#i am so incredibly lost

[1moreff-creator]

An Analysis and Theories of The Purge March…

(By someone who knows very little about Milgram)

Hello Milgram people! First time posting an analysis about it, mainly because I only started getting into it like two days ago. I kept seeing it get mentioned in my dash and I thought "yeah these characters look mentally ill enough to be interesting I'll check this out." And wow, this thing is awesome!

Even though I'm missing massive amounts of critical information (I haven’t even watched all the MVs for the other characters yet), I still want to talk about my thoughts on the newest MV, Amane's "The Purge March". I'm sorry if a lot of what I say has been said before, I tried my best to research other opionions before defining my own, but I still know very little compared to others. Hope you can take something away from here anyways!

CW: Cults and indoctrination, child abuse, torture, waterboarding, electrocution, violence and murder, animal death.

Basic Rundown & Lyrics

Introduction

The video takes place in three main settings: the titular march, the place with the cat, and Amane's apartment/home.

Hold on, you may say. Can we be sure that's Amane's home and not some other place? Well, I believe so, based on this little sign here.

This translation was taken from Napkin's analysis on the MV, which was massively helpful and I recommend you check out yourself!

In case you forgot, Amane's full name is Amane Momose; that's her father on that picture. When combined with the context that Amane walked into the apartment on her own and with a small smile, it really makes it look like that is her home. Adittionally, a leaked storyboard from Milgram Premium apparently says the hand holding the taser belongs to Amane's mother, and I believe this is the case. Not because of the storyboard, as I don't usually trust that type of meta evidence, but because of some stuff I'll get to later.

Anyways, back to the video. We open with the march, alongside this lyrics:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! It’s the beginning of a most wonderful day However, there are blasphemers and silent by-standers, who would have it otherwise We must not give into them, they are the ones that should be judged With pure, unsullied body and soul, let us preach all that is true and right

This sets up the main theme of the song: it's about how the cult Amane is in sees the concept of punishment and justice. Those who go against the cult, must be judged, they must be punished. I think it's worth noting that this part not only calls out "blasphemers", but also "silent by-standers". Amane's cult not only condemns """harmful""" actions, but also inaction. There is one part of the MV which I think manifests this, I'll get to it.

Flags and Ordainments

Then, we see four flags corresponding to each of the cult's... uh...

Okay, so, as a refresher. There's this four characters, right? From left to right, Yuri, Gozake, Riyone, and Gachata.

Certain theories claim these are cult leaders, and certain others claim they are just mascots or even deities and not real people. I believe the latter, but of course all theories are valid. I'll explain my reasoning later (take a shot), but for now, I need to establish what I believe.

Anyways, we see flags representing each of them attached to lyrics which are connected to them, indicating some of the cult’s ordainments.

’Tis ordained, thou shall follow thine destiny [Riyone] ’Tis ordained, thou shall discard vulgarity [Gozake] ’Tis ordained, thou shall deliver unto those thou believest in [Yuri] ’Tis ordained, thou shall stay thine course, then perish [Gachata]

Here's what I think they mean:

>Riyone, who has bandaids for ears, represents the cult's belief in medicine. Essentially, they denounce it, and their accepted MO is to only pray for the injured instead of healing them medically. So when Riyone 'says' "thou shall follow thine destiny", it's saying "accept your fate/situation, don't try to change your destiny". This is why we don't see Riyone doing anything other than punishing Amane in the first trial MV; the only thing you're meant to do in relation to Riyone and medicine is pray.

>Gozake has possibly the vaguest ordainment, that being “thou shall discard vulgarity.” Since it’s described as a monk in “Magic”, I believe this means to discard unnecessary, vulgar things, and only accept the things the cult accepts. There is indication that the cult denounces these type of trivial things, from some of Amane’s interrogation questions from trial one.

Q1: Do you have any special skills?

A: Nothing that I can call a talent. Perhaps studying. I do well in my Japanese class.

Q5: When you go to an amusement park, what do you like to ride?

A: That is a place I should not go to.

Q11: What kind of meat do you like?

A: I don’t eat meat.

Q14: Do you listen to music?

A: Not really, to songs that are highly entertaining.

Amusement parks are somewhere she shouldn’t go to, presumably because it’s considered vulgar. Perhaps she says she doesn’t have a talent because she’s not allowed to engage in a lot of activities. It’s certainly possible she doesn’t eat meat out of preference, but it could also be due to religious beliefs. And she only listens to songs which are “highly entertaining”, provided I’m reading that right because it’s worded a bit weird. The reason I bring that up is that we see Gozake teaching her to sing in “Magic”, which relates it to music. While that’s likely metaphorical, it’s possible the cult’s “songs” are the highly entertaining ones, and the rest are vulgar.

Worth noting for "The Purge March" though, Gozake’s flag is on the floor before being waved. It's pretty clear Amane holds some contempt against Gozake and/or his punishments.

I believe it’s because it is Gozake’s ordainment, “thou shall discard vulgarity”, that Amane most disagrees with internally and the one she’s most likely to break. I mean, obviously, she’s a child, she’s going to want to do all sorts of trivial, “vulgar” things for fun, that’s just what kids do. We even see a version her fumble with this flag later, implying she has broken this ordainment before.

This fits a lot of the lines in “Magic”.

Dear wise one, Am I worthy? Is it ok to spoil myself?

Spoiling herself here likely means doing things she wants to do, but which are considered “vulgar” by the cult. Her interrogation questions also imply it.

Q3: If you were allowed to do anything, what would you want to do?

A: Nothing really. I am not lacking anything.

Q17: What would you do if the world ends tomorrow?

A: If everything ends? Then, I might do all sorts of things I have never done before.

Notice how there are things she wants to do if the world ends, but she doesn’t want to do them now. That is because now, she’s still under the threat of consequence, the “vulgar” things she does can be punished. But if the world ends, then she can just do whatever.

>Yuri is meant to represent solidarity and generosity within the cult, as a sort of tactic to make all its members willing to help and lend resources to the cult. We see him collecting money in "Magic", as the animals "deliver unto those they believe in". That's why his clothes are all patchwork, as if to imply the cult is in need of money.

>Gachata represents order and obedience, that's what "thou shall stay thine course, then perish" means. I don't think I need to explain how that's connected to cults. It's styled after an alarm clock, as they represent a regularity of action, a "schedule". An alarm clock tells you when it's time to wake up and work, just like Gachata.

The Purpose of Punishment

We then see a version of Amane fumble with Gozake's flag as this lyric plays:

The “It can’t be helped”, from the scum who can’t be helped

There's something extremely important in this line. "The scum who can't be helped" are those who say "it can't be helped". In other words, acceptance of mistakes, blasphemy, etc, is the most unforgivable crime in the eyes of the cult. That's why "Leader Amane" slams her baton on the ground, causing this "helpless Amane" to sink, with this line.

That makes them doubtlessly, clearly, absolutely, unequivocally, beyond any doubt, GUILTY

The thing that makes them guilty is the sentiment that "it can't be helped".

What does that mean? It means that something is only forgivable if one acknowledges that it can be fixed. Giving up on improvement, claiming "it can't be helped", is unacceptable. And this is why punishment is so important. If someone doesn't accept punishment, they're claiming their faults cannot be helped by it, which makes them guilty.

(Also yes guilty is in caps because Amane was voted guilty in the first trial I think)

What's important, though, is that because of this scene, Amane is not "scum who can't be helped" in her eyes. Because she's both the one judging and the one being judged, that means she understands the value of her own punishment-

IN THE CULT'S EYES. I gotta clarify that sometimes I will speak from the perspective of the cult to make things clearer, but I do not agree with anything they do or believe, obviously.

So Amane believes she should be punished if she does something wrong, though obviously usually she isn't the one punishing herself. The punishment we see happen then is Amane being drowned, which is the punishment related to Gozake as we see in "Magic". Electrocution is connected to Riyone, physical blows to Yuri and verbal abuse to Gachata, please don't question it too much. Rain starts falling as she sinks, but clears after she's fully under and drowning, revealing a rainbow.

This rainbow shows up later a few times, and... frankly, it's hard to know exactly what the hell it means? But I think it represents the twisted and frankly horrifying view the cult has on punishment: even in the rain, which would be the pain of punishment, there is the bright light of improvement shining through it, being the rainbow. Even though Amane is suffering from drowning, she'll grow and improve from it. That is honestly disgusting to write but well here we are.

The lyrics here are:

I disavow you, eyes corrupted must be crushed So nary a sound can be uttered a second time, I’ll crush your throat too

Essentially, those who go against the cult must be silenced, their views disavowed (eyes crushed).

Then, we see Gozake's flag fading into the background as Amane sinks further. After that, we cut to real life, to Amane being waterboarded.

(Btw, I'm using "waterboarding" because it's faster than "controlled drowning", even though I'm not entirely clear if waterboarding is the right term for what she suffers through)

The lyrics are:

After you cry, repent, and kneel, it’s now your turn to say that hopeless “I’m sorry” x2

Amane claims it will soon be "your" turn to apologize and be punished, the "you" likely being her murder victim. How is Gozake related? Well, I believe that's alluding to an aspect of Amane's murder. In fact, this scene might be just a few minutes before her kill, as I believe she killed her victim after suffering from "Gozake's" punishment. I'll get there.

The Cat Incident

(Not the Kazui MV drop, the other one)

We then see what happened for Amane to be punished: she healed a cat. And the cult hates medicine. She gets spotted by a man and a small girl.

See the rainbow? That's because getting caught will lead to punishment, which will lead to improvement. I want you to know I actually feel disgusting writing that, but those are the beliefs of the cult.

Note the girl is holding a balloon with a symbol which is very similar to the symbol on multi-Amane's flags later, so these two likely belong to the cult as well. And since she's wearing the same uniform as Amane, they likely go to the same school, which may be ran by the cult.

I’ll talk about the balloon a bit more later, but for now, who are these two? I said I don’t believe the mascots are cult leaders, so it can’t be them. See, I actually believe they’re simply other average cult members, with nothing special at all about them. This is because the girl, and thus presumably the man with her, never enter Amane’s apartment.

See how that sign with 403 is above the door to the apartment? The balloon stops in front of it, but then goes away. (It's hard to show this with just images but trust me). By the way the string is positioned, it’s clear the girl is still pulling it. Thus we can conclude the girl never went in, and because of that (and the fact the girl has slightly different hair than Amane so she does exist), I believe the man merely told Amane’s mother what he saw, but left before Amane went home. Thus, I find it unlikely this man holds any more importance.

Why is he snitching, though? Well, it goes back to the cult’s beliefs of punishment. If something is wrong, it must be corrected. Remember, “silent by-standers” are just as bad as blasphemers in their eyes. So he wants Amane’s mom to do something about it.

(Btw, I don’t think the cat was a test necessarily, but the fact it’s collared and then gets killed could be an argument for that interpretation)

Oh, and for the uninitiated, I’m saying Amane’s mom because of one of her trial one interrogation questions:

Q: Is there anyone you hold in high esteem?

A: My father. My father has been on a journey for a while, but that is something very honorable.

So, only her mother is in the house.

The lyrics of the scene are relatively straightforward.

If you become a bad girl, monsters will come out. This is the magic that stops that from happening

Then the four “‘tis ordained” things again. Amane broke one of the rules by healing the cat, so she has to be punished, because her actions could cause bad things (monsters to come out). Again, in the cult’s eyes.

After this, we see Amane arrive at her home, where someone, perhaps her mother, is waiting with a taser. Electrocution is Ryone’s punishment, remember. Which makes me think it’s possible the cult specifically assigns each punishment to the ordainment of the mascot. So, because Amane broke Riyone’s ordainment about destiny, she gets electrocuted. That’s a bit half-baked as a possibility, but I think it’s worth mentioning.

The whole thing happens alongside the same “unequivocally GUILTY” line from before, again alluding to Amane receiving punishment.

(Btw, does anyone know what the note behind Amane’s head in that scene says? It fires off alarm bells for me, but my Japanese is null, so)

Amane’s Magical Girl Transformation

Then, we see Amane return to the place of the cat, except its collar is broken and the napkin Amane had used to heal it bloodied next to it, implying the cat died. Amane is obviously heartbroken, and looks up at her umbrella, before we cut to the march again.

There’s quite a few things to note. For one, notice the real Amane has a bruise on her forehead, implying she was hit, and thus received Yuri’s punishment. Assumedly she was also verbally assaulted during the ordeal, Gachata’s punishment so as to complete the set, but it’s sorta impossible to tell.

However, the lyrics are important. It’s stuff we’ve heard before:

I disavow you, eyes corrupted must be crushed So nary a sound can be uttered a second time, I’ll crush your throat too

With “I’ll crush your throat too” notably playing as the transition to the march completes.

But what is she disavowing? Well, think about it. The cult members are not meant to interfere with destiny, with life and death, as per Riyone’s ordainment. That means that while they’re not allowed to heal things, they’re also presumably forbidden from killing them. Though maybe I’m expecting too much logical consistency from a cult but you know. In any case, than means Amane disavows this act, and decides whoever killed the cat, must be punished.

The baton has already been connected to punishment when March Leader Amane slammed it down and caused the other Amane to sink. Which, with this context, we can presume the Drowned Amane to represent Amane before she was punished for healing the cat or some other “offense”.

But the baton is also representative of Amane’s murder weapon, as we’ll see later. And yet, it is also being related in this scene to an umbrella. Why?

Well, it’s simple. Umbrella’s represent protection, in particular protection from the rain which has been related with punishment through this MV. So, to protect herself, Amane punishes others. She does this because, since the cult idolizes punishment, their poster-child (as Amane has been implied to maybe be) should also deal out punishment.

In summary, when Amane sees a wrong, she wishes to correct it because it’s what the cult would want from her, and if she does what the cult would want from her, then she won’t be punished herself.

Q7: Do you like yourself?

A: I have never considered it from the perspective of love and hate, but I do think I am a good child.

…This kid worries me. Severely.

The idea that Amane will punish whoever killed the cat is reinstated in the following lines. As a swarm of Amane’s rushes forward with big grins, proudly holding the flag of the cult and its beliefs, the one with the baton walks forward with conviction. Look at the lyrics.

I don’t need it any more, if you’re going to break your vow Here and now, it’s my turn to tear you apart So there is no second time, I’ll give back the judgment that you gave to me

You wanna know why the swarm of Amanes are so happy? Because now she’s the one who get to punish, instead of being the punished. This is… an unfortunately common reaction to abuse.

It’s important to keep in mind what I said before; the Amanes are still holding the cult’s flag. They’re still acting on the cult’s beliefs. Notice how she specifically says the purpose of returning the punishment is “so there is no second time”, which fits what I’ve been talking about regarding punishment in the cult being to discourage repeat offenses.

Well, she’s following the cults beliefs… in theory. It was pointed out by iris-drawing-stuff in this post that Amane’s eyes have a shade of purple which is not associated with the cult, possibly implying she’s also acting on her own desires, but still rationalizes them through her cult’s twisted logic. The punishment she gave out is death, which sorta goes against the whole “follow thine destiny” logic I said earlier, and more pressingly, doesn’t really fit any of the four established punishment methods of the mascots. Well, I guess Yuri if you squint, but it still isn’t supposed to kill presumably. So she’s not actually entirely going by what the cult says when she kills her victim.

… This kid really worries me.

But hold on. Didn’t I say the symbol of the flags is actually different from the balloon? Is that significant? Well, I think it could be. It could represent how Amane’s views on her cult were changed by the punishment she received after healing the cat.

Think about it. The balloon’s symbol is more simplistic, and is on, well, a balloon. Something childish, something which offers simple bliss without anything wrong about it, and something fragile. I believe this represents how Amane viewed her cult before the cat incident. It was just a nice little thing that brought joy and didn’t require any more thought; it’s a more simplistic viewing, that’s why the symbol is more simplistic. Any small punishments, like Gachata’s finger-flick at the start of “Magic”, aren’t anything to write home about. Obviously I think she’s downplaying the extent of the abuse, but in her mind it wasn’t a big deal.

(That and I imagine the cult doesn’t feel like spending much money on more detailed balloons of all things)

However, this simplistic view “stays at the door” the day of the cat incident, as the other girl never enters the house. This is because after this, Amane’s view on the cult becomes more complex.

And that’s why we then see the symbol on the following flags. Flags are certainly something more mature, and the design is more complex. It is no longer simply colors on a balloon, it represents a fully formed ideology. After the incident with the cat, Amane began understanding the “””value”””” of punishment her cult pushes, and so wishes to begins to act accordingly.

Have I gone insane? Buddy, I was already insane before this, this is nothing new.

Amane’s Justice

Anyways, keeping in theme with the idea that she’s acting on the ideals of her cult, we see her twirling her baton of punishment in front of the four mascots, the rainbow of change after punishment firmly in the background.

It’s important to note, she is firmly planted on the mascots’ side, fighting in their behalf, which is part of what makes me believe she didn’t kill a cult leader as some theories state, but obvs that’s an opinion. The lyrics here are more of the same, Amane is the one punishing now.

After you cry, repent, and kneel, it’s now your turn to say that hopeless “I’m sorry” x2

However, something interesting happens right after. The lyric:

You’re sorry? I don’t care! Please, go ahead and die already

-plays as the baton she’s holding becomes stained with blood, indicating her intent to kill.

This is what separates Amane’s desires from the cult’s. The cult would want her to keep the victim alive as long as they can learn from their punishment and fix what’s wrong, but Amane killed her victim, which sorta goes against that. She’s a child, traumatized and hurt and at her limit, obviously her mind is trying to justify anything that would get her suffering to definitively stop. She explains the reasoning right after.

Remember MY cries, MY repents, MY words of “I’m sorry” that I said to you?

She said sorry, she wanted to repent and change, but her abuser(s) never stopped, so why should she? She should be allowed to go all the way, ignore her abuser(s) pleas of sorry and deal out whatever punishment she thinks fits their crime, right?!

At this time, the video transitions from the march to reality, the baton turning back into the umbrella for protection.

However, two things remain the same: the rainbow of punishment, and the look on Amane’s eyes, showing her excitement. This is to show that her wish to punish her abuser(s) isn’t merely a fantasy, but extends to reality as well.

And that gets us to the final (or, second to last I guess,) shot.

Let’s talk about this.

A Theory on a Murder

Let’s start at the beginning.

The Victim’s Identity

So, I’ll kill the suspense. I think Amane killed her mom. The most direct evidence I have for this is a combination of two of her trial one interrogation questions.

Q13: Who do you want to meet right now? A: My father. I want him to praise me for working hard.

So as far as Amane is aware, her father is alive. However:

Q9: Tell me what your family consists of. A: It was my father, my mother, and I.

Past tense. Peculiar.

That’s obviously a pretty big one, but there’s a bit more. As the lyrics imply, the person Amane killed was someone who had previously “punished” her. But as I also pointed out, it seems unlikely that it was a cult leader, as she is facing away from the mascots when she declares her murderous intent.

Cult Leader Theory runs into a contradiction under this interpretation (and it’s important to clarify, other interpretations are obviously valid, I’m just talking about how I see the MV). If the only people abusing Amane are the cult leaders, then she shouldn’t be facing away from them when she begins her crusade of punishment, and if someone other than the cult leaders is punishing her, then why are the punishment methods each related to one leader?

This is what leads me to believe the alternative: that the mascots are merely fictional characters who represent some of the cult’s ideals. Under that theory, it is Amane’s mother who punishes her, using a combination of all the methods associated to each mascot. And thus, it is her who dies.

There’s another thing that solidifies this belief in my eyes, but for that, we have to explain:

Murder Method

(Now this is more my comfort zone <- Top ten things to never say about murder IRL)

I’m not entirely clear how important exact method is usually, but I swear, this is interesting. If nothing else out of curiosity.

Based on that scene we have of the murder, we can observe the following things.

>There is only one door with the light still on.

>Going from this door to the corpse, there is a trail of water puddles. Since the bigger puddles are closer to the door with the light, it can be assumed it’s the door to the bathroom.

>The corpse lays on a room at the end of the hall, presumably opposite to the entrance (note the shoes at the bottom of our perspective). I will call this room, quite aptly, the murder room.

Now, some of you may take issue with that. Based on the card Amane holds up in her ‘inmate segment’ of “Undercover”, it looks as if her victim died in the bathroom.

(Apologies for the quality)

Those images are meant to represent the room or general area where the murder (or “murder” depending on who you’re talking about) took place.

Here's the issue, though. The corpse doesn’t appear to have been dragged, as there are no bloodstains outside the murder room. So the room on the card is most likely the murder room, which brings up issues for the bathroom idea. Like how several elements near the door to the bathroom don’t match what we see around the murder room (no, the floor wiper-looking thing alone doesn’t count, nothing else comes close to matching), how the floor would be nonsensical because why are we putting a wooden floor on a bathroom, there apparently being a door behind the curtains, among other stuff.

I don’t know what the murder room is, necessarily, but it doesn’t seem to be the bathroom. Probably not a kitchen either since there’s cooking utensils on a sink in the hallway. My bet’s on a dining/living room of some kind, which… has a sink for some reason, but it’s practically impossible to tell.

>The time is around 5:00, based on the clock we see (though admittedly I find it weirdly hard to tell). This isn’t important, but pointing it out makes me feel smart, and attentive! It almost looks like I know what I’m doing!

>We have a kill-shot from “Undercover”, meaning we know something like this happened.

As you can see, Amane’s victim was beaten with some kind of… stick? Pole? Cylinder? It doesn’t matter too much what exactly it is, so you can say anything from a metal pipe, an actual baton, an Inconvenient Cylinder of Unknown Purpose (ICUP)… I’m just gonna go with umbrella, because even though I question its efficacy as a murder weapon, it fits thematically and is at worst a fun headcanon.

So, uh, what do we do with this?

Prelude; Water Puddles and Gozake

Gozake is likely connected to the murder in some way. That’s because the “Old Amane”, the one concerned with “vulgar” things who hasn’t started punishing others’ wrongs, dies underwater and reaching for his flag. This is her transformation into perfection in the cult’s eyes, which involves punishing others and thus the murder of her mother. Thus, it can be concluded Gozake has some connection to the murder. I’ve already established why I don’t think he’s the victim or even a real person, so we have to find some other way to connect him.

And I think the water puddles make the possible connection quite clear. I think those puddles come from Amane herself, and she was likely waterboarded right before she killed her mother. As waterboarding is the method connected to Gazoke, this explains the connection.

Amane in the Bathroom

(Amane flying solo~ /ref)

Of course, I still think it was Amane’s mother dealing out the punishment. But if you think about it, why would Amane’s mother let her walk out from the bathroom when she was still soaking wet, especially onto a wooden floor? Well, that’s where the next part comes in. I believe there was a moment where Amane was left alone in the bathroom after being waterboarded.

Apart from that line of reasoning, which is my strongest piece of evidence for this, I want to draw attention to the fact someone came out of the bathroom, but left the light on. Since that’s not the case with any of the other rooms, it makes me think Amane herself was the last to leave that room, as her mother may not like leaving unneeded lights on.

But that’s sorta weak. In truth, I like this possibility because I think it can explain one thing in particular: Amane’s silhouette scene in “Undercover.”

It’s important to note these scenes always include the prisoners in some way or another, so it’s be weird for Amane to break the trend. Thus, this is likely Amane.

But what are we looking at? The water sorta looks like rain more than a simple shower head, and it certainly doesn’t look like waterboarding. However, the floor sorta looks like bathroom tiles, so we can’t rule out the possibility.

In fact, I actually do think this is in/near the shower. But as I said, it doesn’t look intense enough for waterboarding, and Amane is face-up on her back instead of the kneeling position we see her in during the other shower scene.

That’s why I think this is directly after a waterboarding session, not during. In particular, it would be the moment Amane’s mother leaves her alone in the bathroom. While the girl usually kneels during her torture, she may afterwards collapse on the floor and roll over from pain and exhaustion. Or something. And her mother… left the shower head on… for some reason? Maybe she went to look for a towel to dry up Amane? Maybe she needed something else and this is actually mid-session? Or maybe the rain’s metaphorical. Point is, I think this makes the most sense.

But if you’re not convinced by that, there is actually something else about the murder which makes me think Amane being left alone in the bathroom is what most likely happened.

A Matter of Position

Here's the thing. You can see the victim's hand peeking out from the door. Now, it looks like the hand is palm-down, which doesn't quite seem to fit the "Undercover" kill-shot, but that's actually simple to explain.

The "Undercover" kill-shot is likely taken moments before the victim's death, as Amane is holding the weapon in the air. But what if we extend "moments" to "seconds"? Well, I think it's possible Amane's mom managed to push her off briefly, getting a moment to turn around to turn and try to crawl away. Obviously Amane recovered quickly and managed to kill her anyways, but this little scuffle would explain how the hell her hand ended up palm down. It's the simplest explanation in my mind.

Amane's position isn't weird either. No matter what happened, she could have just stepped away from the body before taking a moment to look at it.

The weird thing, though, is the fact that we can see the victim's hand at all.

See, based on the "Undercover" shot, it seems like the victim must have had their back to the door before they fell to the floor. If you think about it, it would be really hard for them to end up with their hand there otherwise. However, if they had their back to the door, then Amane must have been facing the door as per the kill-shot.

This would be easier to explain if I had...

If I had visuals...

You know, like a- like a diagram.

(You thought you could escape my murder diagrams?! You fool!)

Why is this important? Well, because this means that, unless there was some crazy scuffle in that room (unlikely, as any actual fight would be near impossible for Amane to win), Amane was in the room before her mother entered. Obviously, this sort of only makes sense if Amane was left alone in the bathroom for a moment. Here's sort of the series of events I'm envisioning.

Does this make sense? How crazy am I going here?

Well, I think it follows. This is sorta what the evidence seems to be pointing at.

But it raises one big question. Why is Amane going to the murder room, then? If her mom is on the other side of the apartment, and she wants to kill her, what is she doing?

Well, I believe she's looking for a weapon. The blunt object seems like a possibility, but something like that could probably be improvised with almost anything, it wouldn't require going to that room in particular. No, I think Amane's actually looking for something more specific.

The Second Murder Weapon, and the "Magic" Kill-shot

Have you ever pondered how weird it is that “Magic” seems to have no allusion to Amane’s murder, at all? All the other trial one MVs have at least a reference to it, even if it’s as short as Mahiru’s look of horror in the final frame of her MV. But “Magic” doesn’t seem to have anything like that at first glance.

Well, here’s the thing. Now that we know a bit more, it’s easier to tell what time the kill-shot would have to happen. And it goes back to the wand Amane receives at the end of “Magic”.

As you know, when Amane receives this wand, she becomes the “perfect poster-child” of the cult, at least in her head. This is represented by an entire magical girl transformation sequence.

But when does that happen? If you’ve been paying attention, the transformation from “the regular Amane” to “perfect poster-child” Amane happens when she begins to understand and carry out the cult’s doctrine of punishment; when she kills her mother. In fact, you can even see in the frame we have of the murder, Amane is shown not in her real uniform, but in the March Leader clothes, showing her transformation is no longer a fantasy, but has become reality. Not literally, obviously, but metaphorically. She has become what she considers the ideal cult member.

So it’s fair to say then, that when Amane undergoes the same transformation in “Magic”, what we’re seeing is the time Amane killed her mother. And this transformation happens when she picks up the wand.

If this interpretation is right, then the wand is directly linked to the murder. And there is a very, very interesting detail about this wand.

Judges, jurors, and executioners. That’s a lightning bolt.

It’s not a wand. It’s the taser.

I mean, they could have chosen literally any other symbol to put there, right? A star, a heart, the clouds of the cult’s logo, even a rainbow. But no, it’s a thunderbolt. And it’s not even limited to just the wand, either. Notice how lightning strikes behind her right after she picks up the wand, and how her socks are styled in a lightning pattern.

(Don’t mind the blue in the background: that may look like a water puddle, but it’s always there, so I don’t think it means anything)

Now, to be clear, her socks are always like that in “Magic”, but the point stands. It’s a motif that repeats quite a few times, and yet, it’s nowhere to be seen in “The Purge March”.

Well, aside from the electricity of the taser.

I believe this is because “The Purge March” places more emphasis on the baton as the weapon, but there’s the thing. The baton and the wand aren’t the same thing. Not only is the baton longer, it has absolutely no allusions to thunder or electricity whatsoever. But since they’re both connected to the murder, I believe they’re both different murder weapons. The baton is the blunt object which actually killed the victim, and the wand is the taser.

That would explain how Amane was able to overpower an adult. She first incapacitated her mother with the taser, then started beating her with the "baton". It would also explain why she went into the murder room on her own. She was looking for the taser.

This is "Magic"'s kill-shot, I think. She points the wand at the screen, in a way which sorta looks vaguely like holding a taser, while these lyrics play.

I take an oath! I can only become a better girl!

And we've established what being a good girl is in the eyes of the cult, someone who punishes evil.

Q4: Do you think that your family is proud of you? A: Of course. No daughter is as exemplary as I.

Isn't that a concerning sentence.

Add this to the list of reasons I don't think she killed a cult leader. At the end of "Magic", after this shot, we see her among the four mascots with no indication any of them are hurt.

"Magic" underplays violence a lot, but I think for the murder, that takes the form of hiding the mother from view entirely, behind the camera.

So, a summary of how I think the murder went down.

Closing Argument wait wrong series

-After seeing the cat has died, Amane decided her mother should be punished as per the cult's beliefs. But she isn't looking to get forgiveness out of her mother; Amane was never forgiven, so her mother wouldn't be either.

-However, she wasn't able to get to the plan right away. Her mother was angry at her some nonsensical reason and waterboarded her before she could do anything.

-At one point, her mother left the bathroom, leaving the water running. Amane rolls over on the floor in pain and exhaustion, which is what we see in the silhouette scene in "Undercover".

-After catching her breath, Amane stands and leaves. She needs to look for the taser her mother usually used to punish her. She goes the other way her mother went, into the dininig/living room/bedroom/whatever it is, and picks it up.

-Her mother noticed the water puddles leading to the murder room, and followed Amane in. When she did, she saw her rummaging around somewhere she shouldn't have been, so she rushed further into the room to stop her.

-Too late. Amane had picked up the taser, and now turned to shock her. Her mother was incapacitated instantly, falling to the floor and writhing in pain.

-Amane grabbed an umbrella/baton/convenient cylinder and started beating her mother with it. This is the "Undercover" kill-shot. Even though her mother plead for forgiveness, Amane wouldn't listen, the same way her mother hadn’t listened to her pleas of forgiveness.

-The mother managed to briefly push Amane off, and tried to crawl away. But Amane quickly recovered and kept going until her mother was fully dead.

-Amane stepped off her mother's corpse, stepping over her and turning to look at it. By dealing out punishment, she has become the perfect follower for the cult. The March Leader.

What did we learn?

Well, uh, not much. Apart from morbid curiosity, there isn't much to gain from murder method usually. But there's still a few observations we can gleam.

For one, the whole thing with Gozake and its connection to the murder because of the waterboard thing, and possibly the "Undercover" silhouette scene. But if I'm right about the taser thing, then that means Amane's murder was more well-thought out than we had believed. Something like going to pick up the taser isn't exactly something that comes from a heat of the moment decision. She went in not just with an intent to kill, but an actual plan. Combined with an evidently high pain tolerance, seeing as she did all this right after being tortured, this poses her as quite a dangerous character.

Basically, I think it’s silly to say Shidou wouldn’t be killed by this kid. Y'all we might be fucked.

Verdict

(Oh yeah this is a thing we have to do)

First, I want to clarify: I do not have all the information here, so you probably shouldn't listen to me. Again, I've been here two days. But still, I think voting innocent is the... uh, better answer.

I'm gonna be real, I don't think either of the options are good here. A guilty verdict would make her significantly more volatile, because as we've seen, Amane reacts violently to being hurt. She's also not going to listen to us, since she's claimed she won't listen to the voices. I don't think she's telling the complete truth there, but the sentiment is likely true, she will not be swayed by just us. But an innocent verdict would validate the cult's beliefs of idolizing punishment, which would encourage her to attack Shidou.

But here's the thing. If she doesn't listen to us on guilty verdicts, it's possible she won't care too much about us validating the cult's beliefs. I think the act of forgiving her and showing we're not trying to hurt her is probably the best way we have right now of trying to reach her.

The only argument for guilty would be trying to get the physical restraints on her so she doesn't kill anyone, but I'm not sure we should trust that aspect of the first trial guilty verdicts to apply very well to this situation. If I'm right about her murder method, it would actually probably be pretty difficult to stop her I think, and as far as I'm aware there's not even confirmation the same rules from the first trial will apply again (I might be wrong about that). Frankly, I think as long as we can secure an inno on Kazui, we'll be safe from actual murder so long as we're able to keep Amane as predictable as possible. A guilty verdict would make her more unpredictable, I think, so an inno verdict would be better?

Frankly, I don't know. I think we're fucked either way. All the verdicts of the first trial, not just hers, have led us to quite the mess, but it was never going to go any different way. Shit was always going to get wild.

So here's my final conclusion: since I don't think the verdict can be trusted to properly help the group one way or another, we should vote to help Amane, the only one we know we can reach with this vote. And right now, she needs an innocent verdict.

Also I am insanely biased this kid needs help I'm not guiltying her. Call that part of the Milgram experiment ig.

Conclusion

The Purge March gives us better insight into the actual beliefs of the cult, mainly in relation to their views of punishment and reform. We also got a more detailed look at Amane’s murder, and the motivations behind what she did. Overall, while neither voting option seems great at the moment, that’s because they are unlikely to help with the tensions in the group. That means we’re going to have to vote for Amane, and the only way we’re going to make progress with her is by voting innocent. At least, that’s my view.

This was fun! I look forward to diving into the other MVs and going insane over them too, but for now I wanted to start with this one since it’s the most recent one and the one which actually piqued my interest enough to check out Milgram. If you made it this far into my insane ramblings, then… may kami-sama have mercy on your soul. Take care!

(Oh also tagging @sunlit-haru because he asked nicely)

[hinamie]

surprise it's yuri!!!in 2024

[dukeofthomas]

I don't want Jason as a declawed version of himself, all 'murder Is Wrong' and part of the batfam, but I also don't want him as an evil 'I blow up schools and shoot people for fun' villain.

I also once saw someone say a big part of the divesiveness here comes from how Robin!Jason and Red Hood!Jason are practically different characters. If you want villainous Red Hood, you make Robin Jason more aggresive, angrier, you make him more like what he'll become as an adult. And if you like Jaybin, you explain his murders and mistakes as side-effects of the pit and make Red Hood nicer and more agreeable, like how he wss before.

But I feel like both are a disservice to his character, but the 2 extremes of him are also really hard to reconcile.

[ahalliance]

said i’d go to war for the admin who was behind tototte, dansir, etc. and by god i meant it!

[crucefix]

Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | 2007 | dir. David Yates

[excelsior9173]

(pulled from this tweet, credit here)

[suddencolds]

The Worst Timing | [4/?]

happy friday, everyone! here is part 4 (5.3k words) as a little pre-valentines-day installment :) [part 1] is here! this chapter was a pain to edit; i think i deleted + rewrote about a fifth of it in the revision process

anyways, i promised this chapter would be the wedding, so... please enjoy the wedding

this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!

Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)

—

It’s a hectic morning.

Yves wakes up with the sinking realization that the medicine he took yesterday has worn off entirely. That is to say, he wakes up with the kind of unshakeable exhaustion he only feels when he’s coming down with something bad. His head is throbbing—sharp, cutting pain lances through his skull as soon as he finds it in himself to get out of bed.

All of that is inconsequential. He takes two pills from the cold/flu medicine blister pack with a generous few sips of water, brushes his teeth, washes his face in the sink with water cold enough to jolt him awake, and heads out.

He finds Aimee early, to ask her if she needs any help with anything. Then he makes himself available to the relatives that need him. There’s a last minute printing issue with the seating cards, so he goes through all of them again, finds the ones that are misprinted, talks extensively with the hotel’s front desk to explain what selection he needs to get reprinted and why, gets redirected towards the hotel’s business center, and finally gets them reprinted properly in one of the storerooms in the back. He lines the cards up and cuts them manually with a paper cutter he finds in one of the conference rooms on the first floor.

Then he takes a shuttle to the wedding venue to help set out all the seating cards according to a seating plan Genevieve texts him, but it’s windy enough outside that he has to find a way to weigh them all down. The venue has card holder stands, thankfully, but he doesn’t figure that out until he spends a good fifteen minutes asking around for them.

Then he waits twenty minutes in the cold for the shuttle back—the shuttles are thankfully in operation, but they’re running infrequently enough at this hour to be a slight inconvenience. By the time he gets on the shuttle, he’s shivering hard, even in his jacket, and his hands are almost numb from the cold.

The temperature certainly doesn’t help with the pressure in his sinuses, or with the sore throat that he’s had for a few days now. Perhaps it’s a blessing that the shuttle is near-empty save for him, because no one is there to question it when he ducks into his elbow with every loud, wrenching sneeze, or the coughing fit that almost inevitably follows.

When he gets back, he finds a sewing kit for Roy’s sister, Solaine—they don’t sell them at the convenience store downstairs, but he finds some in one of the tourist shops on the opposite end of the first floor of the hotel—for some last minute fixes to the way it’s hemmed. He delivers some safety pins from Victoire to one of his aunts, picks up breakfast pastries from the café across the street for his parents.

He takes a quick, hot shower, hot enough that the entire bathroom steams up because of it, and hopes that no one can hear the way every sneeze sounds so terribly, unnecessarily loud, even in the presence of his rapidly depleting voice. He rehearses his speech from memory and then rehearses it again, thinking through his notes on the pauses and the reflections. He irons his suit out, for good measure.

If he stops and lingers too long, it becomes quickly evident just how exhausted he is, just how unwell he feels when there’s nothing strictly keeping him on his feet. So instead, he makes himself useful where he can, busies himself with whatever he finds, if only because it’s the best distraction he can think of—if only because it’s the one distraction he has the luxury to take.

—

Lunch is a quick affair—he’s not especially hungry, and there will be more than enough food at the reception, so he grabs two pastries from downstairs, a coffee with two shots of espresso, and heads back up. Sitting down and eating them in the hotel room is somehow worse than running errands—like this, he can’t chalk his exhaustion up to his hectic morning, can’t attribute the heavy, shivery feeling that’s been following him all day the cold weather outside. 

Three more hours until the wedding. Anticipation always feels the worst, like this, when it’s nearly inseparable from worry—just a tangle of emotions in his chest.

He exhales.

Vincent is off—somewhere. Getting lunch, maybe, or getting ready for the wedding somewhere else. Yves has exchanged maybe all of twenty words with him this morning—do you know if our room has a sewing kit? Or, I’m going to stop by the café downstairs. Do you want me to get you anything?

Truthfully, Yves isn’t feeling much better today. His nose is running a little less now, thanks to the cold medicine, but the headache that he’s had all morning hasn’t gotten any less persistent. Even with his suit jacket on, he still can’t quite manage to get warm. He’s sneezing a little less, but each sneeze catches him off guard, harsh and sudden and embarrassingly loud.

But Vincent—who is, on average, unusually perceptive—hasn’t said anything about any of it. Yves tries not to think too hard about it. The less Vincent is worried about him, the better. Maybe he’s just preoccupied with other things.

He finishes his pastries at the small coffee table in the living room, downs half of his coffee, and then leans back in his chair and shuts his eyes.

His head hurts. He feels dizzy, even though he’s sitting perfectly still—as if the ground beneath him isn’t quite as steady as it should be—a strange feeling of vertigo. Surely if he sits here for just awhile longer, that feeling will go away.

He doesn’t fall asleep, exactly, but it’s a close thing. The discomfort doesn’t let up, either—no amount of massaging his temples seems to make the headache any better, and no amount of shuteye seems to do anything to lessen the exhaustion he feels. Maybe if he takes a nap he’ll wake up feeling passably fine. But he thinks it’s just as likely that he’ll get woken up early—by a phone call, or a text, or a knock on the door—to be told that he’s needed somewhere, and that alone is enough of a deterrent to keep him from properly falling asleep.

From somewhere at the edge of consciousness, he hears footsteps out in the hallway.

Someone’s here, then. He should let them in. But before he can bring himself to stand up and head over to the door, he hears the sound of the room card being inserted into its slot, hears the click of the door as it unlocks.

Someone—Vincent—shuts the door quietly behind him. When he spots Yves, he looks a little surprised.

“I didn’t think I’d find you here,” he says.

Yves blinks. His face feels unusually hot. “I got lunch,” he says, clearing his throat. “Well, I fidished it, but if I’d known you’d be getting back, I would’ve gotten somethidg for you.”

“I’m surprised you made it back,” Vincent says, leaving his shoes in a neat line at the door. “Are you done putting out all the fires now?” Yves laughs, though it turns into a cough. “For the foreseeable future, yes. Sorry i— hhH!” He twists over his shoulder, away from Vincent, to cover the sneeze in a manner that does not come at the expense of his suit jacket. “hHh-! iiDDzschh-IEW! snf-! Sorry I’ve barely been around this mornidg.”

Vincent is his own person—Yves has no doubt that he’s entirely self-sufficient when it comes to travel—but still, Yves is the only person Vincent really knows here. He’s not sure he can claim he’d be good company in his current state, but he feels like maybe he ought to be around more often—to translate, or to serve as the conversational buffer, or something else.

“It’s no problem,” Vincent says, frowning. “You were busy.”

“Still. If we were actually datidg, I think this would make me a slightly terrible boyfriend.”

“If we were actually dating, I would understand that you have important things in your life to attend to,” Vincent says.

Yves laughs. “Like cutting sixty sheets of paper into even rectangles?”

“Is that what you were out doing all morning?”

“Among other things.”

“Then yes,” Vincent says. He stops just short of the coffee table where Yves is sitting. “Are you finally off of paper-cutting duty?”

“God, I hope so. Weddings are always so hectic, even if you’re only peripherally idvolved. It’s like everyone’s worried about things going wrong beforehand, but then when you finally get to them, they always go fine.”

“Have you been to a lot of weddings in your life?”

Yves considers this. “Cobpared to the average person? Probably.”

“Then you should listen to your own advice,” Vincent tells him. 

“What?”

“It’s going to be fine.”

Yves blinks. If Vincent can tell that he is nervous after a three minute conversation with him, then Yves must really not be doing a good job at hiding it.

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he says. He really is tired. Maybe another cup of coffee, or two, will help—he can hardly think of anything more mortifying than nodding off halfway through the vows. “I don’t think I’ll forgive mbyself if it doesn’t.”

—

It’s a near-perfect wedding.

The weather is as temperate as it gets at this time of year. It’s sunny out, and brisk enough that no one feels stuffy in their suit jackets and their summer dresses.

The wedding venue is like something out of a storybook—the white stone paths, arcing around a circular fountain, the water a clear, searing blue; the rows and rows of flowers that crowd around it. Flowers—roses, peonies, tulips, gardenias—line the walkways, strung up over arches in crisscrossing rows of sprawling green leaves.

When Aimee and Genevieve walk down the aisle, Leon grins; Victoire turns away to wipe at her eyes. When they say their vows, Yves feels a tightness in his chest, a fierce sort of pride. He knew, of course, that this moment would make him emotional.

But nothing compares to seeing them here, right here, smiling. Aimee’s hair is half up, half down, held in place with a half moon clip that winks white under the sunshine. Genevieve is wearing a long white dress—her hair is braided into a crown, threaded with flowers, a translucent lace veil settling over her shoulders. The afternoon sunlight trickles over them, gleaming. And Yves—

Yves has always believed in love.

Perhaps it’s overly idealistic—he’s certainly been told as much before—but he believes in it still. He believed in it even before he started dating Erika, and he believed in it after they broke up, too. It’s not so much the idea that people can be soulmates, more the idea that people can spend thirty or fifty or seventy years together and not tire of each other, the idea that the little mundanities of life might be made special in the presence of someone whose existence sublimates them endlessly into interest. The idea that two people who may not ever fully understand each other might try, ceaselessly, to get close. 

He remembers: hearing about Genevieve, over text and over call; at first peripherally, but then frequently. He regrets, sometimes, that he wasn’t there more for the both of them, that he could only help from an ocean away with celebrations and holidays and special events, that he still doesn’t know Genevieve as well as he’d like to.

But a part of him thinks, now, that maybe it was a privilege, too, watching from afar. Hearing about the dates secondhand, from Aimee, all of it filtered through her own excitement—hearing Aimee talk about everything that left an impression on her. It would have been different, of course, if he had really been there. But in a way, it is a little fitting that his first impression of Genevieve—his first mental portrait of her—was by someone who was already already half in love with her.

And he remembers: Aimee, unusually quiet one night over Facetime, sitting cross legged in the living room of their new apartment. The world, dark outside through the living room windows, even though for him it was only mid afternoon. The way she’d smiled, wistful, staring off into the distance at some point he couldn’t see. I think I might marry her, she had said.

She had said it like she was certain. He finds himself going back to that moment, to her certainty. He’s always wondered—how had she known? How had she been so sure of it, even then? 

But the way Genevieve takes Aimee’s hands, during the vow—the way her hands tremble slightly with it, the particular carefulness with which she handles the ring—all of it makes him think that he’s been right to believe in this, in them, in love. After all, what more convincing proof is there than this?

—

All in all, it is nearly perfect.

Nearly, save for how unwell he feels, how self conscious he is about not making it expressly known. Yves shivers through the entire ceremony, occasionally lifting the collar of his suit jacket to muffle a harsh, wrenching sneeze into the fabric. He’ll get it dry cleaned later. Beside him, Vincent looks to him, his head tilted in question—and, after Yves smiles apologetically at him—says nothing.

He makes it through, as a combination of everything—the adrenaline, the cold medicine, the four espressos he’d had this morning and the energy drink he’d downed right before the ceremony to keep himself awake. 

He doesn’t have a thermometer, doesn’t know what kind of temperature he’s running, but he has a hunch that it’s higher than it should be. It’s freezing outside—cold enough that he can’t keep himself from shivering, even when he tries—but no one else seems to be as cold as he is. He can only hope, now, that no one else notices him ducking into his jacket, periodically, to catch another sneeze, or wiping his nose on the back of his hand to keep it from openly running.

The world looks fever-bright, fuzzy around some edges but unusually sharp around others. He’s awake, but in the sort of uncomfortable, all-consuming way where it feels like he’s too nervous to get any sleep at all.

He feels only half-present during the cocktail hour, while Aimee and Genevieve take their pictures. He thinks he should make himself useful somehow—help with positioning props for photos or with setting up the proper lighting or whatever else—or, at the very least, converse with the relatives that he hasn’t had much of a chance to catch up with yet.

Instead, he sits, half hunched over at one of the side tables, and tries not to shiver too visibly. His head hurts with the sort of sharp, incessant pain that makes it near-impossible to focus on anything else. 

“Are you okay?” Vincent asks him. 

Yves looks over to him. Vincent looks concerned—his eyebrows are furrowed, his mouth set into a frown—and Yves—

Yves considers it, for a moment: telling Vincent the truth. That it’s taking everything in him to appear even remotely presentable. That a part of him is nervous that he’ll crash before he gives his speech. That he might have overestimated his own ability to get through four more hours of this, outside in the cold.

“Of course,” he says instead, with the best smile he can muster, because what else is there to say?

He doesn’t end up having any drinks, even though he’s usually a fan of cocktails. Leon offers him one, and when Yves shakes his head, shrugs and heads off to find someone else, which Yves thinks is probably the best. He’s a little too out of it to keep tabs on where all the others are—there are enough people that it’d be hard to spot everyone in the first place, but like this, it feels impossible.

And Vincent is… surprisingly, absent, for much of it. Yves considers texting him a couple times, just to see where he might be, but then decides against it. If Vincent has found something fun to do, then Yves definitely isn’t going to keep him from doing it.

Except, a small part of him says, he’d explicitly told Vincent not to worry about him. It doesn’t have to be your problem, he’d said, and Vincent had stared back at him, blankly, except was his expression really blank, then? Hadn’t he seemed a little hurt? After all of this is over, Yves really ought to apologize to him for all of the trouble—for making this whole wedding a lot more stressful than it should’ve been.

Vincent had known, after all, that he was nervous just this morning, even though Yves hadn’t wanted for it to show. And perhaps Vincent has always been perceptive, but Yves likes to think he isn’t always so obvious. Vincent is here to enjoy his vacation in France, first and foremost. Yves doesn’t want anything—not the fever he feels brewing, not the nervousness he feels regarding the wedding—to get in the way of that.

But right now, Vincent is nowhere to be found, so he tables the apology for later. For now, he just has to get through the entirety of the wedding. He spends a good part of the hour in the same seat, blowing his nose into cocktail napkins, wishing he had packed something warmer that would fit the dress code.

He makes polite conversation with whoever stops by, and tries—and fails—to ignore the fact that it feels like his head is going to split. Maybe he should’ve picked up some aspirin at the convenience store, too, though it’s not like he has the time to go back and get it now. And, anyways, as painful as it is, it’s really just a headache. How bad could it be?

—

At six, he finds his seat for dinner. A couple minutes later, Vincent takes a seat next to him. Yves turns to speak to him, only, he has to turn away to muffle a throat-scraping fit of coughs into his elbow.

The coughing fit lasts longer than he anticipates. When he looks up at last, Vincent is already in conversation with the person next to him, who Yves recognizes to be one of Genevieve’s friends—perhaps one of the ones he ate dinner with the night before, though Yves can’t be sure. Yves hunts down another cocktail napkin to blow his nose into—it’s starting to run worse now that the sun is starting to set.

When it comes time to give his toast, he’s afraid, for a moment, that he might forget what to say. That he might trip up mid-speech, despite all of the practice. That his current affliction might make itself clearly, embarrassingly apparent right when everyone’s attention is focused on him.

But the speech goes well. He gives his speech in French. His voice is noticeably off, but he hasn’t lost it entirely, and if he has to resort to clearing his throat as quietly as he can in between sentences, it’s a small sacrifice. Aimee giggles at the anecdote he tells about her in grad school, texting him about meeting Genevieve for the first time at a networking event. He throws in a couple inside jokes—references to things he’s heard his extended family laugh about during their yearly summer reunions, things that he can tie back into the wedding that he hopes might land well with this audience—and then he tells everyone about a surprise party he worked with Genevieve to plan, last summer, for Aimee’s birthday: how she’d stayed up late to make sure everything was carefully accounted for. How he’d known, then, from how seriously she was taking it, by how well she seemed to know Aimee already, that she would be the one. 

The jokes seem to land, for the way everyone—buoyed from the adrenaline of the wedding and in part thanks to the cocktails, he’s sure—laughs, and by the end, Genevieve is beaming, and Aimee breaks tradition to run up to him and give him a tight hug. After that, he asks everyone to raise their glasses in a toast—“To Aimee and Genevieve,” he says, “what a joy it is to see the team you’ve been rooting for win,” and the room erupts into clamor—into applause and cheer and the resounding clinking of glasses.

Then someone he recognizes as one of Genevieve’s closest friends stands to give her toast, and for the first time today, Yves lets himself relax in his seat. Only, it isn’t really relaxing—after all of the caffeine, he feels simultaneously exhausted and strangely, artificially alert, in a way that feels a little wrong.

The rest of the wedding should be smooth sailing, he thinks. The ceremony is over. His speech was fine. He just needs to stay through dinner and the cake cutting, and then he can ride the shuttle back with everyone else, and then—

—And then he’ll be back at his hotel room, where he can apologize to Vincent for perhaps being the very reason why this vacation hasn’t been as stress-free as it should’ve been, considering that it’s likely one of the few reprieves he and Vincent are supposed to get until busy season winds down.

He blinks, rubs a hand over his face, sniffling. He really does feel dizzy.

It’s usually like this. Yves thinks he should probably be wiser by now. If there’s anything he’s learned from past experiences—attending that end-of-semester crew meeting with the flu, or getting through the second half of finals week his senior year of university with a high fever—it’s that half a week of ignoring all of his symptoms is going to catch up to him eventually. 

Usually he’s better at defining what constitutes eventually.

He feels a familiar prickle in his nose—the kind that he knows once he gives in to will plague him for the rest of the hour. The cold medicine must be wearing off. Better to do this elsewhere—anywhere instead of here, on the courtyard, where everyone is eating dinner.

“I’ll be right back,” he says to Vincent. Then, without waiting for a response, he rises from his seat and heads off in the direction of the nearest restroom. There’s one in the main building, past the catering stations, the ballroom, the indoor bar.

“Hey, Yves,” someone—his sister—says, when he’s halfway to the building.

He stops walking. “What’s up?”

“You nailed that speech,” she says.

“In no small part thadks to you,” Yves says, forcing himself to turn and face her with a smile. “I’m glad we cut it down. And by we I mean, mostly you.”

“You were a hit,” Victoire says. “And it was funny. I liked the anecdotes you picked. I don’t think people would’ve minded if it were longer.” 

“Three mbidutes was the perfect length. Ady longer and people would’ve started losidg idterest— hHh-!” Yves thinks, a little frustratedly, that he always has the most inconvenient timing. “Excuse mbe, I— HHehh!” He lifts his arm to his face, twisting away. “hHhEH’iiDZSSchh’iiEW!”

When he turns back around to face her, Victoire is staring at him with the sort of calculating look that Yves is sure is not a good thing.

“You’re still sick?” she asks.

He blinks at her. “A little,” he says. “I’ll get some sleep todight.” 

She nods. “Does Vincent know?”

The question startles him into laughing, which he immediately regrets, for the way it makes him cough. “That I’mb sick?” he asks. “Yeah, I’d assume so. We share a room.”

“Assume? So you haven’t talked to him about it?”

“Whether or ndot I have a cold is not the mbost enthralling conversation topic,” Yves says.

“But you’re dating,” she says, as if that explains everything.

It explains nothing. “Yes, glad you ndoticed.”

“I just mean that — I mean, he got breakfast with us the other day, which you weren’t there for, and then we had the rehearsal dinner, which he wasn’t invited to. And during the cocktail hour, you were sitting alone.”

“I’mb not sure where you’re goidg with this,” Yves says, if only because he doesn’t want to be having this conversation right now. “But if you’re wondering whether—” He veers away again, pressing his arm to his face. “hh… Hehh-! hhHH’GKTT-SHHiiew!Ugh, sorry… Hh… HEHh’IIDZZSCHh-yyEEew! snf-! If you’re wondering whether we got into a fight, or sobething, then the answer is no.”

“It’s not that.” Victoire hesitates, for a moment, as if she’s still thinking about what to say. She probably is. She’s always been deliberate with her words. “It kind of seems like—well, like you’re doing that thing you always do.”

“What thidg I always do?” 

“You know.” She looks at him, her expression carefully, deceptively neutral. “Avoiding the people who care about you when something’s wrong.”

“I have ndo idea what you’re talking about.” Yves glances wistfully over to the bathroom. “I do really ndeed to pee, you know.”

He half expects her to press, but she just sighs. “Okay,” she says. “Don’t let me keep you.”

It’s a convenient out, and he takes it. The walk over is thankfully not too long—the bathroom turns out to be located just a couple hallways down from the entrance, but it’s hidden enough that it’s a little hard to find. For now, that’s a good thing.

He imagines the wedding party might move inside shortly after dinner, but as it stands, the building is mercifully empty. The restroom on the first floor is nicer than expected—warm lighting, floor to ceiling mirrors, polished white sinks on a black granite countertop. He braces himself against the countertop, suppressing another shiver. 

His nose is running slightly. He reaches over and grabs a couple paper towels from the dispenser, just to be safe.

It’s not a moment too early. It’s only moments after that he’s pitching forwards into the paper towels with a harsh—

 “HhH’iiDZSSCHh-IIEW!” 

The sound echoes off the tiled walls. Yves finds himself coughing, afterwards. The medicine must really be wearing off, then, for the way his nose is starting to run incessantly—for the way the discomfort prickles at his skin, suggesting a fever. It’s a good thing there’s no one here to see him like this.

“hHEHh’iIZssCHH-iiEW! snf-! hHEh… HDDt’TSSCHH-iEEW!” The sneezes are harsher than usual, too, and forceful enough to snap him forward at the waist. He stays hunched over for a moment, steadying himself with the side of the countertop, and tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, to catch his breath. 

The bathroom feels frigidly cold. He shivers, reaches up with trembling hands to try to button up his suit. His nose is starting to tickle again. It feels like he might be here forever, like one wrong breath might be enough to—

“hhH…. hHEH…. hhHEH’DJJJSHH’iiEEW!” The paper towels in his hand must be drenched now, but before he can get a chance to replace them, his breath catches again. “hhEH’GKTT-SHhhEw!” It’s immediately clear, from the subsequent twinge in his nose, that he’s not done. For a moment, he wonders if the sneezes will ever let up—if he’ll be stuck in the bathroom all evening, trying to keep his illness under wraps.

Before he can entertain the thought properly, he finds himself jerking forward again, his eyes snapping shut—

“Hehh… hEHh’IIZSCHH-YYEEW! hHihhH’-iiTsSHHH-YYEW!”

He blows his nose, as gently as he can, but the paper towel is rougher against his skin. When he looks up afterwards, blinking tears out of his vision, his nose looks noticeably red. 

It takes all the resolve in him to not just slump against the wall.

His next breath comes in wrong, and he finds himself coughing—harsh, grating coughs which seem to go on and on, leaving him feeling distinctly lightheaded.

He can’t stay here. He needs to make it back to dinner, where the others are waiting for him. He has to get back before Vincent starts wondering where he’s gone.

Yves squeezes his eyes shut. If he’s being honest with himself, he feels awful. Nothing he does seems to do anything to assuage the chill that’s settled persistently over him, the uncomfortable, shivery feeling that makes him want to curl up somewhere warm, sleep the next day and a half away.

Would it be so bad for him to stay here for just a little longer? To send a text to Vincent to let him know he’ll be back in twenty? It’s not the most comfortable of places, but it would be the easiest to explain if someone ends up finding him here. Anywhere else might suggest that he has a big enough problem to deliberately hide away instead of properly enjoying the festivities, like he should be doing, which is not the impression he wants to give off at all.

He tries to think of a convincing enough excuse, but nothing he can think of takes precedence over a wedding dinner, of all things. It should be fine if he goes back now, but any longer might be pushing things.

And, anyways, he feels guilty for even considering it. The others are waiting for him. He has to show up, and at the very least, be courteous where he has to, make pleasant conversation when he can. He has to make sure Aimee and Genevieve are having fun, and that Leon and Victoire are doing fine, and that nothing needs to get done logistically, and that Vincent is not there alone, surrounded by strangers speaking a language he’s just started to learn.

His head is pounding. He tosses the paper towels into the bin, leans his weight against the countertop, squeezes his eyes shut. The exhaustion from the past few days of on-and-off sleep must be catching up with him. His head is pounding.

He can do this. More aptly put, it’s not a question of whether he can. He has to do this.

He splashes his face with cold water, washes his hands in the sink, dries his face with another generous handful of paper towels, and heads towards the door. He feels almost too tired to stand, but that’s only a temporary concern. It won’t be a problem once he gets back to his seat.

Everyone is waiting for him, he tells himself. Soon, they might be asking where he’s gone. He needs to show them that he’s there—present and attentive and engaged, just like he promised everyone he’d be. No one expects any less of him, after all.

It’s with that in mind that he presses forward. He makes it down a couple hallways before he finds himself having to lean against the wall to catch his balance, shutting his eyes against the sudden wave of disorientation. He inhales, slowly. Exhales.

Fuck. Perhaps he’s dizzier than he’d expected.

“Yves?” He freezes. Vincent is not supposed to be here. Vincent can’t see him right now, not in this state. He forces himself to smile. “What’s up?”

“You disappeared,” Vincent says. “I wanted to make sure…”

His voice shutters, sounding distant and close by all at once. “...that everything was okay.”

“It is,” Yves says. “I was just about to head back.” “We can head back together,” Vincent says. It’s not that long of a walk—just a couple minutes, at most, to the exit Vincent presumably came in from, and then back down the stone path that leads to the courtyard.

“You didn’t have to come find me. I’m really fine.” Yves shifts his weight off from the wall. Takes a couple steps halting towards the exit, which is a mistake.

It all registers simultaneously: the darkness encroaching upon the edges of his vision, the surge of panic in his chest. The world, suddenly angled wrongly, tilts towards him. He thinks he is definitely going to owe Vincent an apology.

[ Part 5 ]

[aromanticasterisms]

no but actually. the parallels to other Twins in different nations of teyvat in relation to the traveler and their desire to reunite with their own sibling makes me a little bit bonkers. like.

diluc and kaeya as what the traveler has and fears, after we will be reunited [separation born from conflict that seemingly cannot be mended; they both care for each other but ultimately their opposing ideals mean they cannot be at each other's side in the same way that they used to, and no longer have the close bond they once did]

ei and makoto as what the abyss sibling experienced [a crushing loss not just of one's twin but the last remaining friend they had and the safety and security of their nation, coming out the other side traumatized, cold and jaded and making decisions that will ultimately hurt the people they claim to want to protect for the sake of an unattainable goal]

and lyney and lynette as what the traveler and the abyss twin used to have before they were separated [never apart for long, home is wherever we are together], what the traveler wants [their separation brief and quickly amended, continuing to be inseparable after they reunite], and also the choice they'll have to make [the twins being together in an organization the traveler inherently doesn't trust - does the traveler want to be by their sibling's side badly enough to throw their lot in with the abyss, and turn their back on everyone else they've met on their journey so far?]

[sneez]

victor kain chronic pain nation rise up (credit to @transdankovsky for this idea :-D)

/ id: two digital drawings. the first image shows victor kain and daniil dankovsky sitting together; daniil is taking victor’s pulse. inside a speech bubble above victor’s head is a screenshot of a question from the duolingo russian course, in which the sentence ‘я – хороший пациент, у меня всегда всë болит’ is translated as ‘i am a good patient, i always have pain everywhere’. the second image shows daniil looking politely horrified. end id. /

[averlym]

ghostwriter (their grandma would tell them she'd lose half her soul)

[adriartts]

plane sheep (sheep from the plane)

[nejackdaw]

Okay I haven't talked about Judas OR the Judas album in a while so I'm going to share this analysis I finally placed and I'm losing my mind about

In the song Field of Blood (song 5,) the chorus ends with a line I've never quite been able to find a suitable conclusion about. Right. (Putting my rambling under a read more, the screenshots make this long)

Oh, okay, "what is my god," he's having a crisis of faith. Why is God so cruel as to order Jesus be killed (reminder that the album is a mix of biblical and Gnostic canon, where Jesus asked Judas to be the one to betray him.)

WRONG

If we move two tracks ahead in the album to Death is Just a Kiss Away, right before the last chorus we have these lines:

Which is insane! Because this part is actually saying "you have two gods, God and Jesus" (sun and moon, as I'll get to) "and no matter which you choose" (obeying the kill command or refusing to kill Jesus) "you're going to piss everyone off"! Okay now I know, "but where did you get sun and moon/God and Jesus" and HERE I TELL YOU:

Jesus is CONSTANTLY referred to with constellation imagery! (There's a whole song about it!) The Gospel of Judas includes the quotes (from Jesus) "Judas, your star has led you astray" and "the star that leads the way is your star." The album takes this and RUNS with it. Makes Jesus Judas's guiding star. There is SO MUCH night/star symbolism going on here, mostly in Constellation, but also from A World Where we Belong:

SO BASICALLY: considering that Jesus is heavily referred to with night sky imagery and they're literally both referred to as "two moons aligned," it isn't unreasonable to conclude that the line from Just a Kiss Away is in fact talking about God/Jesus. WHICH MEANS

When Judas is about to hang himself and he pleadingly asks "what is my god?"

HE DOESN'T KNOW IF IT'S GOD OR JESUS BECAUSE HE'S FUCKING IN LOVE WITH HIM APNDOANSOANS HE OBEYED GOD BECAUSE HE'S GOD BUT HE'S KILLING HIMSELF OVER JESUS. I HAVE MANY OTHER LINES ABOUT THIS (DEVOTION TO JESUS, NOT GOD) BUT THAT'S A DIFFERENT TOPIC

[wavebiders]

what nobody warns you about when it comes to watching Xena is that even though it is very good when it's bad it's BAD bad

[annapoofle]

If somebody were in third in the entire world in the olympic trials so far, trailing second by less than a tenth of a point, you'd think they'd have a pretty fucking decent shot at olympic gold in the finals. And yet Jordan Chiles isn't even ALLOWED to COMPETE to even TRY to win when she VERY FEASIBLY could????????? Because of a two-per-country limit???? AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH

[daddy-long-legssss]

The transition from ‘This House Is a Circus’ into ‘If You Were There, Beware’ is so good.

[rolandkaros]

"i had no doubt she'd make it to the final. it only depended on me if i was going to make it. i really wanted to have this battle and decide everything on court. i was sad that she lost." so anyways. i'm going to launch myself into the ocean.