand, and both of your arms were stretched out away from your body, making it even harder to struggle.

You still tried, though. Even when a body came up from behind you and hooked their elbows beneath your armpits, you did everything in your power to wiggle out of those hands that held onto you.

If only that had been enough.

Within moments you were completely immobilized, your body held down by the multitude of hands that had come from the darkness. The only thing you could do was scream, and the ability to do even that was taken away when a large palm slapped over your mouth. Tears continued to stream down your face.

The lights were suddenly turned on, forcing you to close your eyes while you heard Razor descend the small flight of stairs. It took a few moments of blearily opening your eyes before they adjusted to the light, but when they did, you found Razor standing in front of you.

But you weren't able to keep your focus on him for long, not when you saw who was holding you. Several men dressed in white and blue, their blue caps covering their eyes.

….. No, not men.

Things.

They weren't human. They couldn't be. Despite their humanoid shapes, the wide smiles that were filled with the dangerously sharp teeth wasn't something any human you knew of possessed. The pure white skin was also a sign that these weren't human. Not just from the sight alone, but from how that skin felt against your own. It felt artificial, and their touch was completely cold. And while you weren't able to see any of their eyes due to the blue caps adorned with numbers, every single one of them was looking right at you, smiling at you while they held you down.

Your breathing became harsher as you began to truly panic, your sobs muffled by the hand that kept you silent. You were quickly becoming lightheaded.

Somehow, the one that was covering your mouth realized this as they pulled their hand away, and you took in a few desperate gulps of air before you focused on Razor again.

His expression was just as grim as it had been when he was outside.

“Trust is an awful thing to break,” he said.

He stepped forward, and your body tensed as you tried to back away from him. Unsurprisingly, the grip those creatures had on you remained strong.

“It can take a long time to build up even in the best of circumstances, and then it can shatter completely with a single lie,” he continued.

“Or a single act.”

Razor stood before you now, towering over you with a dark look in his eyes.

“I thought we had an understanding,” he said to you, “after what we talked about, after what you said to me yesterday, I really thought that we had gotten somewhere. That even if you didn't entirely understand it, the soulmate connection was enough to keep you from running,” he continued.

“But you were lying through your teeth about everything, weren't you?”

His expression when he said that was too scary and you looked down, focusing instead on the creature that had wrapped it's arms around your knee.

You weren't allowed to look away for long as Razor grabbed you by your face and forced you to look up at him, being forced to maintain the uncomfortable eye contact.

Unable to keep yourself calm, your breathing came in harsh as you stared back at him.

And for some reason that seemed to have an effect, as the look on his face softened ever so slightly.

Razor sighed.

“Maybe…. Maybe this hurts a bit more than I expected because we're soulmates,” he thought aloud, “maybe I thought, even without the nen, that you would understand faster because the connection should have been enough.”

“I-I'm – I'm not-” you began.

He moved his hand up so it covered your mouth, cutting you off from whatever excuse he felt would fall from your mouth. Now that you were again unable to speak, you sniffled against his hand while the tears that ran down your cheek met with his fingers.

The boat was still moving, and had seemingly picked up a bit more speed as it continued forward through the water. It was going further and further away from the land, further and further out to the open ocean. You remembered what you had told yourself before:

You weren't getting away now.

Resigning yourself to your fate, you slumped over in the grip of those monsters, your body going limp. Continuing to resist now was thoroughly meaningless.

And some part of you said that it always had been.

It was still quiet; Razor said nothing more, you only continued to quietly cry and those creatures hadn't uttered a single word the entire time. The only things that kept it from being completely silent were the hum of the engine and the sound of the waves that hit the hull of the boat.

When he pulled his hand off of your mouth, you said nothing, continuing to stare up at him as you bit your lip.

Then Razor smiled.

“Ah well. Us being soulmates doesn't mean that we won't make some mistakes now and then, right?”

Despite the pleasant expression on his face, the mood in the room was anything but. Even when he used his thumb to wipe the tears from your face, the action lacked any sort of kindness. There was still a smothering aura that surrounded both him and you, though now it had significantly lessened.

But that didn't make him feel any less dangerous.

“We have several hours before we get to Greed Island – that's plenty of time for us to become acquainted properly. And I'm sure that by the end of it, we'll have both learned some things about each other.”

The smile on Razor's face had never looked more menacing.

“After all, if there's anyone who can forgive me about what I'm about to do, it'll be my soulmate, right?”

[circus-clangen]

Can u tell us about ur process woth designing Candy and Peanut?

Absolutely! This goes hand in hand with this ask

So here’s kind of an all-encompassing “how Lynx designs these freaks” guide.

FIRST OF ALL

The name of the character almost always reflects and influences the design of the character. RNG assigned Tigertoe’s kits the names “sandykit” and “nutkit”, so honestly I didn’t have to do ANY thinking to decide what to name them.

I didn’t have to change much from Candy’s sprite as far as colors go, because she ALREADY was just built like a box of conversation hearts

For Peanut, I at first considered desaturating and warming his colors up to make him more peanut colored, but ultimately decided against that. Instead, I interpreted his spots to be like the shape of the indents on a peanut shell

SECONDLY

I know this isn’t always possible but I also pulled a lot from the designs of Candy and Peanuts family members for their designs.

Candy, for example, I wanted to strongly resemble Marquee but with a lot of Trapeze mixed in. Her face shape and eye shape are directly taken from Trapeze, whereas the shape language of her fur and her coloring is directly taken from Marquee.

For Peanut, I wanted him to strongly resemble Tiger and Ringstar…. (🦅), so he has Tiger’s face shape and goatee, as well as shape language, but he has that kind of weaselly hunched lankiness that Ring has.

These are both VERY OUTDATED because I designed them as adults to de-age to kit designs OVER A YEAR AGO but the general shapes and body types hold true… plus you can see me trying to make Peanut beige which I ultimately decided against

THIRDLY

I tend to have a very strong sense of what I want a character to look like, even if I don’t quite know what it is and have to do a ton of drafts to get there.

For candy and peanut, I knew I wanted her to look like she’d experienced nothing but horror and agony since before the womb

And I knew I wanted Peanut to look like this

Very dorky and unserious, so I gave him big ol front teeth and big round mouse ears

And LASTLY,

Design your characters and with what you like and what works for your story! You can see my designs change as my preferences and story needs change!

the designs start off very goofy and bright, because the story started off as a joke and something I did for fun, never intending to share

Once I put Circusclan on tumblr and it started to not only gain attention because become a scarier, more puzzle oriented story, I changed their designs to still be fun and silly and cartoony but also flexible enough to fit in with more serious scenes

And more recently, after deciding I wanted to go FULL scary beginning with moon 20, their designs changed to not only reflect the increasingly serious nature of the story, but also to reflect with some degree of realism the lore of cats who were really sentient enough to make similar stylistic choices to humans. Colors changed to show dying, hair changed to show cutting and styling, and accessories changed to reflect a more practical handmade nature, not to the mention the period the comic is set in.

And… most importantly…

Accept feedback, practice a lot, but ultimately trust yourself! Only you truly know what kind of design you want and what kind of a design fits your story. Don’t sacrifice your favorite design elements just to please others or just because it ‘doesn’t really make sense’. You want people to love your designs because they’re YOUR designs, so take whatever it is that you specifically enjoy about the design process and run with it! Make it your own! Don’t be afraid to really take your time and really pour your heart into a design.

ABOVE ANYTHING, you want your characters, your designs, and your story to be meaningful to YOU. Mess around, try things out, have fun, and all the while you’ll be building a design style that is markedly and distinctly unique and your own.

[vic-ivy]

Hullo! I've been wanting to ask what are your thoughts on the idea that Odysseus loves Penelope like a worshiper loves a god, but with Diomedes he loves him like a man.

I'm having mixed thoughts about this one since for me Odysseus puts Penelope on a pedestal. Diomedes on the other hand, he's seen him down and dirty during the war, so I wannna know your take on this:D

Hi! Gods, this is such an interesting topic. I would first say that I believe that everything can have multiple interpretations that are super valid, but you’re here for my personal opinion so here I go I guess haha. This is how I see Odypen and Odydio (mostly based on canon reasons):

I believe that Odysseus loves them in different ways, but I don’t know if I agree with the idea of him exactly “worshipping” Penelope. I think he believes her to be the perfect model of a woman, but not without flaws. He would not have married someone less smart and less resourceful. People might think that Odysseus sees Diomedes more as an equal than Penelope, but no, to Odysseus he and Penelope are cut from the same cloth. She is obviously calmer and not so prone to anger because she was raised as a woman, but their way of thinking and seeing the world is exactly the same. They are cunning and family oriented and ready to take what they believe they deserve by all means possible. For that I think Odysseus loves her as his own soul. He loves her as someone loves their own best qualities when they see them reflected in others. Maybe there is some worshipping, but not godlike. He adores her like a soul recognizing its own worth. She is all the best things in him but she can be his worst qualities too (rash, angry, in denial of reality, prideful, stubborn to the point of danger). Still, she is all the things he values.

Diomedes, on the other hand, might have some similar qualities, but he neither acts like Odysseus nor has the same life goals and worldview (at least when they met in Aulis) (war does change them). Does Odysseus love him more “humanly”, more “worldly”? Maybe. It is true that Odysseus has seen him at his worst, but I do believe he has also seen Penelope at her worst. I don’t think he sees Diomedes with less of a clouded judgment. However, their experiences together are what shapes their love. A love born in times of war, where both of them are showing their worst qualities, their nastier side. Odysseus loves that Diomedes has a control over himself and a way of letting go of that control that he can’t even dream of archiving. He loves the differences, the blood-soaked hands from wielding a spear, so blood-soaked as his are from scheming. He loves that they agree on the ends but not on the means most of the time. He hates and loves and hates that Diomedes seems to know exactly the right thing to do at all times but does not really have any personal desires. Odysseus’ love towards Diomedes is more like a constant storm, I believe. He loves the sharpness of their differences because he never had that, never thought he needed it. Still, with all their differences, once they are together in the silence of a tent, Diomedes is more like the eye of the storm. The calm of knowing (and perhaps taming) that what is unknown to everyone else.

Maybe what I mean with all that is that Odysseus loves that Penelope stabilizes him while Diomedes turns his world upside down. He certainly needs both.

In conclusion, Odysseus loves Penelope like a worshiper loves a god, but with Diomedes he loves him like a man? Not really. He loves them both like a man in need of love. He loves them as much as he can love his own best and worst. He loves and needs them like humans love and need comfort and change at the same time.

(So much incoherent rambling. Thank you if you read it all)

[thewistlingbadger]

Yes Silco hates Vi for what she did to Jinx and for being a dangerous threat to him that is outside of his control and out of fear that he'll lose Jinx to Vi but I also think he hates her because she doesn't fit the narrative he has constructed.

The entire basis of Silco's relationship with Jinx is that they are one in the same. He doesn't take her in because she had nobody, he doesn't take her in because he knows her, he doesn't take her in because he pities her, he takes her in for one reason and one reason alone:

"She left me. She is NOT my sister anymore!"

After she says this Silco looks down at her, looks up at Vander's corpse, and then diverts his attention back to Jinx. Silco takes comforts Jinx, takes her in, and raises her as his own daughter because he used to be her. Her pain over Vi is his pain over Vander. She is the first and only person he has ever met who could possibly understand and relate to his past with his brother.

This huge similarity between them is CRITICAL to their bond and is the foundation for everything when it comes to the two of them as a duo. Silco gives Jinx advice based on his own experiences and traumas. He tells her to let the past die and reinvent herself because it's what HE did after Vander betrayed him. He teaches her to be feared by others because it was what HE did after Vander betrayed him. These two examples were effective for both of them but also toxic. The show draws many visual and narrative parallels between Silco and Jinx to cement their kinship AND they have Silco just flat out say it several times throughout the show.

"Everyone betrays us, Jinx! Vander- HER! They will never understand. It's only us."

Life is entirely subjective and based off your own experiences and interpretations. Constructing a narrative is often a coping device humans will use to try to explain things that they do not truly grasp or understand. For example: If your partner cheats on you, you might construct the narrative that they never loved you in the first place, because you cannot reconcile the nature of your relationship with the fact that they ultimately treated you as disposable.

We see characters in arcane construct narratives to save themselves from heartache all the time. Young Viktor constructs the narrative that Singed is a bad and twisted man because he doesn't understand why Singed would go to the lengths he did to keep Rio alive. Vi constructs the narrative that Silco is keeping Jinx captive because she doesn't understand how else the two of them could be connected and simultaneously alive. Silco constructs the narrative that he was once a weak man because he cannot understand why Vander would mistreat him so harshly and how Silco didn't see it coming.

Silco is of the partial belief that he was betrayed because he was weak and had he not been weak, he wouldn't have been betrayed. At bare minimum he would have been able to defend himself from Vander's attack. Remember, Silco went about a decade without speaking to Vander. He never got his note. He doesn't know the true reason why Vander attacked him and he never gets a true apology either, even after he is finally reunited with Vander. Having to deal with something so painful without being given an explanation or stance of reasoning has resulted in Silco becoming a twisted man, who says shit like "the only way to defeat a superior enemy is to stop at nothing" and "I hated you but you kept my respect."

He passes this way of thinking down to Jinx because to him, they are one in the same. To him she is going to benefit from his advice because he knows what he's talking about. To him the betrayal of their siblings is what binds them and Jinx is the only close bond silco has in his life. Even before Vi's "betrayal" Silco saw the way she was like Vander. So to him those two have also been one in the same for a long time.

But when Vi comes back, she does not behave like Vander. When Vi is reunited with Jinx, the first thing she does is apologize for leaving Jinx. Vander never apologized to Silco for his betrayal, not even when he was given the chance later in life. All he said was that he had never forgiven himself for what he did. Vi continuously fights for Jinx throughout season one. Vander never fought for Silco at all, he completely gave up on him and even when Silco presented him with the opportunity to fight on the same side again, to be brothers again, Vander rejected him. Vi tells Jinx she's willing to walk away from everything as long as she has Jinx with her. Vander couldn't even muster up the courage to fight for his own people. Vi blames herself for what happened to Jinx and tries her best to make amends. Vander never took responsibility for his actions and didn't attempt reconciliation.

Jinx is supposed to be Silco and Vi is supposed to be Vander, but Vi is not Vander. She's a way better sibling and person than Vander ever was and Silco cannot reconcile with this. Because if Jinx is him, and he knows she is, then why did she get to have her sibling back and not Silco? Why did she get the one thing he desperately wanted for the longest of times? Why could Vi forgive Jinx but Vander couldn't forgive Silco? VI is supposed to be the bad, disgraced sibling but she is not. Everything she does post time skip in season 1 is about redeeming herself and putting in the effort to recover a lost relationship.

[castlebyersthoughts]

Okay, I heard there's a new Finn interview and both sides are celebrating, so I'm gonna give my two cents about Finn's answer.

I'm linking the full video, question is at 2:39. On a related note, please, guys, before you make up your mind about something and start to relay it, go check the source for yourselves. It's easy for people to cut something out of their posts and reactions, and this is how misinformation gets spread.

So, the question was: "What are your thoughts about the Eleven storyline?", which is such a vague question, what does it even mean? What Eleven storyline? I believe they meant the Mike and Eleven romance storyline, but it would've been interesting to see how they worded this question to Finn directly. Instead we'll just have to assume he's talking about Mike and El's romantic relationship.

I'll try to be objective first, then I'll give my opinion. In the first part of the answer, Finn's talking about how their relationship started as an "ET kind of thing" but then it "turns out to be a young girl that (Mike) ends up having feelings for". Once again, Finn doesn't seem to believe it was love at first sight for Mike. To be completely fair, this doesn't have to mean anything about season 5, it could be a difference of opinion between Finn and the writers, which is a thing that happens. Sometimes actors interprets their character's feelings differently.

So here Finn is re affirming the canon: Mike saw El as "creature" he had to protect, then ended up developping feelings for her and they got into a relationship. He could be saying the truth or he could lying here, in order not to spoil a certain season 5 twist, there's really no way to know. As a bi Mike truther though, I think that part was true. Notice how he never talked about Mike's current feelings for El though, he only said that the relationship evolved.

Then it becomes more interesting, as once again, Finn shifts the focus from Mike and El as a couple to instead talk about "having close relationships with people that are outsiders", which is something that he thinks "a lot of people identify with". If he was still talking about Mike and El, why did he say it like that? It would've been so easy to say "I think people see themselves in Mike and El because they're both outsiders and that's why they identify with this relationship". Simple and to the point. But he didn't, instead he kept it vague, not directly saying who he was talking about. So, definitely eyebrow-rising.

Then we get to the last part of the answer: "It's a storyline that I really liked doing and I think fans will be happy with in the fifth season". Knowing that the question was initially about Mike and El's relationship, I'll admit it would be a bit weird for Finn to say that fans would be happy with this relationship ending (even though we know most will). But there's also the possibility that he's talking about the whole Mike storyline of season 5, which includes the love triangle, and Mike eventually ending up with Will. If that's what he's thinking of here, it makes perfect sense to say that the people who identify with a relationship between outsiders will be happy with the resolution of this storyline, especially when we know that Finn is aware of how big the Byler fanbase is (I'm referring to his comment at the Paris Con). But we have no way of knowing for sure what he's talking about here, and he could still be talking about Mike and El, although I personally don't believe he is, mainly because of his use of "people".

So, my conclusion is: it's not exactly a clear win for us, but it's definitely a loss for M*leven, since Finn is still incapable of talking about their love and always has to shift the focus away from them, saying vague stuff and basically word soups instead. It's night and day compared to how Caleb talks about Lumax and how unconditional and forever their love is. I've seen this since the season 4 promo, every time Finn has to answer a M*leven question he searches his words and stutters and starts being super vague, it's so different from how he answers other questions. I also remember he already said the "relationships with people" thing during the season 4 press tour, it was basically: "Mike learns a lot about how he sees himself and his relationships with people", and we ended up getting a love triangle between Mike, El and Will. So I guess it's safe to say that the love triangle is continuing in season 5 (not that we needed confirmation).

Ultimately I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't rely on interviews because actors can say anything and lie and they have to come up with something on the spot that they may regret later when they think about it. Interviews should never be used as a way to prove or confirm something about a future season, instead it should be a fun little thing to analyze!

[mayasaura]

@spending-life-pretending

NO WE DON'T KNOW FOR SURE WHO SAYS THIS LINE!!

The book describes it as being said "so savagely that it sounded like a new voice altogether," with no further elaboration.

Aiglamene and Kiriona are talking over one another at this point in the conversation. Crux's response isn't very helpful because he could plausibly be talking to either of them. He never liked Gideon or Aiglamene, and he certainly believed he knew better than either of them what was best for the Ninth and best for Harrow.

Kiriona was my first assumption, too. Assuming this line comes from her, it shows some considerable evolution in her understanding of the relationship between the Ninth and Harrow, which she had always envied Harrow as a child. It's also tiny bit hypocritical. A sharp condemnation not just of the culture and people that failed Harrow so badly, but possibly also of herself and her way of thinking in Harrow the Ninth, lining up just like all the rest of them to shove her death down Harrow's throat as an offering.

The audiobook gives the line to Aiglamene. I had to think about it, but I like this interpretation as well. Giving the line to Aiglamene makes it a brief outburst from a woman who once believed the Ninth had a future worth waiting for, finally allowing herself to be angry that all they were waiting for was to die. That one way or another, all the Ninth knew how to give its children was death. I think she's due a moment of savagery on seeing the corpse of the child she thought she'd helped escape that cycle competing for the right to die again. She thought she'd gotten her out.

It drives me a little crazy, because both versions are good. Both versions are plausible. But they aren't entirely interchangeable in their implications, and there's no way to tell for sure which version is true.

On the balance, I still lean toward Kiriona. Aiglamene takes a bit more convicing to let Crux be the sacrifice, and it would be a damn quick about-face for her to lose her composure like this and then snap back to her titles and duty, volunteering to die herself. But Kiriona does also volunteer to die in this conversation, before being reminded she's already dead. Some ambiguity remains.

[elfieafterdark]

Okay everybody. I have something I want to talk about. Elfie has potentially contentious thoughts big shock here.

It's about how information is conveyed within Tasmyn's writing, and how everybody seems to forget this critical detail when it comes to one character in particular.

That's right bitches, this is:

Another John Gaius Rant

Brace yourselves for some takes under the break.

The Preamble

It's astounding to me, simply astounding to me that in a series where literally everyone withholds information from each other and from us the readers, Johnny boy gets a pass.

Everybody fucking lies in this series. Information is purposely withheld by Tasmyn, she purposely constructed Harrow the Ninth to be nigh incomprehensible until you get to the end of it, and even then some people still don't know what the fuck happened in it.

Gideon lies through omission, she isn't paying attention in the first book. So she isn't able to reliably narrate everything. But we also need to consider one of the brilliances of Tasmyn's writing. Gideon's bias informs her narration, she interprets what other characters do and makes her own decision on why they did it.

This is true of every narrator in the series, even though it's Gideon twice and Nona once. It's one of the best parts of Tasmyn's character writing:

characters are biased and often wrong

So many characters are wrong throughout the series. And yes you can get technical with it, you can get pedantic and say that they didn't know better.

But that doesn't change the fact that they were empirically wrong.

An example being everyone in Harrow who tells Harrow to let go of Gideon because she can't bring Gideon back.

Magnus tells her this. Abigail tells her this. And most notably, so does John. He says the *"cost is too great"*

So I need to point out here, that Harrow proves them all wrong. She brings Gideon back. Not half-assed like John does later, she brings Gideon back properly. Breathing. Heartbeat. Functional meatsuit. Gideon is fully resurrected in Harrow's body. Full stop.

Send tweet.

Harrow did it with a fucking lobotomy stick and some napkin math. Now people might say OUUUGHHHH but Harrow died to do it. Great cost. Reeeee!!!

Is she dead? Seems to be just chilling with John at the edge of the river, she might be technically dead sure.

BUT SHE COMES BACK TO LIFE QUITE EASILY AT LITERALLY NO COST AT THE END OF NONA.

Surprise, Gideon is back in her own body. Yes she's technically dead, but she is functional and is able to move and think. Gideon was in Harrow's body, fully alive at the end of htn.

And Harrow, assuming that she was dead through most of Nona, comes back to life for free. And people are still doubting that resurrecting Gideon is possible. Even though it's already been done. Several times.

And a big reason why everybody seems to be so doubtful of them both being alive, are the words of one fucking man who seems exempt from the golden rule of TLT.

So why do you all take John at face value? You know, the guy who's been on record lying the most? The most out of literally everyone in the series? Shall we tally his lies?

Well first of all he lies to his friends that he knew them before the great dying 2. He lies to himself when he says there was no other way to save humanity than to kill every single person.

He lies to his friends after resurrecting them that the only way for them to live forever is to eat their bestie's souls. Let me be clear. John was fucking lying here, that's a big part of why everything goes to shit at the end of htn. Because John lied about some fundamental rule of reality.

He said there was no way to keep your Cavalier alive and be immortal. He said it was impossible. He encouraged them to do it the wrong way, and he stood by while half of his friends died for no reason. Just so he could what?? Keep being the best like no one ever was???

John lies. He lies about why G1deon keeps attacking Harrow. He lies about the resurrection beasts being a threat to him at all, because they aren't. They can't hurt him. Which could of course also be a lie but I'm inclined to believe that one because he's partially Alecto. He's one of them. Oh he also lied about Alecto being his Cavalier. There's another huge lie. He also lied about Anastasia messing up her special lyctor form, I don't know this one definitively but I just have a feeling based on everything we know.

John lies in big ways and small ways throughout the series. His entire society, the civilization he built is built on a lie. His lie.

So why do we believe anything he has to say about the world? Genuinely, why do people believe him? He's a big fat stinky handsome liar.

I wrote this entire rant with a very minor migraine solely for the purpose of illustrating why we shouldn't use John Gaius of all people as "proof" that Gideon and Harrow both can't be alive at the same time because one or both of them died.

Wonderful people, it's a story about necromancers. Gideon's going to be brought back to life somehow. Or they'll both die, if Tasmyn wants to make us feel sad forever.

I'm telling ya, y'all are way too easy on that man. He's a stinky sneaky slimeball. Never trust a twitch streamer.

I'll rant about the themes of the book another time.

[cosmicgendershifter]

I'm having a fascinating time rewatching Our Flag Means Death with the knowledge that Ed sees Izzy as a "safe" mentor/family figure ("safe" because Izzy is Ed's subordinate aboard the ship, which creates a more balanced power dynamic) upon whom Ed projects his many unresolved daddy issues. That stated interpretation from David Jenkins does work, even in season one!

Most of the fandom conceptualized season one Izzy as a power-hungry subordinate to Ed and a "co-parent" to the crew (paralleled with the Stede/Mary marriage) who has an understated masochist lust for the Blackbeard legend. All of that is true too, because Ed and Izzy's relationship is incredibly complex and fucked-up. I know from personal experience that this kind of layered toxic relationship is completely possible, though it might seem contradictory on the surface.

In season one, Ed considering Izzy as a mentor/family explains more why Ed let his first mate be so insulting to and controlling of him and still kept wanting Izzy to stay beside him. It adds more meaning to how Ed veers super hard into the violent Blackbeard role after feeling cornered and threatened by Izzy at the end of the season. (This also has further weight for those of us with family members who have disapproved quite loudly of our queer relationships.)

There is a strong parallel that I noticed previously between young Ed's reaction to his father abusing his mother and season one Ed's reaction to Izzy dueling Stede. Stede is linked to Ed's mother through the red silk and through the fact that Stede and Ed's mother--and Lucius--are the only people we see treating Ed with compassion/softness in season one. It thus makes sense for Izzy to be mirroring Ed's father.

Then there's another parallel in how Ed responded to Izzy mentioning Stede in a mocking way ("pining for his boyfriend") by choking Izzy, like how Ed had once responded to his father threatening his mother by strangling his father. In this moment, Izzy touched Ed's face with an intimate kind of familiarity and said, "There he is." Ed clearly found this unnerving, which some people read as sexually harassment, but it makes just as much sense for it to be his daddy issues getting triggered.

(GIF Sources: captain-flint and divineandmajesticinone)

I think part of why this dynamic was unclear in season one is because the writers wanted us to see that, even though Izzy is a mentor figure who taught Ed certain skills, Ed is a grown man who is fully competent on his own. He had likely started building the Blackbeard legend by the time Izzy met him, he has a clever mind that's constantly coming up with new plans, and when Izzy himself was left as captain, Izzy proved to not have the necessary charisma and compassion to lead the crew. Ed is the star power; Izzy is the manager, so to speak.

However, Izzy overestimates his importance and often talks about himself like he's a martyr to the Blackbeard legend, working so hard to keep both Ed and the crew in line. He claims that he's been "clean[ing] up [Ed's] messes... my whole life," which feels like a very parental complaint to me.

Ed fuels this martyr complex some in season two by physically harming Izzy, but notably, Ed doesn't threaten this kind of harm to the rest of the crew (though he isn't very careful with them either) until he's in the suicidal spiral of driving the ship into a storm. Before that, Ed threatens Izzy specifically, both because Izzy threatened him and Stede in season one and because Ed's trying, in his own fucked-up way, to prove to Izzy that he's following Izzy's guidance and "being Blackbeard." The toe-cutting also has some metaphorical weight: Izzy demanded that Ed "cut off" the gentler pieces of himself to be Blackbeard, so Ed starts cutting off literal pieces of Izzy in return. When it becomes clear that this isn't satisfying Izzy either, that's when Ed really goes off the deep end. ("I loved you the best I could," but I never could be enough to fit your expectations.)

(GIF Source: livelovecaliforniadreams)

Meanwhile, we see Izzy starting to question things specifically in response to Ed saying that Izzy could be replaced as first mate. Izzy thought his place, as a mentor/family and self-professed "martyr", was more secure than that, and it challenges his whole identity.

Throughout season two, the mentor/family dynamic is further emphasized via the parallel between Izzy/Ed/Stede and Auntie/Zheng Yi Sao/Oluwande. Others have discussed this more, but there's so much meaning in the similar ways these characters carry themselves, in the tension of Auntie disapproving of Zheng Yi Sao's feelings for "soft" Oluwande, and in the way Oluwande finally teaches Auntie to soften herself some for Zheng Yi Sao.

(GIF Source: bizarrelittlemew)

Additionally, in episode five of season two, we see Stede turning to Izzy for mentorship, proclaiming that Ed himself had recommended Izzy as someone who "made him into the captain he is today." People have questioned that as being a false manipulation from Stede, but I think there's a good chance that it was true! (Ed probably said this to Stede sometime during season one, when the two of them got to know each other so well.) "Taught him everything he knows" is definitely a flattering exaggeration, but hey.

(GIF Source: ofmdaily)

Throughout this and other episodes, we see Izzy continuing to take on a mentor-like role with Stede and the crew (and eventually Ed) as he tries to recenter himself after the darkness of the first three episodes. It's clear that Izzy is most comfortable playing the gruff and politically incorrect old fighter who offers guidance, but now he's letting himself branch out more and connect to the crew in new gentler ways. He even metaphorically "gives his blessing" to Ed and Stede's first time having sex by providing the musical accompaniment, which is the perfect amount of weird for this show, haha.

(GIF Source: izzyfag)

Izzy's transformative arc in season two also involves a steady pattern of reversals, corrected new versions of his treatment of Ed in season one, as Izzy start coming to terms with the harm he did to Ed. Other people have discussed this in more detail, but I think the pace of this change is realistic to what you would see in such a situation. Ed's responses to this, too, are consistent with him seeing Izzy as a mentor/family.

(GIF Source: edwards-teach)

I should further note that Izzy and Benjamin Hornigold (another abusive father figure from Ed's past) are two characters mirrored by the fact that they call Ed "Eddie" in season two. I can imagine that being the nickname Ed used when he was younger, before growing out of it. Izzy seems to start feeling the echo of that memory of younger Ed when Ed comes to him scared, asking for Izzy to "fix [his] mess" by shooting Ed like Ed "dreamed" about.

(GIF Source: blairpfaff)

Right before Izzy's death, there's a scene where Ed is triggered super hard in his daddy issues by the fisherman "Pop-Pop." I think the writers wanted to remind us of the parental trauma Ed has been through before giving us some catharsis through Izzy's deathbed confession and apology. In that moment, Izzy takes full accountability for what he did, while Ed cries and says, "You're my only family." Izzy redirects him in a final bit of mentorly guidance, telling Ed that the crew is there to be his family if Ed will let himself be loved, truly, in the way Ed has often rejected and distanced himself from being loved.

(GIF Source: izzyfag)

Now, I do think Izzy's death was the right choice for this show. I like that DJenkins went with the classic mentor death trope, and he did a similar thing with Buttons, the other old-timer first mate! I agree likewise with those who have discussed Izzy's loss as being a necessary step for the narrative to move forward both from Ed's darker self/parental trauma and from the older age of piracy that Izzy represents. Izzy was always meant to be a dark reflection of and a narrative support/conflict for Ed, and this is the natural culmination of that. His complicated legacy will continue to be something Ed has to reckon with, however, although Ed is trying to compartmentalize that right now.

I very much hope to see, in season three (🤞🏻), how Ed continues to process his past, especially now that he's trying for a domestic life that will likely lead into marriage. Marriage, from what I've seen, often acts as a staging ground for whatever parental trauma you had growing up, because you look to your parental figures as an example of how to do "adult" things. This is going to be a huge conflict for both Ed and Stede, who has his own personal negative marriage experience. I suspect Izzy will continue to represent this problem in some form or another.

(GIF Sources: kiwistede and yenvengerberg)

[hanamukes]

Uika and her inner monster, Doloris

Admittedly when I first watched It's MyGO and Ave Mujica 0th, I didn't really think much of Uika. She and Doloris are presented as such vastly different entities that my brain kind of glossed over her, because I don't tend to go crazy for characters who are presented to us as always being bright and warm. Even when the last episode aired and I saw her undergo the transformation from Uika into Doloris, it still hadn't fully set in for me (though perhaps this is simply because I was busy losing my mind in excitement about seeing Ave Mujica at all as well as the sequel announcement).

But reading the interviews that came out after the anime finished airing completely changed that. Uika is Tomori's opposite in every regard? She has a secret so intense it made her voice actress stand out of her chair and yell when she heard it? I need to know more! What on earth could this seemingly kind character be hiding?

I've been keeping a close eye on her content ever since, and it's slowly making me feel insane. So, in anticipation for the anime, as well as their 4th concert which will happen in December and thus give us even more Doloris lore, I wanted to compile a post on the both of them in which I will present my various thoughts and theories.

Doloris

Uika is, in the most literal sense, Doloris' actress. This could perhaps lend to many believing that Uika is not Doloris, or rather that Doloris is not Uika. At the same time, I want to pose a very simple question.

Who came first: Doloris or Uika?

Timeline-wise, Doloris came first. Can Uika even exist without Doloris? Can she be who she is without us immediately recognizing her as being Doloris? What came first was not "Doloris is a puppet persona Uika plays as on stage," but rather it was "Uika is Doloris from Ave Mujica." This was their intent; to introduce Doloris to us, and then to introduce this girl who has an identical design to her in the anime, who is seemingly her exact opposite. What weight could Uika's scenes hold, if not to tell us that she will later turn into the monster known as Doloris? On her own, without Doloris, what does Uika represent?

Doloris herself talks about wanting to be seen for her true self. Is Uika Doloris' true self, or is Doloris Uika's true self? Which is it that they want us to believe? Which one does "Uika" want us to believe? Which one is Sakiko, or perhaps Oblivionis, trying to convince us to believe? Who is "Uika"?

Our introduction to this character was not a Sumimi scene, or her consoling someone, or a frame of her smiling, or of her expressing her love for music. It was this.

This creepy, disturbing montage of Doloris, covered in blood, inviting someone into her cult. Inviting you into her cult. Inviting you to dig deeper.

Though if you want to go even further back, I would argue our first, true genuine introduction was Black Birthday itself.

You see, I don't believe there's any true and correct way to interpret Ave Mujica's songs. The songs are whatever you make of them. That's part of the insanity of Ave Mujica; of never having a proper answer, of always wanting to dig deeper. So I won't say this is that correct reading, but rather one of the infinite possibilities. That said, after watching the intermissions from their concerts as we currently know them, I can't help but feel their first 6 songs perfectly tell the story of Doloris. It goes something like this:

Black Birthday: Doloris' rebirth into her true self. The dyeing of one's purity into corruption. Finally being able to see what was once unseeable (perhaps the light in the pitch black darkness, which she discusses a lot in their stage plays). It's a disturbing birthday party welcoming the new her.

The Two Moons ~Deep Into the Forest~: Now reborn, she finds herself lost in a forest. The play sequence in the last episode of It's MyGO feels reminiscent to this song; Doloris straying into a forest (Loft Moon), while Oblivionis ridicules her, and yet she's so beautiful she cannot take her eyes off her despite the pain of having her heart torn asunder. The song even has imagery describing candles lit on a table, which we can see in the anime rendition of this scene.

Choir 'S' Choir: She's slowly giving in to the insanity of Ave Mujica. This song reminds me a lot of Perdere Omnia; when she finally stops her denial and begins to understand why the others wish to destroy the world. She's letting herself become an esquire, a fallen angel if you will. She hears voices screaming at her, and she knows she's being hunted down, but she keeps dancing anyway. She's testing out her new abilities.

God, You're a Fool: This song represents her inner doubts. What exactly are they fighting for? For whose sake? Why do they have to be in this situation to begin with? If God wasn't a fool, surely everything would be fine... right?

Mas?uerade Rhapsody Re?uest: She's decided she no longer cares about anything. No longer cares how corrupted she becomes, no longer cares to hide her dark feelings. She's just going to fully embrace it all, she's going to let herself be taken by the shadowy jesters. The mask is a part of her now.

Ave Mujica: With her mask as her skin, it's her turn to lure others in. She's going to corrupt you. She reassures you that those with masks will fulfill your any wish, and that even though this is a place of no return, don't worry, there's nothing to be scared of.

It's interesting, because while the songs can apply to anyone (the other dolls for one, and perhaps even the listeners themselves), I can't ignore the parallels between the story these songs are telling, and the story of Doloris as we've seen in the concert intermissions. (Regarding the Utopia single and the ELEMENTS series, those songs were written more to fit a specific narrative, and I don't think they apply to the dolls themselves as directly. That's just my own personal take on them though and is why I won't be analyzing them here)

As for the intermissions themselves, there's a lot going on in them and much of Doloris' dialogue isn't about herself, but I want to go over some general observations:

Doloris uses 僕 (boku). This is significant because she's the only one who has a personal pronoun that differs from her actress; Uika uses 私(watashi). Ave Mujica songs use 私 (watashi) as well, though I don't think this means much in the context of Uika or Doloris because it's just for formality (if anything, it's interesting because it's an inverse of Uika's narrative opposite, Tomori; who uses 私 (watashi) in her daily speech but 僕 (boku) in her songs). That said, in Quaerere Lumina, there's a segment where "Doloris" switches to 私 (watashi), which many found haunting because it almost felt as if those words came from Uika herself, and that she switched back to Doloris after speaking vulnerable words from her heart.

She uses 君 (kimi; "you") in an interesting way. In Perdere Omnia, this referred to Oblivionis. In Veritas, however, she uses this repeatedly in the context of "someone" who she wants to be reborn with. It's someone who extended a hand to her, and who took her mask off her. It's someone she wants to be with for the rest of her life, just the two of them. And at the end, she uses it in reference to you, the audience, who will surely attend their next concert. Who is it that removed her mask? Oblivionis, or us? (Like many things in Ave Mujica, my own interpretation on this is that it's probably Oblivionis, because at its core, this is a yuri band, and Oblivionis is in fact someone who we've seen accept Doloris for who she is)

Each doll has a specific thing they focus on: Oblivionis stands her ground despite everything but also talks about finding things pitiful, Timoris is logical and an observer who wants to be acknowledged, Amoris talks about her lost love and boredom, Mortis talks about peace and quiet as well as the beauty in death. For Doloris, the thing she highlights that the others don't is us watching her slowly spiral into insanity, and particularly as of Veritas, her sense of her own body (as well as this attachment to someone else, as mentioned above). She sees herself as an empty shell, which is true for the others as well, but on top of this she has a fixation on her mask and the relationship it has with her body. It's her skin, and simultaneously, if you remove it, below that you'll find her true, perhaps ugly self. It means a lot to her that someone could love the her that exists without the mask. (Is this intended to be foreshadowing for the relationship between Doloris and Uika, and which of the two of them is her truest self?)

Doloris is an embodiment of insecurity, and simultaneously, she's a ferocious monster when she performs. Rico Sasaki herself claims that she feels like Doloris possesses her when they hold concerts. Her voice is cold, bitter and pained; it's a far cry from Uika's speaking voice, which is so warm and comforting. She is plagued with sorrow, of which she would rather die and be reborn than have to deal with. Her ideal world is simply one of being together with the one who accepts her in all of her ugliness.

Uika

There's a sort of trend to Uika's scenes: when she's around someone else, she waits for them to talk or express emotion before she matches their energy, and when she's alone, she drops the happy idol facade. The very first time we ever see her, she's doing just this.

This is also apparent in two other (coincidentally Sumimi) scenes, where the same thing happens in each: Uika is matching the energy of who she's talking to, but the second she's separated from them by a door, she has an almost empty expression on her face.

(The fact this has happened for both Sumimi scenes, when Uika has so little screentime so every second we see of her is supposed to be precious, has me really wondering just how much she likes her "dream job." Also, I wonder if this is a coincidence: immediately after both of these shots, she looks at her phone and sees Sakiko on her screen which cheers her up (the first is an old text, the second is a phone call))

It's something that on its own feels a bit deliberate, but when you take a certain intermission from their concerts into consideration, it really does become something you can't ignore.

This is the one part of the concert intermissions in which Doloris uses 私 (watashi). This is what many interpret to be Uika's words.

To put this simply, she feels as if she's an empty shell who has to match the energy of the people around her. When nobody is there to give her something to react to, she reverts to that husk. This is exactly the vibe I get from a lot of her scenes in the anime.

(I talked in depth about these two scenes in my Taki&Uika writeup so please do check that out for my thoughts on them, but to recap for this context: it's interesting to me how she looks so "empty" until she reads Sakiko's message (and feels seen by her, thus breaking her out of that state; I also want to mention she never messaged Sakiko first despite having her phone number, which to me is such an explicit example of her feeling like she doesn't exist unless someone else contacts her first that you may as well have a bright red arrow pointing at it), and on the right we can see her matching Sakiko's energy)

And actually, she almost implies as much to Mana directly.

"It's easy for me to sing when I'm with you, Mana-chan." On the surface, this just seems like something she's saying to make her excitable partner happy, to show agreement even though she's exhausted and not nearly as excited as she is. Mana reacts, calling it a compliment. But is it really? Her wording here is deliberate: she can only sing well because she's with her. Because she's being seen by someone else. Watching all of their scenes, I can't shake the feeling that Uika would not "shine" as an idol without Mana by her side. Immediately before this, Mana's happily waving and thanking the filming crew while Uika gives them a more heartless nod. Uika's appeal as an idol is that she's "cool" (this is written on her character bio), so it's not that I would expect her to match Mana's energy in that sense (who's appeal is her energy)... but I do wonder what she would be like in this context without Mana, given she already seems rather tense even with her. (Here's an easily missable clip of her sighing the second she's alone)

What about her comforting Tomori? Surely that was the one scene where she was acting of her own emotions? And what about when she talked to her in the final episode? It's not as if she was matching Tomori's energy 1:1! She reached out to her on her own!

And maybe that's true. However, consider this: that happened after she got Sakiko back in her life. Is an empty husk still just a shell if the one who's there to look at her―and bring her to life―is by her side now?

Let's take a closer look at these scenes though, shall we?

The planetarium. Uika was there to look at the stars, which are reflective of her childhood memories with Sakiko. Then, she finds Tomori, who she recognizes as being from Crychic (because she attended their concert a year ago). I could believe it if she sat next to her because Tomori looked upset; Tomori has subtle facial expressions yes, but it's pretty obvious when she's hurt. She decides to sit next to her, but her seat won't recline (I've seen people point out that she's been there before, so she surely would have known how to put the seat down; I think this is very funny and could be true, though I do want to point out Tomori said "this seat works like this" and Uika was sitting in a different seat than we saw in episode 8 anyway). Tomori helps her and they make indescribable eye contact briefly before they go back to watching the stars.

Then she kept an eye on her when they left and caught her on the stairs. Pretty standard stuff. From the get-go though, she was matching Tomori's energy. This is really subtle and more obvious in motion, but when she's asking if Tomori's okay, Tomori's head dips down twice, and each time Tomori's head dips, Uika's dips down a second or two later to match her.

If it was just once, I wouldn't think anything of it, but twice? Why is she studying her reaction this closely to the point of replicating it?

Then this happens, and I'll just leave my commentary from a year ago because it still applies:

Uika stares at Tomori and the Crychic photo that she saw on their social media comes to mind. She focuses in on Sakiko and Tomori... but moreso Sakiko. This kind of goes under the radar as it comes across as her bringing up stars because she knows it's something Tomori clearly likes and thus could be a bridge of conversation between them, so to speak, but I can't shake the fact that thinking about Sakiko was what prompted her to start talking about the stars she can see in Tokyo. Sakiko, who she was separated from for so long and who she was only able to reunite with in Tokyo.

(As a side note before I continue, this conversation makes me wonder how familiar she is with Tokyo. I'm not well-versed in Japan's geography nor do we really know anything about Uika's personal life, but I do know she lived on an island as a kid because she says Sakiko visited her island. It's also her chat icon)

Another easily missable detail, but when she picks up Tomori's notes, she waits a second for Tomori to give "consent" (via eye contact) before she continues talking. I'll also just mention here that I do think Uika meant what she said about singing being something that conveys someone's heart, and I feel like this was the most honest she was in the entire show.

Moving on to the episode 13 confrontation. I'll be honest, this whole interaction is very weird and as I'm typing up this post I'm still not sure what to make of a lot of it.

Once again, Uika is in the planetarium, this time in the same seat she was in for episode 8 before she met up with Sakiko (starting to see a theme here). Then she spots Tomori and grabs her shoulder, calling her Tomori-chan. Tomori seems confused so she checks that it really is "Tomori" and says they met there before. She does the same thing she did in episode 10 where when Tomori shifts her head, she shifts hers too while she's talking to her.

I like this shot because it feels like she instantly goes into "handsome" mode when she realizes this girl is a fan of "Sumimi's Uika."

This is where this interaction gets weird, because Tomori says she doesn't know who Uika is, and Uika responds with... "I'm glad she doesn't." Huh? Even Anon herself says "Huh?" out loud here. I could not possibly give you an explanation for why Uika would be "glad" that Tomori doesn't know who she is. Why is she trying to get close with her if she doesn't care that Tomori doesn't know her?

Then she asks if Tomori's song worked and Tomori says yes. It still feels like she's trying to gauge her feelings (but for what?). Then she claims she doesn't know Tomori, they just "met at the planetarium before." Anon seems pretty weirded out still. Then she changes the subject and asks if the two of them are in a band. When Anon shows her her phone, which has all the band members listed, she stares at it for a second before asking if she can follow.

(Anon's face being cut off here is interesting to me given this is from Uika's point of view, and really what could be so interesting in that photo?)

The length in which she stares at it makes me think this is likely how she learned MyGO exists, though I can't really piece together what she gets out of this aside from knowing what band Tomori is in. Then she asks if she can follow them and leaves. The whole interaction feels so pointless yet so deliberate: we didn't get closure on Taki's character arc in this episode, but we got this scene of Uika following MyGO's social media account? I'll be interested in seeing how this is relevant later on.

Oh, and the most important part of this scene: Tomori never told Uika her name. Anon is visibly weirded out by this. Of course, this scene is also followed by another shot of Uika not having to match anyone's energy, looking stern as she seems to whenever she's by herself. (She's looking at Crychic's social media page and commenting on how Tomori is from Sakiko's old band, by the way; how did she pull that up so fast? She just sat down?)

Uika and Tomori are narrative opposites. The director for the anime stated that Uika is her polar opposite in every regard. Ricochi also pointed out that while Tomori's songs turn her human, Uika's turn her into a monster. Their episode 10 confrontation was intended to be them meeting before the Ave Mujica ball gets rolling, so to speak, in order to allow them to contrast greater when the sequel comes out.

In general, what I make of Uika's cheerfulness is it's reflective of something Ricochi said in regards to Ave Mujica as a whole: like the moon, she can't shine on her own, but when others look at her, a light glistens from her. It almost makes me wonder if she wanted to become an idol in order to, like she said in her introduction clip with Mana, "make others feel better too" with her songs, at an attempt to mask the fact she can't shine when she's alone herself.

Those are the biggest points I wanted to articulate, so below I'll drop some other observations.

Regarding the flashback scene of Uika and Sakiko as kids... Uika is blushing here when Sakiko is not.

Normally I wouldn't think anything of this, because that's just how the models are (for instance, Sakiko's casual clothes model seems to always have the blush regardless of her mood, while Oblivionis of course doesn't; Uika's model also doesn't have a constant blush), but this scene was hand drawn. It's more deliberate. I don't want to insinuate that this implies Uika cares more about Sakiko than Sakiko cares about Uika because I don't think that's what they meant here at all, just that these specific memories may hold different meaning to Uika than they do for Sakiko. Perhaps more importantly though (and even less obvious) is that Uika's hair looks longer in the shot of them looking at the stars than it was for their meeting and the bug catching. It makes you wonder how much time may have passed between those two memories. (I do recognize this may have just been a continuity error of sorts, but she is wearing a different outfit too)

In Sakiko's conversation to Nyamu, she hints that she got Uika for her band because of Sumimi's popularity. This is interesting to me because in episode 7, she absolutely... glares? at the Sumimi music video.

...Which makes you wonder how she really felt looking at it. In any case, I don't think it was just for the fame because you don't exactly call somebody and tell them to help you forget everything if it's just for the money. That's a pretty intimate thing to ask somebody, and especially for Sakiko who up until then had been actively avoiding speaking anything from her heart. We also know that Uika does the lyrics for Ave Mujica, so we can truly only make guesses as to what transpired between their talk and the final episode...

Oh, also, when Sakiko calls Uika, she blushes. Which feels pretty notable to me when seconds beforehand she was in "cool, kind of broody idol" mode.

As for the last episode...

When Nyamu asks if she can go to Uika's place, she says yes! It makes you wonder how close she is with everyone by this point, and also what her home life looks like.

This one is sold on the voice work, but she sounds super happy to get to see Sakiko.

This also happens at the end of the episode, when she asks if she can ride the train home with Sakiko despite the fact she got there in a cab. I wrote my thoughts about this here, but it is interesting to me how it implies she might not know about Sakiko's home life at this point.

For this line, it's not lost on me how similar this dialogue is in reflection to what Doloris says in their stage play immediately after; with Oblivionis talking about them being dolls, and Doloris questioning her every word. It's as if she'd turned into Doloris the second she put her mask on...

Tying it all together

What's striking to me is that in all the trailers for the Ave Mujica anime―which by all means will be where we learn more about Uika―we've only seen one shot of her.

The rest have been Doloris. From this we can presume that the doll lore from their concerts will be relevant to the actresses, we just don't know to what extent.

It's scary really, because... seriously, even if Uika does feel like an empty shell, there's more to it than just that. And despite all of my analysis up until this point, I have not a single clue what her actual deal could be. Even after I post this, I'll continue to watch her scenes over and over, trying to piece things together with what little we have right now.

I'll be very interested to see both Doloris and Uika in the upcoming anime, and in what ways the lines between them are blurred.

[booksandmate]

On understanding and other things

I think part of the reason why that final talk is so painful is because it shows that they don't know each other as well as they wanted to believe. Both of their ideas about who the other is and what they want are based mostly on what they want the other to be and not on who they really are.

They both want to be together, but in different ways. Aziraphale wants them to be on the same side, on the side of heaven. Crowley wants them to be on their own side, one apart from heaven and hell and everything they know, one where they can be themselves as Crowley and Aziraphale, not as angel and demon or even angel and angel.

And I think the reason they want such different things has to do with a number of things that could be summed up in their different life experiences and, consequently, their views on idealism and big changes.

Aziraphale never got over who they were in the beginning. I think for both of them that might have been one of the most beautiful moments of their lives, because they were still together, on the same side, simply in awe of the beauty of creation and unaware of the problems that would arise in the future. It is the only part of their history where they could be on the same side without breaking the rules, so it is only natural that Aziraphale remembers it as the best of times. But it ended with Crowley being unfairly cast out, so it's only sensible that he has a completely different perception.

And Aziraphale still believes Crowley to be an angel. He interprets his rejection of evil and his pursuit of goodness as a remnant of the angel he used to be and his desire to be one again. And actually, this interpretation makes sense, but it’s just not the correct one. Crowley has again and again denied his demon nature, doing everything in his power to do as little evil as possible without his head office noticing, yes, but not because he wants to be an angel.

Crowley has given up the idea of heaven as fundamentally good a long time ago, as it has proven, in more than one ocassion, to be capable of as much cruelty as hell itself in the name of an imagined greater good. Crowley's experience as an angel was good only at the very beginning. Once he learned that heaven was more about following rules than doing good, his idea of it was lost.

In short, Crowley doesn't want to be a demon any more than he wants to be an angel. It is not a matter of which side, but of the existence of sides per se. He does not like the system and does not want to be part of it from either side.

That is why he is hurt, because after so long, Aziraphale misunderstood his true nature. Crowley wants to be good, yes, but not in an angelic way. He doesn't want to go back to the place where rules and great plans matter more than real goodness. He just wants to be himself, outside of preconceived ideas of good and evil.

And so Aziraphale's offer to return to all that comes to Crowley as a disappointment. To realise that after all these years the one person you can consider a friend doesn't really understand you, the one person who has stood by you, listened to you, protected you, and done everything that no one else ever did. That even that person can't understand what you are, well, it must have felt like a stab in the chest.

And the same is true the other way around.

Crowley wanted to think that after the events of s1, Aziraphale had finally accepted who he was and what he (they) wanted. In the same way that Crowley hasn't been good at being a demon, Aziraphale hasn't been good at being an angel, and Crowley thinks that puts them in the same place. But it doesn't, because although Aziraphale is not just a clueless angel who silently follows the rules, neither has he been let down in the same way that Crowley has.

As I mentioned earlier, their difference of opinion is based (not entirely, but largely) on their different experiences of heaven. Aziraphale has been let down by heaven a couple of times throughout history, but none of them could match what Crowley had to go through when he was cast out. Aziraphale knows this, but he can never truly understand it.

So even when they both understand that heaven is not ideal, one of them approaches it with exasperating idealism, while the other doesn't even try anymore.

[wonder-innie]

Hiiii I wanted to know if you could do, that jeongin calls the reader clingy so they distance themselves! If you could I would be sooooo thankful 💗💗

clingy

bf!jeongin x fem!reader. angst (and bit of fluff)

word count: 1.3k (i was inspired lmao)

a.n: i loooved this request, thanks for sending it. english is not my first language, but i did my best!

It’s been two weeks since Jeongin said that word, and you haven't seen him in just as long. You get it, he is very busy person with a lot of schedules; he is an idol, after all. It just… hurt, being called clingy by someone you loved so much, even if he didn’t mean to hurt you.

You used to start almost all the conversations, but you stopped doing it. There was this one time when you were going to send him a picture of a cat you found on the street, and when you were about to press “send”, you turned the phone off. You wanted to give him space, if he wanted to talk, he could just do it.

On the other hand, Jeongin was suffering just as much as you. He said it to you because he was under so much stress due to the upcoming comeback, training day and night. He remembered how your expression changed the moment the word came out of his mind. He instantly regretted it but it was true he needed some space.

That brought you both to this moment, not talking at all. You interpreted his words as "I need space," and he was silent because the guilt was killing him; he couldn’t find the right words to apologize. It was ironic, he thought pushing you away would make him more productive, but it had the reverse effect. He started making mistakes during practice because he couldn’t stop thinking about you, thinking about how hurt you must be feeling.

Jeongin was invited to a charity event a month ago, he was allowed to bring a companion and he chose you. You even bought a dress for the occasion. When you woke up you looked at the date, it was the event day. You sighed, not knowing what to do; on one side, you knew you were added to the guest list and it would disrespectful not attending. However, Jeongin was going to be there, and you couldn’t help but to imagine an scenario in which he would, once again, call you clingy for attending since it was originally his invitation.

You stared at the sealing for a long time, thinking about all the possible scenarios and what was the best thing to do. “Fuck it” you said out loud, and started getting ready for the event.

It was half past eight and you were already in the backseat of the uber, wearing that beautiful dress with an expensive perfume (that Jeongin loved) on. When you arrived you left the car and walked towards the front door.

Once inside you didn’t know what to do. You looked around and saw people who were dressed as fancy as you for the occasion talking with each other. You felt ridiculous just standing there so you decided to go to the bathroom, you didn’t need to but it was the only thing you came up with. After asking where was it, you headed to it.

On your way, you saw Jeongin talking with the other members, you had a side view so if you were fast enough he would notice you. However, you kept staring at him for a few seconds. He looked so handsome in a tuxedo, you were dying to be in his arms, to kiss him. Suddenly, he turned his head and you catches his eye. He was shocked, he wasn’t expecting you. He couldn’t believe how pretty you looked in that dress, he didn’t make a move, was totally frozen.

Jeongin and you lost in each other eyes, it was like if time stopped, like if you were the only ones in the room. He took a step in your direction, making you come back to your senses. You got nervous and walked quickly to the women’s bathroom, Jeongin wanted to catch you but you got lost in the multitude.

You lied your hands in the bathroom sink as you exhale deeply. You raised your head and saw yourself in the mirror, you started to count your breathing trying to calm down. Your phone vibrated and you took it out of your purse with shaking hands. As you feared, it was a text from Jeongin asking where were you. You read it through the notification bar, so he wouldn’t know you opened the chat.

You spent a few seconds staring at the screen without knowing what to do. You gulped, put your phone back in the purse and came out of the bathroom. Outside, you moved your head in both directions making sure Jeongin wasn’t there. You went to the balcony which was far from where you found Jeongin.

There, you walked to the railing and rested your elbows there. You felt your how a breeze of air hit your face and hair as you were looking the beautiful night sky full of stars. You remembered that time when Jeongin took you to a planetarium, you missed him so much even though he was in the same place as you.

“Y/N” a familiar voice called you, it was Jeongin. You didn’t want to look at him again, but you couldn’t help to turned your head. This time, you looked at the floor instead of him.

Jeongin kept waking towards you until he was in front you. You didn’t say anything, still not looking at him. You both stayed in a deadly silence for a moment, the only thing you heard was people chatting inside and the wind.

“Hey… it’s been a while” he said nervously. You nodded slightly with you eyes now seeing his shoes. “So… how have you been?” he asked, trying to hear your voice, the one he missed so much.

“Fine” you replied. You close your hands into a fist and started squeezing them hard, feeling how your own nails stabbed your skin. “I’m sorry, coming here was a mistake, I don’t know what I was thinking” you took a step to the right in order to leave and avoid him.

Jeongin didn’t want you to go so he grabbed your waist with his left hand, making your heart stop for a second. “Stay… please”. His right hand went to your cheek and made you raise your head. You were now looking at each other, and in that moment you realize how much you really missed him. His face started approaching to yours as he closed his eyes, you close your too. You felt his lips against yours. Almost by instinct, you moved your hands to his hair, playing with it as he kissed you.

“I’ve missed you much” he finally said after separating his lips.

“Me too, Innie” hearing you say his nickname made his heart twitch. He smiled at you with sadness.

“I’m sorry” he said. When he saw you were going to reply, he kept going. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was suck a jerk. I love it when you act clingy, I love it when we cuddle, I love it when you hug me, fuck, I love you.” with every word that came out of his mouth, you felt how you heart was beating faster. “I’m sorry for not saying this before, I just couldn’t find the right…”

You cut him off with a passionate kiss, taking him by surprise. “I’m the one who is sorry, I knew you were stressed and I kept pushing and pushing…” you whispered.

“No! It’s my fault being an asshole” he interrupted you. “You are the best girlfriend I could wish for, you didn’t deserve that… please… forgive me”

You smirked at him, “I forgive you, silly” you gave him a peck in the lips “I love you too much to be mad at you”.

Jeongin smiled once again, but no with sadness this time, his grin was the one you loved so much, so bright. He kissed you again, and again, and again. You spent the rest of the night together. Happy to be in each other side again.

check my masterlist

[hanaybuns]

wow oh my gosh i didn't expect so many people to see that last post, thank you so so much!! and i loved reading everyone's thoughts too, thank you guys so much for taking the time to read my "analysis" (yaps) and taking the time to leave your own responses!!

here's part 2:

alright so after covering the past exenstively, lets go back to the present, where karamatsu hides his true feelings about things to avoid creating or being involved in conflict (and sometimes to avoid doing something that's inconvenient, like helping choromatsu lmao). karamatsu is so funny to me because unlike the others, he's so passive about everything. i have so many examples of this:

he always waits for girls to hit on him, he just poses and waits for the ladies to flock to him lmao. such a diva

he usually isn't the one to ever begin a conversation with the bros as a group, he'll mostly jump in once the conversation is happening

if he does strike up a conversation, it's usually one on one (and it's usually either with choromatsu, osomatsu, and occasionally jyushimatsu, who are the bros he has the least amount of conflict with)

he mostly doesn't start fights, he'll almost always get wrapped into them

ofc, he almost never fights back when it comes to being insulted by any of his brothers

he usually only insults osomatsu (or indirectly choromatsu, but that feels more like teasing than anything)

that being said, he does have his moments of proactiveness. i believe it's really in those moments when you get a sense of who he really is and you get a peek into his true feelings

so these were the ones i knew off the top of my head, but most of these scenes (save for pizza) are him trying to be a good older brother. either that, or trying to take control of the situation for his brother's sake.

(here is where i got a lot of the screenshots above from btw)

but also don't get me wrong, he does have his moments of proactive awfulness. sometimes accidental, sometimes not.

see, in my eyes, his passivity is a form of self preservation. i think on a subconscious level, he doesn't really take an active role in his own life (and his brother's) because the last time he asserted himself and truly tried to take control, he ended up causing his brothers to fight.

but to go even deeper, on an emotional level, he does it to avoid the feelings of rejection and failure he experienced after the fight. it's a way to protect himself from the possibility that he'll end up hurt again (and secondarily, the possibility that he'll make things worse for his brothers again).

this is also why i think he doesn't really listen to people. it's the same principle. karamatsu would rather live in his own bubble of self-aggrandizing delusion than truly face himself and others. he lives in this insulated echo chamber of his own thoughts and feelings, and since karamatsu is a dummy, this makes him ultimately blind to his own shortcomings. this also prevents him from having genuine and vulnerable relationships with his brothers. not only does he refuse to tell them how he really feels, he also refuses to truly listen to them and take their words to heart (as hurtful as they may be). but you know who he does listen to? you know who he does actually tell his true feelings to? you guessed it:

(and honestly? you know who else too? maybe not as deep as choukei but)

in full transparency, this is me being very lazy. but i wrote about this a while back when discussing the amazing doujin: Karamatsu's Brand New World.

(which I highly recommend everyone should read please please please).

karamatsu is a passionate, exclusive, caring, selfish, self-aggrandizing, delusional, stupid, kind, sensitive, cowardly, selfless, petty, lazy, cringey, blunt, lovable guy

he's ultimately a very flawed character and i can truly understand his popularity both here and in japan. but i think a lot of people interpret him as this perfect, selfless guy. no no, he sucks. they all do. and he's really stupid, he may be the dumbest out of the 6, though not by much. but all of his flaws and strong points make him a such great character. i hope i did him justice.

i'm really really excited for the fourth season, i hope we get more karamatsu exploration this season as well! if we don't, then i'll take every crumb i can get and talk endlessly about it anyways.

[vxxcte]

Extremely long rant on 001 & 457:

3.4k+ words

—

Intro

Yesterday I finished season 2 of Squid Game. I have so much to say about In-ho’s and Gi-hun’s dynamics and writing.

Keep in mind this is my interpretation of these characters and their dynamics, and some of that is speculation. I’m just yapping because I have a lot to say. Maybe this takes on a much more optimistic view than is actually the case, but I fear it makes sense to me.

I have seen two takes about 457 around pretty often:

“They’re in love.” or:

“In-ho feeds off of Gi-hun’s pain because he’s just an evil guy.”

These can both be true in a way, but when no one talks about the little details of the character writing and the relationship between these two guys, it feels like the incredible potential and writing that this duo has is being overlooked.

Note, I will be referring to this Youtube video throughout this post:

Now let’s start with what we know already. It’s pretty evident that In-ho is not totally emotionless like many people are trying to imply or interpret him as.

Here’s why.

—

Hwang In-Ho and The Traitor Archetype

There are two ways in which a character like 001 can be portrayed.

TYPE 1 : The undercover ‘friend’ who is working against the main character can be shown to the audience as the ordinary cast member, and then it will be a plot twist when the protagonist learns with the audience the truth of this character. Usually the demeanor of this undercover ‘ally’ is not shown too obviously because it might take away from the impact of the plot twist later.

TYPE 2 : or You can go down the route that Squid Game did go. We knew Frontman’s face, so it was no use trying to convince us he was a good guy. His personality was not exaggerated like some Type 1 characters can be. Characters like this are not particularly hidden from the audience’s suspicion/accusation because we already know. And in these cases, the writers do not often need to give these characters disguise-personalities. In Squid Game, we as an audience know where to look for the cracks in In-ho’s character, where the ways in which his real identity shows through.

There was that time he killed someone in front of Jung-bae. It would have been out of nowhere for a story where they hadn’t shown his identity before, but we knew exactly what was going on. So let’s look at the instances before it was shown directly to other characters.

Here are the instances where we know for sure that his real self is slipping through.

In-ho more than once asks people questions and engages with them in a manner that might not come across as too strange to them. But to the audience, those who know he is an outsider, and thus know to pay attention to the possible intent behind his every word, it stands out.

In-ho engages with the people who are truly inside the game as specimens to observe. That’s partly why he’s there, after all. For example, take the instance during the Mingle game where he questioned Geum-ja about her son’s character. He doesn’t need to hide his sort of objective, detached curiosity (which extends slightly outside Gi-hun), about these people and how they work, because no one is keeping an eye out for it.

Because of this, I believe he did not need to make any extra efforts to mask his natural personality, beyond the bare necessary minimum.

—

In-ho’s Humor

Another reason I think that him not faking his personality a good amount of the time is his humor. The jokes and the ideas for jokes that one comes up with is very telling of their inner processes and their ability to make connections between things. These also provide an insight as to what they themselves find funny, or what they think others around them will find funny/react to.

First the joke he made about Gi-hun’s last name, and then about Jun-hee’s child as a sixth member in the Mingle game, both display a sort of consistent sense of dad joke type of humor. It is hard to fake humor that you are not well-versed in, and even harder if you put yourself in an unfamiliar environment with little preparation, purely to observe people.

Considering the fact that In-ho is evidently still in the process of observing these people up close as people rather than players, it would have been difficult to first think of a joke that they would enjoy and then deliver it successfully.

He could have gone without. He characterized himself in the others’ eyes well enough to go without making these jokes. It’s not like he was putting on any false performance for us, the audience (as noted above), and he was only omitting certain information from the other characters. There should be nothing ulterior that motivates him to go further and come up with a new/different sense of humor.

This leads me (personally) to read these interactions as genuine. These were jokes he thought of and spoke aloud, not to fool Gi-hun and the others, but because they naturally came to his mind and he decided to share them.

And villain-type character as he is now, he is still a person.

—

In-ho and his Family

There are other moments we saw from him that were genuine.

There was the information we got from his mother and Jun-ho, how he gave his brother his kidney and how his wife died.

Then In-ho lost his composure when Thanos told him to lecture his own kid. This was not an act—It would have been entirely unnecessary if he wanted everyone to believe he was a nice guy capable of little harm. This was genuine from him, he lost control and it was reasonable and it was real.

So when he told Gi-hun about his wife and unborn child that he is supposedly now in the games for, the things we have seen so far also point to that scene being a genuine interaction from him. His expressions did not hide it either.

And if all of that is not enough, he did not kill his brother. He sent Captain Park to find Jun-ho. In-ho put his brother, who knew exactly who Frontman is now, who now has something to work with, over his whole operation—It wouldn’t be too large a reach to say this.

Hwang In-ho is Not Without Emotion

Now we’ve subverted the whole idea of In-ho being some emotionless monster that some people online want to say he is. He may lack morals but he does not lack personality/emotion.

I didn’t even get into the way he cheered in the 5-minigame rounds or the way the first thing he did when he found Gi-hun in the Games was knowingly shit-talk him to his face, but I already have this much. This is all my evidence for In-ho being very and incredibly human, my case for him having a defined personality, fake player aside.

This is almost all sourced from lines in the show, rather than just visual acting which can be interpreted multiple ways. Thus every bit of the things I talked about is likely intentional.

Justice for my queen In-ho he is a great character and I enjoy him and his writing a LOT.

—

457 Introduction

I like to call 457 toxic yaoi as much as the next guy, but it’s so much more than just the visible tension/chemistry between them. It’s more than enmity, it’s more than friendship and it’s more than romance too. Why stick labels on it when it’s so much more complicated?

Although on that note, before I get into the deeper stuff I just want to point out that all this staring at each other’s lips and whatnot was probably not something the actors decided to throw in on their own, considering the ‘I don’t understand it but it’s not unpleasant’ comment about the ship from Lee Byung-hun. So was it scripted for them to be doing allat? Lord knows, we’ll find out in June (fitting).

I am not even getting into how In-ho spoke to Gi-hun without his mask on and let him hear his real voice when Gi-hun won his first set of Games. There is something that has the potential to be very intimate about that.

And then there’s the little storytelling bit of how Gi-hun’s stubbornness reminds In-ho of his dead wife, and then how that exact determination was what wavered in Gi-hun at the end.

—

Pre-Games 2024

Let’s start with the limo dialogues, when In-ho told Gi-hun he wished he would’ve led a happy life.

He has no reason to wish Gi-hun ill, especially after Gi-hun won the games and left. In-ho likely saw himself in Gi-hun even back when Gi-hun won, and genuinely did wish him the happy life that In-ho himself did not end up having.

And how many people like Gi-hun has In-ho seen? Ever?

What kind of person does Gi-hun have to be, how notable in In-ho’s eyes does he have to be, for the person that administrates the Games to show himself to the person who wants to end them?

Gi-hun survived the Games without directly causing anyone’s death. In this place that tries to bring out the worst in anyone, even when Gi-hun fucked up in the marble game, he regretted it and turned back. This already sets him apart from anyone else, and especially sets him apart from In-ho, who took the darker road and climbed up the system.

You could say, ‘But other people have regretted their actions in the Games.’ But how many people get 45.6 billion won over 455 people’s deaths, and then come back, not for money, but to prevent further death? And how many people come back and become the Front Man?

Gi-hun went back with all that money to find his mom dead, presumably in a similar way to how In-ho went back with all the money he won but his wife died anyway.

There is a system that crushes people under it, In-ho realizes somewhere down the line, and then there is a way to remove those people. Gi-hun sees it another way: change the system.

—

Friends

Both of these people came into the Games for the sake of their loved ones. One came out of the process corrupt, and one returned determined to root out the corruption.

This year, aside from In-ho, there are 454 other people in this year’s Games that he does not know or necessarily care about. And then there is Gi-hun.

He knows Gi-hun. In-ho is a previous winner, just like Gi-hun, he is returning to the game for Gi-hun just as Gi-hun returned for In-ho. In-ho sees Gi-hun as more worthy of his time than anyone else. And all of this comes dangerously close to seeing Gi-hun as an equal, someone he has attached his narrative to, more than anyone else around.

And I think this opens up the possibility that In-ho could have come to see Gi-hun as a friend in some moments. There were moments in the games where he was a little too enthusiastic about their own wins for someone who does not need to put on a fully fake persona (and there was the instance with the soju which I get into later).

So surely there could have been moments where In-ho genuinely considered Gi-hun a friend, however short-lived the moments were, however foreign the concept of a friend has become to him.

I don’t mean this in the sense that there are full-fledged periods of time where In-ho is seeing Gi-hun as a friend, or that In-ho was spending any amounts of time being genuinely immersed as his persona. That feels like a stretch.

But you know when you dislike someone that you’re talking to? And in the moment, the awareness of your dislike fades for a bit, and you’re about to laugh at something they said. And then that’s when you realize you’re not actually supposed to be finding anything they say funny? You’re not supposed to actually fw them? This is what I mean by ‘moments In-ho might have seen Gi-hun as a friend.’

The difference between the example scenario (closest I could get) and what I think might be the case with In-ho is that in In-ho’s case, it is not purely borne out of dislike. Rather, it likely just occurs to him who he actually is now, reminds him that it’s not 2015. It reminds him why he’s actually in the Games this round, and that automatically can serve to detach him.

It can be difficult for a genuine person to consistently have an enjoyable person around people they have to fake their personality around, for one. And for another, he is the one who’s killing almost everyone here.

This part is, of course, more speculation and yapping compared to the rest of the post, which I actually tried to support with some form of logic or evidence. But I need to yap about all my speculations (This post is not purely analysis, as I mentioned at the start), and I think this take helps make better sense of the other instances with In-ho’s character that I’ve mentioned.

And this could be what In-ho’s ‘conflicted feelings’ about Gi-hun (from the video linked up top) are all about.

—

How In-ho Sees Gi-Hun

Gi-hun refuses to remain powerless. He acts for change, refuses to give himself over to the system like In-ho has. He doesn’t shut up and take the money he’s given. He keeps fighting to end the Games, for other people who are caught in it.

And this does not make sense to In-ho. We don’t know enough about him. Maybe he tried this exact same thing that Gi-hun is trying. Or maybe he never did, and became who he is without putting up a proper fight.

This is someone who, so far, has remained unbending in his goal for change. This is someone who, in a facility designed to make people prioritize their own survival, gave a man he barely knew for 3 days a magazine, while he himself was getting shot at, while ammo was short.

In-ho lies to Gi-hun about his name, but he tells him about his wife. He bares an old part of his soul to him, the part of it that lingers from back when he was like Gi-hun. He has seen immeasurable death and has caused it, but there was a time he might have wanted to stop it too, and now there is someone like that again.

In-ho bared a part of himself to the person who came here to take him down because he saw his old self in him. And in turn that person did something In-ho never would’ve done at this point in time—Gi-hun extended this seemingly-pointless goodness to him too.

I like to think In-ho was so interested in Gi-hun because he wanted to see how he himself might've become, had he only taken a different view of life.

In-ho might deep down be expecting him to fail, yes, but he roots for him, roots for a version of himself that never made it. He’s curious. Lee Byung-hun has said In-ho is conflicted about his feelings towards Gi-hun, and secretly might even root for him (see the link at the bottom of this post).

In-ho stares at Gi-hun so intently to try and understand him as best he can. He wants to know what’s going on in Gi-hun’s head, the changes someone undergoes in short periods of time in enclosed death game facilities, a new experiment in the head of someone who is returning a second time. How will Gi-hun hold up? He wants to see his future.

—

The Breaking of Gi-hun’s Resolve (or the Changing)

Gi-hun loses the plot.

He couldn’t save everyone at first like he intended, he couldn’t get out fast because they got his tracker, and his resolve weakens, and he deems it necessary to sacrifice some people for the greater good.

When Gi-hun realizes he can’t save everyone, when he trades in an unnumbered amount of people for a shot to end the whole system, and he gives in.

Maybe In-ho sees himself in that weakening of Gi-hun’s resolve. It’s possible he doesn’t like it because he genuinely wanted Gi-hun to remain unwavering, as Lee Byung-hun said In-ho rooted for him. Or maybe In-ho does like it, because he’s satisfied for the confirmation that his view was right, that his path was inevitable all along.

This could be another point of conflict for In-ho’s feelings towards Gi-hun. Maybe that’s why he decided to fake the death of Young-il right then and put a stop to that operation: Of course, it’s partly because he’s Frontman and he can’t let the Games end. But on another hand, the coup was failing anyway, even without his betrayal and return as Frontman.

This then brings to light the possibility that he decided that, because Gi-hun gave in, In-ho decided he’s seen enough from by Gi-hun’s side. It confirmed something for him, confirmed that Gi-hun’s failure was inevitable because of human nature. And that was enough observing from up-close.

But then that confirmation, Gi-hun’s reluctant admission to the need of collateral, is thrown into question again, only a couple of hours later, when In-ho meets up with Gi-hun and Jung-bae. Gi-hun gives In-ho a magazine when ammo is short, and even when In-ho asks him, “Are you sure?” Gi-hun insists.

Sure, Gi-hun traded all those lives for this opportunity, but he is willing to risk lessening his own chance for survival for the sake of his friends, too.

—

“Are you sure?”

Then there is the question: Why did In-ho ask Gi-hun if he was sure about giving him the magazine?

Why would he provide the opportunity to think again on this? It wouldn’t benefit him at all if Gi-hun were to take the magazine back—Not that Gi-hun would. Gi-hun doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, especially not in situations like this, and this even In-ho should know.

It could be a final test of Gi-hun’s character. Or it could be that this is one of those moments where In-ho genuinely saw Gi-hun as a friend.

Lee Byung-hun has said (from the video) that In-ho’s character was a very nuanced and detailed one that he had to be very careful portraying. That look on In-ho’s face when Gi-hun gave him that magazine was not any error on the actor’s end. It did mean something to In-ho, whatever it may have meant.

—

Jung-bae, Gi-hun, In-ho, and soju

I’m gonna get into the technicalities of exactly what In-ho’s motivations were in taking this specific bit of Gi-hun’s and Jung-bae’s conversation and using it with Gi-hun later.

I don’t entirely disagree when others call it jealousy, but it feels unfitting to arrive at that conclusion with no further thought. So here’s how I see it.

When Gi-hun and Jung-bae were talking about going out for soju, In-ho was eavesdropping. Then later, In-ho tells Gi-hun later to go out for soju together someday.

If In-ho really intended the unfulfilment of the shared plan between Gi-hun and himself to devastate, this was not an ideal or necessary move, and I’m sure he knows that. And I’ve covered earlier, to my interpretation he does not bother to act like someone he is not unnecessarily.

It would’ve been smarter if he had his own conversation about future plans with Gi-hun, instead of leeching off the soju date idea that Gi-hun already planned with Jung-bae.

In-ho probably did plan on killing Jung-bae at that point, be it eventually or through the later Games, because he probably does not really care about anyone besides Gi-hun enough to spare them, or even just as much as he might care about Gi-hun (not necessarily platonically or romantically, maybe, but in terms of overall investment). And maybe he intended to use Jung-bae’s, and Young-il’s, death as another test of Gi-hun’s character.

But In-ho/Young-il’s ‘death,’ objectively and inevitably, means less to Gi-hun than the death of his best friend. This is not to say that Gi-hun subconsciously measures the weights or grief values of these deaths, obviously. It is just to say that he has known In-ho for only a couple days and it is bound to impact him less, just like how Ali’s death did not hit him quite as hard as Sang-woo’s did.

(Admittedly, season 1 did have a lot less focus on character relationships than season 2 does, but it wasn’t so little that a lot would’ve changed in Gi-hun’s reactions either way).

This, combined with the order and intensity of events in the last episode, most likely means that Jung-bae’s death overshadows In-ho’s ‘death’ in Gi-Hun’s mind.

And this would be obvious. So what purpose does ‘You can treat me with a glass of soju when we get out’ even serve? It’s not going to affect Gi-hun in the long run as much as Jung-bae would.

Gi-hun had a much-needed conversation with his good friend and their plan to get soju was borne of reminiscence of their shared past and desire to make it out. But when In-ho brought it up, it was done in an offhand manner in a two-sentence exchange. This is impossible to happen anyway and In-ho knows it.

If he wanted Gi-hun’s full investment in a plan to go out together, maybe for the purpose of hurting/testing him with it, surely he would’ve done something more than this. He knew it wouldn’t stick as well. So then why did he say it? What purpose would this actually serve?

If, even after all this, In-ho he thought that this soju appointment would affect Gi-hun as much as Jung-bae’s might have, then I might say jealousy nurses delusion.

Or maybe it was something genuine. Maybe that moment, when Gi-hun thanked him for saving his life and In-ho said ‘You can get me a glass of soju when we get out,’ maybe that was another one of those short-lived moments in which In-ho did see Gi-hun as something like a friend.

—

Conclusion

Because of the fact that he is more genuine than one might originally guess (according to my interpretation), I would like to say that he did consider Gi-hun a friend sometimes.

And their dynamic is just so fascinating to me. Likely the first I’ve ever seen of this kind.

They’re in love, they hate each other, they’re friends, they’re opposites.

They’re the first person the other looks for upon separation, they’re trying to put a stop to the other’s plans, they’re good friends.

They’re representations of the roads the other didn’t take, they’re mirrors, they lean into each other more than necessary even when cuffed together, In-ho finds the pieces of humanity he lost in Gi-hun, they’re foils, they were friends.

I won’t be recovering for a while.

[pikahlua]

Control your heart, but not like how you think

I've tried so many ways to write this idea out before. Hopefully I get it right this time.

There's a widely-accepted fandom interpretation going around a lot lately that I think needs to be challenged. Perhaps I won't be able to express it in its complete version because I don't subscribe to it, but I'll try my best to approximate it and hopefully most of you will know what I'm generally talking about.

It seems like a lot of people believe "control your heart" is a plot line that refers to Izuku's inability to contain his love for Katsuki, that "control your heart" is advice from a well-intentioned but ultimately incorrect adult who wants Izuku to suppress his feelings for Katsuki, and that Izuku is hiding his feelings but will eventually let go and embrace his love for Katsuki in an explosion of anger. Or something. Admittedly this interpretation varies a lot depending on who's talking about it, and I cannot hope to encompass every interpretation of it with one paragraph. But it always boils down to some version of "control your heart is about Izuku repressing his feelings for Katsuki."

Let's discuss.

Table of Contents I. Why I want to challenge this aka false dichotomies II. What Banjou said III. Katsuki's rage IV. Tomura doesn't control his heart V. The AFO connection

I. Why I want to challenge this aka false dichotomies

I want to challenge this interpretation of "control your heart," but my main goal here is not to shoot down BKDKs. I want this to be understood more than anything: the goal here is to help BakuDekus.

You see, fandom and shipping arguments--they're very susceptible to false dichotomies. I believe this is the source of a LOT of certain shipping interpretations that seem to go so far in one direction they fall off the rails.

I'll give you an example. I vividly remember how an anti-BKDK once went for chapter 1 in which Izuku rescues Katsuki. They started with the argument "Izuku didn't save Katsuki because he loves him, he would have saved anyone else in that situation."

This is a false dichotomy. "Izuku loves Katsuki" and "Izuku would have saved anyone else in that situation" are NOT mutually exclusive. It's very possible for both statements to be true (and I would argue they both ARE true). However, in the heat of an argument, it's very easy to accept the framing of these statements as mutually exclusive without stopping to think. You can try to argue against the premise. You can try to argue "no, Izuku saved Katsuki BECAUSE he loves Katsuki, and he wouldn't have done the same for anyone else," but you have to ignore or distort so many canon elements to get there. That makes it very easy for your opponent to point and laugh about how your interpretations are so wrong that they have to bend the story to make them work.

But there's another option: reject the framing. If you accept the framing, you're allowing the other person to dictate the discussion.

What does this look like? Let the evidence lead you to the conclusion and not the other way around. And that's a difficult thing to do. I would never say I'm perfect at it either. But if you are convinced Izuku loves Katsuki, then whatever evidence lies in canon shouldn't scare you. In some way, it doesn't MATTER what happens in canon--in that you're invested in their dynamic together and you'll ship them regardless, because there's ALWAYS an interpretation that will support the ship. But you can read the ship into whatever the canon provides. If someone says "Izuku would save anyone, so the reason he saves Katsuki is not because he loves him," one potential response would be "Izuku would save anyone, and also he saves Katsuki because he loves him." Don't let others control how you interpret the story with their words.

To take this back to "control your heart," there may or may not have been a shipping argument that spawned this--I have no idea. But there doesn't have to be. The point is to challenge the framing of the assumption, because there may still be another shipping interpretation if the original assumption doesn't hold up.

"Control your heart is bad advice that causes Izuku to repress his love for Katsuki and he will end up exploding" is one way to frame this.

But consider this new framing: "Control your heart is about Izuku using his anger/love as a source of strength so long as he doesn't let it control him--just like Katsuki does."

II. What Banjou said

The "control your heart" line comes from Banjou in chapter 213.

But I think people really gloss over the part that comes before:

This isn't about repression. Banjou says, "It's okay to get mad. That rage can be the source." Control here is not about repression at all.

This is about whether or not the rage controls Izuku instead. This is about Izuku going berserk and losing his senses. I've discussed the phrasing in Japanese before:

The phrase in Japanese is "kokoro wo sei suru" (心を制する). The word in question, kokoro, does not have a direct translation into English. It is often translated as "heart," "mind," or "spirit." The meaning of sei suru is "to control," "to command," "to get the better of."

The notion that "control your heart" means "don't let your rage get the better of you" is supported by chapter 367.

Tomura reveals that the reason he wanted to leave Izuku the "presents" of his comrades beaten and Katsuki dead was to anger him--which would cause Izuku to fight poorly. Mirio talking Izuku down after this further supports that "control your heart" is meant to be a good thing, something Izuku should do.

We also see a precursor to this in All Might vs AFO in Kamino (you know, the first one). AFO was determined for years to find something to "steal a bit" of his heart away--and he came up with using Nana Shimura's grandson.

Tomura himself stokes All Might's anger by attacking his students at the USJ.

But each time All Might gets angry, he keeps control and saves the day.

All Might is able to be effective despite his anger--or perhaps even because of it. Izuku needs to be able to do the same.

III. Katsuki's rage

In a weird way, the poster child for using anger as a source of strength is Katsuki Bakugou.

I say "in a weird way" because Katsuki's anger is often used as a front for something else. He hides behind anger. But at the same time, since he seems to be angry constantly, he surprises everyone with how much control he has over himself...

...to the point where Tomura even misjudges Katsuki's veil of anger at the sports festival to be resentment towards society.

And we know a big part of the dynamic between Izuku and Katsuki is about emulation.

We've just had a grand battle between Katsuki and AFO in which Katsuki achieved his strength by emulating Izuku--his battle analysis, his tolerance and willingness to endure pain, his use of his own pain as a weapon, etc.

So what if "control your heart" is the corollary to what Katsuki just went through? What if Izuku's "control your heart" is about him learning to use anger to win in the way Katsuki always does?

IV. Tomura doesn't control his heart

If Izuku does need to "control his heart" to be like Katsuki, this provides an opportunity for a moment in Izuku vs Tomura where Izuku can acknowledge Katsuki's role in Izuku's growth. This will depend on Tomura acting as a foil.

I start with the assumption "control your heart" means “if I want to save the people I love, I can’t let anger in the moment control me. I have to use my anger, which comes from my love, to reach the bigger goal.” In this case, Izuku has to control his heart long enough to get what he wants (to save Tomura), and he may have to go even further by applying this ability to someone else who doesn’t control their heart (Tomura).

I do think Tomura can represent a person who is not in control of his heart--which is why he lashes out and destroys everything. He gives in to his instincts to destroy. He loves destruction. And he represses the child inside him who has to explode out when someone like Mirio says he doesn't have any friends. If there's any character who represses his true desires, it has to be Tomura Shigaraki. He denies the idea that he's human, that he's saveable, that there's a crying child inside him--things Izuku asserts because he has seen the truth of them. So Izuku learning to control his heart may be what allows him to save Tomura, and if so, he can give some credit for that to Katsuki (and to All Might as well).

V. The AFO connection

I think one of the major details people discuss surrounding "control your heart" is this notion that Izuku lied about what triggered Black Whip in chapter 217.

"Any clue what set it off? Maybe something's triggering it." "I dunno..."

There's this assumption by the fandom that Izuku is lying because he should know that Black Whip going berserk was triggered by Izuku's anger at Monoma insulting Katsuki. Honestly, I think this is a misreading of the above scene. I don't blame anyone for the misreading because the scene is written in a confusing manner, but I think this page is talking about something else.

Katsuki isn't asking "What caused Black Whip to go berserk?" (answer: Izuku's emotions). He's asking "What caused Black Whip to become accessible?" In other words, why is One For All evolving in this way now? Why didn't All Might have access to these quirks when he had One For All? Why didn't you, Izuku, have access to these quirks until now?

To which all Izuku can say is, "they [the vestiges] just told me the time was right."

If you think about it, it doesn't make sense that Izuku's emotions triggered the "unlocking" of Black Whip and Izuku's sudden access to all these new quirks. If all that was necessary was for Izuku to have a surge of emotion and the desire to "catch" something to unlock Black Whip, he should have unlocked it back at summer camp when Compress kidnapped Katsuki or when Katsuki was about to disappear through Kurogiri's portal.

So in the above page, we're really meant to hone in on Katsuki's suggestion: "Yeah, something to do with All For One..."

There's evidence to support All For One is connected to One For All's evolution. In chapter 209, right before Izuku's team's match in the joint training exercise (where Black Whip first appears), we "randomly" get a cut to All For One in prison:

There are plenty of hints scattered about that this all has something to do with AFO. Remember, Izuku has a dream where Yoichi spoke to him the night before the Joint Training Arc begins--and the dream included a bit of AFO's backstory. It's very possible this was the true "unlocking." I would argue the best hint we have about what's happening with OFA is AFO's line of "I hear my little brother's voice!"

...because it sounds like the AFO-OFA resonance from chapter 369.

Putting all these pieces together, I would like to share with you my current theory about "control your heart." You don't have to subscribe to this idea, but this is where I personally am at right now.

I think the fact Black Whip went out of control in the Joint Training Arc reveals this evolution is about the resonance between OFA and AFO (the QUIRKS, not the people) that we’re seeing in the story right now. Katsuki’s role in this is that he’s the trigger for Izuku’s anger, which didn’t unlock the quirk factors but allowed them to go berserk in the moment. The idea of "control your heart" most likely means “anger is good, but don’t let your anger control you, you should be the one in control.” And Shigaraki understands this because he tries to provoke Izuku’s anger to defeat him. Izuku has to keep his own anger from interfering with his heart’s desire to save Shigaraki, and Katsuki is horrified that he’s a trigger for Izuku in this way (which is why he freaks out when Izuku attacks Tomura in the Paranormal Liberation War, and why he tells Izuku "stop trying to win this on your own" after he gets stabbed saving Izuku). This informs Katsuki's desire to "no longer stand in Izuku's way," because Izuku can only be triggered when Katsuki isn't strong enough to keep himself from being exploited. Izuku was triggered by Katsuki's death, but he managed to CONTROL his anger, not suppress it. He's still angry, he's just channeling it to achieve his goal of saving Tomura. And it's likely this point could come up in Izuku's attempt to save Tomura as Tomura is someone not in great control of his heart. And in the same way Izuku was an example for Katsuki to emulate so that he could use his pain and analysis as a weapon to defeat AFO, Izuku can use Katsuki's example to emulate "controlling his heart" aka controlling his rage to be his power in battle.

For your consideration.