#i didn’t even intend to write a theory when i started this post

[lycancrow]

thoughts/theory about The Neon Void >:)))

@sugarpasteltmnt

spoilers for ch. 21

void’s fighting style mimics that of the krang in it’s mech. this makes sense, as he doesn’t have his swords, and the parasite likely affects his instincts.

void not fighting using swords was a very good choice imo, as his family would most definitely have recognized him by the way he fought.

even when he gets his sword back, he doesn’t get the chance to fight while using it. instead, he slashes open a portal, and then subsequently spends the rest of the fight trying to close it.

i feel like this fact really adds to the identity reveal and the distinction between void and leo: he tries to fight as void while using leo’s sword. this dissonance is physically manifested as a veritable black hole of a portal; a void.

and if he doesn’t close it, get rid of the void, his family will die. he has to act as leo in order to do this.

if that ain’t foreshadowing, idk what is.

i suspect that, in some way, his actions as void (possibly due to the crazed state that we last saw him in) will again put his family in danger. whether the danger is the krang or something else, idk.

in order to save them, he’ll have to save himself first; he’ll need to banish the void back to where it came from.

however, void is his coping mechanism. as long as he is void, he doesn’t have to process all of that trauma. leo, in his own words, is weak. a waste of space. i suspect that it’ll be a hard battle to get him to accept that he has to go back.

what’s more important to him? his family: the people he survived 5 years in hell for? or, his own self destruction: the thing that comforted him in that darkness. the thing that keeps him from falling apart?

anyways, this is just a theory. A GAME THEORY !!

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 9: The One Where You Choose Your Own Brazilian Adventure

My planned post – the “In Dedication of JVN” one where I fangirl over Jonathan Van Ness and what a fun and interesting piece of the Lukola puzzle he is – was derailed today because I was once again asked about Brazil. Well, more specifically, I was asked about whether I thought we were ever going to get those steamy, hopefully X-rated pictures, from Brazil. There’s pictures?!

In truth, I thought we’d collectively squeezed that grapefruit dry and left the rind somewhere between Italy and the Glamour Awards.

Alas, here I am writing about Brazil.

It’s funny because I’ve never thought much about Brazil. I know, I know! How could I possibly type those words without my nose growing six inches in front of my face? Well, it’s because it was always Australia that intrigued me. More on that later…

So why exactly do we believe there are pictures from Brazil? And, why do we think they are going to prove some kind of hot affair between Luke and Nicola? This theory is likely fueled by rumor; rumor born from how Luke and Nicola behaved towards each other while they were in Brazil.

I thought it would be fun to play a little game of “Choose Your Own Adventure” to determine if we’re ever going to see these alleged pictures. And, yes, I will be a very sarcastic bitch when doing this.

Before I start, though, I want to give a quick shout out to my dear friend, whom I shall call The-One-Who-Drops-Random-Pics-Into-Our-Group-Chat-and-Lets-Us-Sweat-Over-Them-for-Atleast-Three-Minutes-Before-Finally-Explaining-Them. She was a wealth of information about Brazil and even had a nice mother-daughter chat with me about the significance of a clean-shaven face (pardon me for never having dated a bearded man, which is odd because I find facial hair quite attractive).

Now, gather ‘round and I shall give you a little prologue to our adventure!

I’m sure most of you already know all about Brazil. In fact, many of you are probably self-described experts at this point. But, for those who are new here, let me go ahead and light the candles and set the ambiance for you. 

On May 19, Luke and Nicola were shuttled off to do their beach photoshoot in Brazil. You know, the one where Nicola was walking the dogs; Luke was strumming the guitar; Nicola was being all girlfriend-like fixing Luke’s jacket; Luke was gazing up at Nicola at the pub while she was touching his neck; and then there was that moment when we all thought they might kiss. Yeah, all that plus Luke’s scruffy face from the week prior suddenly appeared clean-shaven. Apparently, you can never be too “Casual” when you’re headed down south (pun intended – as was that Chappell Roan reference). And, about now is where I’ll “insert disclaimer that this is speculation only.”

The following day, we had the actual premiere. I’m not sure what those two were up to before the premiere but both were un-fucking-hinged by the time they made it to the red carpet. We had angel-face Nicola looking up at Luke like he had created the universe and Luke answering Nicola’s Little Red Riding Hood vibe with one sexy ass Big Bad Wolf persona. I mean, the bits and bobs that came out of Luke’s mouth that day! “There’s a carriage downstairs.” “I mean, in this heat, all I’m thinking about is when we didn’t have to wear clothes ‘cos that would be quite nice right now.” “I mean the show is proof that it is [okay to kiss your friends].” With Nicola whispering back, “This is true.” Then there was Luke taking that mic without taking his eyes off Nicola. We had Luke helping Nicola put on her bracelets because – God forbid! – she let go of him for 30 seconds to do it her fucking self. And, let’s not forget about the two of them holding on to each other behind that woman’s back (I’m sorry, I don’t recall her name and I’m too lazy to look it up – mainly, because I’m certain most of you don’t really care about that other woman).

We were also given snippets of Luke and Nicola at the premiere afterparty, looking like two people who, at a minimum, enjoyed each other’s company. They greeted fans outside the venue and, as they walked away together, Nicola seemingly put her hand on Luke’s lower back as if to guide him in the right direction (go ahead – let your imagination run wild – it’s a great opening for a FanFic).

Then, throw in the beach walk with the giant security guard; the interview where Nicola was wearing the fluffy pink skirt and the two of them talked about Chappell Roan’s “Kaleidoscope” (seriously, those two were listening to that song together?); Nicola couldn’t stop giggling about the “meat” of the Carriage Scene; and Luke appeared perhaps a smidge too interested in Nicola’s answer about what she looks for in a man (which fit perfectly into Luke’s “Like, how nice is it when someone notices, like, your kindness or your sense of humor?”). And, we can’t ignore them seemingly sharing a tea cup and Luke reaching for Nicola’s spoon after she’d sampled a dish. Don’t even get me started on over-analyzing Luke’s “manspread” that day.

Let’s also not forget about the rumor portion of this Brazilian escapade – because that is what fuels the sexy hot pictures theory and the central plot of our storied adventure.

Rumor has it Luke and Nicola spent a lot of time with each other in Brazil.

By themselves.

In one or the other’s room.

On the beach.

By the pool.

There were also rumors of them making out in the hotel hallway.

The only evidence we have of any “alone time” are some pictures that were dumped on X of them dining together alone, without any other members of their team.

Now that the backdrop has been set, let’s go on my little adventure.

During the summer between my 7th and 8th grade years, I was bored out of my mind. I grew up in the countryside. No neighbors. No sidewalks. No cable! Just fields, wooded areas, and my two sisters, both of whom had no interest in entertaining me that summer. My mother suggested I read. After boredom had dug itself so far into my being that I was left with no choice but to read, I finally ventured over to the bookshelf and grabbed the thinnest book I could find. It was a “Choose Your Own Adventure.”

If you don’t know what a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book is, then you (and your children) are missing out. Basically, you play the role of the protagonist and make choices to determine the outcome of your story. Sometimes you make the right choice and survive; other times you make the wrong choice and get turned into a little mouse that may or may not be eaten by a cat.

Here we go.

As the protagonist of our story, you are:

THE EMPLOYEE

You’re an employee of the hotel Nicola and Luke stayed at while in Brazil. You have sworn to maintain the privacy of hotel guests; you’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement of sorts to protect the privacy of guests, especially since you have access to VIP areas. You can be a housekeeper, a watchman, a concierge, a seven-foot-tall security guard, whatever tickles your fancy. Doesn’t matter – you’re all bound by the same provisions to protect the privacy of the hotel’s guests. But, in this story, let’s say you’re the housekeeper because – what’s that old saying – the only person who knows everything going on in the house is the maid?

You’re cleaning Nicola’s room and you find lots of signs of a man being in the room. In fact, you find a coat that looks exactly like the one Luke was wearing the night of the premiere. Oh my. As you’re leaving, you see two people making out in the hallway – headed straight towards the room you’re just leaving!  It looks like Nicola and Luke. What do you do?

Choice A: Well, you’re a pervy housekeeper so you pull your phone out and start taking pictures. I mean, those two are so into each other, they don’t even notice. You then run and play show-and-tell with your friends because you can’t keep a damn secret. Unfortunately for you, that gossip spreads faster than lice in a preschool, and hotel management tracks your ass down because, guess what, your friends can’t keep a secret either. So, congratulations on being fired. You’re meeting with the lawyers is first thing in the morning. Oh, we also need your phone and the names of all your friends.

Choice B: You respect the privacy of Nicola and Luke and simply turn and walk the opposite direction. Taking photos of them never even crossed your mind! But, damn, what a good story to tell your bestie when you get home, even if you don’t have “receipts.”

THE VIP GUEST

You’re a random guest staying at the hotel. In fact, you’re a random VIP guest staying on the same floor as Nicola and Luke. When you checked in, you signed a non-disclosure agreement. I mean, you want your privacy protected, too! And, heck, NDAs are thrown out like candy these days. You’ve seen so many at this point, you don’t even bother to read them.

You take the elevator up to your floor and, as you step into the hallway, you’re confronted with – goddammit, there’s two motherfuckers all over each other! The guy is trying to slide his key into the door, but the woman’s dress is so awkwardly large, he can’t seem to find the right slot! You realize the people look a lot like those two stars from Bridgerton, and your best friend, Effie, is a huge fan! What do you do?

Choice A: You can’t believe Effie is missing out on this excitement so, of course, you pull your phone out and start taking pictures!! I mean, that NDA you signed didn’t even cross your mind three minutes later when you were forwarding the pictures to Effie! And, because you can’t control what Effie does, she forwards the pictures to all her Bridgie buddies. The next morning you awaken to find the pictures all over X. Oopsie. You feel slightly guilty, and a bit peeved at Effie – but only until you’ve had your morning coffee.

Choice B: You take people’s privacy very seriously. Well, maybe you don’t take it that seriously, but it would be too difficult to dig your phone out of your handbag to take pictures. And, to be honest, Effie is the huge fan, not you. Plus, it seems the guy finally got that door open and damn, based on the sounds of it, he's unlocked something magical. Oh well. You’ll call Effie in the morning to tell her your story, if you remember it.

THE RANDOM STRANGER

You’re a random stranger taking an evening stroll along the beach. You love the sound of the ocean. It’s so peaceful…the sound of the waves… Ugh, what is that noise?! It sounds like – shit, it is! – two people snogging in a cabana about 10 yards away from you. Wait a minute – is that? Yeah, you think it could be! I mean, you were just at the Bridgerton premiere last night! What do you do? Without hesitation, you pull out your phone!

Choice A: You creep behind an umbrella and zoom in as close as possible with your camera! I mean, shite! You can’t believe this! How long have you been filming?  Probably longer than necessary but who cares? Suddenly, you feel a presence behind you, perhaps a seven-foot-tall presence, and you slowly turn around. Fuck! Who’s this guy?! He takes your phone, drops it to the ground, and stomps on it, shattering its insides.  Asshole.  You bend down to pick up the phone, but the man taps your shoulder and shakes his head, “No.” Well, umm, yeah, I guess you best be leaving.

Choice B: You use your camera to zoom in on the couple. Snap! Snap! Snap! Then you get the FUCK OUT OF THERE! You tell yourself you don’t look suspicious at all, even though you’re practically running and your heart is about to pound its way out of your chest! Oh, thank God, you’ve made it to your car. You start it up and, like I said, YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE! You get home and take a look at the photos! Goldmine! So, should you drop them on X? Maybe be a little see-you-next-Tuesday and try to sell them to Nicola or Luke’s teams? But, hell, you don’t even know where to start with that! Or, should you just pocket them for your own pleasure? You tell me….

The End.

Yes, I am absolutely being a facetious little ass! The above scenarios were for (the most part) my own entertainment. I mean, there are so many situations where these alleged pictures could exist (these playful ones don’t even scratch the surface). But, do the pictures exist?

If we’re being logical here, you would think that, if anyone in the general public were in possession of these alleged sexy-time pictures of Luke and Nicola, or had seen them, it would be all over social media at this point. I mean, ALL OVER. So, what can we deduce from the fact that they aren’t?

That the pictures probably don’t exist. Don’t shoot the messenger! Seriously, watch where you point that thing!

But, let’s say pictures did exist. Who is the most likely person to dump them on, say, X? The hotel employee, the VIP guest, or the random stranger? I would place money on the random stranger, followed by the VIP guest. The hotel employee, who probably has the most access to VIP guests but the strongest legal barriers, would be the least likely to photo dump. What is the likelihood that someone from one of these three groups – for example, a random stranger – (a) had pictures of Luke and Nicola, (b) didn’t drop them on social media, and/or (c) didn’t share them with someone who dropped them on social media?

I’m all for a good conspiracy theory but I find this one to be a hard pill to swallow.

Maybe one person can act as a lockbox for this kind of secret, but when you start including more people, the ability to keep something (like illicit photographs of two celebrities) out of the public eye diminishes rapidly.

Remember what Benjamin Franklin said, “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

Unfortunately, this quote is incredibly accurate. The general public cannot keep secrets.

If the pictures exist, they are most likely in the possession of Luke and/or Nicola’s team (of lawyers). So, unless they’re going to sneak them on to X for giggles (I mean, it’s been known to happen), you’re probably never going to see them – and that’s assuming they even exist.

However, if you’re the housekeeper from our first adventure and you happen to have some candid photographs you’re just dying to share, just find yourself a printer – one that cannot easily be linked back to you – and print them out. Then, “accidently” drop them at the feet of someone who knows exactly what they are, and then give them enough time to take their own photos of them and send them to their best friend’s brother’s sister-in-law’s third cousin’s wife’s neighbor, who could drop them on X for us. I mean, you should be golden with seven degrees of separation.

[ven0moir]

Clearing the air on the “Bychance vs Byler Civil War”

Bylers vs Bychancers? More like Bylers & Bychancers vs The Miscommunication Trope ( something like that ).

Why this is what i think is actually going on:  

This is NOT Mileven vs Byler 2.0 at all because bychance has not ONCE been proposed as a replacement for Byler, at least not from myself or @cypherheartnokey which are ( as far as im aware ) the main people theorizing about it right now. I personally don’t even see it as a real ship, but that’s just me. 

HOW THIS WHOLE THING STARTED ( as far as i know )

So a few days ago, i made this post:

I used the Byler tag and have continued to do so bc skeptic ( and even full on anti-bychance ) Bylers were my intended TARGET AUDIENCE for this. I knew there was a risk I would get some hate for taking it seriously since Bychance was never supposed to be more than just a silly and fun crackship that the fandom made up. (😭im not even gonna pretend I don't go into laughing fits over how absolutely bonkers I sound to myself most days. cypherheartnokey and others --you pookies know who you are <3-- who See The Things Im Seeing keep me sane istg my ride or die fr ) 

It was just supposed to be a fun writing exercise to see if my current ideas held up under scrutiny from bylers. To test myself, basically. 

MY INITIAL ASSUMPTION 

Before I posted, I thought the risk of getting dogpiled on & getting called 'delusional' & whatever else was worth it bc, to my surprise, my earlier Bychance analyses had been well received–even though some of the Bylers engaging with them don’t really think Bychance will happen, they still think the theories about it are entertaining and fun to read and offer input on. This has led to some interesting conversations about Mike and Will’s arcs, and it’s been nice through this content drought. 

However, what i did NOT anticipate was to cause a ‘ship war’--I really didn’t think this would cause harm and that anyone would stoop so low as to send death threats over differing opinions on hypothetical ships that may or may not even happen in the show & even if they do, nothing guarantees they’ll happen in a way we’re perfectly happy with, let’s please be real about our expectations here since we have 0 control over the creative direction the duffers will actually take. 

All we can hope for is that us Bylers truly are amongst their intended target audience and that the show delivers a satisfying closure.  

MY INTENTIONS & WHY I WILL CONTINUE TO USE THE BYLER TAG ( with discretion )

Using the Byler tag allows like-minded Bylers to find my theories–without the tag, it'd be harder for them to find them. 

However, I WILL be extra thoughtful with my use of the tag going forward, and make sure I'm using it when the conversation centers Byler/Mike/Will and other themes pertaining to Byler.

MY CURRENT STANCE

for anyone receiving death threats or insults on behalf of “bychance shippers”, you DO NOT deserve that. Please report and block, if possible. these people are saboteurs, and just want to stir drama without caring about the harm they cause to the community. In fact, they probably enjoy it tbh. 

i do also have to say that i am no authority here and cannot be tone policing other bychancers. i also can’t pretend i am entirely neutral in this scenario since from what I've observed, my bychance mutuals and anons are REACTING to hate we’re getting from bylers. And whereas I'm aware that type of hate is only coming from a handful of people in the community, not all of us will be patient and graceful at all times, we’re human after all.

I dont care if a mileven calls me delusional, i laugh. But when bylers i have admired and learned from for years call one of us stupid for thinking/suspecting X theory might be hinted at and getting stomped on for trying to bring the conversation to the table, yeah I can't guarantee that's not gonna trigger a defense mechanism over time.

Do you personally have to like Bychance or agree? Absolutely not, nobody is saying that. And good faith critiques of the theory are always welcomed and I actually encourage it in my space as long as we keep it civil and follow fandom etiquette, since it keeps fandom alive.  

FINAL THOUGHTS 

The very message of the show we’re discussing is to choose love in the face of fear, and to not let it drive our choices and unawarely continue to feed the cycle of abuse and trauma. Let's do our best to not keep repeating, amongst each other, what we have already been subjected to by the most hateful parts of the ST fandom. 

i'm here to learn and have fun, not to cause wars, discourse or division--bychance as a theory is just the jumpstart and can change over time and maybe even become something else entirely. the goal is just to open the door for those curious enough to investigate, share and discuss any findings. Whether or not you go in, it's up to you. Just don't be mean to the ones that do.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Ashley Without a Grudge (Lost Until Dawn Branch)

This is a theory post but it’s backed by some pretty significant evidence.

Here’s a post about a route in which Chris fired at Ashley and she still let him in.

So let’s break things down:

1. First, Ashley’s motive:

She intentionally kept the door locked in order to kill (edit: or at least her back at) Chris. I’m getting this out of the way because a big rumor started that devs said she froze in fright. No dev has said that (unless you can find it, but nobody’s done so thus far). We do, however, have three devs (Will Byles, Tom Heaton, and Jez Harris) indicating the opposite. Here’s Tom Heaton and Jez Harris. I think the first part of this out-of-context caused the “froze” theory but the full context shows that’s not what they mean:

Asker: Why does Ashley tell you to shoot her but then lock you out anyway? Did she panic or was that a mistake in development that got overlooked?

Tom Heaton: Definitely not a mistake in development. That was very deliberate… Ashley had been through a lot that night: had a gun pointed at her and fired at her, seen a friend murdered. She’s in a very stressful state.

Jez Harris: She’s had a hard time.

Tom Heaton: Very hard time. And she’s unpredictable; it’s got to be said.

Asker: I’m confused, so did Ashley mean it or did she not?

Jez Harris: Or did the player mean it?

Tom Heaton: Well I don’t know if the player meant it. I think Ashley… That was quite deliberate by Ashley, not letting Chris in. Yes, I think that’s definitely the case. 

Jez Harris: Because of what had gone on before. 

Tom Heaton: Very upset. Maybe an over reaction? I don’t know. It’s difficult to judge isnt it? I mean who’s been in that situation? I know I haven’t.

Besides this, Will Byles—the director—has also weighed in during an AMA and documentary:

We love Ashley. But she's complex. So you better stay on the right side of her.

Ashley will lock you out, and you get killed… You die two hours later, and it’s because Ashley realizes what a dick you are.

But, regardless of what devs say, the “she froze” theory has never been indicated by the game. Here are some facts:

Shooting Ashley will get you the trophy “Fatal Grudge.”

Chris dying gets you “Ashley Snaps.”

She doesn’t freeze in this scene; she walks to the door to let him in, has a flashback of the gun trap, then steps away from the door.

Her demeanor before his death and after is different. She coldly watches him leave the lodge, then she gets annoyed at Sam when Sam tries to comfort her over Chris’s death.

Clearly, she intended to keep him out. Devs don’t accidentally add details like this unless they want you to know it’s a grudge; almost nothing shows she froze beyond her own defense to the police. The only thing keeping the “she froze” theory rolling was fans calling forth a Deus ex Machina dev quote that apparently trumped everything in the game, and this quote doesn’t even exist—because why would devs contradict such intentional writing?

Anyway, I sound forceful—honestly, this isn’t random Ashley hate. It’s the plot of the game and I want to establish it for the next part of my post.

2. Signs that another branch once happened:

So, we know Ashley gets angry and kills Chris. The weird thing about this is that it comes across as totally gaslighty and cruel to kill him in light of certain previous events.

You get a Butterfly Effect by choosing Ashley over Josh which reads: “Ashley felt indebted to Chris.” This doesn’t go anywhere.

If you point the gun at Chris first, Ashley will try to stop him, and she asks him to shoot her instead. Despite these words of heroism, she still seemingly gets pissed and kills him. Note: the flashback is STILL the scene that happens if she didn’t ask him to kill her. That’s important.

To me, Ashley is obviously unnuanced in her behavior here. The game sets up reasons she SHOULD be sympathetic to Chris, and yet she isn’t. This is jarring, and I don’t blame people for assuming this means she was just secretly evil and testing Chris’s loyalty like a psychopath—though I don’t think that was the actual intent.

I think, earlier in development, Ashley was meant to follow through on her talk and not hold Chris accountable for shooting her. Let’s get into that:

3. Chris’s Deleted Dialogue

Chris has dialogue, found here, in which he confesses to the police that he fired at Ashley.

Chris: I-I shot her...

Interviewer: Who did you shoot?

Chris: Ashley! I-I told you i-it was when we were tied up and the saws were coming down and...

Interviewer: Slow down. Please.

Chris: It wasn't real, none of it! It was just one big goddamned sick... prank.

Now, this is interesting because this shows he could once survive this choice, and that this option made it far enough into development that lines for it were recorded by Noah Fleiss.

Combine this with the two indicators I mentioned: Ashley feeling indebted and her asking him to shoot her. Again, note that there is no flashback scene before his death that shows him aiming at himself then her—you always get the flashback which shows her not offering to die.

To me, the dots connect pretty well. There’s a case in which one or both of these points where Ashley should have been sympathetic to Chris were actually used to divert his death. The flashback further indicates he might not have had a death planned if she asked him to shoot her, so they recycled the same death scene.

4. Why it was cut and final thoughts:

I have several theories for this:

One is that the devs just needed to simplify things. During a stream, developer Tom Heaton did mention that the gun trap was extremely tricky (though he may have just been talking about the aiming scene, not branching):

In development, this took a reaally long time to get right. We made it about five times.

Or, they felt that Chris’s death here would be too rare. Will Byles has commented on the fact that he was told nobody would shoot Ashley here, so the choice is pointless.

In the testing environment, we were always surprised by people's choices. One that we were often told was a pointless dilemma was the Ashley/Chris choice with the gun. Everyone internally said that players would choose to shoot Chris. But in playthroughs that proved very wrong. It was much closer to 50-50.

There could also be some other third reason.

Now, if the devs did fiddle with the idea of Chris living if he had a better relationship with Ashley, this proves even more she killed him based on a grudge. It’s just, the grudge in the final game comes across as horribly mean and irrational now (though the devs are saying it also has to do with her mental state being so fragile) and shows Ashley recalling something she never witnessed. It makes sense fans find this a bit strange—

As it would turn out, even the devs perhaps thought a branch where Chris lives might be necessary here.

POST SCRIPT:

An additional thing I find interesting is that the totem associated with this choice has unique footage of Chris putting the gun down which isn’t used in the trap. I’m curious about this as well

[luniviravosshipper]

Did Lissa Go Back to Soren and Claudia After Leaving?

I’ve actually had this post saved up in my drafts uncompleted for over a month now, but I got inspired by this post to finally talk about the theory I’ve been developing.

Buckle in because this is going to be a pretty lengthy post.

It seems to me that a lot of people are confused, as was I initially, about how old Soren was supposedly when everything happened, from him first getting sick to his mom leaving and the events from Puzzle House taking place.

Seeing that the little boy he was depicted as in the show could barely even speak and seemed extradionarly young, a lot of people didn’t understand if he was supposed to be the same age as he was shown to be in Puzzle House.

A lot of people just kind of assumed with the show depicting him so young and small compared to how we saw him in the graphic novel, that the writers were just diverging from their original canon and switching up what ages they wanted Soren and Claudia to be when everything happened. And others have just assumed the writers must have forgotten what ages they initially showed them as or that this is just another one of those cases where the writers weren’t able to write a proper timeline of events.

But… there’s kind of a lot of issues I’ve found in the logic of both assumptions. There’s actually a lot of things the writers have put in the show and its corresponding graphic novels and short stories that could point to neither of those two options being the actual case. I also think it’s incredibly unfair to suggest that the writers must have just been so stupid to have made such a slip up, if they did make one.

Regardless of what’s true, however, the one thing that’s clear is that the inconsistencies with how the creators choose to portray Claudia and Soren’s ages throughout the series has stirred up quite a bit of confusion and conflict within the fandom. So the question must be asked. Why?

Why so many inconsistencies? Are these inconsistencies evident of some sort of issue on the writers’ part, like one of the possible ones that’s been suggested by others that I’ve listed above? Or are these inconsistencies more evident of how the writers have actually intended to cause such confusion in the fandom space for an ulterior purpose that has yet to be revealed?

So, having those questions in mind, I’ve done a little digging and I think I might have figured out what’s going on from my investigation. Or I at least figured out part of it.

Let’s get into it.

From what I’ve seen online, Soren’s age in particular seems to be the main focus within the discussion surrounding what the kids’ speculated ages were when everything happened. Probably because of how most of these events specifically revolve around him and the fact that we’ve mainly seen him at different ages from Viren’s perspective. So I’ll start by talking about him first.

We first see Soren as this little kid who can almost barely pronounce his words with ruffled up hair and chubby cheeks back in episode 2 of season 5.

And for a very large part of season 6 we see him to be of that same age and of that same physical description in the flashbacks.

We even get a retelling of the same scene we saw when this version of him was first introduced back in season 5 in season 6. And it seems safe to assume that this retelling is supposed to be more representative of what actually happened than what we saw from Viren’s dream sequence, given that it’s a lot more negative.

So, right off the bat, that might already be an indicator that Soren was this young at some point in the series of events between him first getting sick and what happened in Puzzle House and this isn’t merely a distorted view of young Soren from Viren’s perspective.

Besides Soren, we also do see Claudia at a younger age in the series compared to how she first appeared in the Puzzle House graphic novel a couple of times.

And even earlier than that as well, back in season 5 in Viren’s dream sequence.

I wouldn’t say she’s as young as she’s been shown in the flashbacks in season 6 when she had the pig tails, but I also don’t think she’s quite the same age as she was in Puzzle House. It does look like she’s wearing the same undershirt as she was in the graphic novel, so maybe she’s closer to her age in Puzzle House here. But I think she looks like she could be more in between. (I actually have a smaller theory that this is supposed to be showing Claudia and how she looked like when she first learned dark magic because of the whole “I’m following in your footsteps” motif here.)

For the majority of the scenes we’ve seen of Claudia as a little kid though, we’ve mostly just seen her with those pig tails. And we haven’t seen her nearly as much as we’ve seen Soren. So we’ve been kind of led to believe that was her age when most of the events with Soren getting sick and healed and their mom leaving took place. I mean, we quite literally see her chasing after her mom leaving when she was that little.

But… Claudia does not look to be that young in the Reflections story “Lost Child”.

In fact, Claudia looks like how she did in Puzzle House here. And her mom is riding horseback when she’s leaving, making the setting of this image seem entirely different to the one we saw in season 6 of what we assumed to be her mom leaving.

I saw some people claim that Scholastic has restrictions for what ages characters can take in comics, which I haven’t found a source at all for yet, but some people think that that might have messed some things up with their age depictions in the show. But, this image comes from their official website where they don’t have to be subjected to such restrictions. And I just don’t see why they wouldn’t adjust their ages or the timeline of events in the show to make everything line up.

Puzzle House was first announced in September of 2022 with cover art and previews before season 5 was released in August of 2023. Even though it wasn’t officially released till after season 5, they were clearly working on it and planning the story for a much longer time before the season came out. They would’ve had plenty of time to fix their storyline so that it would make sense. But they didn’t. They still choose to depict Soren much younger then how we saw him in the graphic novel, and later on Claudia too in season 6. And we haven’t really found a good reason yet for why they would want to diverge from their already established canon. So, what if it was intentional?

So when I first started investigating everything, I went back to episode 8 of season 6 to look for a certain image. Because I could have sworn I did see Soren aged up, like he was in Puzzle House, in one of Viren’s memories. Which initially confused me because I had no idea what age we were supposed to have figured he had been when everything happened. And I did find it. It was this lovely shot of their entire family.

And Soren does not at all look like how we’ve been seeing him in any of the memories the creators have been showing us thus far of Viren’s. He has a different hairstyle and looks less chibi like. And he looks a lot closer here to how he looked in Puzzle House.

And so did Claudia.

At first, I was left even more confused about what was happening. Because I thought Lissa left when they were way younger. But this image seems to imply that she could have still been with the kids when they were older. Older then in the image we saw of Lissa leaving. And, a lot like many others, I originally thought that they were just trying to completely disregard the fact that they depicted them way older in the graphic novel and were trying to pretend that they were way younger in the show. Because this is perhaps one of the only shots in the show that we get to see them to be around the same age as they were in the comics and reflections stories.

But the thing is, only a couple seconds before do we get this shot.

And in this shot, do they actually look like how we’ve been seeing them so far in Viren’s memories. As very little toddlers.

So… what is happening here? How old were they actually when everything was happening?

Well, let’s review everything we know so far. Soren and Claudia were first depicted older in the reflection story “Lost Child” back in May of 2023 and the Puzzle House graphic novel back in September of 2022 way before season 5 came out in August of 2023, so there was plenty of time for them to change their depicted ages in season 5 to align more with the ages we’ve been previously shown of them having. And there was a large enough gap between the release of season 5 and season 6 for them to fix any issues with their timeline and depictions of their ages if there were any. And, in spite of how young they were depicted mostly in seasons 5 and 6, we still do see them depicted as similar ages as they were in the reflection stories and comics, so that obviously indicates that the writers are very much aware of the differences in their shown ages between those different stories. And it overall just seems like it’d be way easier and convenient for them to keep them aged up in the series to align with the ages we’ve already been shown of them having when a lot of these events first occurred if that was what they really wanted.

None of this information seems to point to the creators making a mistake or an accident in their different depictions of Claudia and Soren’s ages throughout the series. If anything, it seems to point to the opposite. Because why would they make any of these decisions in the first place if they weren’t for a specific intended purpose?

So, why exactly were Soren and Claudia’s ages so inconsistent and why were they mostly shown to be so young in the series? I think there’s only one answer here that really makes sense. Because they never really had a fixed age when everything happened. It all happened over a very long period of time. Spanning from when Soren was perhaps, like, four and Claudia was about two or three all the way to when they were around ten or something.

And this might mean that we have also been misled on one other thing (although it’s likely more on many other things, but that’s not the point here). When their mom actually left. Because there’s a chance that she might have left when they were much older. Long after Soren was actually healed from his sickness.

Because, a) what was that image in the reflections story about? And b) what’s up with Soren, Claudia, and Viren all being so emotionally distraught in the Puzzle House graphic novel about Lissa leaving if she left such a long time ago?

Okay, before I start explaining my second point, I should probably clarify something here. I initially thought and claimed awhile back that Atticus said that everything happened during a span of a year. I was completely wrong and I don’t know where I got that idea from. (I might have gotten confused since I saw someone else suggest awhile back ago that Harrow and Sarai got together only 5 to 7 months after that scene of Viren and Harrow talking in season 6. But in retrospect, that doesn’t really make all that much sense. Not that it’s their fault for having that misunderstanding, they were probably as confused as I was on the passage of time between, well, everything that happened in Viren and the children’s lives. The writers really did make it seem like everything happened all at once, but there was probably a lot more space between all the events that occurred as I’m trying to examine and explain in this post.)

All that King Atticus says is that it all happened one after the other. But he in no way specified a time frame of when and of how long.

However, after rereading Puzzle House, I have found that there is an indication made about the time frame between some of these events. That being the time between them first exploring the Puzzle House and Lissa leaving them.

It’s implied here that it’s only been a couple of weeks since she left because it’s only been a couple of weeks since Claudia has started to act more emotionally off.

I mean, I know that he also says that she’s been acting odd since Kpp’ar disappeared too, which we now know from season 6 that he disappeared before Soren got healed and when he was likely smaller. (This is actually where things seem sort of weird to me and I have trouble understanding the timeline of events most. I feel like he should have gotten coined when they were older because of the clear influence he’s had in their lives. But maybe they were actually older when he did and the two scenes that we saw of Lissa leaving and Viren shutting out Soren happened before Viren got the staff and was still trying to figure out how to heal Soren. But I don’t know. Why would Viren start resenting Soren so early on before he even healed him yet? Why would Soren be so much older when he actually got healed if we have only seen him be heavily implied to be young when he did? Why would Lissa leave then in the very beginning of everything, unless maybe it was in immediate reaction to Viren taking advantage of her and using her tears? But then why would she leave if Soren was still sick? Maybe that’s why she came back?? Because she felt guilty?? Maybe Lissa officially left later when Viren got the staff and she found out that he might have done something to Kpp’ar ??? I don’t know. This is all just speculation and I’m just not sure. Anyways.) But the fact he specifies that it’s been weeks since she hasn’t been speaking a lot and that she seems a lot more affected by what’s happened in their lives, I feel like that’s more of a sign that that’s the time frame from when their mom first officially left to them being in the Puzzle House.

And if it had only been just a couple weeks since Lissa left before they went into the Puzzle House, then that would better explain the image from the reflections.

It would also explain why a lot of the conflict in the graphic novel revolved around Claudia struggling to come to terms with her feelings on her mom leaving them and why Viren is shown to be so emotionally distant in it.

Then there’s the other hints that have been made outside of the graphic novel and the flashbacks we’ve seen.

There’s the information that we know about how Viren made attempts to win back Lissa’s trust, most notably by using the Sunray Monarchs to change his corrupted appearance. But Lissa wasn’t won over. And there was a lot of conflict that grew between them as a result which eventually encouraged them to split.

Of course, Viren could have tried to change his appearance and gain Lissa’s trust before the image we saw of Lissa leaving in season 6. But I think it would make more sense if it happened afterwards so that they would be fighting for longer and it would be while Soren and Claudia were old enough to be able to remember it.

And, I mean, just stating the most obvious explanation here. It’s like what people have been saying. How could they ask them to make such an adult decision? How could Lissa and Viren ask their kids to choose between the two of them? Probably because they could actually make the choice at the time. They could actually articulate their words and were grown up enough at the time to understand what was happening. They weren’t as small as we might have been led on to think they were. They were much older when she officially left them.

Anyways, I’m sure that there’s even more evidence I haven’t picked out yet that could also be hinting to Lissa leaving at a later point in the kids’ lives then we’ve been led to believe. (I would try to gather more intel from the novels but I sadly do not own either one of the two as of right now.) But in general, those are some of my biggest pieces of evidence I have to support my theory.

So, this very significant scene showcasing when Viren first started to resent Soren…

Might have happened way before Lissa actually left. And, given this added context that she hadn’t left yet (or at least permanently left), this completely reframes this scene and what it means.

And, that just leaves what is still largely unknown.

What is happening here exactly?

Not only does it completely contradict the image from the reflection story, but it also just outright doesn’t really make sense on its own.

Where does this fit into the timeline and what is its relevance?

Is this supposed to be showing Lissa trying to leave for the first time, even though she later on decided to go back, like I’ve been speculating? But then why would she go back? And why would she leave again only permanently that time if she chose to go back after the first attempt? What sparked her to try to leave both those times?

Truth is, I have some ideas and some of those ideas I’ve already listed and insinuated to having in this post, but overall I quite simply don’t know. The only thing I’m truly certain of is that this image alone suggests that there is a lot more going on here than we fully know about yet.

[mutatedfish]

and here’s my theory about how the half life funny streams are a lot like dante’s inferno. no wait come back where are you going

so to start off with both of them are working within familiar architecture but end up flipping expectations on their head. the intended/imagined audience for both inferno & hlvr are already familiar w the framework the story takes place in. for inferno, it’s assumed that the audience are some sect of christian & thus believe in the ideas of hell/purgatory/heaven as well as the idea of different levels of sin significance. for hlvr, the audience knows the general plot & game mechanics of half life/hlalyx even if they’ve never played themselves, as well as knowing abt the concept of machinima and rtvs’ improv through internet (plus for hlage they had the context of hlvrai). 

in inferno, hell’s physical design is very very important to the narrative (as well as purgatory and heaven but i haven’t actually read those two so moving on). i could say a lot about it but tldr the settings are described in detail and have a lot of meaning both thematically and literally. in hlvr there’s storytelling/worldbuilding through the environment as well. from the half life 2 wiki page:

partially this is just due to half life being a good game in and of itself. however the thing that inferno and hlvr have in common is that they take these pre-existing conceptual settings and add the creators’ own meaning to them. 

in inferno, dante descends into hell, but when he reaches the very bottom where satan is he finds out that he’s actually been going up the whole time. to be clear he is going down but then he & virgil reach the bottom and have to do a 180 and go back up, but “back up” is actually transcending hell and beginning the ascension to purgatory. essentially you’re actually at the very very bottom/furthest from god when you’re on earth’s surface and you have to go through hell to get to heaven blah blah blah. map linked here if you’d like to see a visual. the point is that this isn’t the typical view of ascension to heaven and therefore not what the reader is expecting; the structure of hell & the world that dante presents is altered to make an impact on the reader and tell the story. hlvr is similar in that it’s the pre-existing game (moreso for hlage, but i’d argue that hlvrai is still half life, just in a platform allowing for multiplayer goofs) but altered to tell a different story. the journey of hlvr is still that of the original game but the ending (benrey in xen, the gnome in the vault) emphasizes the importance of the altered world around the characters as much as the other changes that have been made from the original games.

this brings us to another important thing, namely the fact that hlvr are still games being played. there’s a concept we used when we read inferno in class like a year ago where we talked abt two different guys named dante: dante the poet, who physically wrote inferno and came up with the ideas in it and whatever, and dante the pilgrim, who is the character we experience the story as. dante-pilgrim brings all his biases and thoughts to what’s happening and, most importantly, is the actual guy going on the journey physically & spiritually, whereas dante-poet has already (spiritually) completed this journey. dante-poet didn’t go on the journey physically bc that’s not how the world works, but he is writing and portraying dante-pilgrim to be the character of himself (dante-poet) as he developed spiritually throughout time. essentially dante-poet is writing from the end of the story because he already knows what’s going to happen and how he ended up here, whereas dante-pilgrim is witnessing the story start to finish bc he is the vehicle through which it is told.

the same principle can be applied to wayne. wayne the streamer, who is physically playing the game and thanking donos and editing the videos post-stream, and wayne the player, who is the Character Of Wayne. like. in hlage, wayne-streamer did not literally get turned into a gnome, but wayne-player did bc wayne-player exists as one of the storytelling tools that wayne-streamer & rtvs are using to write the narrative. for hlvr, the division of waynes is partially for practical reasons (imo, writing/editing/publishing a poem is not the same as Doing It Live, e.g. dante probably didn’t have to deal with the limitations/issues of his medium at the exact same time as he was writing the poem (i am not a dante historian though so don’t quote me on this)) but it’s also for narrative reasons bc wayne-player is a consistent character throughout the hlvr series.

like. obviously the gnome refers to him as gordon in hlage to connect w/ hlvrai and whatnot, but wayne-player is also consistent in his reactions/intent/behavior. (also, i can’t concretely say this is a wayne-player effect, but the similarities between the “big bad” of each game so far is also interesting to me. both the gnome and benrey vaguely antagonize wayne-player and express a desire to go back/stay put/deter him from the journey despite his own wishes. other gnome/benrey similarities: acting sus as hell and wayne-player disregards it either through party opinion or his own. “you made me like this … i was innocent before i met you” (36:07 in the hlage finale) and “i was supposed to be nice but you forced me to be baaaad”. presumably this pattern will continue in hl2vrai) i believe that even if it has little-to-no effect on hl2vrai, the whole end sequence of hlage (particularly the vault & theater/woods scene but we’ll get to that later) is a canon thing that happened to wayne-player that will end up affecting at the very least the conclusion of the half life 2 streams.

in terms of characters within the story, another place i see similarities is the limitations they experience. you could argue the gnome and benrey similarities are due to similar limitations that they experience as members of the trio referenced in the peppa pig movie, but i wanna look at a more specific example. returning to inferno: there’s a scene in canto 21 where virgil essentially asks for directions bc the road is closed and his google maps isn’t working. unfortunately bc he’s in hell there are only demons and sinners around to ask, so he asks a demon who lies to him and they have a momentary diversion bc of it. note that virgil’s limitations aren’t a secret or anything— he’s only dante’s guide for inferno bc he represents human reason, and then ascending past there he gets a special divine guide and the point is that human reason has limitations that god doesn’t have blah blah blah— but this scene does stand out as a Thing. virgil doesn’t intentionally lead dante astray, nor does he realize the demon is lying, but it’s still a thing that happens bc he’s fallible.

in hlvrai, coomer realizes some aspects of what is happening (the setting is a game, he’s a computer construct, wayne-player is not a computer construct, benrey is an unintended feature in the game, etc) but whether bc he physically can’t or bc he’s preoccupied, he does not seem to piece things together fully and come to the conclusion that he’s in hlvrai. likewise, according to wayne, the blue gnome is right but his limitation is that he’s a freak. right before his demise the blue gnome tells wayne not to make a mistake he “can’t even begin to know and understand” in taking the red gnome. unfortunately he’s so consistently horny in such a unique and upsetting way that it has ruined his credibility for anything ever even if he managed to be not horny about it. i have more thoughts on blue gnome’s role but this post is already going to be so so long.

anyway you could claim this is just a thing in all stories bc characters have to be unaware of or unable to do certain things bc that’s how plot progresses, but i think there’s something special about characters being unable to do or see something even though it seems like they should.

the final bit of hlage is what made me sit down and actually start writing this whole thing out so let’s get into it. comparing canto 34 lines 22-24:

to gabe newman’s final commentary box in hlage, i can see a lot of similarities. i think the vagueness of both can be at least partially attributed to how writing works; sometimes the most effect technique is just to hint at something rather than describe it fully bc the audience will mentally fill in whatever fits best for them personally. however, a lot of gabe’s lines (references to the obsidian seal, the dread and the nightmares, “and that was the day he appeared”, “do NOT proceed any farther”, etc) read to me very much like appeals to pathos in the same way that lines 22-24 are. like it hurts gabe & dante to even just reference, let alone recall, what they’re talking about. tbh i just greatly enjoy this comparison idk how much meat there is to it but it’s a good writing decision imo

the trio in the peppa pig movie (man in blue, little man in red hat, and someone else (she/her)) corresponds to benrey, the gnome, and whatever we’ll see in hl2vrai (possibly alyx's shadow but who's to say). they don’t really exist solely within their respective games and have some sort of influence on the outside world (this being another setting of the player, essentially wayne-player’s world rather than wayne-streamer’s world) as seen w/ the gnome theater scene. in the vault the gnome states that it wasn’t wayne-player’s challenge and that he (the gnome) has won; the clear assumption here is that it was the gnome’s challenge. however, i think it’s worth considering that the challenge may not necessarily be the gnome’s either. the peppa pig movie claims it was made by gordon (which would correspond to wayne-player, but obviously it wasn't) and the gnome supports this, even saying that the theater is gordon’s “mind palace”. 

so, the question arises: is there another gordon of some kind? i don’t think it would be that far-fetched to say that there is a character within the hlvr series that wayne-player has been taking the place of (whether purposefully, knowingly, maliciously, or not) and since original gordon doesn’t have a place within the games, perhaps he is assuming the metaphorical place of satan here; a sort of container for the peppa pig movie trio when they are not participating in their respective hlvr games.

anyway some other things that i thought were interesting but not enough to write whole paragraphs on:

the autobiographical aspects of inferno compared to hlage being a reflection of wayne’s experiences

dante-pilgrim’s swooning as a way of transitioning in location compared to going to sleep as a way of transitioning between acts

it would be cool to find a stage adaptation of inferno and compare it to hlvr bc the formats would be more similar

something something how contrapasso is applied in hlvr (particularly hlvrai)

the professor who taught the class i learned this shit in would be really really upset if he knew i was applying my analysis to half life funny

obligatory disclaimers and qualifiers: i’ve interpreted the half life funny streams extremely seriously despite the fact that the purpose of 90% of it is half life funny. i only watched the hlage commentary stream when it originally aired and i didn’t bother going back to rewatch it so if anything i say here is blatantly untrue sorry. for the sake of simplicity i’ve referred to the stream on the 16th as hl2vrai because it’s probably gonna be some variation on that even if that’s not the exact title. the 16th stream (brbavrai) was not hl2 but i consider all of this to still hold true for hl2vrai. all inferno quotes were taken from the ciardi translation on archive.org

[fights4users]

The quorra problem | Programs, isos and the real world

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with Quorra as a character! It’s more of a story element critique if anything, please read and don’t jump on me for the title. Quorra is adorable and I enjoy legacy- even if it doesn’t look like it from how I keep tearing it apart.

It’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation. On one hand you can’t leave her inside the grid when Flynn decides to literally go nuclear but you can’t leave her in the real world either. They have to because they wanted Flynn’s self sacrificing ending or wrote themselves into a corner (this isn’t about reintegration but I will still complain) and this was there way out. But they didn’t consider the implications of it at all.

Cosmic horror-

I’ve made several posts about it and still want to write something with this idea but to a program— the real world wouldn’t be so miraculous like how we see theirs. The minute you’re outside you’re Imediately bombarded with sensory overload and just too much information to process. The grid, which is much more human in its design than the ENCOM system, is still infinitely more minimalist than our world. One of the best scenes is Clu and his team raiding the hideout and not knowing what a single thing is and freaking out, she seems too well adjusted for someone who’s spent a few hours max here— look I know it’s the end of a movie and they can’t do that whole arc, but I digress.

Also don’t get me started on the rumored Ares plot and how they totally forgot quorra is already a program(technically iso) in our world- also it’s not really a “tron” movie plot— where’s the allegory?! The metaphor?! The symbolism?!

Another thing is that…Sam can’t tell anyone about her. Maybe Alan but her mere existence in our world is brain shattering. Trying to explain a advanced humanoid being that’s not here to harm us and is totally cool guys almost never goes well. It also leaves people a LOT to grapple with…like everything we know being forever altered.

This whole situation should be terrifying from both perspectives, however I love the theory that the only reason she was able to get out into the real world at all was because of Flynn’s data stored in the beam. That’s a great thought that almost makes me like her being in the real world just from how much impact that is.

Infectious-

What happens now? She can’t be revealed to the world (yet) and to put her back in the remains of the grid would be cruel. Putting her in another system would be wildly irresponsible because- do we even know what ISOs do? Across all media its “they’re special” but absolutely squat on their actual function or what they’re capable of. We see they have some kind of digital dna that’s literally a miraculous occurrence but that’s about it. Did Flynn even know? Are they just there- existing but not effecting/having a real world computer impact? Or worse - what if clu was right and they did contribute to the crumbling state of the grid? (I think it was a combination of his own fear and scapegoating—I’m just tossing the idea out there).

Sam transferring her over to another system without knowing what she does or how she could effect it would be disastrous. Am I saying she’s dangerous or would have any intent to harm? No not at all that’s now who she is, but it’s sort of a “releasing a domestic cat into the woods a state over” you don’t do that.

Does she get a regular job now, does Sam hire her at ENCOM? She’d likely be some sort of computer smart…in that she come from one. Or does he like —- set her up at a McDonald’s? How’s she get energy does she get plugged in- being in the real world isn’t going to magically give her a stomach. Sam just takes her to a power grid and she causes SoCal to blackout lmao.

Open portal-

I’m aware most of this post is just me overthinking the implications of everything they didn’t intend us to think to hard about. It’s supposed to be “yippee they’re safe” and I’m worried about digital ecosystems and what the human brain can handle. I think my problem mainly strives from this trope where the character brings home their friend from the other world/ is the reverse situation and no one bats an eye at all. It’s because they want the characters to still be friends no matter how many rules it breaks or sense it makes. It happens most commonly in cartoons. (There’s at least 3 in recent memory)

I’m not saying I want quorra to have been caught in the blast but that there’s a way they could’ve kept communication without world breaking. Open portal situation where he goes back to visit, he chats with her on the screen, both stay in their own worlds its sad but logical etc (I’m not writing a new ending but you get the point).

I guess it annoys me so much because it’s left so open ended, ride off into the sunrise while ignoring the implications™️. “I guess, We’re going to change the world” ok how 🧍‍♂️. The movie did not nearly give me enough information about ISO’s to see what changes they exactly do besides taking over ENCOM. “They[Iso’s] changed everything” ok how🧍‍♂️. Yeah it’s immaculate conception but what do they do I am shaking your shoulders Disney what do they do!

It’s not quorra I’m mad about or even the concept of ISO’s but it’s how the writing just falls short in these HUGE areas that require a lot of lore and information to be given that they just do not. And consistently don’t In the other media forms like betrayal (I haven’t seen uprising maybe they explain something). If you’re going to have beings that shatter your ideas of reality you sort of have to explain that!

[lecfoscism]

When will you start to update again especially Kitty Lamine because I live for it?

kitty lamine pt.2 snippet underneath this... im trying out a new format for writing and i had some fun with it, they sound a little more formal/awkward here because thats how i interpret translated interviews (a little stilted)

[TRANSCRIPT - TRANSLATED] POST MATCH INTERVIEW - Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi

Lamine Yamal steps into the interview area, hood of his puffer coat drawn over his head. A light drizzle has started over the Etihad Stadium.

“So, Lamine! The man the cameras couldn’t pull off of! Another Player of the Match award for you this tournament. Well deserved, I must say.”

Lamine Yamal: Yes (laughs), thank you, thank you!

“You had a really good game, all things considered. Your movements were… very cat-like. No pun intended.”

LY: Ha… Man, that was a lame joke…

“Sorry, sorry. Couldn’t help myself. But I really do have to ask, everyone has been wondering, how did… this happen exactly? Why? You were already asked this in the press conference earlier, but do you have any theories? Any hunches?”

There’s a slight pause, Yamal looks contemplative.

LY: My answer is still the same. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to. I don’t know. The club doctors don’t know, the outside professionals don’t know, and Flick doesn’t know either. One day, I just woke up and… they were a part of me.

“Did Barcelona know from the start about it?”

He grins, looking off to the side, before quickly sobering his expression.

LY: Yes. I tried to hide it at first, but they found out after a training session. It’s hard to keep something like this a secret. Everybody at the club tried their best to figure out the next steps, since we thought that this was permanent. Flick had told me that they were preparing a statement, but then, the next day I woke up and they were gone. That’s when we found out that it was only a day long thing.

“And– I know you briefly mentioned this in the press conference already, but did you feel as if you played any different tonight? Compared to your other matches?”

Yamal pauses to think again. Not visible in the camera screen, his tail starts to swish around.

LY: No. I played and delivered as good as I would have if I didn’t have these ears and this tail. They have been a regular occurrence for me for a while now, and I have gotten used to them. They don’t change the way I play, for better or for worse. 

“Okay, okay. And, how about your teammates? What do they think? Have they told you their opinions? Do you feel that they treat you differently?”

LY: Well, you would have to ask them. These ears don’t magically make me a mind reader, you know, but– 

He looks up, somewhere towards the crowd of Barcelona players. He seems to spot someone and a grin lights up his face.

LY: Actually, how about we ask one right now–

“Oh–”

There’s commotion as Yamal pushes past to run towards his teammates. The press pen is left empty for a few minutes as roughhousing can be heard in the distance. Mics begin to pick up laughs and giggles. Lamine Yamal comes into frame again, hood pushed off to reveal his feline ears, the talk of the town. With him is Pau Cubarsi. The Barcelona defender holds an umbrella over the both of them, they barely fit in the interview pen together.

“Well, well, well. Look at what the cat dragged in.”

LY: …What?

“Ah, it’s an English saying. Doesn’t translate well, I guess. Pretend I said a really funny cat joke, then.”

Cubarsi and Yamal share exaggerated laughs, nudging at each other, which turns into light shoving, which then turns into roughhousing, again. Cubarsi’s umbrella somehow manages to stay upright despite it all.

“Okay– Boys, let’s focus–”

Pau Cubarsi: Yes, yes. Sorry–

LY: Cuba, tell them how you feel about my ears.

PC: What?

LY: He wanted to know if you treat me any differently now compared to before.

“Well I didn’t say that exactly– But, yes…”

Cubarsi’s focus leaves Yamal, mulling over the question. Yamal still has his arms around the defender’s shoulders. He’s hanging onto him like a cat.

PC: I mean, of course not. He’s still the same Lamine. He’s– He’s still my friend, ears and tail and everything.

LY: Aw, you mean that?

Cubarsi looks down, he tries to shove Yamal off.

PC: It would be silly to say anything else.

LY: (laughs) Oh Cubarsi, really, the sweetest guy on our squad!

PC: Shut up.

“How nice! I assume the rest of the locker room share the sentiment?”

PC: Of course. We all love Lamine, we all respect him, no matter what.

Yamal still hangs onto Cubarsi’s shoulders, who seems to have given up on trying to push him away.

LY: You love me? Really?

PC: You’re focusing on the wrong thing.

LY: I can’t believe Pau Cubarsi loves me. Did you record that?

“This entire interview is being broadcasted live.”

LY: Fantastic!

PC: (laughs) I think we should go. The rain is getting heavier.

“Perhaps so! But– Before we go, I just wanted to say, you had a great game too, Pau. Really class defending from you in that second half.” 

PC: Ah, thank you… I feel like I had a good game as well, one of my better ones.

“With performances like that, could we see you starting more for the national team, perhaps?”

LY: Of course he will! Best young defender in the world! If he’s not in the starting eleven next match, I will sit out in protest.

PC: (laughing) You can’t say things like that!

LY: But I just did!

“Maybe you should take him to the changing room. The rain really is getting worse. I heard water makes cats cranky.”

LY: Hey! Come on, man. No more cat jokes!

PC: (laughs) That's a good idea. I think I should, thank you!

— END OF TRANSCRIPT—

[ven10]

hello :D! i'm curious that with the quagmires being your favorite characters, do you have headcanons for them, pre and/or post canon?

Hiya! :) I have SO MANY hcs about them so thanks for asking!!!! :D

Pre-canon relationship dynamic:

Quigley was closer to Isadora than to Duncan before the fire although he still was really close to Duncan too. I mainly think this bc in ‘The Slippery Slope’ Quigley mentioned Isadora on her own a few times, even quoting a couplet she wrote, whereas he only mentioned Duncan when talking about both of his siblings.

In order of most to least mischievous growing up I feel like it’d go Quigley, then Isadora and lastly Duncan.

Games/How the triplets would play when they were young:

Duncan: Would grab any random object of *aproximately* the right size (could be one of his mother’s shoes or it could be a spatula) and pretend it was a microphone. He’d follow people around “reporting” (more so narrating,really) what they were doing. This would REALLY annoy Isadora bc the worst thing when having writer’s block would be to have someone right beside you describing how you “stare blankly at a page in anguish. No inspiration detected for at least another treacherous week”.

Quigley: Strikes me as the kind of guy to climb trees, regardless of age tbh. He just has the vibe.

He would build forts at EVERY opportunity. Duncan once challenged him to build one in every room of the mansion and he almost did, with the exception of his parents’ office which was always locked.

He’d also draw loads. His drawing of a cave in TSS was described as an “elegant rendering” so I imagine he started doing art young. He’d get too passionate with a box of crayons and end up snapping most of them though. For his sixth birthday he’s gifted one of those pencils with multiple colours in the led and somehow angles it so that all the purple is used up first.

Isadora: She’d write plays for her+her siblings to perform for their parents+their parents’ friends that had surprisingly dark plot lines, especially for a 7 year old. Oh, and all the lines would rhyme, of course. She’d get annoyed when people read the script and asked if it was all one long song rather that the masterpiece of poetry she intended it to be perceived as.

Quigley would really enjoy acting in her plays+pour his heart and soul into the performance. Duncan would get really excited about it and do great when practicing with just the three of them but when it came to the actual performance he’d get shy+back out meaning Quigley or Isadora have to fill in for his role.

🎃 Halloween:

For Halloween one year, Isadora thought it’d be an amazing idea to dress up as Evelyn the conjoined twin bc she loved the song ‘Evelyn Evelyn’ based on her but Quigley found their story too depressing and Duncan didn’t like that it meant one of the triplets would get left out. Quigley suggests ‘Alvin and the chipmunks’ as a group costume earning instant “no”s from his siblings. They end up dressing in individual costumes based off historical figures (A poet, an investigative journalist and an explorer) but create their own story involving time-travel that connects the 3 characters.

Isadora loves Halloween as she is a goth(headcannon) so it really goes with her vibe. Quigley takes information about monsters/spooky creatures like vampires or werewolves and uses it to decide on which part of the world would be best for them to inhabit. Duncan then uses Quigley’s theories to research newspaper articles from the area, searching for any sign of the creatures.

Style/Fashion sense 🌟🧥

Duncan 📰:

Comfy green jumpers/sweaters or sweater-vests, white short-sleeved dress shirts and dress trousers/pants. (Pre-canon)

Comfy green polo-neck jumpers and (usually brown) corduroy pants/trousers and either dark green or white high top shoes. (Post-canon) Occasionally wears neatly applied eyeliner. The slight change in style is bc Duncan doesn’t want to wear clothes that feel so similar to a school uniform after spending so much time with those as his only clothes at Prufrock. He’ll occasionally wear hoodies but not if he’s to be seen in public.

Owns a few T-shirts with Dorothy Parker quotes which he cherishes and wears daily, even if they can’t be seen under the jumper/sweater. One quote he’d have is: “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue”

Isadora+Quigley once bought him a quirky reporter’s hat with a feather in it as a joke but Duncan ended up adoring it; convincing himself it gave him an extra boost of inspiration when writing articles. 🪶

Has a Polaroid camera looped round his neck 📸

Quigley 🗺:

Initially, he struck me as a rucksack guy but I was reading over TSS yesterday and discovered he canonically uses a totebag, “I was putting an atlas in a totebag I found”-Quigley Quagmire (‘The Slippery Slope’ Chapter 8, page 148) so technically that’s a canon not a headcanon but oh well 🙃

Wears clothes more so for practicality than for style, although if he has a choice he’ll get things in dark purple.

He’d wear cargo pants bc of all the pockets; this would inspire Isadora to write a poem titled ‘Two and a half’ about a scientist who was trying to clone someone twice but messed up, resulting in one of the copies (Quigley) having no legs.

He would also wear a jacket with tonnes of pockets bc it’s practical for the explorer’s life he leads plus it looks cool. Although, it looks a little less cool when he stitches on a hood with fabric that doesn’t even match.

He drew maps on a couple of T-shirts and wears those, unfortunately he has to redraw them every time they get washed.

Wears exclusively boots bc of their grip+durability, one boot would have purple laces and the boot on the other foot would have black laces bc the original lace got stuck in a thorn bush so he stole borrowed one of Isadora’s.

As for accessories; a compass on string looped round his neck, clips shoved in at random to keep hair from falling in his face as he climbs, a hat/beanie with pins on it

Also: Frayed fingerless gloves!!! I saw this in one of Quill’s art pieces of Quigley and like the idea immensely ( @lemonysnicket ) :))

Always has the most RANDOM items in his pockets; will reach in looking for a packet of gum and come out with binoculars.

Isadora 📜:

Goth.Goth.Emo.Goth.

Wears almost exclusively black: Black boots or high top converse (with doodles on the white toe bit in sharpie),

Wore black nail polish pre-canon. At Prufrock she improvises using black markers+pens on her nails. She once tried the same trick for mimicking eyeliner…it did not turn out well and Duncan brings it up at the WORST times.

Wears winged black eyeliner, smudged under the eyes.

Likes long swishy skirts (midi skirts). They’re sometimes a bit impractical but if she’s just spending the day writing poetry it’s fine. Otherwise she likes cuffed shorts with leggings underneath.

Violet once bought fishnet gloves bc she liked how they looked but gave them to Isa after they kept getting caught in her inventions. Isadora loves them even more bc they’re from Violet.

Has a really cool leather jacket but doesn’t wear it much bc she secretly worries that she isn’t cool enough for the jacket.

Has a T-shirt with all of Sappho’s poems printed out really small and arranged into a picture of Sappho herself. Quigley owns a similar one but his contains the bee-movie script.

Cooking abilities ranked🍳:

1: Quigley 🗺- he’s the best bc he had to cook for himself while “dead”. Granted, he did just eat canned peaches, toasted marshmallows, almonds and carrots but he had to find his own food anyway so that’s a start.

2: Isadora 📜- Her meals at Prufrock were cooked for her but it’s possible she had to cook for Duncan and herself at previous guardians. This task would fall on her as Duncan used to be afraid of stoves for a while after the fire

‘ “For a long time,” Duncan admitted, “I was afraid of any kind of fire. I didn’t even like to look at stoves.”’ -The Austere Academy, Chapter 3, page 47.

3: Duncan 📰- For the reason above and also bc he seems like the kind of guy who would mess up simple dishes by trying to apply extra information, “I read in a news article once about a famous chef who’d put mozzarella in porridge for extra flavour, let’s try that!” (Made-up quote)

Choice of stationary 🖊

Isadora: Fountain pen ✒️ bc it makes her poetry look fancy

Duncan: Biro bc it doesn’t smudge easily and he needs to writes down a lot of info quickly for his journalism 🖊

Quigley: Coloured biros bc they make maps easily decipherable+they don’t smudge easily which is useful for accuracy

In a modern AU Quigley has a 6 hour screen time average and it is ENTIRELY Google maps. Duncan listens to podcasts. Isadora’s Pinterest is made up completely of quotes.

Books/Literature 📚:

Apart from atlases, Quigley reads fantasy books with maps. He would adore books in the Grishaverse bc of this, especially obsessing over the canal system of Ketterdam which can be seen in detail in a map in ‘Crooked Kingdom’ by Leigh Bardugo. 📚 🧙‍♀️ However, with the Grisha triology (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm + Ruin and Rising) he would be disappointed by how little the cartographer/ex-cartographer protagonist mentions maps.

Duncan would enjoy the ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ series due to the strategic, organised layout alongside Pip-the protagonist- ‘s note-taking skills. As Duncan aspires to be an investigative journalist he’d be enthralled by the investigations that are central in these books. He would annotate the books as he reads them; filling them with his own theories as well as highlighting important information.

The poem ‘Long Distance II’ by Tony Harrison doesn’t consist of rhyming couplets but I think Isadora would find its portrayal of grief powerful regardless of whether it’s in her preferred poetic format. Especially as it’s about the loss of family members.

Quigley would create his own fantasy map using tea-stained paper with rice spilled on it, drawing around the rice to get the outline of a country. He’d be really strategic about the details he draws though; having mountains before rivers so the water runs off of them etc. 🗺

Favourite Colours 🎨:

Isadora: Pitch black 🖤

Duncan: Dark green 💚

Quigley: Dark purple💜

(Bc of their notebooks 📓)

Thanks for the ask!! :) <3

I wasn’t sure what to include so I wrote quite a bit, this was me restraining myself tho. I think about the Quagmire triplets a LOT :). This is only the tip of the iceberg ;)! :) I also have kind of detailed hcs about injuries the triplets would have after the eagle fight if u want to hear about that.

Please send more asks if you like! You can be as specific as you like, especially if it’s about the Quagmires! :D

[icarewhatyouthink]

i had several thoughts while driving so here those are:

blurryface and ned’s connection

this started with me noticing a weird pattern in my blurry glasses (official merch btw) and it reminded me of another character, ned. it looks like green and purple waves or almøst glitchy? anyways it reminded me of what we saw ned’s vision look like in chlorine.

(legitimately the only place i could see the pattern was in a bathroom stall i have no idea why)

ned’s vision is blurred arøund the edges, which isn’t all that interesting but what is intriguing is how ned’s vision has a chromatic abberation filter on it (its kinda glitchy.) blurry’s glasses even løøk like ned’s eyes, or i guess ned’s eyes look like blurry’s glasses, with the white rim and huge black circular lenses.

visual similarities aside, ned and blurry have deeper ties to one anøther. firstly, what they were born out øf.

blurryface is a being created as a physical manifestation of things such as depression, anxiety, self-døubt, negativity, and møst importantly to this discussion, insecurities. the areas øf blurry that are painted black have meaning, and his hands specifically are representative of the insecurity related to things that tyler creates. ned on the øther hand is a being made to represent creativity and the ups and downs of the creative process. ned stands for neuro expansion device, too.

blurry and ned are created from the same things, but from opposite ends of the spectrum when it cømes to those things.

lore-wise, they’ve got søme connections tøø. there are nine bishops and nine neds. we’ve seen 8 of them, with keons holding the antlers of the ninth one. with keons’ death, there are 8 bishops too. however, with the disappearance of the ned who gave tyler his antlers in the outside, there’s once again øne fewer ned than bishøp. but initially, there were an even amount øf neds and bishops.

bøth blurry and ned have somewhat similar writing/typing styles, with blurry’s all caps and weird spacing and ned’s all caps writing and incorrect spelling/missing letters.

they were also introduced in similar ways. we met one first (one singular blurryface entity in his era and one ned in chlorine) and then were introduced to eight more in the following era (the nine bishops in trench and the øther eight neds in the outside.)

———————————————————————————

this is where i get into more theory-ish territory. we never see blurry use antlers to control anyone. now maybe they just hadn’t created ned or laid out the specifics of psychokinesis at that point, or maybe blurry døesn’t need the antlers to use psychokinesis. maybe that’s just sømething he can do naturally without any help. the bishops need the antlers. they cannot use psychokinesis on their own.

given the connections blurry and ned have, is it possible that they came from the same place? or that they were once part of the same being? when trench was created, and when blurry was put into that world and split, was he split even further than i had previously thought? was he not just split into nine bishops who hold the title of blurryface and represent the same things he døes, but also split to create nine neds?

or were the neds created as a respønse to blurry’s split into the bishops, taking some of his abilities (namely his ability to use psychokinesis without antlers) and giving them to a new type øf entity to keep the power out of their hands? this clearly didn’t wørk as intended, and wøuld that be yet anøther instance of a bishop or the bishops as a whole trying to regain sømething they lost from when they were blurryface?

(the first instance being nico calling himself blurryface i made a whole post about that already so tldr nico wants to høld øntø the past by using the name blurryface because thats what his song, stressed øut, is abøut)

[blackwell008]

This post really got me today because of the journey I’ve had with social media. I feel like I need to go back to the beginning when all I wanted to do was create art, write my weird screenplays and short stories.

A time when I wasn’t worried about presenting myself as perfect: something I’ve failed at continuously anyway.

A time when my love for filmmaking, my passion for the horror genre and cinema as a whole language.

I miss those days when I was in undergrad and my passion for cinema was addictive. I watched films from all different genres every single day after class (where we sat and watched films for hours).

I didn’t really care about social media at all. In fact, I started my first instagram because I wanted to network with other filmmakers to try to get a job- that was it.

Then in 2013, a really traumatic thing happened and I feel like I had a mental health breakdown. I used social media as a way to escape bc I was in a toxic living situation and had almost no one I could emotionally connect with and talk to.

Isolation, maladaptive day dreaming and misery is a dangerous thing. I started posting and ranting on twitter, posting photos of myself to impress people who were emotionally unavailable and didn’t even acknowledge my existence.

Mental health issues and social media can be a ticking time bomb if you’re not aware, medicated and have no one to hear you out or check up on you.

Eventually with life, therapy and support I am a lot better but I still struggle with social anxiety and living in real life and I used film to connect to the world.

The issue is now whether I still desire to turn my passion for film into a career; or do I just live life as cinephile while holding a 9 to 5.

Honestly, I’ve been pursuing film for 20 years; going back to my very first film theory class in undergrad until recently pursuing a dual MFA/MBA degree which completely blew up in my face.

The current school I attended was a giant clusterfuck with again: absolutely no support (this is another post in itself that I’ll talk about at another time).

I just turned 48 years old. I’m tired, currently broke and feeling defeated by life. Plus the trump administration gutting DEI certainly doesn’t intend to help Black queer women over 30 like myself.

I’m at the point I’m ready to give up. I’ve had so many setbacks, physical and mental health issues that I have to manage on a daily basis, financial issues I have to figure out how to manage (student loans😩🫩🙄).

I just want to be an ARTIST. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Yes, I know I could paint and sculpt etc. which I actually do. However, one of my biggest dreams is to write/direct feature films. I’m actually more open to working in tv now more than ever- seems a lot more stable; but that original love of film I had is still in me.

I keep talking about the film Sinners because it brings me back to that original passion for cinema before it was perverted and bastardized by toxic people I’ve come across irl, the fucked up sociopolitical climate we’ve been in for the last decade and my own personal struggles.

I feel numb. Apathetic. Indifferent.

I pray I’ll get my cinema mojo back like Annie’s necklace that she gave Smoke. Right now I’ve lost it.

This is a long overdue come to Jesus moment. in my case with my growing practice of Yoruba spirituality returning to Olodumare.

I’ll be alright, I don’t consider myself a victim even though I’ve been victimized so much in the last 10 years by America’s horrible healthcare system because of the systemic and institutional racism festering in it; America doesn’t give a fuck about the health of Black people, our bodies and they never have- a horror movie within itself . Again, another conversation for another time.

If you’ve read this far I really appreciate you doing so. Trust me, this was a process of 10 years of frustration.

I needed to vent.

I just don’t know what my next move is. I don’t know if I want to be a film director/ screenwriter anymore maybe as a hobby but not a career. I have to be more pragmatic and practical to pay my bills like 99% of us do. I’m definitely don’t think I’m unique in my experience but being a black woman in America I experience it differently.

[re-readingcomics]

Comics Read 08/13- 20/2023

Over this period I of time I read Rockstars written by Joe Harris, art by Megan Hutchison-Cates, colors by Kelly Fitzpatrick, designer Tom Muller, letters by Michael David Thomas, and edited by Shawna Gor. The edition I read this time was Rockstars The Complete Series as published by Vault. Years ago I read the first arc, “Nativity in Black Light”, in the trade paperback as published by Image Comics. I intended to get the second arc’s trade paperback, “Children of the Beast” as published by Image, but somehow missed it. Anyway, I am glad I got this edition as it encouraged by to reread the first arc which I otherwise remember next to nothing about. The page I scanned to illustrate this post, with its myriad references to our world’s rock ’n’ roll icons and legends may be the part I most clearly remember. 

A quick search on my tags reveals I have never written about Joe Harris on this blog. This really emphasizes how long it has been since I have read any of his work. I have been writing about all the comic books I read for the better part of four years, and even though I was reading most of what he wrote for a while, none of it was during this time! I first became aware of Harris around 2013, when I was preparing to attend my first New York Comic Con. I went to a signing at Forbidden Planet the same week to get some comic books signed. There were four comic makers there. For some reason I now only remember the two that I was not there to see. One of them was Joe Harris, who at the time was primarily promoting his The X-Files season 10 comics (before the revival meant there was a tenth season of the television show). I have a complicated relationship to TXF. It was the first show I really obsessed over, it’s the first I feel angrily disillusioned over. I’m writing something about it in my other Tumblr for the anniversary.  That night, I bought the trade paperback Great Pacific, one of Harris’s other creator owned comics. I liked it a lot and started following his creator owned output. I bring this up because the lead characters of Rockstars, Jackie and Dorothy, have a Mulder and Scully-esque dynamic. Jackie is driven by his family history and seeks answers through mystical uses of cards. Dorothy is a journalist, and seeks answers that she can safely publish. These two character arcs were not really developed enough either of them, but Jackie gets to a more interesting crossroads. 

More directly relevant to this book, between reading the first arc the first time and reading this all now, I have steeped myself more in rock ’n’ roll legends than I was doing the first time around. Among other things I watched Brian De Palma’s The Phantom of the Paradise which reminded me about how often Faustian bargains and early death have been staples of rock legends since nearly the beginning. The plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson pretty much solidified this. This event is included in Rockstars, though the way is in questionable taste. (Coincidentally, that plane crash was also important to the plot of a famous episode of TXF.)

The plot of Rockstars, starts with investigating the mysterious deaths of a couple of groupies decades apart. There are ghost gangs of the groupies interfering with the investigation and they tend to be herald by the wrong lyrics of famous songs. The deaths of the murdered ones are related to demonic champions of the bands. Each arc covers a different demon in relation to a different band. The first band is an arch-typical second wave British invasion bad from the 1970s, and the second is arch-typical early hair metal band from the 1980s. I am more familiar with the former than the latter, despite actually living through parts of the 1980s. The plot didn’t really add up for me. But I love a lot of the details in the drawings, nods to famous theories and art. I also am touched by the concept of how generations are bonded because we each go through the same cycles of cultural events. I just wish that Dorothy’s character design wasn’t so close to some of the groupies in flashbacks or ghost form. It was needlessly confusing.

I feel like, of what I have read, the best comic books about loving music are Kieron Gillan and Jamie McKelvie’s Phonogram and The Wicked + The Divine. This isn’t like either of those, and that is a good thing. For all it’s flaws, I wish there was more of it. 

[buckyownsmylife]

I've Told You Now - Lee Bodecker smut

The one where Lee seduced his sister's babysitter.

Warnings: smut, dubcon, age gap, innocence kink, dirty talk, loss of virginity, blood

Word count: 1.7k

A/N: This one is a part of my kinktober celebrations. My original intention for this October was to work exclusively around prompts that my wonderful friend @darkficsyouneveraskedfor created for her challenge and dedicate each story to a different friend. My new plan became then 31 days of different kinks, which expanded on a poly relationship with Stucky, as you might know by now. However, some of the stories I started were already truly loved by me, and so I kept on writing them. It worked well because as it turns out, I am fortunate enough to have more than 31 friends on Tumblr, so here is the story I wrote for @slothspaghettiwrites! You were the biggest reason I fell for Lee and it was only appropriate I wrote you this! I only hope it doesn't disappoint! Special thanks to @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog who helped me believe this was good enough to be posted! @sweeterthanthis also has a big hand at this!

Y/N’s P.O.V.

I was finishing packing up the toys in the living room when I heard the door slam, startling me into dropping the box of legos on the ground. Looking at the clock, I considered the time before looking back at the hall again. When no one appears from the hallway, I get confused. If the Hendersons hadn’t come home earlier than they intended, who else could it be?

“Waiting for me, bunny?” I immediately straightened out at the sight of Sheriff Bodecker, trying to resist the urge not to flush and keep eye contact, but ultimately failing to do so. I hadn’t seen him since the night he offered to give me a ride home and I ended up with his cock in my throat, his cum in my mouth.

“I-I didn’t even know you were coming.” Silence followed my confession as he slowly approached, eyes never leaving my body while I tried to keep myself up. He’d always had this effect on me. I remembered being a young girl and Sheriff Bodecker being the crush I knew was too old to be mine, the guy I’d never have even in a million years, but that didn’t stop me from daydreaming about him.

If I thought that maybe having him would help this infatuation disappear, it’d become clear by now that it wouldn’t be the case at all.

“And here I was, thinking you wanted me just as much as I wanted you.” The Sheriff tsked, and the sound went straight to my already dampened underwear. I couldn’t process his words very well, given how close he was and how loud my own heartbeat was ringing in my ears. Did he mean to say that he actually really wanted me?

“If that was really the case,” he taunted, circling me like I was some sort of prey. “You’d always be expecting me, wouldn’t you? But it’s alright, honey. You know why?” When I shook my head, he answered his own question, a single finger running down my jaw to guide me to look him in the eye. “Because I think you were expecting me. You’re always expecting me, looking for me wherever you go, just like I do. And there’s an easy way to prove my theory.”

Before I could question it, his arms embraced me from behind, hands slowly running down my stomach until they reached the edge of my skirt. I started sweating in anticipation. I knew what he would find.

“Let me check.” His fingers went over the fabric first, and he chuckled when he noticed how wet it was. “Would you look at that?” I was already trembling when he pulled my panties to the side and ran that same digit over my lower lips, just lightly grazing them. “Soaked already.”

Although I couldn’t see it, the humming sound he emitted after taking his fingers from under my dress didn’t leave me any doubt about what he did with the moisture he collected. Just the thought of him enjoying my taste that much had me weak in the knees, and I tried to keep myself up by reaching for a chair nearby.

Lee’s P.O.V.

I chuckled to myself at how sensitive she was, barely able to keep up with the little I’d done so far. Then again, it was clear I had a particularly strong effect on her. That had been obvious for a while, ever since she started working for my sister, probably - around the same age her womanly features began to stand out.

She seemed unable to look me directly in the eyes, always averting her gaze and biting her lower lip when I decided to stop around here for a coffee or check in on the little rugrat. I began doing this a lot more often after she was hired, but neither her nor my sister seemed to connect the dots.

Her innocence, her beauty just left me so fucking hard. I was hard right then, and I wanted her to know it. So I pressed my body against her back, lightly grinding my member against the curve of her ass.

“I suppose you’re finished for the day,” I speculated, knowing once the kid was out all she had to do was wait for my sister and her husband to arrive. “Guess I can help you unwind…”

She gasped when she felt my hardness, making me chuckle. “Your sister and her husband should be back soon…” She tried to reason, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“We’ll be quiet anyway. Can’t risk waking up the kid.” I gripped her wrist and pulled her on the direction of the guest bedroom, now fully unable to control myself. I was so close to having what I had wanted for so long.

She looked unsure of herself as I closed the door behind us, and I raised an eyebrow in a questioning look. “What’s wrong?” She shifted her weight from one foot to another, fingers playing with the hem of her skirt.

“I-I don’t know about this…” Chuckling, I approached her to cradle her face between my hands and deposit a kiss on those sweet lips.

“Don’t you trust me, pretty girl?” I had caught her now, we both knew it. She’d never risk disappointing or offending me, so when her mouth opened to explain herself and I raised an eyebrow in warning, it was only a matter of seconds until she closed it altogether and nodded, her eyes dropping to her feet.

“Yes, I do.” My smirk was full of victory, and I could taste it in my lips now. It was as sweet as the nectar between her legs I’d only had a taste of.

“There you go.” Approaching her once more, I settled my hands on her hips before leaning to kiss her shoulder. “Besides…” I continued, already bunching up her dress to get rid of it as quickly as possible. “You obviously need me to take care of you and this little wet hole.”

She bucked when my fingers rubbed her this time, dress already forgotten on the floor as I slowly shoved down the fabric of her underwear to join it. Once she was completely naked, I ran my digits over her cunt, verifying that her wetness was already so overwhelming that it was threatening to drip from her.

“So sweet.” I hummed once I wrapped my lips around those digits, tasting her on my tongue again. Yes, I was already obsessed. I think anyone who had the chance to try her nectar would understand my situation - but no one ever would.

She was mine now, and I would never let her go.

“C’mon, bunny.” Patting her ass, I directed her to the bed, chuckling at how embarrassed she seemed, being this exposed to my hungry gaze. “Be a good girl and spread your legs. Be my little angel, won’t you?”

I wished I could have done this somewhere more private - my own house, instead of my sister’s. But I just couldn’t wait anymore. My cock twitched inside my pants. I felt like I was drunk on this, drunk on her.

“C’mon, honey!” I repeated, lightly slapping the outside of her thigh. “I wanna fuck you. And I know you want to be mine, pretty girl. You can’t hide it from me.”

When she finally relented and slowly parted her beautiful legs for me, I nearly melted at the sight. Driven by my desire, I unbuckled my belt and worked to whip my cock out as quickly as possible, smirking at the wide, innocent eyes that settled on my member as I fisted it in preparation.

“Doesn’t it look good?” I teased, climbing on the bed to take my spot between her legs, rubbing the head of my dick against her slit. “I’m gonna have you taste it next time. But for now…”

Resting my forehead against hers, I slowly started to penetrate her tight pussy, slipping only the head at first, even though I was aching to fuck her throughly.

“This is gonna hurt a little,” I warned, not able to stop mid-way to let her adjust but keeping my invasion of her maidenhood slow until I had bottomed out inside of her. “Sh…” I tried to calm her, gently wiping away the few tears running down her soft cheeks. “I know it hurts, bunny. But you can take it, can’t you?”

She managed to nod despite her whimpers, and I brushed her tears away as I warned her, “I’m gonna make you feel so good, honey.”

It took a little while, but at last, she opened her eyes and I waited until she was able to focus them on me again. “You look so pretty, bunny…” I whispered, kissing her while I finally started to move inside of her, stopping only to moan out loud at her overwhelming tightness.

“I’m gonna train you until all you can think about is my cock,” I warned her, slowly pulling out until only the head of my cock was keeping her open.

“I can’t wait any longer.” Slamming my dick all the way in, I felt her nails running down my back, leaving trails of blood behind - trails I wouldn’t mind wearing under my shirt, sting as they might.

“I promise you, honey…” I panted, sweat already dripping from my forehead onto her pretty face. “You’re gonna miss me when I’m not inside of you.”

I kissed her cheek, rubbing my nose against it as she held me tightly against her. “I know you don’t want any of those boys you used to go to school with touching what I’ve already taken.”

She nodded quickly, my pretty little honey. Yes, she was mine already and she knew it. “It’s alright, pretty girl…” I soothed her as she started to whine, her cunt clenching deliciously around me. “It’s alright, cum with me…”

She closed her eyes when she met bliss, but I kept mine wide open so I wouldn’t miss her perfect expression of pleasure. It was almost enough to keep me hard, but I wasn’t as young as I once was.

I never pulled out of her tight heaven, keeping her body snuggled against me. I was happy that I decided to be patient, if it meant I now got to have her like this.

“I hope you know that you’re mine now, bunny.”

[arinaco]

Romelle: her story in the past and in the present. Part II

Translated and edited by  @ Nadezhda932    

Link to the part I.

IV. Heroine of the New Age

Before proceeding to the analysis of the biography and personality of Romelle today, I’ll clarify one point. Subsequent assumptions have emerged based on data from the VLD. They already existed when I started researching the plot of GoLion and DOTU, and before writing this article, I had never watched the old series.

That is, the plot of the old series served for me as additional(!) proof of the correctness of my theory, but wasn’t the reason why I came to such conclusions.

Where do we start? With Lotor, of course - Romelle is tightly attached to him in the plot, and when the writers decided to turn his personality inside out, she followed him.

If you compare VLD with the old series, you can see that Lotor hasn’t only changed as a character - he has become a completely different person. Neither Sincline nor his dimwitted counterpart had ever looked like scheming or tempting snakes. Yes, Sincline clearly could and knew how to make cunning plans, but nothing more. He didn’t possess the gift of oratory, and didn’t feel any need to have it. Sincline supported his father until he blamed him for the defeat of the Galra Empire, beat his own subordinates, and killed and raped the victims without a shred of remorse.

In GoLion in particular, Sincline never set up colonies to deceive the civilian population. Why invent something if you can openly let slaves in experiments? Sincline had no reason to do something secretly from his father, and even more so to take care of his moral character, and therefore he calmly used the resources of the empire.

That is, “Lotor creating colonies” is, to some extent, an invention of VLD. And if you’ve read my previous articles, then you know that in my opinion, the second colony was the home of Luca and Merla, not the first. And that the first colony, where the millions of Alteans declared by Lotor live, never appeared on screen.

If you think about it, Romelle's story looks like complete absurdity. Even in the initial episodes of the first season, it was explained to us that virtual reality technology only imitates form without content - people can see objects, touch them, but nothing more. Coran pulled Allura out of her half-sleep when he pointed out the lack of smell in the flower. And if it had occurred to Allura to chew this flower, then, most likely, she wouldn’t have felt any taste.

This technology was intended to create scenery and couldn’t fully replace the real planet in conditions where people literally lived next to the forest and (most importantly) were engaged in farming. Just think about it: according to Romelle, for ten thousand years the Alteans have been planting illusory potatoes in illusory soil not noticing any trick. They didn’t notice that the flowers don’t smell, the berries have no taste, and the forest rests against the wall.

Only a very emotional and impulsive person could believe in the stupidity of the poor, unfortunate Alteans, who for a hundred centuries haven’t been able to distinguish real nature from the local analogue of Stardew Valley.

For example, such as the red paladin. Keith... or Allura.

What about Krolia? Krolia had no idea how this technology worked, she had never come across it...

So neither the Romelle’s base nor the pod space base were real colonies. We can only guess about their true purpose. The space base looks like a stand-alone laboratory/medical unit, but the Romelle’s dwelling is more like a staging post - hastily built according to the standard Galran template and abandoned long ago by the Alteans as unnecessary.

But where’s the truth buried here, Holmes?

The idea that the planet of Luca and Merla isn’t the first colony occurred to me when I began to correlate Lotor's words about millions with what we’re shown. Honerva apparently landed at the point where she could attract the most attention, but she came out to meet almost no one. Moreover, water meadows with low houses stretched around, obviously not designed for a large population. This place couldn’t be the capital of a multi-million advanced race. For ten thousand years, the Alteans had to not only multiply, but also build normal modern buildings for their own comfort.

But if we assume that this place is a secret second colony, then it’s easy to conclude that all the important buildings were simply hidden for security purposes, leaving a few insignificant and inconspicuous houses on the surface. So insignificant and imperceptible that when the BoM arrived at the coordinates of Keith, they didn’t notice any signs of life on the neighboring green planet.

Lotor has always been a paranoid and overcautious person, and he must have put a lot of effort into keeping his hidden colony a secret. So he would never leave the pod base undisguised and protected if he wanted to hide it from the Alteans.

What’s also interesting is the presence in the colony of a huge number of well-trained specialists.

Alteans of Honerva:

managed to create white mechas;

Which means, at the very least, smelters to work with heavy-duty materials and skilled workers who know how to organize the production process. While the Earthlings spent several years perfecting four fighters, the isolated farmers showed unexpectedly deep knowledge in the field of metallurgy.

What wonderful building elevators are there in the background. Is there a second floor? Or is this smelter located underground?

What's more, the white mechas had a striking resemblance to Sincline mecha, suggesting they were designed by the same people. More specifically, Alteans.

And it turns out that in addition to professional metallurgical engineers, they also had design engineers who were versed in modern technologies.

professionally used these mechas in battles;

The white mechas weren’t animated creatures like the Lions and didn’t help their pilots with training, but the Alteans fought well, competing with the Voltron team. The preparation of such personnel requires many years of practice under the supervision of good trainers - but Honerva couldn’t provide anything of that. She flew in alone and had no idea how to pilot combat vehicles. That’s why her personal mecha was equipped with teludav, and as we remember from Allura's ordeals, the control of combat and conventional spaceships was significantly different.

From which it follows that Romelle's statement that the Alteans can’t pilot spaceships smacks of brazen lies. The colony maintained and trained its own small army.

What conclusions can we draw from this?

Lotor built a second colony because he knew that Zarkon's appetites were insatiable, and sooner or later the Galra empire would reach the Quantum Abyss. There lived not just abstract Alteans, but qualified pilots, scientists and engineers. Lotor conducted research in the field of quintessence, designed war machines, and generally increased the combat potential of the Altean people.

“Just remember, we suffer this isolation so the next generation may not have to”.

In particular, Lotor tried to build his own Voltron, as he understood that this was the only weapon capable of fully resisting the Ghalra armadas, and in particular the monsters of his mother.

And here, to complete the picture, I turn to the plot of GoLion.

To the sister planets: Altea and Hercules.

Altea is an unfortunate planet. When Golion was defeated, Altea didn’t have enough combat power left to protect itself from enemy attack, and the population had to hide undeground for many years until the Lions again found pilots for themselves. Apparently, the inhabitants of Altea relied too much on the power of Golion, and therefore didn’t develop their army.

What about Hercules?

Hercules was a former colony of Altea and was considered a militarized and very dangerous state. Even Daibazaal (aka Zarkon) recognized the power of the Heraclians and therefore didn’t try to attack them in the same way as Altea.

Only the beasts of Honerva were considered by the Heraclians to be serious opponents.

Also distinctive features of the Heraclians:

martial arts as an inseparable part of culture;

selfless service to their people and royalty;

fearlessness in the face of death;

And… it actually looks a lot like the Altean VLD civilization.

Yes, Allura said that the Alteans are a peaceful people, but in fact we see that they, just like the Galra, used edged weapons in the space age, and the standard education of the princess included martial arts. Why was the princess staying in the palace was taught to handle edged weapons? Because it was part of their culture.

In addition, the VLD Alteans had a cult of selflessness, and testing for loyalty to this cult was a major part of the trials on Oriande. Willingness to give up personal benefits for the sake of a higher goal. And this is also similar to the behavior of the Heraclians.

As a result, if outwardly the Alteans of the VLD really looked like the inhabitants of peaceful Arus/Altea, then inside they looked like people from Hercules, ready to attack armed Galra with sticks so that their princess could escape.

And this is a very interesting approach of the scriptwriters, if we remember that the Alteans and Heraclians are one and the same people, they just went in different ways of development.

Alteans in VLD are like a tiger raised at home. It’s sweet and kind ... while well-fed and no one offends it.

In addition, when Voltron fell into a trap, the Heraclians themselves made the decision to take over the defense of Altea. Hercules came to the defense of its sister planet, and really saved it when developed a weapon in time that could change the flight path of a dangerous planetoid.

And this already looks like a prototype of the relationship between the second and the first colony. The second colony existed to protect the first.

By the way, do you remember why the Heraclians decided to cooperate with the Galra? To build their counterpart to Golion, which they were going to use not only against Altea, but also against the Galra themselves.

Moreover, if we compare Samson and Sincline...

Don't feel it yet? What if we compare them like this?

 You know, Sincline was the first mecha which main weapon was dual blades. Voltron learned it only at the very end of the series in order to defend himself against Luca's attacks.

And for some reason, I think that it wasn’t just that Sincline was painted in the colors of Samson - in a gray color of a bluish tint. And even red inserts, with due imagination, can be considered a reference to the hair of the elder prince of Hercules.

Why did I describe all this? In order to clarify the conditions in which Romelle was born and lived.

Romelle didn't quite lie - she was born and raised in a colony with her brother. Only not in the first colony, but in the second. For her, the second colony was the only homeland, as the planet Hercules was the only homeland for Princess Amue.

Where everyone worked for a common cause under the leadership of Lotor, to create weapons together to protect the Altean civilization. The colony was founded not just by settlers, but by people who came to live there for a specific purpose, and their children were growing up in this reality and with varying degrees of enthusiasm joined the common work.

I’d like to ask one interesting question: how will a person whose enthusiasm is equal to zero feel in such a society?

Who was born in a second - specialized - colony, where everyone works on one project, and no one asks new members of the society if they want to do the same. Where the cult of sacrifice was considered the norm...

...and where Romelle didn’t fit. Let's remember everything that Romelle said about her people.

First of all, she presented them as people who don’t see the true nature of things and don’t notice that they live in a cage from which it’s impossible to get out.

“My brother Bandor was always faithful, but I had questions”.

The colony really looked like a cage in the eyes of Romelle, but not for all Alteans, for her personally. Of course, no one kept her there by force, but she couldn’t just leave, and her brother wouldn’t agree to fly away.

And where to fly away when there’s an almost uninhabited Quantum Abyss around? It was impossible to enter the first colony - its inhabitants believed that traveling to the second colony was a one-way road, and no one would let her into the explored universe, and even more so, they wouldn’t give a spaceship capable of flying there for personal use.

So, if for Princess Amue, Sincline was a literal jailer, then for VLD Romelle Lotor became a mental jailer. She blamed Lotor for creating a society where she felt like she was in prison and didn't understand why others felt differently.

“...but I also knew that no one would believe me without proof”.

But why (!) she began to break out of the general system is a topic for speculation.

As we already know, it was extremely difficult to build a second Voltron. Lotor was unable to do this, even using the material of a unique comet. Something didn't work, something was missing. And this something, most likely, was the knowledge of alchemy, lost along with the old Altea.

Moreover, the main problem was not the lack of a soul capable of turning a machine into something more - white mechas weren’t animated mechanisms, like Voltron or Sincline. But on the other hand, the white mechas were finalized by Honerva, the greatest alchemist of her time.

The mechas ran on the quintessence of their pilots. Voltron had an extremely high efficiency, and the process of return was exclusively voluntary - as much as the pilot was ready to give to their Lion. Shiro gave everything during the battle with Zarkon, and therefore not even a corpse was left of him - for the sake of victory, Lion dried him.

But what if some mecha isn’t (!) intelligent and simply draws energy from its pilot in the amount it needs? What if the efficiency of this mecha is much lower than we would like, because knowledge about alchemy is critically lacking?

Then attempts begin to understand how to increase the efficiency of the mechanism. And then comes testing on the most enduring volunteers to find out how long the pilot can last in this mech. And not always the pilot had time to return to the hangar and get out of the mecha before it turned them into a mummy.

Finding volunteers among the Alteans was the easiest thing to do, but that doesn't mean their families didn't mourn their loss. The names of the dead were engraved on the monument to forever remember their sacrifice.

As we remember, pink was considered a symbol of military sacrifice. Honoring the dead, not the living.

Romelle said that by the time her brother agreed to the “great honor”, her parents had already “gone”. In her story - to the base with capsules, but in reality, most likely, they died during the testing of the prototype.

The entire Romelle’s family were professional pilots who took part in the tests. And, having lost both parents, she thought about how justified this sacrifice was, and Bandor's desire to repeat this feat completely plunged her into despair.

Most likely, she didn’t believe that the Galra really posed a threat - the colonies had quietly existed for ten thousand years, and no one had attacked them. The Alteans had no idea what was happening in the explored universe, and Lotor was in no hurry to back up his words with some evidence.

And Romelle began to get angry. To be angry from hopelessness, because she couldn’t influence the decision of her younger brother in any way. She hated Lotor for the idea of ​​building a new Voltron and the dedication with which her relatives reacted to this project.

After all, she almost directly called Luca a fanatic. The best pilot of the colony an example to follow for everyone else. Who calmly activated the bomb on her mecha when she realized she couldn't defeat Voltron.

True, Romelle tried to be polite when she was alone with Luca. She didn’t yet know that Honerva had told the Alteans about everything, and, apparently, before this event, her relationship with Luca was at a relatively sane level.

Seeing no other way out, Romelle strove to at least outwardly fit into the society around her. She copied the behavior of others, adjusted, hypocritically. She didn’t want to become an outcast, and therefore she had to lie to others about her attitude to what was happening.

And she learned to lie masterfully.

She was sincere only with her brother, and - like her prototype from the old series - spoke out against the preparations for war and convinced Bandor that Lotor didn’t deserve such blind admiration.

But Bandor… what about Bandor? Even though he was the younger brother of Romelle and the namesake of the little boy from DOTU, but… what colors were his clothes dyed? In the colors of Samson. The same Samson who decided to sacrifice himself for the victory of his homeland in the war with Altea and the Galra. And for some reason, I think that VLD Bandor wasn’t a defenseless naive child, because they didn’t take random Alteans to the test.

And when the moment X came, and Bandor was injured during the next test, he, like other pilots in such cases, was taken to the space base. What exactly was done with them is unknown, but most likely they were kept on artificial life support until they returned to a stable state.

And Romelle decided that this was her chance to forcibly take her brother to a safe place. Perhaps to that same abandoned base, or perhaps she planned to get to the first colony and start a new life there.

But she failed to bring Bandor alive. He died on the way, because it was absolutely impossible to take him out of the pod. And that's why when Lotor was chasing them, he was doing it in the company of medical robots. Not because he was afraid of a lonely woman with an unconscious guy in her arms, but because he took a team with him for urgent resuscitation of a dying person.

If Lotor really wanted to catch Romelle, he would have done it. She had nowhere to run, but he had zero desire to catch her. He didn’t perceive Romelle as a threat, and made a fatal mistake when she found grateful listeners in the face of paladins. And given the whole story with the advent of Keith, here again the old series is remembered.

Episode 21, where Amue tried to escape from Sincline's prison in the company of friends in misfortune.

Amue’s emergency landing on a desert planet – Romelle’s emergency landing on an abandoned base;

Amue sent a signal for help – Romelle sent a signal to the explored universe to bring the curious to her;

The paladins were met by the witch, who pretended to be a princess – Keith met Romelle, who pretended to be a defenseless Altean;

The witch forcibly took the unconscious Alor away - Romelle took the unconscious Bandor away from the space base;

Too much coincidence, don't you think?

It’s also very interesting that Amue was exchanged for Farla, who pretended to be Akira. Just like in VLD, the paladins decided to trade Lotor for Holt, who turned out to be a hologram.

And it was also for the sake of Lotor that the Alteans were ready to die, just like the Heraclians were ready to die for their princess.

And it was Lotor who came to the aid of the paralyzed Voltron by attacking Haggar, although he could simply fly away, saving his own skin. Just like how Amue turned the ship around and went to ram the Galra to save Voltron in the old series.

And the scriptwriters followed the same pattern when they wrote the death of Bandor. It wasn't his transformation into a robeast that killed Samson, but Sincline's order to shoot him. It wasn't the trials that killed Bandor, but Romelle's attempt to take him away from the base.

But since by that time she considered Lotor the reason of all her troubles, she convinced herself that it’s he who killed Bandor, ignoring her role in this tragedy.

She didn’t want to return to the colony - there she would have to answer uncomfortable questions and pretend that nothing had changed. Therefore, Romelle decided to try to get out of the Quantum Abyss into the explored universe - to the place where the "jailer" was losing his power.

Moreover, Lotor had been so conveniently absent for many months and couldn’t prevent this in any way.

Most likely, Romelle didn’t even hope to find those who would be able to kill Lotor. The chance that a real Voltron paladin would fly to her signal was well below one percent. I think she just wanted to lure someone with a capsule of quintessence, and then bargain for her way into the explored universe.

Nor had she planned for the Alteans to ever learn of their saint's murder. Romelle thought that they would continue to live in the colony in blissful ignorance, and considered these ends cut off. That’s why she was so surprised when Luca accused her of betrayal.

She was already in amazement and horror when, in the wreckage of a white mecha, they found a painfully familiar Altean woman. Alive and relatively unharmed, which provided a chance to talk to her, which Allura and the earthlings decided to use.

Allura was very worried about the fate of the Alteans, and Romelle - that the truth might come to the surface.

By that time, the universe had suffered greatly due to the loss of Lotor, and if the paladins (and most importantly Allura) found out that he didn’t use the Alteans as a source of fuel, and indeed didn’t deceive anyone, then Romelle would have been waiting for a real massacre.

Therefore, she sharply grabbed Allura and began to follow her, pretending her best friend. Firstly, she wanted to convince Allura that Luca was inadequate and her words couldn’t be trusted, and secondly, if not to drive Allura away from Luca, then at least control what they would talk about.

I think Lance and his love plans have become a real gift of fate for her. She had no idea what kind of past connected Allura and Lance, but she took the opportunity to kick Allura out of the Garrison for at least one evening.

And of course, it was on this evening that Luca came to her senses. It remained unknown how Romelle entered Luca's room unaccompanied. Maybe while Coran was looking for Allura, she hung around and offered to talk to the Altean instead of the princess. And the earthlings decided that this was a good idea, since Romelle and Luca already knew each other.

While talking to Luca, Romelle was obviously nervous and spoke ingratiatingly. She realized that the situation had gone completely in the wrong direction, although more recently she was sure that a new life was beginning for her.

Plus - Luca died without having time to give out some important information, minus - she said that the Alteans know about the murder of Lotor, they’re angry and thirsty for revenge.

As it turned out, the ends weren’t cut off at all, but were dragged along from behind, having managed to catch on a huge fragment along the way, which became a heavy burden and almost a stone around the neck.

We don’t kbow what Romelle was doing on the Atlas while the whole company dealt with current problems. It’s quite possible that she not only portrayed ballast, but also thought about how she should behave in the new realities. So far, the Alteans haven't looked like people to sit down at the negotiating table with, but that doesn't mean the paladins and Allura won't try to do so.

And then Honerva managed to pull Sincline out of the Rift and showed Allura that she was in complete control of him...

And after all, the Alteans also saw this, and were unlikely to be delighted with what was happening. They didn’t help Honerva at all so that she would turn their prince into her obedient slave. Such behavior wasn’t very similar to the joyful meeting of mother and son.

This was the moment when their trust in Honerva gave the first crack.

However, not so big as to feel the desire to communicate with a traitor.

In fact, the Day 47 episode, although it seems filler, is of great importance to Romelle's plot. It very clearly shows how she reacted that not one, but a whole bunch of Alteans were dragged into the Atlas. It was already much more difficult to expose a whole group of people as inadequate fanatics, especially since Tavo didn’t make such an impression. He was calm, polite and much older than Luca.

And... Romelle was freaking out.

She appears near Allura, portraying her best friend, exactly when she wants to chat with the pilots, and then immediately disappears, leaving the princess alone with the deepest stress.

When the earthlings try to question her about the Alteans, she says that she has no idea why they’re attacking, breaks into a scream and is clearly worried, with her lies getting more and more rude, such as claiming that the Alteans are scared.

...the same ones that built white mechas and flew to smash the universe...

“But you must understand: my people were haunted nearly to extinction”.

And it’s very curious that in the next episode, Clear Day, she isn’t among the vacationers, and in subsequent episodes she did appear only in edited scenes.

Why did she suddenly disappear? Where’s she?

Romelle constantly pretended to be a cheerful fool, and couldn’t help but go to the festival with the rest of the paladins. Unless, of course, she was doing something else at that time.

For example, running away.

Yes, I believe that while all the earthlings were resting during the Clear Day, Romelle escaped from the Atlas. It was the most logical decision in her situation. She could easily hijack a ship (and even turn off some of the cameras), because in fact she was very good at piloting spaceships.

After all, what happened at the very beginning of the Clear Day episode? Tavo decided to talk to Allura. Personally, without a company. Perhaps Romelle's absence was discussed separately, but that doesn't matter.

The important thing is that Tavo, unlike Luca, survived, and Allura realized that he was ready to share information. It was foolish to wait for them to raise the topic of Lotor in a conversation, but then there was such a great opportunity to run away while the entire Atlas team was walking at the holiday.

What happened next? Here begins guessing without an evidence base.

Theoretically, this story could have ended in an instructive style, where the villain went unpunished, and the only thing left for the heroes is to fully feel their stupidity and pay for their mistakes. But I don’t think that such endings are VLD-style - so, most likely, the fugitive should have been caught and returned to the main characters for a heart-to-heart conversation. Or rather, for a public conversation with Lotor, since such a meeting was required by the symbolism of the plot.

And despite the fact that many Lotor fans quite naturally dream of punishing Romelle in various inhumane ways, I think... that Lotor would forgive her.

Firstly, because he’s not a vindictive person. Throughout history, Lotor never took revenge on anyone, and if he got rid of someone, it was only because he considered this person a threat. Lotor never considered Romelle a threat - for him she was just an offended woman.

Secondly, Lotor really felt guilty for the death of the pilots during the tests. He called them martyrs, and didn’t deny that they suffered because of their participation in his project. And he could sincerely sympathize with the grief of a girl who had lost her entire family.

And that would be a very powerful moment. After 7,5 seasons, where someone constantly took revenge on someone, Lotor would have forgiven his offender and lowered in peace. He could, I believe in him.

[aquaquadrant]

HOLY SHIT… the amount of time and effort u must’ve put into this is INSANE. literally so freaking cool to read thru all ur thoughts on the series from start to finish. this is prob the longest/most in-depth feedback i’ve ever gotten, it really means a lot 😭😭😭

obvi i can’t address everything you’ve written here but since u took the time to share your thoughts, i can at least answer some of the questions u had 💃

oneshots: yeah, when i posted the first part, i thought i would just do a few ‘one shots’ (unconnected short stories) to tell the story. very quickly, i realized that it’d be better to do more structured chapters- although the structure admittedly could’ve benefitted from more in-depth planning. the story def got away from me a little bit 😂

how timmy knew about other worlds vs hels: at the time of writing, i had more intended for him to have just picked it up over the years. patho’s theory is fairly wide-spread, though not EVERY player/community in hels is aware of or accepts it. but i could definitely see watchers having a hand in that, as well.

how hels tek functions: atlas is unique in how much control he exerts over his employees. he maintains strict rules and high standards of ‘civil behavior’ that aren’t typical for other redstone labs, not even iraid. while instinct himself usually resolves conflicts non-violently, he isn’t afraid to lay down the law if needed. and he tolerates a greater amount of fighting and crude behavior than atlas, so long as his employees are still getting their work done.

the respawn anchor glitch: my intention was for it to be an act of the universe, to give tango the opportunity to free himself and participate in its experiment. but to the players, it was nothing more than random chance. you’re the first person i’ve seen to theorize about that being an act of sabotage, so kudos to you!

bravo’s overworld experiences: he actually didn’t get to spend a lot of time exploring the universe at large before he got stranded in hels, maybe a couple years? his experiences were very limited to a few moderately-sized public multiplayer worlds, mainly for redstone, where his talents were much appreciated. so while he’s heard of competitive multiplayer like UHC, he never participated in that (or knows of anarchy servers) so he got a falsely positive view of what ‘overworlds’ are like and let that sour his view of hels even further.

how alsiker knew bravo wasn’t from hels: it’s the eyes, babey!! 👁️👄👁️

was bravo going to go back thru the hels portal after atlas? i truly think he might have! he was in a full rage at that point and not thinking clearly. same reason he couldn’t calm down and explain himself better to the double lifers (would’ve spared him from being hotguyed 🎻)

bravo’s interest in timmy: it’s a very complex jumble of emotions that guided bravo to that choice. he’s feeling angry and cheated, robbed of all the good things he feels entitled to (and thinks that tango ‘stole’ from him). jimmy sort of became a representation of that, all the ‘good things’ bravo missed out on, so he developed an unhealthy fixation that got transferred on to timmy. it didn’t help that jimmy is actually very attractive in bravo’s eyes and to his taste in men, AND that jimmy demonstrated himself as so devoted and loving to tango. in a way, it’s like bravo looked at jimmy fighting to defend tango and thought “damn i need me a man like that. be great if someone cared for me that way :’)” then looked at the raggedy mess that is timmy and thought “i can fix him” (wrong!!!)

tango’s ‘deceit’: the amount of actual lying that tango did is very minimal, and amplified by his own insecurities and the blame directed onto him by bravo and atlas. he thinks that having those ‘sadistic’ tendencies at all makes him a monster, even tho he found a good way of coping and enjoys making games for people. in his mind, at this point in the story, he shouldn’t enjoy people dying at all, even in the context of a voluntary fun minigame.

mumbo’s redstone world: it is a single player world, however. when grian escaped the watchers, he sort of fell out of the aether and into the first safe world he thought of, which was mumbo’s. normally grian can’t physically enter a single player world whenever he wants, that was a special one-time case. it gave mumbo quite the shock.

respawns: i’m sure bravo and timmy set their spawns in double life before the mission back to hels, just didn’t include it. but players can still set their spawns after traveling thru a hacked nether portal. it just means that if the spawn point is disrupted (ie. a bed is broken or a respawn anchor runs out) they’d default back to their last world spawn. for hels players, that’ll always be hels. the way to change that is by getting a new communicator or joining another world via comm portal- then that becomes their default spawn (btw, post-HTP, timmy’s default spawn is the double life world)

atlas’s defeat: the reason he was so blindsided by tango and bravo tricking him was partly cuz 1) he views himself as smarter than them and 2) he views himself as the manipulator, not the one to be manipulated. those are their roles, in his mind. so while he’s playing all these mental games, he doesn’t see them as active opponents, more like game pieces that he has to correctly move and manipulate to get what he wants. he didn’t think they’d be capable of playing him, back. that hubris of his was always gonna be the end of him!

patho: what IS he up to… hmm…. 👀

falsesymmetry: false is… doing the best she can with the knowledge she has available. she and sym have issues that i can’t wait to explore in future fics. it’s def not gonna go over well with tango though.

scáil: his condition is related to grian’s botched watcher transformation, and that’s not what’s supposed to happen. counterparts can normally be made watchers independently of each other. but something went very wrong. grian really oughta check in 😉

doc’s hive mind: i haven’t fully fleshed out this concept but since doc is not a normal player, and has significant cybernetic enhancements, i imagine hive mind to be a way for him to sort of tap into the communication between watchers? like his own private line into the aether. so he doesn’t hear them in the traditional way of a listener, but all their expansive knowledge is available to him.

portal technology: it’s all a bit wonky, i’ll admit. hacked nether portals can only be opened between hels and a different world- so two counterparts within hels couldn’t travel to each other. players from overworlds can bring items to hels with them, or even mobs, and it works like a normal nether portal, but i imagine that doesn’t track for creative worlds. just cuz like, i imagine creative worlds being almost on a separate plane of reality where the items and mobs they generate aren’t really ‘real’? if that makes any sense. that possibility would just be way too chaotic and game-breaking.

current state of hels: i touched on this in another ask but basically, the firewall being down just means players can make hacked nether portals much more easily. their comms are still hardwired to not be able to open portals, and that’ll always be true. but if they go to another world and get a new comm from there, then those comms will work normally (like what tango did with xisuma’s help).

PHEWWWW i think that’s most of it, i know u were prob just thinking out loud/rhetorical thinking for some of these but it was neat to elaborate a little more on some things!! i hope to elaborate even more in future HTP stories (once i’ve taken my board exam OTL)

and truly, truly, thank you for sharing 💜

I loved reading the "From Eden" story, written by @aquaquadrant and the accompanying art by @lunarcrown. I keep thinking about the story/world, so I decided to be kind to myself and write it out, so at least my thoughts will be organized.

Or so I thought. It turned out to be more of a ramble than a coherent piece of text. I'm not gonna do it to myself to check and clear up everything, it's supposed to be a fun write, not a chore. I've made a lot of (obvious) observations and asked a lot of questions, but that's me just 'thinking out loud'. And I knew it would be long, but I hadn't expected it to be this long. I'm not sure if anyone will be interested in reading all of it, but here it is anyway.

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I love it, and everything about it.

I love the whole "Hells to Pay" universe. I love how alive the universe feels while at the same time it still feels very much like Minecraft. I love how it has very much game logic while at the same time having very real stakes and dangers.

I love the characters, both the ones based on youtubers and the original ones. The first category are clearly recognizable with their way of speaking and mannerisms and the latter seem just as well developed. I love how everyone has depth. Everyone has strengths and weakness, even if it's not always obvious. No one is fully good and even the worst characters have some good qualities. And everyone has the ability to change and learn, for better or for worse, but only if they choose so.

I love the writing. The way it's structured makes it fun and easy to read. The wording very much supports the world and it's characters. I love how it lingers on some moments and quickly goes over others, it feels very natural. And though I am the kind of person that wants to know anything about a universe/story they love, I do think that the amounts of exposition and explanation are great. More would probably hinder the telling of the story itself. And I love all the extra bits of the world told through answering other peoples asks.

I love the art. Everyone is unique and easy recognizable. The bodylanguage and faces are really expressive. It's great to see. Beside that, it's also an artstyle that I just really enjoy.

So onto more details of the story. A LOT more details, I basically did another deep read to make sure I didn't miss anything. Spoilers I guess for anyone who hasn't read the story but somehow did find this post.

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Lunarcrown's into comic looks amazing. It also wonderfully shows what kind of world Hels can be and the nightmare that is Tango's life. When I found the story, this intro was enough to get me hooked.

I think it's funny that the first part of an eleven chapter story (of which two are two-parters) is called a one-shot in the authors notes. I mean, I'm not a native English speaker and all that, but I don't think that's correct. Was it intended to be a stand-alone story? Had it been the plan for the AU to be told through short stories?

It's a small thing but I like how every new chapter/place is introduced by "Somewhere in [insert world], a player [is introduced, doing something]", with very minimal variations. It's a nice returning bit, through the whole story.

The way Tango's imprisonment is described is chillingly beautiful. It's horrific, but at the same time almost casual. But that's what is has become for Tango: just another day. In the same way, the manner of escaping is grueling, showing clearly his desperation. Well done.

It's so clearly noticeable, even through the immediate relief of escaping Hells Tek, that he's been through so much and that it impacted him so much. And then he decides to hide it and pretend it didn't happen for another decade. Even if he didn't fool people nearly as much as he thinks he did, it's so sad he though he needed to do that. Not to say that I can't understand it. Sadly, it probably stopped him from openly enjoying what he had: his freedom, all the wonderful experiences of the overworld and his friends. It's an amazing first chapter.

Also I love the way you write Xisuma.

And hello Bravo. I don't really like him as a character, too arrogant and snobbish. But at the same time, I love his journey and it's fun to follow him. He didn't deserve to be stranded here. But then again, that was kinda the point of the Universe's little experiment. I wonder, if he would one day learn about that, would it make him feel better or worse?

It's interesting to see his outside view of Hermitcraft. And them being considered a private bunch in this universe, while we see them pretty much place every block of their megabases, through streams and timelapses. Then again, in-story Hermitcraft is only in it's second world/season. I haven't been following Hermitcraft for THAT long, but it probably isn't a fair comparison. I wonder which of the Hermits Bravo was familiar with. Some of the redstoners, probably.

Timmy leaving his save spot to talk to Bravo wasn't something I noticed om my first read, and it's sweet of him. I love Timmy, and at the same time I want to yell at him for taking such poor care of himself. It's nice to see that through all he experienced he hasn't lost his kindness.

I've been definitely overthinking this, but while rereading Timmy explaining what Hels is to Bravo I was wondering how he knew the difference between Hells and a normal world. The logical explanation would be that some other player told him. But I remembered a post were there was mentioned Timmy was a Listener and I am a sucker for any Watcher Lore (and your version is great), so my mind came to the conclusion that a Watcher told Timmy. After all, he seems so lonely and so attention starved, that he would probably love it when the Watchers are around him. Maybe he tries to talk to them, make them stay a little longer. Most Watchers wouldn't be interested in him, since they can't make him leave. They would only be at spawn if someone more interesting has died without a respawn point. But maybe... Maybe some of the nicer Watchers decide to humor him, and talk for a moment. Maybe after a few times, they discover it's nice to sometimes just have a conversation with a player and just... start telling him things. Random bits of trivia, events that they've Watched somewhere else, things about their old lives. They would still be mostly doing other Watcher stuff, but when they are bored, or were about to visit Hels' spawn anyway, they stop by a certain avian.

Like I said, I've been overthinking this. It probably doesn't fit your story, but it has been fun to imagine. I like the idea that Timmy is one of the few players that is completely comfortable with being a Listener. And I like the idea of someone that people don't spend a second thought on casually having conversations with literal deities.

Back to Bravo for a moment. The stretchend out death-loop that is his way out of spawn is interesting to see. He starts out relatively optimistic but get's a hard and painful lesson on what life in Hels is like. By the time he meets the Arena recruiters he seems to understand why Timmy doesn't leave spawn. Bravo is glad with the resources he has, even though in any other world a second-day player would probably put him to shame. His first instinct on seeing players approach him is now to hide. He's already changed a lot, probably without even realizing it. And that is before he snaps.

The symmetry between the ending of one chapter and the start of the other is well done. One duo dies and Bravo finally gets a break in his struggle to survive. Another duo dies and Tango has a big setback in the game he's participating in.

The tone of chapter 3 is very different from the previous chapters. For a big part, it is an adaptation of Jimmy's and Tango's first episodes of the Double Life series. It's impressive how that part is both true to the source and a good adaptation. And then it smoothly transforms in your own work. Well done.

"They have only one bed." Look, I am very new to fanfiction, but even I know that this is a classic. I don't mind. Classics are classics for a reason, and you've written it good. I love the awkwardness here between the two of them.

Somehow the thing that's hardest to believe is that Grian would be the one to propose an end to the death-game, and it's funny that other characters seem to find that hard to believe as well. But it's a fun set-up to change mid-way in a death game to a survival world.

The addition that the soulbound can make you aware of your partners feelings and that it amplifies whatever is already between them. And thank you Impulse, for sharing your wisdom and for talking some sense into Tango. All the things Tango worries Jimmy will hate about him, seem to be the things he hates himself for. No wonder he feels unlovable. And thank you Pearl, for giving Tango some perspective.

So much of this chapter is just lovely and wholesome. After the Ranches have one good conversation, things just organically develop. Their relations grows closer and stronger. Tango learns to love and how it feels to be loved, he learns to be vulnerable, he slowly starts lowering his walls. There are still mountains of old pain, but there are new pieces that are healing as well. Thank you Jimmy, for being the healer that Tango needs. If only it would last.

Back to Hels. It's a nice detail that beds are a high end item. I guess that means making wool from string isn't possible (4 string into wool never felt right anyway). Though an anchor would prevent a long death loop by running out.

The inner workings of Hels Tek are a nice bit of information, though the place itself definitely is not. How does it compare to other redstone labs, like iRaid? Many workers probably only tolerate the restricting of their freedom because it's still better inside than being alone on the outside.

Clear is a fun character, especially when interacting with Atlas. He can get away with almost anything because he is just to valuable to loose in Atlas' eyes. He is a tragic mess but highly intelligent and takes pride in his work.

It's very telling that young Atlas, with just two minutes of life experience, already assumed the worst of others. That is not something he learned. Why would someone bother to plug a hole at spawn? Ease of traveling? And it's wood, valuable and burnable, it could have been part of a make-shift bridge, or something. Atlas really is the worst. Oh, and rule number one of Minecraft: don't dig straight down, smart guy.

It felt strange to me that Timmy lied to Atlas about Bravo, while pointing them in the direction that Tango want, the guy Atlas is actually looking for. But now I realize that Tango could "still see spawn in the distance", just before the portal spawned. Did Timmy in turn actually see Tango leaving and Bravo joining, from his higher vantage point? That would mean he probably did protect Tango, by not telling the full truth. Also, he's seen both of them. Has he noticed their likeness?

I hadn't caught on to Timmy casually lying Bravo in the first few times I read this chapter. It's sweet. And that he is able to do so while sounding casual surprises me. It feels like a stark contrast with his counterpart, who seems to be a bad liar and with an very emotive voice. And Timmy managed to do so in the face of a powerful man who has already subtilty threatened him and his with minions around. A quiet display of (inner) strength.

Timmy has delayed Atlas and Bravo meeting for five years, half the time Bravo spend in Hels. Five years without answers, five years without any hope of returning. If Atlas had found him the next time Bravo respawned (shot by a skeleton, if matched up chapter II and V correctly) Atlas would have put things together. Bravo would probably have jumped at the chance to get to Hels Tek, to civilisation, and he hadn't learned the "healthy Hels skepticism" yet. Atlas would be his savior! And would have been able to fully shape Bravo's image of Hels. Now, Bravo had to build his own image. Would he think it would have been worth those five years? Maybe, after he finally escaped Hels. I hope so, for Timmy's sake.

Tango had five more years on the overworld because of Timmy's lie. Five years of healing, but also five years of hiding and festering. He would have been in the fifth or sixth world of Hermitcraft, which would have had more resources than Double life. But the Hermit are more thinly spread and not focused on pvp. And on Hermitcraft, Tango probably would have been alone, when Hels Tek came for him. Others would have probably too far away to reach him in time, if they even knew were to go. Or maybe Tango would have been lucky and Hels Tek would have entered minutes before the final battle of the season 6 Prank War. Probably not but that would have been funny. There is a chance that the five extra years were unnecessary and only stopt him from fully healing but I think its way more likely that it saved him. On Double Life and with Jimmy at his side it seems that everything was exactly right for Tango being saved and to make sure his past won't come back to hound him anymore.

I truly hope that Timmy's little lie made things better in the end. I didn't realize that I had so much to say about one sentence in the story. I hope you didn't mind the sidetrack.

Atlas looking for Tango in the Arena seems to be the reason that the recruiters that made Bravo snap ran into him in the first place. Credits were it's due, thank you Atlas, for giving Bravo the means to gain things like good food, end-game armor and weapons. I still don't like you.

Considering Alisker has a spy in Hels Tek, and doesn't actually want hybrid farming to succeed, could the failing of respawn anchor be due to sabotage? Or maybe it was just the will of the Universe. Also, Alisker humiliating Atlas is very satisfying.

The downward spiral of Hels Tek is also very satisfying. It seems that Atlas never bothered to make any protocol for things taking a turn for the worst. I guess that just would be unimaginable for him. And then dr. Clear manages to halt that spiral in one lucid peptalk. That makes me sad that his lucid moments seem to be so rare and frustrated that he uses his skills and talents for Hels Tek. Clear Cut's mental health issues could be some form of heavy depression. That would be treatable. Earlier in the chapter it was mention he has to use potions of swiftness to be functional, but that sounds like management to me, not treatment.

The difference between Atlas meeting Bravo, and Atlas meeting a young Tango is interesting. Tango's base is hidden, while Bravo's is not. Bravo asks questions before deciding whether to attack, while Tango does not. Both of them are wary, but Tango seems eager to work in a redstone lab, while Bravo only sees it as a way home. All of these differences seem to be learned, though. And young Tango is cute.

Bravo at the start of chapter VI has plenty of Hels experience, but without Atlas having manipulated his worldview yet. Still, it's not a pretty picture. He thinks Atlas is probably dangerous because "he’s from Hels, after all". As if overworlders can't be dangerous. Does he know how players on anarchy servers can be? Does he know how an UHC works?

Overworld players gain the ability to travel between world as teenagers, and Bravo mentions next chapter that he probably stopped aging while still looking young. Tango was recruited as a teen, and spent only a few years in Hels Tek. He is the same age as Bravo. In other words, Bravo probably didn't have that much of a window between gaining access to multiverse travel and getting trapped in Hels. Maybe Bravo is just naive when it comes to overworld players.

You know, I really thought Atlas was the one to bring out the worst in Bravo, but perhaps all he did was stop Bravo from examining his own biases. I know Hels is a though place but I can't believe Bravo is that special for having a grand total of three pieces of furniture. He also already considers hybrid players part monster. One of his first thoughts on hearing Hels is an actual prisonworld is that the players that have spawned here must deserve it. And when Atlas guesses that Tango managed "to utilize [Bravo's] connection to leave Hels", Bravo interprets that as Tango willingly trapping him.

Bravo's early days in Hels Tek probably mirror those of Tango. A rundown of practices and procedures of the place, other scientist gathering information about him, leaving the communicator with other scientist to let them figure out the data. Probably to work with the same iron farm scientist Bravo talked to. But Bravo is aware what it's actually for, Tango was fed lies. And Tango was a teenager that had probably grown up feral and just entered a community for the first time.

Hels!Keralis is another fun character. I love that one of the extreme traits that he got from his counterpart is more eyes. How does he know that Bravo isn't from Hels? With the number of eyes he has it somehow wouldn't surprise me if he has some sort of special sight. Or it could be corporate spionage.

I haven't mentioned it before but the way you write the passage of time, with short snippits to show significant moments or changes, is very good. It really gets across how not everything happens in short order, how events can have far reaching effects and how change can happen slowly. It also helps you feel that time has passed and the world isn't static.

Once Bravo had his first impression of Patho, he really didn't bother updating his opinion unless other players made him. Bravo wonders what it could take to loose an eye, and there is something that can do that. In some of the worldbuilding posts it's mentioned that Martyn lost one eye, and Grian both of them, to Watchers. It would make sense that an experienced player would be recruited, but it could also just be an coincident. Bravo disapproves of the fangirling towards Patho, but I wouldn't be surprised if he once was a big fan of Etho. Legendary overworld redstoner and all that. (IRL during April Fools 2013, Etho was famous enough to get his own Minecraft block) The manner Patho let's Bravo know that he doesn't like to be touched is way over the top. Patho is another interesting character, but one of those that I'm very glad of that he's fictional. At the same time it's sweet of Patho that he is very much willing to educate others and share his knowledge.

I like the touch that the first two times the portal is lit, it has everchanging colours. Like the Hermitcraft portal Tango went trough. And it's later explained that inter-world portals have unique color-paterns, depending on their destination. So Tango is still on Hermitcraft in the early attempts. After that it switches to the red-yellow-green of the Traffic SMP/Life Series.

Bravo almost shows some critical thinking and empathy when he finds the Tango Tek farm, but it's immediately ruined when Atlas shows up. I hope Bravo gets nightmares about this when he finally learns how to self-reflect. Bravo's sarcastic reply on whether he has said his goodbyes is telling. He could have made friends if he had wanted to, I'm sure. The scientist had been welcoming and curious about him, and as a redstoner himself it's not as if they had nothing in common. That's a good base to build upon.

His first moments in ten years in the overworld are beautiful. Though Bravo has very many flaws, I do have sympathy for him gotten trapped in Hels. But not for anything else at the moment.

Jimmy reflecting on getting to know the Hermits is fun and wholesome. The little things he has learned about Tango, the thing he seems to love most about him, seem to be mainly related to being a blaze hybrid. All the things that are just Tango. That makes Bravo's claim that he should have been Jimmy's soulmate just plain wrong.

The whole conversation between Jimmy, Tango and Bravo is amazing. Jimmy is trying to figure out what is going on and all is knows for certain is that the person he loves is scared and hurting. And once again Bravo almost seem to realize the universe isn't as black and white as he though it was.

And then the fight! Tango's terror and fight response. Jimmy's terror. Tango's shutdown when he realized that he hurt Jimmy. Just wow. And Jimmy's reaction to seeing Tango freezing up is pretty much forgetting he is on fire because Tango needs him! Poor, poor Tango. Bravo clearly sees himself as a good guy by taking back his rightful place and trying to help Jimmy, not realizing that for Jimmy he is the villain and the leader of the group that invaded the Ranch and is kidnapping his boyfriend. And Jimmy placing himself between the invaders and the portal, knowing he can't win is a beautiful show of his care, courage and determination. These guys have very shallow definitions of strength and weakness.

The Cavalry arrives! And the announcing their presence with the horns is very much Double Life. I know that battles are hard to write, but you did an amazing job with it. It's definitely chaotic with much going on, but it's clear to read and good to follow. Every Lifer does their part in the battle and everyone has their own fighting style.

Was Bravo so angry of Atlas that he tried to follow him back to Hels? The place that he tried to leave for ten years? The moment the portal breaks he is surrounded by overworlders. He can blame the battle going wrong and the mistrust of the players on Atlas, but they give Bravo a chance to explain himself and he messed that up all on his own. And Bravo has seen they are pretty much what he thinks overworlders should be. It's a server where they don't grief bases, where they work/fight together, where they defend each other, where they ask questions and don't immediately attack. (Outside the battle, but that doesn't count, they saw their servermates in trouble.) But they don't welcome Bravo as one of their own. They restrain him and mistrust him. They don't see him as different from the other players that came trough the portal. ("What did you guys do to him", emphasis mine) They hear his explanation but don't believe him. They dislike it so much they kill him, meaning this time he is send to Hels and it's not a fluke or mistake. It's overworld players wanting him gone.

I don't think he realizes this, not at first at least, he has his mind on other things. But once he has time to process what happened? It has got to hurt, even if he doesn't admit to himself he was wrong. I think it all does help later with Tango's words finally reaching him.

Jimmy's fear of not knowing were Tango is when the portal is broken is so real. So is the relief on knowing he's still (physically) with them. Scar being the one to shoot Bravo feels right. Scar has a goofy and easygoing demeanor, but he is very capably and not someone who you should cross, and Bravo did that by saying nasty things about his friend.

It's a relief that Bravo has finally up enough to stop working with Atlas. Progress? His fight against the hired muscle parallels the fight Tango had in brutality, as much as he might deny it. and slicing his own neck is brutal as well.

I'm still not sure how to feel about the Bravo/Timmy reunion. I'm happy that Timmy isn't alone anymore, that he is with someone who has been, not quite nice, but at least polite towards him. At the same time Bravo isn't doing this for the right reasons, he later admits as much himself. He is using Timmy as a substitute for Jimmy. Thing is, he doesn't know Jimmy. Is he really so hung op over the whole 'should-be-soulmates' thing over a stranger? I don't get it, and that could very wel just be a me problem. But he does want Timmy around, even if he's not Bravo's first choice. Since Bravo stepped through the portal that was supposingly taking him to Hermitcraft, Timmy might have been the only one that has been there for him. Timmy was the one who explained Hells to him, without trying to manipulate him. He has been welcoming to him. He has been the one who showed sympathy when Bravo died. The only thing Timmy wanted was not to be alone, but he didn't force that. I hope Bravo's biases don't blind him towards all that.

And that final sentence. If he can’t have the sun, he’ll learn to love its shadow. I know I haven't been the only one going crazy over that. That one sentence it saying so much. I've also have been (over)thinking what that makes Timmy, symbolism wise. The sun doesn't actually have a shadow, being a light source. But there is one thing, it isn't a real shadow, but there is something that is a lack of sunlight. If Jimmy is the sun, Timmy is the night sky. Both are beautiful on their own.

Back to Double life and their aftermath of the battle. I like that you fully wrote the aftermath. Things like this often get skipped or summarized. Now things have calmed down a little, the players have room to feel their exhaustion, their fear, their pain, to become more aware of their wider surroundings and to start figuring out what actually happend. It seems that no matter the universe, the Ranch is destined to burn down. It's sad to see, especially with how warm and cosy you had written the place. And ofcourse Etho and Joel have water buckets, with that clutching trick they love doing.

The state Tango is in, is heartbreaking. No one seems to be sure how to handle that situation, except Impulse, but that might just be appearances. Impulse and Jimmy have a very similar comforting warmth around them, I'm not sure how to call it. So, while Jimmy might feel useless (and the 'intrusive thoughts' aren't helping), I don't think he would have done a bad job with helping Tango. But Impulse has known Tango for years, and has some experience. And he didn't just went through the things that Tango or Jimmy just did. Jimmy's comment about the lights show that he does know Tango, no matter what he thinks. It's interesting that the comments from the Watchers right after are ambiguous in whether they are directed at Jimmy or Impulse.

You cannot sleep, there are monsters nearby. That sentence fills me with dread ever time I read it. It's a dread probably every survival minecrafter knows. And for that sentence to be directed towards Tango is devastating. Luckily Jimmy knows just wat to say to pull Tango out of it. The whole conversation after feels beautifully sad and vulnerable and raw. And it's once again devastating that Tango still feels that he has to be strong in front of Jimmy and only let's himself cry when he thinks there's no one to see it. But Jimmy is not doing nothing, he is being Tango's shoulder to cry on, an that is worth a lot.

The game-chat log of the battle is a fun read. It's very bare-bones, due to it's nature but it gives a good overview and a good indication of how the other Lifers reacted. You have a very good grasp of how you can use the chat in the story. Also, good job Bravo, you did the impossible and make Jimmy hate someone.

Tango's desperate attempt to avoid talking about what happend is painful, and it doesn't exactly work when other players were actually there to witness it. He's still afraid of being rejected because of the truth. And when de finally talks about his past he uses the word 'evil' to describe the players of Hells multiple times, he really believes it. Of course, his friends know better. I like how mad the Lifers are about Tango's past, how offended they are for his sake. And Tango's fear of they kicking him out never crossed their minds.

Whether or not it makes sense for this AU to have a concept of years, I'm glad they exists because it makes it much easier as a reader to keep track of time and of a player maturity. Gradual growth isn't really a thing in Minecraft, so it could even work as kind of sub-growth-stages between player children, teens and adults.

Another vulnerable conversation between Tango and Jimmy, with Tango admitting things he probably never said out loud before. But how bad is it really if he found a healthy way indulge in his questionable desires? And it's not like death is permanent. I can't argue with Tango saying he's messed up, but that's the trauma, not an inherent part of him.

I don't think he has deceived and lied as much as he thinks he has. His friends seemed to realize that Tango had a traumatic past and that some things set him of. They knew Tango didn't want to talk about it so they didn't ask. And he may have hidden his past and a part of his personality, but that was mostly lying by omission. Were the parts of his personality he did show false? Did he not want people to have fun with his games? I highly doubt that.

And it's not as if he's the only one with questionable personality traits on this server. In chapter IV Pearl gave him a bucket of powdered snow so she wouldn't succumb to the temptation of torturing her own soulmate, for example. Nobody is perfect, don't try to live up to an impossible standard.

The good thing about Tango saying all his insecurities aloud is that others can point out he's wrong, and Jimmy let's him know very clearly. Tango seems to be so surprised about it. He never considered his fears being wrong.

All things considered the Ranchers seem to handle the burned out ranch well. They're sad about it and Tango feels guilty, and that makes sense, but no anger or panic or deeply repressed feelings. Progress? Jimmy's comment about liking to wear the gloves is cute. Him not giving them back to Tango is also saying that Tango doesn't need to hide his claws, or himself. I thinks Tango is starting to understand that, even if he has trouble believing it. Same with all the players showing up, Tango sees that the truth about him hasn't scared them off.

I guess that there have been times that all the hiding was too overwhelming at times. Those probably moments Tango looked for Hels. If he was there wouldn't have to keep lying to his friends. He would have felt so much guilt, especially after learning that he had a counterpart that was probably trapped there. So it's a good thing it doesn't show up.

The similarities and differences between Patho and Etho explaining the portals stuff are fun. They have different experience with portals and different tools to work with, but they figured it out. And Patho isn't willing to give up one redstone ore block, while Etho is willing to get up and look for one with a friend.

Every time Tango mentions something about his past in Hels, Impulse seems to be in conflict to be a comforting presence or to be in righteous furry. It's hard to blame him. It's nice to see Impulse and Jimmy kind of team up to try to help Tango work trough everything.

I'm not sure how firewalls and whitelists work (or don't work) in combination with hacked portals. I'm also not sure how those exactly work. Then again, I know it's more important that they work than how they work. My brain just wants to understand it.

Tango, I get that you want to protect your friends but going into Hels alone isn't the solution. That way they at least get hurt by your actions and you actually encourage them to make unprepared, desperate attempts to get you back. If Tango had succeeded in breaking the portal, the Double Lifers would still try to follow. Since they know Bravo met Etho's counterpart, they would probably open a portal with his data. That would definitely have been interesting, but that would not have been good.

Thankfully, Jimmy is there to prevent all that. It's good to see that he stands his ground when Tango wants to cut others out, even though Jimmy has his own insecurities to deal with. And he already followed him to Hels, so of course Jimmy wouldn't think twice about following Tango into a trap.

Bravo has so many villainous vibes. It's a miracle he hasn't noticed it yet. He has figured out why they are here, but at the same time doesn't seem to realize they are here to help. And the hypocrite is calling Tango a monster for his temper, while he started the fight because of his anger. Bravo is a very good fighter, we've already seen, he's been in much tougher fights against much more experienced fighters. So it's not that surprising that the Ranchers lose.

Even after they lose Bravo keeps on hurting Tango with actions and words. It's no wonder that Tango realizes that the personality trait he hates so much about himself -a thing that makes him believe that he deserves all the bad stuff- is something he inherited from Bravo. It's something he only has because it comes from his 'better' counterpart. And that realisation gives him wat he needs to get through to Bravo.

Bravo's breakdown is beautiful to watch. You can see his whole beliefsystem falling apart and him having nothing to keep up his mental strength. It's so well written. For all the wrongs he's done, I never saw him as an evil person. Arrogant, biased and misguided, yes. Even so, he came to Hels with a strong sense of justice but he had to spend so much energy on just surviving that somewhere along the way he had to give it up. One can only have a survival mentality for so long before things have to give.

Tango understanding what Bravo must have been trough heartwarming. And I'm very much with him on this. Him embracing and accepting Bravo and Bravo finally accepting him is great. And now it's time for Bravo to begin his redemption arc. I absolutely love redemption arcs and -though I don't think Bravo's finished at the end of the story- this is a good one.

Timmy and Jimmy meeting each other is pretty much the opposite of Bravo and Tango meeting. No mistrust or hostility at all but mostly awe. It's nice how Tango describes it in his point of view. Timmy admitting he understand why he isn't good enough is just so sad. He knew Bravo couldn't fully accept him as he was, and he sees that his doppelgänger looks much better than him (rather objectively, being healthy beats being unkept and skin-over-bones). Jimmy basically goes all 'protective big brother' over Timmy, it's great. It's a relief that Bravo learned to (or at least started to) see Timmy as his own person.

The last scene of chapter X. It was so frustrating to wait to see wat happened next. Bravo seemed to be on Tango's side, so it would probably be a ruse. At the same time, it wouldn't have been the first time if Bravo had lost his temper and stopped being smart. I'm rather new in the fandom side of Minecraft Youtubers, so this was the first chapter I came across and the first time I had to wait for an update. I found it after someone reblogged some of Lunarcorwn's art (along with a tiny excerpt) about this chapter. I was immediately fascinated, and after the intro comic, I was sold.

The start of the next chapter doesn't give immediate resolution to a first time reader. Bravo is definitely convincing. He has to be, Atlas is not easily fooled. But knowing what's going on there seem to be small tells in how Bravo acts. Or maybe I'm just imagining things. Bravo's aggression looks like anger but is probably his newfound guilt and insecurity. He only talks to answer Atlas' questions, his speech seems more to the point while at the same time he uses more filler words.

It's interesting to see Bravo trying to trust Tango and Jimmy, while at the same time having learned to be distrustful of everything. He's really going back and forth between the two. Thankfully, Tango is understanding and shows him grace. Why does Bravo tense up when Tango mentions his friends won't attack on sight? Had he forgotten that overworld players don't tend to do that? It would probably be painful for him to realize there are things he has unlearned or forgotten.

Poor Timmy probably hasn't interacted with more that one person in ages. The Double Lifers must be very much overwhelming, especially since many of them aren't exactly low-energy players.

It's Tango's job to make sure his friends don't go with a bad -but easier- plan? Talk about role reversal.

The conversation between Bravo and Timmy by the portal is nice. I like whatever kind of relation they have, messy as it is. I'm not saying it's good, but it's interesting to read about. They each have many issues. Bravo is now aware of that, but I'm not sure if Timmy is. I'm not even sure Timmy knows what a healthy relationship looks like. They both care about each other and I think they could help each other out. But at the same time, Bravo has anger issues and biases against Hels players and hybrids and Timmy is both and probably wouldn't set any boundaries. At this moment them being together could either be healing or toxic. So I get Bravo's hesitance.

Jimmy's hostility towards Bravo is so odd to see. It's so unlike him, though it's fully earned. Tango and Bravo sharing their braincells while coming up with a plan is fun, especially since Tango has to tell his friends that every time that, yes, he is on board with what Bravo says.

I admire Tango's courtage to enact the plan. Then again it's in a way a variant on Tango's earlier plan to sacrifice himself, now it's only temporary. It's no wonder he looses his nerves and fully panics at the last moment when he is actually faced with the machine that caused most of his suffering. Once again: poor guy.

Bdubs has a point about Bravo calling others bad, but Patho literally disemboweled him so I think Bravo is being fair in his case. As for instinctSV, he barely appears in the story, so that's hard to say. But I don't think you get to lead a company in Hels by being trusting and charitable.

Grian and his Watcher abilities! This is a great moment to use his powers, especially since he so hesitant to use them. And he and Jimmy are right, this is not the moment to explain it all. This is the second time that Grian uses his silent 'Watcher voice' in a group meeting and this time there is an extra Listener around. Grian's secret is all but out.

Grian getting Mumbo to come with him with some crazy but true explanation somehow sounds like a very Grian thing to do. I love your portrayal of Mumbo. It's been a lot so it's no surprise that he needs a moment to wrap his head around it. Mumbo is a good friend, keeping how he helped/helps with Grian's eyes a secret. And Grian turned up on his redstone world? Wouldn't that be single-player? How did Grian manage that? And it's good to know that Grian told Mumbo what happend over time.

Something that stood out was that Mumbo stopped himself from tugging his mustache. The way it was worded was like a habit he tries to unlearn. It was also something Clear did but didn't seem to mind.

Tango finally understands he doesn't have to do this on his own and that he can rely on his friends. The warmth he has for the people around him here is so sweet. And he finally doesn't just want to confront his past, but actually wants to put it behind him. He still thinks that the "entire mess is solely his fault" (as if he asked for it) but he knows they will do whatever it takes to help him. "Is it really any wonder he learned how to be a good person just by knowing them?" Just beautiful! Though, is he seriously gonna give Jimmy a lecture about self-blame? That's just funny.

It's promising that Bravo corrects himself about the burned Ranch. Especially since nothing about it is even spoken out loud. He might have had a change of view, fully ingrained change requires more than that. But Bravo is willing to work on it. He does note himself that he wouldn't have been able to see Tango's influence on the interior.

It's entertaining to see how Bravo describes the Lifers, and Mumbo. The sentiment of wanting to kill Atlas is very understandable. Though Bravo is the Plan Guy, Jimmy is the leader here. He listens to Bravo because Bravo has the most expertise. But Jimmy is the one who the rest listens to, the one who keeps the conversation on track and the one who validates the plan.

Tango and Bravo realizing how much they both have changed due to were they have been living feels like something they needed. I like how they are now that they're not hostile towards each other. Bravo and Timmy's realisation neither of them is a builder is a fun parallel of Tango and Jimmy, and I'm glad Tango is there to watch it. It feels promising somehow.

Once again, Jimmy is being a leader here. Checking in, helping, dispelling fears. I highly doubt that Jimmy sees himself as a leader, though. The talk between Jimmy and Bravo is amazing. It just radiates growth and caring.

Tango in the farm. Oof. It's amazing how he is so close to drowning in despair, but still manages to find something to hold on to. And then he realizes he was strong enough to survive it all before, and that he is stronger now. It's wonderful how he let his good memories strengthen him, and that while he is currently living through his worst nightmare.

Clear not realizing Hels Tek is being invaded and said invaders being fine with Clear just continuing to do his own thing is really amusing. Clear 'recognizing' Grian is so sad. But Grian doesn't seem to have the instinctive recognition of his counterparts name, and later when said counterpart realizes Grians name, it's not his player name. That's interesting. I appreciate that Grian stays with Clear and I wonder what is said between them off screen. I hope Clear eventually realizes Grian is not Scáil.

The invasion of Hels Tak is a fun read. Overpowering the first guard went so smooth! Then the ravager just had to shake things up. It's nice that during everything, Pearl and Scott seem to have patched things up and are flawlessly working together now. Jimmy seems to notice a 'intrusive thought' cutting another off, noticing how odd that is, even if he doesn't understand wat it means. Bravo and Jimmy fighting in sync is awesome! What's also a difference between this fight and the previous is that Jimmy uses his wings while fighting. Something that wouldn't be fair in a friendly fight. Tango notices later that he fights way better when he does use his non-human-side, for Jimmy it might be the same.

It's so nice that Jimmy notices that Tango lost the fear he always carried with him. He handled the last hours in the farm well. The first time I read this part I was so worried that there wasn't any mention of breaking the respawn anchor. I couldn't imagine that they would forget while standing right in front of it. Luckily there was no need for a respawn. I had also been a little nervous about Timmy and Bravo, had they made sure they would respawn at Double Life if their spawn point got reset? (Is that even possible for Timmy with his Hells-comm?)

Sweet Jimmy does not tolerate his boyfriend being name-called. And sweet Tango won't stand for his boyfriend being hurt. They're cute like that. It's good to see that Tango being called a monster has lost its power to hurt him, no matter how hard Atlas tries. He's finally able to fully accept his mob-side. It feels good that the three of them manage to piss of Atlas so much that he finally cracks, giving Tango the closure he needs. And then what's probably the most satisfying punch in Hels' history, even inflecting permanent damage.

This is the first time Tango consciously reached out for his own fire, isn't it? His own firestorm is a beautiful thing. And powerful. I'm so happy for Tango! Atlas having to helplessly watch how Tango casually strolls to the portal is extra satisfying.

Atlas just sitting outside and letting his laboratory burn really shows how defeated he is. If he was any other person I would probably feel sorry for him. And why is he so surprised that Tango and Bravo are the ones that beat him? They're both smart people that know how he works and with plenty of reasons to hate him. Are they really that unlikely to bring him down? Or did he underestimate them because they don't have the authority to boss others around? Good thing Tango had his friends on his side and that Bravo understood the power of friendship.

And then bX has the pleasure of kicking Atlas while he's down. Must have been a great relief too, to let the hybrid-farmer know his life's work was done for.

Even for the Hermits that had known something was 'off' about Tango, finally hearing what happened must have been a shock, for the ones that didn't know yet. And for Tango it must be nice to be able to tell it on his own terms, this time. He probably knew by now that the Hermits wouldn't abandon him after telling the truth, but having conformation must still feel great. It's also great that talking about it is becoming easier.

Alisker and xB are very sweet together. Very different from how they interact with other people. I admire Alisker's long term plan and how successfully it played out. He really made sure Atlas' damage stayed limited. I just wish his plans hadn't required for Tango to be locked in the farm in the first place.

I think it's a wise choice for Bravo to take some time for himself. Processing and healing from everything that happened can be nasty, and at those times it's nice not needing to mindful of others. At the same time, part of me is worried he's gonna overcorrect himself or close himself off. I'm not sure how excluded different worlds are, and how much contact players can have through the multi-net, but I hope that Bravo stays in contact with at least Timmy. It's sweet that Bravo clearly cares about Timmy's progress as well and that he regrets they both have to take different roads to heal.

The progress Timmy has already made is wonderful to see. Not only physically, he questions Bravo's decision to go and voices his discontent. Gently, but still. It feels like he's learning how to stand up for himself. Timmy himself really wanting to grow as a person is very promising, especially as someone who represents his counterparts (*checks external authors posts*) passiveness and victimhood.

Dbubs first appearance in the main story! His and Patho's relationship is both so warm and unhealty. I love complex people and I love complex people being even more complex together, and this story is full of them! I also love it every time when players are having that instinctual recognition at the proof of existence of their counterpart on page, whether is just the name or meeting face to face.

I wonder why exactly Patho wants to leave. It's not he didn't know about them having counterparts. Why does it suddenly matter? Is it because they visited Hells? Because they visited Hells together? Because of the recognition Patho felt? Or is it something else?

False, seriously? I don't think having someone chained up like an animal is keeping you in Tango's good graces. And you basically told him it could wait until he got back, while you're holding your twin prisoner! There might be something wrong with Sym, but what's wrong with you? It sounds like an interesting story, and I definitely have questions.

Poor Scáil. His suffering might actually surpass that of Tango in the farm. And if he's been like this since he left Hels Tek, it's been more than a decade, considering they never met. How did he become like this? I know it's related to Grian almost becoming a (full) Watcher, but this can't be how this is supposed to go. And even Grian has control of his abilities. Scáil using Grian's Watcher name makes me wonder how how much player vs Watches they actually are. Grian, please check in on your counterpart.

Stress' way of talking is always fun. Her and Doc's origin is cool. And I'm curious what your interpretation of the Hivemind is. Doc not having a Hels is a big relief, considering Doc himself already loves creating game-breaking machines. That trait would be terrifying on someone with a Hels mentality, let alone an amplified version of that trait. I understand why they are conflicted about it, though.

I'm glad we finally see Instinct in person. I like him and the vibe he gives off. Atlas working for him is amazing, how far he has fallen! I hope Instinct enjoys bossing him around.

Tango making the video about Hels and how to get there surprised me when I first read it, even though it makes sense. A lot of Hels players will probably change for the better because of it. It might also wreck the Hels economy. Overworld players could give their counterparts a way out, or provide them with resources that are easy to get in a normal world.

I have so many questions about it all. Can mobs travel through portals? How would it work when someone creates a portal in a creative world? Could they just spawn in rare items (elytra's or even things like spawn eggs) and bring them to Hels? Can counterparts create hacked portals when both of them are at different places in Hels? If so, that would create fast-travel. That would be especially valuable in such a giant world.

It would probably kind of sting for Bravo to see the video. Everything he needed to know and took him a decade to figure out, quickly explained in one video, uploaded not long after he finally escaped. Not that I think he woud disagree with uploading it, it's just, where was that when he needed it?

The idea of Bravo seeing Tango's video is interesting. Bravo could see all the videos Tango made while he was trapped in Hels. All the inventions and games (first Decked Out) that Tango created, all the projects he worked on with other Hermits. Tango could see the ones that Bravo made before they switched places. He could see how Bravo acted before Hels crushed him, the friends he had back in the day and how young he was when he got trapped. I wonder if they do that, and how it influences how they see each other.

It's very nice how you worked Steve, Herobrine and Alex in this universe. Does the Hels firewall being down also mean that overworld comms now work there properly? Herobrine being Hels former admin makes sense, as the first counterpart, though I hadn't expected it. It's nice that there won't be new player condemned to spawning in Hels.

The scene with Jimmy and Tango is just lovely. The cuffs and everything they stood for were so loaded for Tango. I'm glad he's finally able to take them off, and that Jimmy understood how much it meant for his soulmate.

I love how the last paragraph is inspired by the end credits poem. And I love how it both does and does not breaks the forth wall, and the things it explains. It's a nice touch that it's in-story explained by Aqua and Lunar.

-----

And that was it. For the main story anyway. I've also read the short stories from the Hels To Pay universe, but I leave that for another time. Maybe. I liked writing this but I've had enough for now. If you actually read all of this, you have my uttermost respect.

[digital-dhampirs]

a somewhat coherent breakdown of VnC 55 (part 1): The Teacher

VnC 55 is a short chapter.

But holy shit, so much happens in it. We get so much information and the art is so pretty and I’m very very scared and I Need To Know More and when is January again.

So much stuff happens in this chapter that while I was writing this breakdown I realized I was going to have to split it into two parts just for my own sanity (and also for readability reasons). Part 1 will primarily focus on the Teacher, and then we’ll get into the other characters, along with a few predictions for upcoming chapters, in Part 2.

Before we start, three warnings! : 1) this post contains many spoilers for vnc chapter 55; 2) i will refer to the teacher as “teacher” and “comte” interchangeably during this post; annnnd 3) this post is very long. even for me. i… the teacher is my new Ruthven and the fact that his story intertwines with Luna’s makes my already meager ability to control my rambling even worse.

With that, let’s jump into the wild world of…

Mur— I mean, The Teacher

Let’s start by breaking down our first Teacher Fun Fact: his face reveal. The Teacher’s left eye is copper sulphate blue, the same color as Vanitas’s. His right eye is some unspecified other color but (judging from the fact that the way his eyes are colored matches up pretty much perfectly with Human! Murr’s eyes in the volume 8 cat cafe omake) is very very likely to be magenta/ purple.

This isn’t quiiiiite confirmation yet, but the matching eye colors plus the Teacher’s line about meeting Vanitas in a different form makes it incredibly likely that the Teacher is indeed Murr. And this. Uh. I. /stares at various panels of Murr eating cat food, playing with cat toys, cuddling up to Amelia, and having a crush on a cat./ I will once again generously refer to him as a method actor.

Of course, there’s always a chance that this could be a red herring and Murr is a separate entity from the Teacher in some way, but there’s a lot of evidence pointing to them being one and the same.

The Teacher and Names

The next massive piece of information we get on the Teacher is the name he’s currently going by— the Comte de Saint Germain. After some very brief googling, it turns out the Comte de Saint Germain was a philosopher and adventurer who lived during the 18th century. And this guy was an oddball. Nobody truly knows who he was or where he came from (although there are various theories going around). The Comte constantly lied about his true identity, switching names and personas at the drop of a hat. He made absolutely insane claims about himself, one of which was that he was multiple centuries old; and had strong ties to alchemy, stating he could melt diamonds and create gemstones. Despite his constant lying, people frequently found themselves drawn to the Comte, and thought he was fascinating rather than just a run of the mill charlatan (pun somewhat intended).

And that? That name sounds kinda perfect for the Teacher. Nobody knows where he came from, he changes his name and form at the drop of the hat, he’s centuries old, and he has strong ties to alchemy.

It follows to ask, though— in the universe of VnC, did the Teacher meet the Comte, find him interesting, and take on his name after he died? Or was he actually running around as the Comte throughout the 1700s, just a version of him reimagined as a vampire (similar to the characters we meet in the Gévaudan arc)? If the latter is the case, he’s likely been using this name for over a century by 1889, when VnC is set— does he cycle through a specific set of names/ identities?

Another odd thing to note is that so far, all of the names Teacher has used haven’t really been…. names. “Grandfather” and “Teacher” aren’t really names, they’re more like titles, and “Comte” just means “count”.

And wait. That’s weird too. Didn’t the Teacher already turn down the title of “count” and give it to his kid, Count de Sade? Why would he toss his own title away only to name himself “count” again later?

I think this is an indication of yet another detail on Teacher we see displayed throughout this chapter— he has a Thing with names. I don’t quite know what to call it— a preoccupation? An obsession? Either way, there is absolutely something going on with the Teacher and names.

Chapter 55 shows us that Ruthven’s line way back in Chapter 19– “if anyone calls him by the wrong name, he beats them within an inch of their life on the spot…”— was absolutely not an exaggeration. The Teacher’s grin turns from cheery to absolutely horrifying when Vanitas refers to him as “Shapeless One”, and he threateningly tells Vanitas to not get it wrong the next time.

The Teacher, despite insisting Vanitas call him by the right name, seems to completely refuse to use Vanitas’s name— as a matter of fact, throughout this whole chapter, he never actually refers to another character by their own name. He calls Noé and Dominique “mes chatons”, refers to Jeanne as “hellfire witch”, and calls Vanitas “kin of the blue moon” and “heir to ‘blue’” [more on that second one later].

This insistence on not using anyone else’s name starts to paint a lot of the Teacher’s previous actions in a very different light. In chapter 14, Ruthven says that the Teacher “hated even saying [his] name”, to the point of crossing Ruthven’s name out of every book in his castle. Ruthven seems to take this as a sign of the Teacher hating him, but what if this is just normal behavior for our dear buddy Comte? We do see the Teacher occasionally call Noé “Noé”, but whenever he refers to someone by their actual name he seems to almost always speak in a possessive sense— “my dear Louis”, “my darling grandchildren”. His cute pet name for Domi and Noé is similarly possessive— “mes chatons”, my kittens. The Teacher seems to have an intense preoccupation with naming others— and not allowing others to name him.

This is (I think) why the Teacher refused to accept a title and then contrarily chose to include that same exact title as part of his current name. If the Teacher had accepted a title, that would mean someone else was allowed to “name” him— and to the Teacher, that’s completely unacceptable. But if the Teacher is the one who chooses that title, he’s the one naming himself, and that’s ok.

Weirdly, the Teacher only applies this rule to himself and doesn’t extend the same courtesy to anybody else— he’s furious when anyone refers to him by a name someone else gave him, “shapeless one”, but proceeds to almost exclusively refer to others by names he (or someone else) made up for them. “Hellfire Witch”, “Kin of the Blue Moon”, and “Shapeless One” are all quite similar, as they’re all sort of colloquial street names for Jeanne, Vanitas, and the Teacher, but for some reason the Teacher has massive objections to one and is totally fine with using the other two.

Why might this be?

My first thought is that it could be some kind of power/ respect thing. The Teacher sees calling someone their proper name as a sign of respect, and since he seems to solipsistically see himself as above others, he refuses to allow other characters to disrespect him while constantly disrespecting them. But that doesn’t seem quite right to me. The Teacher refers to Noé by his name during the chapter 9 flashback— why would he call Noé “Noé” and then call Luna (whom he seems to like a lot) “Blue”?

Maybe it’s something to do with the Teacher seeing others as possessions/ not quite the same as him? Maybe he sees others as inherently below him, as sentient items he can control? But that feels a bit off too… hmm….

Unfortunately, I can’t really think of another explanation for the Teacher’s preoccupation with names at the moment. I’m sure I’ll have more theories in the future, but for now I think I’m gonna have to leave it as a very weird character quirk we’ll likely learn more about in the future.

With that…. /cracks knuckles/… let’s get into that whole “Blue” thing.

The Teacher and Luna

First and foremost! Comte here might be a very bad horrifying manipulative murderer who psychologically tortures all of our beloved protagonists on the daily, but his take here is based as fuck. Luna is 100% the most beautiful being in this world and I love them and if the Teacher manages to actually bring them back from the dead I will be very very happy (even though they will probably Not Be) and Luna is super pretty and I could talk about how pretty they are for multiple days—

So. There’s definitely something going on with Luna and the Teacher.

Ever since the very first chapter of VnC, the Teacher has shown a strong interest in the Blue Moon. He grins widely when a young Noé tells him that he thinks the blue moon is beautiful, even reaching over to pat his shoulder in a way that seems almost proud. He laughs delightedly when he sees Noé cheerfully tell Domi she shouldn’t be scared of the blue moon. All of the Teacher’s experiments seem to revolve around either Luna or Faustina (who, according to Noé, looks very similar to Luna. ngl I don’t see it but if Noé says so it’s probably relevant).

And, oddly enough, Luna, Faustina, and Comte all have a preoccupation with names.

Let’s put Faustina/Naenia and her interest in hunting for true names aside for now, and just focus on Luna and Comte.

For a while now, I’ve been kinda lowkey wondering if these two character act as foils for each other. They’re both parental figures to our dual protagonists and they’re both exceptionally powerful to the point of being legends in and of themselves. Luna is initially seen as dangerous and cruel, but seems to have been a truly kind and cheerful person. The Teacher, meanwhile, seems to act kind and cheerful but is actually incredibly dangerous and cruel beneath that exterior.

This change in readers’ perception of the Teacher and Luna follows a similar timeframe— in chapter 1 we’re introduced to the Teacher as benevolent and Vanitas of the Blue Moon as evil, we slowly learn more about both parties and how their true natures don’t line up with these initial impressions, and then during the exposition universalle arc we finally get to see both of them as they truly are/ once were for the first time.

The Names Thing just further solidifies Comte and Luna as foils for me.

They both seem to have started out nameless/ without a name they were satisfied with. Comte frequently refuses to refer to others by the names they prefer; while Luna immediately calls people by whatever they want to be called, referring to Mikhail as “Misha” when he tells them the nickname. Comte insists on not accepting any name someone else gives him, to the point of turning down a title only to give himself that title years later as part of one of his names. Luna, meanwhile, seems to accept any name they’re given— “Vanitas”, “Vampire of the Blue Moon”, “Father”. The name Luna ultimately finds satisfying and chooses to keep is a name someone else accidentally gave them.

This now brings us back to that same question from before. Why do these specific characters have such an interest in names? Why are their approaches to names so completely different? Is it something to do with respect? With how one sees themselves in relation to others? With the very first line of the manga, where the Teacher tells Noé that his “true name” is his very being?

If I was gonna pull a wild guess out of a hat, my current guess would be that Luna and the Teacher don’t actually have true names. Maybe Comte is indeed exactly what he’s called by other vampires— a shapeless being, without a true name or known nature. Maybe this is why the two of them are so closely tied to the concept of names— they’re both searching for a metaphorical formula that shapes who they are. Maybe this is why Comte is so upset by the name “shapeless one”, maybe this is why Luna tries on any name others give them.

But that’s just a theory, a manga theory!! Let’s drag my levitating theorist self back on to solid ground and talk a lil more about the Teacher and Luna and what’s going on between them. (*winks in shipper*)

SO. We’ve established that Comte has some sort of connection with Luna. It’s very possible he gave his current form one blue eye just because he liked the color, but considering he also gave Murr this type of heterochromia, I can’t help but feel like it goes deeper than that. I think there’s a very real possibility that Luna and the Teacher have met before, and may have even worked together at some point.

Firstly, there’s the fact that the Teacher’s obsession with Luna feels like it goes a liiiiittle bit beyond the scope of “oh I saw this really pretty vampire from afar one day so I decided to spend the rest of my life studying them and working to bring them back from the dead”. Assuming his line in Chapter 55 is about Luna and not just him… liking the color blue… or talking about some other entity, it sounds like he probably spent a nonzero amount of time with Luna at some point in the past.

For a little while now I’ve had a running theory that the Teacher was the one who gave Moreau the Books of Vanitas, along with Luna’s blood. Comte and Luna working together in the past could explain why he managed to acquire those items. In a chapter 51 flashback, Luna states that they once tried to find out what they truly were, but now deeply regret it. Could they potentially be referring to a time when they worked together with Comte?

With that, I think we can start piecing some puzzle pieces together about Luna and Comte and their past relationship. They likely worked together at some point, but Luna came to regret doing so. Luna never seems to have mentioned Comte to their adoptive kids, but the Teacher often told Noé the story of Vanitas of the Blue Moon and praised him when he said the blue moon was pretty. Luna died, and now the Teacher is trying to revive them.

Suffice to say, Comte seems absolutely infatuated with Luna.

The question is… does he actually feel any love or attachment to them? Or does he just want to possess them?

This is where we once again return to that delightful running theme throughout this post— names. Comte refers to Luna as “Blue”, probably a nickname stemming from “Vanitas of the Blue Moon”. But Comte’s probably been stalking Luna for a long while, watching them from afar while they traveled with the boys— does he really not know about their new chosen name? Not to mention, even if he doesn’t know about the name “Luna” for some reason, why does he have to be contrary and call them “Blue” rather than the usual “Vanitas”?

I doubt Luna minded this name, just like they didn’t mind “Vanitas” or “Father”, but it starts to raise red flags in my brain when it comes out of the mouth of the guy who constantly refuses to call others by their actual names and frequently refers to people in a possessive sense. It could be an affectionate nickname, but it could also be yet another sort of power/ respect/ possession thing. He also doesn’t refer to Luna as a person or a being or a vampire, he calls them the most beautiful “creature” in the world. It’s sus. It’s all very sus.

In addition to this! Even if Comte truly does feel something resembling “love” for Luna, there’s another interesting little knot to this tangled sort of love. Comte’s actions towards Luna feel remarkably and amusingly similar to the way his protégée acts around Luna’s adoptive kid.

(We’ve seen something else like this before, haven’t we? A protégée taking on a lot of the qualities of the vampire that raised them?)

Throughout VnC, Noé and Vanitas both have a bad habit of sacrificing themselves to save each other without putting any thought into how this will affect the other party. In Vanitas’s case, this is largely driven by his own self hatred and belief that he is inferior to or worth less than others.

And in Noé’s case, this is primarily driven by selfishness.

Noé is a selfish character. He loves Vanitas (whether this is platonic or romantic is largely irrelevant to this post so take it either way), and he doesn’t want Vanitas to get hurt. Seeing Vanitas upset makes Noé angry. And since Noé is selfish, if he has to do something to protect Vanitas that goes against what Vanitas wants (@/ slashing Mikhail in the previous chapter), he will do it. “I will never set you free” is, in context, a very moving statement, but looking at the line itself on its lonesome it’s practically scary.

I think, just like Jean-Jacques’s jealousy was learned from Chloé, Noé’s selfishness is something he learned from Comte.

With this I think we can start to parse out a little bit of what’s going on with Comte and Luna. I highly doubt Luna wants to be brought back from the dead— especially not if that process involves Comte manipulating and torturing a group of innocent randos and Luna’s adoptive kids. But Comte wants to bring Luna back anyways, and he’ll do whatever he needs to do to make it happen— because Comte, like Noé, is selfish.

a few more assorted notes

This is the section for fun observations that don’t really fit anywhere else in this meta!

Firstly, the Teacher seems to have to reveal his true “face” in order to manipulate the world formula. The image of his eyes changing color as he slips out of his ordinary form and into his monstrous one is horrifying and I love it, as is his insane amount of power— he seems to literally tear open a portal in the world and walk through it, something on a completely different scale from what we’ve seen so far in the manga.

Interestingly, though, the tendrils surrounding Teacher’s eldritch horror form look completely different from the ones we saw back in chapter 9. They’re actually eerily similar to Ruthven’s black flames, which is… very concerning, but I’m convincing myself it’s just something he taught himself how to do and not an indication of anything else nope nope nope noep—

I do indeed have more things to say about the Teacher, but!!! Those thoughts will be left for part two of this post. With that I think we’ve finally reached…

not the end! (but in conclusion,)

It’s Christmas Eve. I just spent the past three hours losing my mind over a manga character.

I have no regrets.

If you made it this far, holy shit thank you so much for reading this post. Please take everything here with a massive grain of salt— this is all just my interpretation of the manga so far and will likely be proven completely wrong as we learn more about Comte and Luna in the future. If you’d like, please tune in for Part 2, coming soon to a vnc tag near you (hopefully I can get it written today but uhh…. hmm…. various preexisting conditions may get in the way of that), which will include my thoughts on Vanitas, Noé, and basically any part of the chapter I didn’t go over in this post (including, rather upsettingly, yet more Teacher).

Thanks again for reading, and happy holidays!

update: here’s a link to part 2..!