#lots of theories and questions going into vol 2

[lilythelitten]

Alrighty, since you mentioned it a few times in a few posts, I'm genuinely curious: What's your takes on Irratino's love life before Logico? Is it disastrous because relationships are so short lived, messy break ups, he's still thinking about Logico, just bad luck overall? Did he date any suspects we know? (Which would make a very funny image of him and Logico showing up to a scene and Irratino being like "Oh oops my ex is here" and Logico is like "this is the third time this month that's happened" XP) But yeah, I'm curious about your thoughts on Irratino's love life! ^_^

*cracks knuckles* Alright, let’s talk Tino, because I’ve got a lot of thoughts for my favorite character! In short, there were two main reasons why the guy did not have a successful love life.

The first is the one I’ve brought up time and time again: after college, he was too hung up on Logico to make any relationship work. Not for lack of trying, mind—Irratino did date a fair bit in the eight years between SoM and Volume 1. But…he’d never had that lack of closure before. Before, whenever a relationship ended, it either ended peacefully with both of them wishing each other well, or explosively with rage and tears—but it always ended, no questions asked.

This, though? This was the first time Irratino had parted ways with someone with no resolution. No burned bridges, no farewells—Logico was just gone, leaving all these loose ends behind. Irratino had never experienced that before, and it drove him bananas. He spent ages wishing he knew what had happened, wondering how Logico was doing, wanting at least one more conversation just to clear the air—but that didn’t come for years. And every relationship he had in-between suffered from the lingering sense of what-could-have-been.

The second has nothing to do with Logico and was actually a problem when Irratino first started dating back in high school: a tendency to rush into relationships too quickly. Irratino has a hopeless romantic side to him, and was (and still is, to some degree) a bit desperate for someone to love him. Chalk it up to lingering abandonment issues after his moms died ^^; As it so happened, teenage Irratino had grown into an incredibly attractive individual, so he had a lot of admirers and a lot of people asking him out.

Many a time, Irratino eagerly accepted and flung himself headlong into a romantic relationship, only to realize…they weren’t actually compatible. Or the other guy only liked him because he was pretty and found his actual personality a turn-off. Or was a total jerk. Or didn’t want to take their relationship quickly. Or just didn’t take it as seriously as he did. This happened several times in high school, and once in freshman year in college (which caused Irratino to put dating on the back burner for the rest of college).

Fun fact (for a given value of fun): this bothered teenage Irratino a lot more than it bothered adult Irratino (because Irratino had teenage insecurities too, he was just better about hiding them), so he had a phase in high school where he’d try to change himself to keep the affection of guys he liked. This included a long period in junior year where he straightened his hair, which wound up nearly wrecking it and caused Irratino to realize romance really wasn’t worth changing himself over. Or ruining his hair over :P

As for whether he dated any of the suspects—no idea! I mentioned a college ex-boyfriend in my SoM fic, but I have no idea if that was a suspect or just a random background extra. Feel free to come up with your own theories :P I do know that he has a pretty firm policy against dating his employees. That is abuse of power and he is not going there. (Seashell’s chances go even lower, and they were already zero :P) Irratino never made a move in Chapter 2 of Volume 1 for this exact reason: he was paying Logico, and having a romantic relationship would cross too many professional boundaries. (Of course, post-Vol 1, Logico doesn’t work for him anymore so this isn’t an issue :P)

Thanks for the ask! This was very long, but fun to get out of my head ^^

[my-my-my]

Hi! For the ask game:

16. Favorite movie?

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

68. Favorite school subject?

Thanks! 😊

from this post

16. Favourite movie?

Ooo this is hard! I'll go by what's on my letterboxd:

Spirited Away

Sorry to Bother You

Kill Bill Vol 2

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

Ohhh good question, it might be a sari I own?? It was for a close friend's wedding, I think it was $800? It has crystal detailing and gold embroidery! For non-cultural wear hm... maybe my cashmere sweaters? I don't like to spend a lot of money on clothing. My bag collection is worth much more hahahaha.

68. Favourite school subject?

Ooo in elementary and middle school, it was definitely geography.

In high school it was physics (I won some awards for it and got into astrophysics in uni because of it! Then I completely switched my major lol)

In undergrad my favourite courses were "Embryology and Human Development" and a translational theory course: "Writing across Culture and Languages"

In grad school it was advanced health economics for low and middle-income countries lol.

Thanks for asking!

[cartoonus-maximus]

Notes and Observations on FNAF TFTP Vol 8: "B7-2"

Ya'll! We're here! We're at the end! I'm finished, and I'm so so so so so happy to be done!

And for some reason I thought this volume was called "Dittophobia?" I think probably because that story got leaked online and everyone in the theory community had things to say about it, but haven't heard as much about the other stories. (Which was great, btw! Allowed me to experience the first two stories completely blind, and I enjoyed them a lot more that way.)

These stories were… well, to be honest, none of them are my favorites, exactly. I ended up really liking the first one, but it's definitely got some issues that I can't easily overlook. But, whether I liked them or not, these stories are very lore heavy, and they seem determined to give us information about the greater world/story of this franchise.

Ugh. I hate hate hate the cover image. The damn thing gives me nightmares. Knowing that it's a character I already knew makes me feel a little better about it, but still… I'm so glad I don't have to look at it anymore.

... Y'know, we've never been told who the cover artist/s for these books is/are. Which I suppose suggests that it's still the problematic woman (whose name escapes me right now), but I guess it could be anyone.

And as always, these are just some of my notes and observations made while listening to the audiobook, which I borrowed from my local library. Fair warning: there will be spoilers. If you want the whole experience for yourself, you should skip this and go read/listen to the book yourself first.

Here are my observations on the other books in the series, if you are interested.

With that being said-- *cracks knuckles* --let's crack into the lore and finish this series, shall we?

(Rasta beanie by JamikeyShop on Etsy: link.)

"B7-2"

As it turns out, this story is a sequel to "B-7," a story from the second volume of this series. This struck me as odd -- "B-7" didn't feel like it was being written as part of a story, but felt like it was meant to be a whole story itself. The two parts of "the Bobbiedots" each feel like half of a story, with plot points that rely on those from its partner story to make sense, and with titles that actively tell the reader that these stories aren't meant to be read alone, labeling each one as "Part 1" and "Part 2." But this one doesn't do that for some reason.

(Genuinely, I'm not sure if these two "B-7" stories were always meant to be a two-parter. The first one feels self-contained, and the second one feels like the creative team's delayed response to backlash from the first one. But, whether planned or not, they both work together to tell a cohesive story, and they end up carrying a lot of lore related to fan favorite character Michael Afton, so we're just going to have to accept their existence and glean what we can from them.)

(Side note: if this is a sequel to "B-7," shouldn't it be "B-7.1" or "B-7 2.0" or something? Moving the hyphen like that doesn't make sense.)

Regardless, this story opens shortly after the last one ended. We pick up with Billy in the hospital and, just like the reader, he wonders how he's even alive. He remembers being crushed by the trash compactor. He remembers dying.

"How did I survive being crushed in the car?"

A nurse named Gloria realizes he's awake and starts to check his vitals and helps him drink a little water; while she's checking over him, Billy is startled to realize that he has an arm and a leg, since he'd previously had all his limbs amputated off. He's still missing his tongue though, so he can't really ask the nurse any of his questions.

The nurse leaves, and awhile later Billy is visited by Dr. Herrera, the surgeon who has been responsible for Billy's treatment. She explains that Billy was saved because the junkyard owner happened to notice blood leaking from the crushed car and alerted the local authorities; they managed to get Billy out of the car and, realizing that he was still breathing, rushed him to a hospital. Billy's been kept in a medically induced coma, and his body has been healing at a strangely fast pace.

Herrera explains that, while Billy was in the coma, she's been performing several surgeries on him, removing all of the "foreign" metal and plastic components that he had on and in his body; she not only removed his prosthetic limbs, but also the metal plates inside his face that had reshaped his facial structure, the black coloring from his eyes, and the synthesizer and speaker that was in his throat. She tells him that she "had" to remove the inorganic parts, and says that it's all in a storage drawer elsewhere in the hospital, presumably for future disposal or replications, since they're biohazardous at this point.

(And that's just… gross. Like, imagine you spent a lot of time and money altering yourself, whether that means transitioning or body modding or just basic cosmetic surgeries or something, then you get into an accident, and while you're unconscious and unable to advocate for yourself or anything, the doctor assigned to take care of you just decides "yeah, I think I'm going to undo all their hard work! They'll thank me later!" Terrible. Horrific. Literally non-consensual body modification. A very real horror for some people. No wonder that one reviewer I saw slammed this book for being pro-detransitioning.)

Anyway, she tells him that she removed enough metal pieces from him to build a full metal endoskeleton with, so clearly that's what the horror creature is on the cover. (I actually ended up becoming very fond of the endoskeleton by the end of this story, but uuuugggghhh I still hate it.)

Billy struggles to speak, but manages to admit out loud that he climbed into the car himself, and that he was planning on dying there. Herrera nods, and tells him that she thought as much; the police initially thought he's been attacked and put in the compactor against his will, and they ended up investigating Billy's home. They found paperwork and computer files that led them to the backdoor surgeon that Billy had had deals with, aka the guy who took Billy's money and performed all the weird surgeries on him in the first story. Following the paper trail, the police found and raided the abandoned facility that Billy met the sketchy doctor and had his surgeries at. In the facility, apparently they found multiple freezers filled with human body parts, including Billy's amputated limbs, and Dr. Herrera salvaged what she could. As a result, Billy now has one right leg and one right arm, both of which had a lot of work done on them to make them usable again. His left arm and left leg were either not found or were not longer viable for use.

The sketchy doctor hasn't been found. The freezers contained parts from several other people as well.

(Herrera also says that Billy's right leg, the one he still has, was strangely fused with pieces of the metal from his prosthetics, and she had to remove a lot of metal from it. It's healed up quickly though, and appears to now be a fully formed, fully functional leg again.)

Herrera gives Billy a handheld mirror so he can see what he looks like now. His ears are still misshapen from when he had them removed, his eyes look normal again, and his brown hair is growing back in on the top of his head. He has a lot of scar lines around his face from when Herrera removed the metal plates. He thinks he looks like his dad. (And that's the second time he's thought that, with the first time being toward the end of the first story. Definitely important. Very Michael-core of him.)

Billy has a lot of thoughts about Herrera after meeting her. He finds her beautiful, and clearly she's a competent surgeon, but he feels uncomfortable around her, and (obviously) doesn't like that she was cutting him open and removing parts of him while he was out of it, even if they were parts that he'd been growing to hate. He also can't help but notice that she's had some cosmetic surgeries done on herself, and he zeroes in on this fact, which seems to make him feel a little more comfortable around her.

(Also the text tells us that Herrera has an accent that Billy thinks may be Spanish. The audiobook narrator sure tries to give the doctor an accent, but I'm not sure she hit on anything that sounded like Spanish.)

Herrera tells Billy that he could be fitted for new, normal prosthetics to act as a left leg and arm. Billy emphatically says no, irrationally afraid that he'll slip back into acting like a robot again if he has fake limbs. (Okay, now we're having a weird addiction parallel, I guess?)

After only being awake from his medically induced coma for a day, Billy is already starting physical therapy. Within a single PT session, Billy is gripping things, standing on his own (with the aid of a crutch), and is even walking up and down the hospital halls with no further aid than his crutch. The medical professionals in this story keep commenting on how quickly Billy is healing. (Just… keep his super-healing in mind. I'll bring it up again in the theorizing section.)

Since files were found on Billy's home computer about how he's "really a robot," Billy has to undergo a mental health evaluation while he's at the hospital. We aren't told what the results of this evaluation are. What we are told is that the evaluator openly stares at Billy during the entire session, seemingly judging him based on his physical deformities. It makes Billy feel extremely self-conscious about his appearance. Nurse Gloria listens to Billy bemoan how much like a freak he looks because he doesn't have proper ears, and she later gifts him a crocheted Rasta beanie from a donations bin, which covers up a large part of his head. Billy likes the hat; he likes the soft texture and the vibrant colors. It becomes his new comfort item, and he wears it for the remainder of the story.

During Billy's hospital stay, Billy has a lot of time to himself to think, and he realizes that he's going to have to handle an adult life now, and he has little knowledge of how to be an adult. He's spent his entire life trying to be a robot, and he doesn't know how to be a normal person, and he doesn't have parents to ask for help anymore. He doesn't really feel like a robot anymore, but he also doesn't feel like a human yet either, and instead feels "strange and incomplete."

"He felt like he was missing parts of himself, and he didn't know how to find them."

Billy gets a lot of visitors during his hospital stay. His childhood therapist Dr. Lingstrom pays him a visit, as do his old classmates and childhood pals Clark and Peter, and then two grocery delivery people named Fran and Ned, who always handled Billy's groceries. 'Get well soon' wishes and a bouquet of flowers are bestowed upon Billy during this sequence of visitors, shortly after Nurse Gloria checks Billy's IV lines and reminds him of pills he needs to take.

Billy's final visitor is his own grandmother (who he has completely forgotten about and who I didn't realize existed until this moment; she wasn't a part of the first story). It's the first time Billy has seen her since he was five-years-old. His last memory of her is her showing up at his family's home to drag him to Sunday school and stressing the importance of church life on his father (who is her son, but he hasn't been to church since he was a child).

"Sunday school isn't optional!" (This line of dialogue made me laugh out loud. It's not factually accurate -- I'm a Christian and I grew up in the church, but I often hated Sunday school as a kid, so I can definitely relate to Billy and his dad trying to get out of it in this scene. But it sounded like something my own late grandmother would say, and it made me cackle.)

One night in the hospital, Billy is woken up by a soft, synthesized voice calling his name. He thinks it's a nurse at first, but he doesn't see anyone. He searches around his room and, finding nothing, grabs the crutch he uses to walk and leaves his room, following the voice out into the hall. The ward's nurse's station is empty, and there are no nurses or other hospital staff to be seen. Aside from the strange voice, everything is eerily still and silent.

The voice continues calling for him. Billy thinks it's coming from downstairs. He has a moment of thinking that he shouldn't be searching for the source of the voice, but he also can't help himself. So, he gets on the elevator, which magically opens for him and takes him down to the hospital basement. He sees a janitor down there, but the man just walks past Billy with a strange, blank expression, as though he doesn't see Billy at all.

Finally, Billy follows the voice into a storage room, and the door closes and locks behind him. He opens a silver storage cabinet (which he thinks resembles a body drawer in a morgue) and comes face to face with the rest of himself -- his robotic parts are lying in the storage cabinet, spread out and shaped like a corpse. Billy stares down at it, uncomprehending. A security guard appears out of nowhere and escorts Billy back to his room.

Later on during the night, back in his room, Billy gets the feeling that he's not alone in the room. He can't see anything, but he keeps hearing footfalls and a "clicking" sound, and he can smell both human blood and motor oil. He panics and rushes out of his room, trying to flee the hospital entirely and fighting with a hospital security guard when he's caught. A team of nurses and security guards get him back to his room, where they have to restrain him to the bed and sedate him.

Alone in the room again and unable to escape, Billy hears the synthesized voice calling to him again, and he recognizes it as his own voice from his own synthesizer that he had installed in his throat. The voice is now in the room with him, slowly approaching his bed, and pleading with Billy over and over to "let me back in." It approaches the foot of Billy's bed, the only place where Billy can see, and reveals itself to be his own removed robotic parts, shaped roughly like a person and held together by skin and muscle tissue that clung to it during the surgeries. It addresses Billy exclusively as "B-7," and begs and pleads to be "let back in," and promises to take care of Billy and love him forever if Billy will only take it back into himself. (It's like a vampire -- it needs permission to enter.)

"I only want you to be happy. And to be happy, you have to live your true life." (We are still not beating those trans allegory allegations. Andrea and Scott really made a "transness is an evil that needs to be purged" story and published it in their silly murder robot series for children! And then they did it again! Only this time it has lore about an important character, so I can't just throw it out! What fun! *rolls eyes*)

Billy falls under the sedative and doesn't wake up until morning. He's still restrained, with no memory of what happened during the night, and has to call a nurse to come release him. Gloria rushes in and fusses over him, and tells him that her coworkers told her that Billy had a terrible panic attack during the night. Since Billy doesn't remember what actually happened, he accepts this explanation.

Billy's endoskeleton partner has vanished now that it's daytime. And we actually don't see or hear from it again during Billy's hospital stay, even this the rules of this franchise and the genre both suggest that the endoskeleton should call out to him or visit him every night in a repetitive cycle. But it doesn't come back, and we don't see or hear from it again until the end of the story.

After some unspecified period of time, Billy is released from the hospital, and his grandmother takes him to stay in her home, a small country house just outside of town that has already been renovated to be handicap accessible. Her yard contains a lot of flower beds that are overfilled with flowers, resulted in a cluttered, quilted look that Billy finds overwhelming. The inside of the house is cluttered, stuffed full of old-fashioned furniture and appliances, and nearly everything has a floral pattern. Billy finds the entire house to be overwhelming, overstimulating, and claustrophobic.

Billy is given the guest bedroom to sleep in, and his grandmother tells him he can decorate however he sees fit, so long as he doesn't make everything grey and metallic like his old home was. His grandmother has arranged for some of Billy's clothes and other personal affects to be delivered to her house, but doesn't let him have his computer or television or cell phone, citing that such things are "evil" and "not allowed in her house." Billy's previous life was all online, including his girlfriend, and he is bewildered to learn that the only technology that exists in his grandmother's house is standard electricity and a single landline phone that is hooked up in her bedroom.

Billy doesn't really want to live with his grandmother, as the stern, uptight woman makes him extremely uncomfortable (she makes disparaging remarks about his Rasta beanie, and also about his late mother), and finds himself retreating inward in attempt to get away from her and the situation, but he doesn't have any better options right now. He thinks about returning to the hospital, but has a panic attack at the thought, and so decides to stick it out with his grandmother. Having no other course of action, Billy begins role-playing as a "dutiful grandson," and this role ends up being the thing that keeps him sane in this house.

His grandmother's house has a grandfather clock, and the loud ticking makes Billy anxious. There's nowhere in the house that Billy can go to get away from the ticking, and the sounds haunts him during the weeks he's living there. The constant ticking reminds him of his endoskeleton, and he remembers being trapped on his hospital bed while listening to it pleading with him, and this sends him into a panic attack.

His grandmother has a conversation with him about the clock one day. She tells him that the grandfather clock is a 200-year-old family heirloom, and that it will go to Billy's father when she dies, and that she'd like it to go to Billy one day. She shows him how to wind it and clean it, and understanding how it works and its symbolic importance to his family make Billy feel a little better about the constant ticking.

They talk briefly about Billy's father during this clock conversation. Billy hasn't really thought about the man since he left when Billy was a child, and asks if his grandmother knows where his father is. His grandmother rolls her eyes and sighs and says that her son was in Peru that last time they spoke (about a year ago) "working for one of those companies that's harvesting the rain forest." She isn't happy with any of her son's choices in life, but he's also her only child, and it's clear that she still cares about him, even if that care mostly comes from familial loyalty more than anything else.

(Unknown to Billy, she cares about him in a similar fashion. She's been diagnosed with terminal cancer, a fact that she keeps secret from Billy for most of this story, and has chosen to spend her last days helping her estranged grandson navigate his adulthood, even though they don't understand each other or have a proper relationship. Because of this and because of what she does later in the story, I found her to be a very interesting character, and I wish she'd at least been given a name somewhere in the text.)

The phone in his grandmother's room rings every night at 9:03, and his grandmother answers it every night. She speaks in low tones that Billy can't hear. Billy wonders if she's talking to his father or someone else, but doesn't feel like it's his place to ask, and she never brings it up in any way, so we spend most of the story in the dark about these strange phone calls.

Over the course of the first week, Billy learns how to perform most household chores with one hand, and readily participates in helping his grandmother around the house. He also learns that he's good at simple repairs. During the evening hours, his grandmother teaches him different ways to relax, encouraging him to read different books and teaching him how to play various board games. All of these lessons help Billy become more settled with himself, and he starts to feel a little closer to normal.

He still can't cook by himself, but he can help out in the kitchen when she asks him to. (Billy is also currently avoiding any white-colored foods like the plague these days, and has developed a great love for tomato sauce.)

On Sunday morning, Billy's grandmother throws him out of bed and drags him to church with her, despite his general lack of interest. Billy worries about being stared at or judged by strangers. Thankfully, this doesn't happen (unrealistic; no one judges you as severely as elderly churchgoing women). Instead, he ends up befriending an old man named Frank, who is friends with his grandmother and offers to take Billy out fishing.

Billy meets up with Frank for numerous fishing trips after this. It turns out that Frank is a retired author of mystery novels, and he talks with Billy about the writing process and about what sort of books Billy's been reading. When Billy expresses that he'd like to try writing himself, Frank gifts him an empty notebook, and tells Billy that a good place to start would be to keep a journal, writing down anything that he wants to in the moment and then re-exploring the notes later, refining them as desired. Billy takes to this task and starts keeping the journal; we aren't told much about what he writes, but we're led to believe that he mainly writes about his own experiences.

After living with his grandmother for several weeks, both Billy and his grandmother realize that he's fully capable of living alone and taking care of himself. The two don't really talk about it, but they both feel a sense of finality about the day. Billy makes arrangements to live somewhere outside of his grandmother's house. He even makes appointments to go pick up new prosthetic limbs (of the standard variety), no longer feeling overwhelmingly uncomfortable about the idea.

That evening, Billy's grandmother goes to bed early. Billy never hears the phone ring, something that has never happened the entire time he's been here. He passes by her bedroom door, and hears her talking to someone. He calls out to her to ask who she's talking to, but she doesn't answer him, and he worriedly opens the door.

Inside his grandmother's room, Billy sees his grandmother sitting on her bed, holding and talking to his own discarded metal endoskeleton. When Billy enters the room, his endoskeleton stares at him forlornly, saying "I'm supposed to be with you!" His grandmother explains that Billy's endoskeleton has been calling on the phone every night, searching for him, and she's been talking to it; she says she doesn't think the two different halves of Billy can make each other happy anymore, and encourages the endoskeleton to fuse with her own body instead.

Billy tries to intervene, but is ultimately forced to watch as his grandmother's body is split open, his discarded endoskeleton crawling inside and fusing with the old woman. But, once the thing is fused with her, it starts freaking out, trying to separate from her again. Billy's grandmother laughs and holds it in her, explaining to both halves of Billy that she's "been terminal" for some time now, and she had a feeling that she was going to die soon. Since she's already dying, she decided to take Billy's monster with her.

The metal endoskeleton begs Billy for help, at the same time his grandmother tells him "Don't grieve for me. It's time for you to live." Billy watches in horror as his grandmother dies, and the entire identity of B-7 dies with her. Feeling a great sense of both sadness and relief, Billy sits beside the combined corpse for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Billy calls Frank, who come to help bury the body of both Billy's grandmother and B-7. Frank also says that he'll handle Billy's grandmother's house, and gives Billy a drive into town. He wishes Billy luck with his attempt at a writing career, and the two part ways.

Outfitted with a new prosthetic leg and arm, Billy makes plans for his future. He's going to be staying with his friends Clark and Peter for a little bit, but then he plans to go to Lima, Peru, deciding that he's going to hunt down his father. If nothing else, he thinks he'll get to experience something worth writing about. . . . I have mixed feelings about this one. I really liked parts of it -- I like revisiting an earlier character, and I like the idea of him haunting himself at the hospital. But I don't think that both this story and the original "B-7" have a plot that's all over the place and doesn't know what it's doing, and it's very confusing to read.

It's also just a weird story altogether. Part 1 was very much "Billy wants to change his outward appearance to match how he feels and identifies himself on the inside and he's Wrong and Evil for doing that, and he's destroying his family, and he deserves to die for being such a Disgusting Monster." Which is… a horrible thing to say in general, and particularly horrendous to say when you know your audience is mostly impressionable young teens who are just now figuring out what their identities are. And Part 2 is very different but still bad, because it says "Billy's self identification was Just A Phase, Really, and he's totally fine and normal ™️ now! In fact, the part of himself that could be used as an allegory for transness was literally killed on-page by his old-fashioned, conservative, Christian grandmother, who by the way also thinks technology is the Devil's work and blames television for Billy's 'sickness.'" Ugh. Just ugh.

(Physically, I am at home, but mentally I am rolling up to the church picnic to square up with Scott, Andrea, and the rest of the team.)

(I'm renaming these stories to "Transphobia, Parts 1 & 2." They'll fit in just fine, because now the lineup will be Somniphobia, Submechanophobia, and Transphobia.) (Jk, but am I really?)

Okay, soap box aside, let's crack open the lore, because this is a story about Michael Afton.

This story is definitely about Michael after the events of "Sister Location," becoming more and more robot-like as his body deteriorates. In the first "B-7" story, Billy has a breakdown at the end of the story, culminating with him "shambling down the street" with his miscolored skin, blacked out eyes, and reshaped head, all while thinking about how he "looks like his father" and is now rejecting his robotic self and parts. To me, this sequence is a clear parallel to the cutscenes from "Sister Location" where we see Michael walking down the street over and over, becoming less and less human with each cutscene, and ultimately results in him apparently forcing Ennard out of his body.

This story is telling us that Michael rejected Ennard, and then had to spend some time healing and trying to understand everything he's experienced, before finally, after processing everything, he decided to get back up and go hunt down his misbegotten father (who abandoned him in his time of need).

It's called out multiple times during this story that Billy heals extremely quickly, and even heals from things that he shouldn't have been able to hear from. This tracks with what we know about Remnant, and also what we know about Michael (The line "I should be dead, but I'm not" from SL, and Michael being consistently portrayed as looking like a normal dude even post-scooping, like in both the "Security Log Book" and the short story "You're the Band.").

(Also Billy's full name is likely 'William,' so that makes him Afton-coded by default.)

There's also the house that Billy lives in with his grandmother. The house is talked about in detail, and it sounds a lot like the house from FNAF4: it's a small, two-story house out in the country (like we see on the FNAF4 game menu), and the inside is described as being decorated with lots of gaudy, old-fashioned-style pieces of furniture and decor, which matches the interior of both the FNAF4 house and living room in "Sister Location" cutscenes. It is also worth recognizing that the text of the story calls specific attention to the items of IV drip, pill bottle, and 'get well soon' flower bouquet, which are all the mystery items that appear beside the bed sometimes in FNAF4.

To me, this just reads as telling us that, after rejecting and expelling Ennard, Michael ended up returning to his childhood home (not the neighborhood he's living in during those walking cutscenes) and hunkered down to heal from his experiences.

This definitely changes the meaning of the line "What has followed you home?" from the original FNAF4 trailer. At the time, the implication was that the Nightmare Animatronics "followed you" from somewhere. Now, the implication is that Billy's former identity (and the metal parts that made up that identity) are literally stalking him for a time.

Billy's friends Pete and Clark are interesting, as we're told Billy's clearest recollection and instant association with them is playing "robot" with them in elementary school. If we're assuming Billy is a Michael-parallel, then these two guys could represent some of Michael's bully friends that we saw in FNAF4 (i.e., Bonnie Mask Bully, Freddy Mask Bully, and Chica Mask Bully). (Especially interesting given how those guys have been spotlighted in the fandom recently, with the fairly popular theory that Cassie's dad from "Ruin" is the Bonnie Mask Bully, and the suggestion that people have discussed about Oswald's dad from "Into the Pit" being the Freddy Mask Bully.)

"Old Man" Frank is also interesting. Maybe it's just because he takes Billy fishing and imparts wisdom upon him, but he gave me a lot of "Old Man Consequences" vibes.

There's also something to be said for it being called out so frequently that Billy only has one hand for most of the story, so he can only hold one thing at a time, and only one leg, so he spends a lot of time sitting and watching things around the house, and he has no tongue, so he doesn't talk much. It's very reminiscent of traditional FNAF gameplay, which involves your character sitting in a room for hours at a time, not talking at all, and seemingly only able to interact with one object at a time; the games were designed that way to make both development and gameplay as simple as possible. But, since it's commonly assumed that the player character in most of the games is Michael, and now we're being given a possible in-universe reason for those mechanics… I'm just putting this as another tick mark in the "Billy represents Michael" column.

And finally, there's Billy's writing career. Let me start by saying this: I read the entire "Fazbear Frights" series some time ago, and I had the repeating thought through a lot of the stories in that series: "These are all just re-imaginings of Michael's death, or they're exploring William's different identities -- father, businessman, monster, killer. I understand that those are big parts of this franchise, but we're spending an awful lot of time on them. And now 'Security Breach' is out, and we're being shown that these books exist in-universe. If you told me that Michael Afton wrote these stories as a way of dealing with his trauma, and then Fazbear's acquired and published them, I'd absolutely believe that to be the case."

Obviously, IRL those books (and these books) were written because there's a market for them. But, since the books also exist in the game's universe, that means there's also an in-universe reason for them, too. And if that reason is that they were written by Michael Afton, both as a way to make money and as a way to process all of his thoughts and feelings about everything that's happened in his family… I think that would be a pretty interesting reason.

And that's kind of what's happening in this story -- Billy processes a lot of his feelings in a journal, and says that he's going to write and publish stories inspired by his own experiences, including any experience he has while looking for his dad.

So, is Michael Afton the """""true""""" author of any or all of the FNAF books? I'll let you decide that.

"Alone Together"

This story centers around Travis, a boy in middle school (so he's probably around 12-years-old) who is extremely shy and mostly keeps to himself. He'd really like to make friends at his school, but his shyness seems to make him invisible to people. He has a woodshop class that he enjoys, and he really likes both building things and drawing designs for future builds.

Travis attends 'Brighton Middle School.' (Oh hey! "The Walten Files" reference! Nice!)

The story opens with Travis overhearing some classmates talking about going to the Mega Pizzaplex together after school. He thinks it would be nice to go with them, but he's too awkward to ask them, and he knows they think he's weird because he's so quiet and never talks to anyone. (This sequence gave me some very unhappy flashbacks to my own grade school experiences.)

Travis lives alone with his dad, and his mom left over a year ago. Before she left, there were a few months where his parents seemed to fight a lot, and neither one seemed to have time for Travis. Since his mom left, it's just been him and his dad, and the house has been pretty quiet; his dad works long hours and isn't home much, and he doesn't talk to Travis very much when he is home. Although Travis tries to engage with his dad as much as possible, his dad tends to not look directly at him, and, the few times his dad does talk to him, his words are vague and spoken in low tones. His dad doesn't help him with his homework anymore, or watch TV with him or take him on long drives the way they used to, and Travis often feels forgotten and neglected. His dad doesn't even pay for his school lunch anymore, and Travis ends up having to steal food from other kids if he wants to eat (not that he's hungry very often).

(This all sounds terrible, but, if you haven't guessed the twist yet, just trust me when I say Travis' parents are not bad parents.)

Travis would like to go to the Mega Pizzaplex, but he hasn't had the opportunity to do so. His life is pretty monotonous these days, only going home or to school and feeling snubbed in both places, so the Pizzaplex ads make it sound like a lot of fun. Travis is especially intrigued by the Daycare Attendant's "Sun" personality, who he refers to throughout the story as "the Sun Man" even he knows that's not what the character is called. (Despite Travis' interest in the character, this really isn't a DA-centric story. The DA is just referenced every so often, but he doesn't really show up at any point.)

There's a girl at Travis' school that he keeps running into. Her name is Marissa, and she's described as wearing all black every day and having purple streaks in her hair. (I thought it was going to be Millie from "Count The Ways" when I first heard the description.) Marissa seems to like spooky things and she likes to draw. She's not very friendly toward Travis, but she's the only one at school that doesn't completely ignore him, so Travis keeps trying to talk to her or befriend her in some way, becoming more desperate to talk to her over time.

Travis tries to visit his grandmother at the apartment complex she lives, but she isn't there. He also finds it strange that his father doesn't talk about or visit the old woman anymore, even though she's his mother.

The woodshop class at Travis' school is given an assignment to pick a project from a list and then work on building it over the course of the next six weeks. The list contains several basic or classic woodworking projects, and Travis is drawn to "the Mechanical Turk." He decides to recreate the Mechanical Turk with a wooden puppet of the Daycare Attendant sitting behind the cabinet.

(The Mechanical Turk, or the "Automaton Chess Player," is a real-life mechanism made of wood that was originally designed and built in 1770. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page about it if you're interested. For now, I'm just doing to explain the basics: a human-shaped automaton or puppet sits behind a large cabinet, seemingly playing a game of chess on a chess board that's sitting on top of the cabinet; the cabinet is big enough for a person to sit inside, where they operate the automaton's movements without being seen. The intention is to make it look like the automaton has been programmed with the necessary movements to play chess, when in reality they are being puppeteered by a human.)

As Travis researches the functionality of the Mechanical Turk and figures out his own design for it, he experiences a lot of deja vu, constantly feeling like he's read all this before, and he's drawn this before, and in fact that he's built this before. He doesn't understand why he's feeling this way.

Travis goes to bed at night, and has a dream about building the Mechanical Turk. In his dream, he finishes the whole project and then climbs into the cabinet. The cabinet closes on him, trapping him inside, and Travis ends up wandering through a black void. He comes across the "Sun" side of the Daycare Attendant playing chess against Glamrock Freddy. The two animatronics acknowledge Travis but mostly continue with their game. Travis can hear music playing from somewhere, and Sun is enjoying the music so much that he eventually abandons the game of chess, getting up and grabbing Travis to dance with him across the endless void they're in. When Travis tries to ask about what's happening, Sun cocks his head and asks him the rhetorical question "Why does this all seem familiar?" in a manner that seems to mirror the question that Travis keeps asking himself about building the Mechanical Turk.

"He wishes there was some switch he could flip to go from melancholy to joy."

Travis tries to visit his grandmother after school again, and this time she's actually at the apartment. She lets him in (and he sees lots of new furniture around the apartment that doesn't fit with his grandmother's sense of style) and they chat for awhile. She says that she's been spending time with old friends, and that she plans to visit them again soon. She asks what Travis has been up to, and he tells her all about the Mechanical Turk project, the weird feelings he's been having related to it, and his attempts to befriend Marissa. His grandmother suggests that he talk to Marissa again, but to be patient about it because "she's probably shy like you are."

As for his strange feelings about the Mechanical Turk, Travis' grandmother tells him a story about something similar that happened when she was a child. She tells him that a woman died decades prior on the property that became her family's farm, and sometimes the woman would appear as a ghost, haunting the property. As a young woman, Travis' grandmother searched the land for the woman's remains, trying to help the spirit pass on, but never found them, and so the woman's ghost lingered. She tells Travis that a haunting is a completely normal and natural thing that occurs whenever a deceased person's body goes undiscovered, and suggests that he's being haunted. She also gives him a list of indicators for a ghostly presence:

"You start to have funny dreams and flashes of memories that are not yours. It's like they possess your thoughts when they're near."

"You can feel chills or a tingle on your arms or back when they're around."

"There could be sudden movements of objects or sounds out of the blue."

"If they really attach themselves to you, sometimes you can hear thoughts in your head as if the ghost is talking to you."

"And if you're really gifted, and this is pretty rare, you might even see the ghost with your own eyes."

"Most ghosts linger around the place they died, especially if their remains are undiscovered."

After taking in all of his grandmother's information, Travis comes to conclusion that a student at his school tried to build the Mechanical Turk before, and may have died during the project and is now haunting him. His grandmother listens to him wonder what happened to this previous student, and encourages him to do some digging.

Travis comes home after visiting his grandmother to find his version of the Mechanical Turk half-built in the backyard. His memories are fuzzy, but he remembers his dad bringing the wood out there for the project and he remembers cutting out the parts for the cabinet, so he thinks that he and his dad must have built it together. Looking at the cabinet now gives him a weirdly claustrophobic feeling, and he feels like he's trapped somewhere. Believing those are the ghost's feelings, he dismisses them.

Travis sneaks back his school before it can be locked up for the night, and accesses a faculty computer. (How very Tony Becker of him.) He uses footage from a security camera that's mounted in the woodshop room to find when the Mechanical Turk was last built. The camera takes photos every few minutes, and he finds a few pictures from the end of a semester almost two years ago, where the students brought their 6-week projects in to show. One of the projects is the Mechanical Turk, with a Sun-inspired automaton that looks exactly like Travis' design. None of the pictures show who originally brought the project in, so Travis still doesn't know who the student was, but the following set of pictures show the Mechanical Sun sitting untouched and abandoned in the woodshop room for a week or so before school faculty members can be seen carrying it out of the room, presumably putting it in storage somewhere.

Believing that the ghost haunting him is attached to this earlier build of the Mechanical Sun, Travis decides to hunt down where the build is being stored. He prints out a map of the school grounds and marks all of the places used for storage.

The next day, Travis skips classes and instead wanders around the school to look through all the storage areas, starting with storage closets and other spaces in the main building. He runs into Marissa again and tries to talk to her again, but she makes it very clear that she doesn't want to be friends with him.

Travis goes home after school, and overhears part of a phone conversation that his dad is having with someone. He knows that his dad is talking to his mom, and he knows that they're talking about him, but he ignores the rest of the conversation, trying hard not to hear it. He thinks he might be in trouble for skipping classes at school. (We'll revisit this phone call later.)

Future punishments notwithstanding, Travis skips classes again the next day, searching through the school basement. He still doesn't find the Mechanical Sun. He gets frustrated, and light bulb explodes in a ceiling fixture above him. Thinking the ghost is upset with him, Travis freaks out and leaves the basement. Out in the hallways, Travis sees Marissa and tries to talk to her again, but she ignores him. Being ignored again like this is a sort of 'final straw' for Travis, and he ditches school, running out the building and off the school grounds. He wanders through the residential areas between his school and his home for awhile, the whole time wishing he was able to make friends, and wishing that he and his dad still had a good relationship. Finally, he heads for home, thinking that he should tell his dad about the haunting he's been experiencing.

When Travis gets home, he sees that the Mechanical Sun in the backyard has been destroyed, like an angry person attacked it with an ax. He assumes that his dad must have destroyed it as punishment for skipping class, and thinking about his father tearing his creation apart like that makes him cry. His dad isn't home now, and Travis, deciding to settle the ghost once and for all, takes a flashlight and runs away from the house, heading back for the school grounds.

"Then everything would be okay. Then [Travis' dad] would love him again."

In the dark of late evening, Travis begins searching through sheds around the school property. He reaches an old shed with doors held closed by a rusty chain, and the chain falls apart and falls to the ground as soon as Travis touches it. Travis moves several spiderwebs aside and steps into the storage shed, with is filled with lots of old, retired sporting equipment, among other things. There are old wolf mascot costumes. There's also a rotting scent in the shed, and Travis wonders if it's a dead animal or a human body.

After searching through the piles of old stuff, Travis finally finds the original Mechanical Sun, the big thing stuffed into the back of the shed. He pops the cabinet open and, like the dumbest protag in the history of dumb protags, climbs into the cabinet in order to figure out if there's a body in it. To no one's surprise, the cabinet door slams shut behind him, and he's unable to open it. Searching around inside, Travis realizes two things: 1) the cabinet door is stuck tight, and it's impossible to open, and 2) there is a dead boy's body inside the cabinet.

After screaming and panicking, Travis forces himself to calm down, and, assuming that the body belongs to the ghost that's been following him, he starts talking to both himself and the ghost, assuring the body that he'll figure a way for them to get out and everything will be okay. But, as he focuses the flashlight onto the body, he realizes that he and the body are wearing the same clothes (the same clothes that he's been wearing through this entire story). He realizes that he's not staring at some other student's body, but that it's his own corpse he's looking at.

"He was the ghost that haunted Brighton Middle School!"

Understanding that he's dead and that he's been dead for over two years floods Travis, and it breaks down the mental block that he's had for the entire time, allowing his memories to come back to him.

About two years ago, Travis built the Mechanical Sun for his workshop project, and brought the mostly finished build into the school on the due date. After school, Travis had gone back into the room alone, and had climbed into the cabinet to make sure he could fit. The cabinet door closed behind him and got stuck, and he ended up overheating and then passing out from lack of air, then dying inside the cabinet. He's never really processed his own death, so he's just been going on about his regular school day ever since.

Travis was reported missing. His parents never collected his Mechanical Sun, and the build went into storage on the school grounds, with no one realizing that Travis' body is inside. Months later, Travis' parents start fighting about what happened to their son and what they should do about it, and they eventually split up. Travis' dad still lives in the house, and he still talks to Travis from time to time. During the phone call that Travis tried not to overhear, his dad told his mom that "it still feels like Travis is in the house," and because of that he can't leave the house, not really ready to move on.

Travis realizes that Marissa is probably one of the rare people who can see ghosts, or maybe she just saw him because he wanted her to see him so much, but either way she saw a dead boy every time she looked at him, and that's probably why she never wanted to interact with him. He also realizes that the Mechanical Sun in his home's backyard was built entirely by his dad, the structure a product of a bereaved father trying to figure out what happened to his son, and destroyed in a fit of rage because rebuilding it wouldn't magically bring his son back to him.

We're then told that Travis' grandmother died a few years ago, a fact that Travis had forgotten until now. They're able to interact because they're both dead, but not very often, because she passed on properly upon her death, whereas Travis has been haunting his school and home ever since. His grandmother visits with him every once in awhile, and it seems like she's been trying to give him a little nudge every once in awhile, trying to guide him into understanding his death without directly spelling it out for him.

Travis thinks about his death, and realizes that he's been haunting himself, something that makes sense for him to do, given his tendency to talk to himself. He sits down beside his body and promises not to leave himself again. He curls his spirit protectively around his body and settles in, preparing to stay with himself forever. . . . I liked the twist of this story. Very "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond"-feeling. (Story I love by Bruce Coville, btw.) I just wish this story flowed better; it feels very long and says very little.

It's also a similar story to the "Fazbear Frights: Coming Home" story, with the main difference being that, while the audience is led to believe that Travis is a living child through most of this story, and which Travis believes as well, the audience of "Coming Home" was told outright that Susie is dead and haunting her family, a fact that Susie herself seems to forget throughout the story. In both cases, we're seeing children who are haunting their homes and families because they've forgotten their own deaths.

I find it interesting that this story is placed here between two very lore-heavy stories, while it doesn't feel very lore-heavy itself. I mean, yes, it's telling us information about how ghosts and haunting work in this universe, and it's telling us that people in this world can die without fully realizing they're dead. But what specifically is it supposed to be saying? Is it just general information for us about how this world operates? Or is there a character that we know who died awhile back but is still literally haunting the narrative, potentially unaware of their demise? And if so… who is it?

That's all I have to say about this story. But I've got a lot to say about this next one, so let's move on.

"Dittophobia"

Dittophobia -- the fear of repetition; the fear of repeating patterns.

(Not gonna lie, I was dreading this story. None of the theorist community would shut up about it after it leaked online, and I got sick of hearing about it pretty fast. But I girded my loins and I made it through, and y'know what? I disagree with those early theories. Let's talk about it.)

This story introduces us to Rory, a 7-year-old boy who lives in the FNAF4 bedroom. And it's made very clear to us that it's the FNAF4 bedroom, as it is described in detail several times over throughout the story. Every night at midnight Rory is awoken by scraping sounds, heavy breaths, and heavy footfalls as he is stalked and attacked in his own bedroom by the Nightmare Animatronics. He doesn't recognize them as animatronics, and instead refers to them as "the creatures" throughout most of the story.

Rory is described as resembling a little boy with pale skin, freckles on his face, hazel eyes, and messy brown hair. He also has big ears and pointy nose, and bags under his eyes from his nightmares and restless sleep. He always wears the same set of black-and-white zebra striped pajamas to bed. His daytime clothes aren't described with much detail.

We follow three nearly identical days in Rory's life, one right after another. They're monotonous, and little changes between them, so I'm only going to describe them once.

Rory wakes up in the morning in the FNAF4 bed. Sunlight streams through the high windows on the wall behind his bed, an air current "hisses" through the vents near the top of the walls, and he deduces that being attacked by "the creatures" during the night was just a nightmare. He also doesn't remember what he did the previous day, and every morning is a blank slate for him.

"Morning was here. The nightmare was over."

Climbing out of bed, Rory calls out to his parents, but receives no answer. He can hear the shower running in his parents' bathroom, so he assumes that his dad has already gone to work and his mother must be in the shower, so he doesn't expect a response from either of them. Sometimes Rory makes his bed at this point, and we're told that the quilt on his bed is from his grandmother, who made it for him. He gets dressed for the day, passes by several toys on his bedroom floor -- the smiling phone, the purple robot, and a rabbit toy (did Plushtrap replace the caterpillar thing?) -- and heads into the hall bathroom. (The bathroom contains a claw foot bathtub, and I'd like to know why these things keep popping up in this series!)

In the bathroom, Rory washes his face and tries to get his hair under control. He doesn't have a comb, so he has to smooth his hair out with his fingers, remembering that his mother doesn't like when his hair looks messy. He passes by his parents' bedroom and bathroom on his way to the kitchen, hearing the shower still running. Rory goes to the kitchen, which is part of an open concept "great room" space and shares space with both the dining room and living room. He eats fruit and bagels from the fridge for his breakfast, bypassing any plates or silverware entirely. The kitchen smells a little funky, like something in it is rotting, and the food Rory eats is always a little out of date, but it's never outright growing mold or anything so he doesn't think much of it. He eats his breakfast alone every day, and makes sure to clean up after himself, since he knows his mother hates messes.

While Rory would like to talk to his parents and spend time with them, he's not surprised that they aren't around during the morning. His dad spends more time at work than at home, and his mom is always thinking about her work (she's an interior decorator) and often doesn't seem to hear or notice Rory when they're in the house together; she also likes to take long showers, so the constant running of the shower doesn't register to Rory as odd.

Rory has a few distinct memories of different interactions with his parents, but they seem hazy and distant, like they happened many years ago and not as recently as he thinks they did.

Rory has a friend named Wade, who goes to the same school as him. The two boys are often picked on by their peers, and they have a secret clubhouse that they like to hang out in after school. Wade has an interest in ham radios and walkie-talkies; he gave Rory one of his walkie-talkies once so they could talk to each other over long distances, but Rory doesn't know where it is now.

After breakfast, Rory grabs his backpack and starts to head out for school. This is when Rory, having forgotten the day before, realizes that there's no front door, back door, or any other possible exit to his house. The windows don't even open, and every door that doesn't lead to his bedroom or bathroom is locked, preventing him from opening any of them. Rory begins to get really stressed out, and walks around his house in circles, searching for a way out and calling desperately for a mother that won't answer him. (I swear I read at least three creepypastas back in the day that had this same plot.) Sometimes, he realizes that the shower isn't running anymore, and he assumes that his mother has also left for work, abandoning him in the same way his father has already done.

"Why couldn't he find his way out of his house? And where was his mom?"

As Rory circles the house over and over again, his agitation slips away. His mind gets cloudy and his body gets tired. He loses track of time and soon the light coming through the windows begins to dim, as though the sun is setting. Rory gives up on his quest, showers, puts on his pajamas, and then goes to bed, making sure to close and lock his bedroom doors. Rory goes to bed, falls asleep, and a few hours later midnight rolls around, he's awoken by "the creatures" entering his room, and the cycle repeats.

"The bear with the top hat moved to loom over Rory, as if rising from a grave from beneath Rory's bed."

On the third day, when Rory is cycling through the house and becoming more and more stressed, he hears a "knocking" sound from inside the wall. He thinks it sounds like an engine misfiring, as the sound reminds him of a time when his dad's car broke down. Soon enough, the sound stops, as though this supposed engine has died. In the near silence, Rory can't hear anything except a hum from the kitchen, which he assumes is the fridge. He can't figure out why there would be an engine in the walls of his house though. And, since he notices the sun is setting, he decides not to worry about it, and just goes to bed.

Rory wakes up the next morning fully rested, and realizes that he had no nightmarish visits from "the creatures." He sits up in bed, and sees that his room looks different from when he went to bed -- everything is dirty and dusty, with wallpaper peeling off the walls, a carpet covered in footprints and scuff marks, and even the quilt on his bed is old, miscolored, and falling apart. Confused, Rory calls for his mother, but hears a man's voice come out of his own mouth, the sound startling him. He looks down at his body, and finds that he's much taller than he remembers being, with "furry" legs and hands that look huge to him. Distressed, Rory stumbles to the bathroom, where he stares at himself in the mirror.

"The image in the mirror gaped back at him."

Rory doesn't recognize the image in the mirror as his own reflection, but instead refers to it as "the guy in the mirror." He still has big ears and hazel eyes and messy brown hair, but his hair is very long now, going down past his shoulders. His face and body are both thin and bony, and the freckles on his cheeks have been replaced by large patches of acne and wisps of facial hair. For some reason, Rory comes to the conclusion that he must be around 17-years-old now, even though he has no memory of aging to this point. He worries that he slept for several years like Rip Van Winkle.

"Rory knew himself as a seven-year-old kid. But what he was seeing in the mirror was more like a seventeen-year-old teenager. How had he jumped ahead ten years?"

Rory calls again for his parents, and still gets no answer. So, wearing nothing but a children's t-shirt that fits him like a crop top, a stretched out pair of children's socks, and a stretched out pair of zebra stripe pajama pants, Rory begins to explore the rest of the house. The place is pretty disgusting and broken down, resembling a haunted house more than a place to live. There are ants crawling around in the kitchen, and the kitchen very distinctly smells like rotten food. Rory realizes that the "fridge" is actually a fridge-shaped vending machine, and that all the food inside it is old, stale snack packets and wafers, each item individually wrapped. The plumbing works, so after eating some stale wafers, Rory washes it down with water from the sink.

(The zebra striped pajamas are an interesting detail. On the one hand, it's a standard print on children's clothing -- although not a common one on boy's clothes here in the U.S. -- so it doesn't immediately raise any red flags. But, on the other hand, there's some visual connotations with that pattern. Zebra stripes look a lot like white tiger stripes, which is part of the imagery we keep seeing associated with the Mimic. And, by consistently calling out that Rory is wearing black and white striped clothes, the text is making it clear that he is a prisoner of some sort, bringing to mind the visual of old-time-y striped prison garb.)

Rory approaches his parents' bedroom and bathroom, but realizes that the two doors that should lead to those rooms aren't really doors -- there's just a section of wall painted to look like a door, and with doorknobs attached directly into the wall. He can hear what sounds like the shower running, but sees that the sound (a recording) is coming from a speaker high on the wall.

"If the doors weren't real, and the shower wasn't real, was his mom real?"

There are metal tracks embedded in the floors of the house, like miniature train tracks, seemingly starting at the foot of Rory's bed and winding their way all around the house. Rory follows the tracks around for awhile, and sees that one track ends at his bedroom closet, and the other three tracks end at different doors around his house, each door being a real physical door that he had previously assumed to be a storage closet. Forcing each door open reveals the Nightmare Animatronics, each tucked away and prepared for future use. They aren't actually animatronics in this story, as they seem to be more statuesque than anything, and Rory thinks they look like Halloween decorations. (So there are four closets holding animatronics, huh? Where have I heard this one before?)

Once again, Rory finds himself wandering the fake house, searching for a way out. The only functional doors in this place are the ones to his bedroom and bathroom, and the ones hiding the Nightmare Animatronics. He realizes that the fake fridge has to be restocked from outside somehow, and he ends up pulling the "fridge" away from the wall, revealing a passageway behind it. Rory grabs a flashlight, crawls through the tunnel-like passageway (like the vents you crawl through in "Sister Location"), and shoves open a metal door that's on the other side of the tunnel.

Outside of the tunnel, Rory finds himself in some sort of "concrete corridor," which is lined with metal racks full of air tanks. Labels on the tanks read "Danger: Compressed Gas," and a cluster of rubber hoses lead from the tanks to a pumping machine and then into the wall, going back into the fake house. Rory realizes that, whatever the tanks contain, he's been breathing it for some time. He turns to the pump and sees that it's not running, and rightfully assumes that it's the thing he heard breaking down.

There's a desk at the end of the corridor, with a clipboard and a stack of notes on it. Rory tries to the read the notes -- he can barely read, having not attended school past 2nd grade, but he understands enough to know that the notes are about him. The notes are dated as different days, and each say something along the lines of "Subject continues to react with fear to what he perceives to be creatures. Fear Level: 9." Some of the notes refer to something called "hallucinogens." One of the earlier notes says that the wafers in the "fridge" have been made to contain all the nutrients a growing child needs, and Rory wonders if that's really enough for his body to live off of anymore, given how bony his frame is. One page on the clipboard details the purpose of this experiment, labeling it as a "study of the ongoing effects of fear in children," and clarifies that the goal is to see how a child would behave if they were exposed to the same nightmares every night, over and over, with nothing else in their life to balance out the nightmares.

Rory doesn't really know what a "hallucinogen" is, but he knows a hallucination is something that isn't real, and he knows that he's been living in a fake house while perceiving it as a different fake house, so he understands that he's been lied to about his reality for quite awhile. He begins to wonder how many of his childhood memories are even real, since his present day isn't real either.

The most recent note is dated "just a month after [Rory's] seventh birthday." Looking between the notes and the gas pump beside him, Rory has the realization that he's been held prisoner and used for some sort of experiment for nearly a decade. He also assumes that, because there haven't been any notes made since, that both he and the experiment were abandoned nearly a decade ago.

Thinking about the kind of person who must have been using him for an experiment, treating him like an object to be observed and not like a human being, fills Rory with rage, and he decides he hates this unknown person. Then he remembers that they abandoned him, and he begins to hate them even more, deciding that being left behind is even worse than being mistreated. In anger, Rory unplugs the pump from its gas supply, preventing the thing from ever messing with his or anyone else's perception.

On the other side of the desk is a door exiting this corridor, and Rory opens it and steps through. He walks through multiple hallways lined with "metal snakes" (likely cables) along the walls, and thinks to himself that this space smells like an automechanic's shop. He reaches the end of these hallways and comes out in a small room that has large windows on all sides of it, leading out into blackness. There are brightly colored lights in the room, along with a control panel of some sort, but none of the lights are on and the machines are all powered down. He sees a picture of a robotic clown girl, but the image means nothing to him. (Obviously, he's in Circus Baby's space from "Sister Location," but he doesn't know that, and he doesn't understand any of what he's seeing.) Rory thinks this place must be an "observation station," and assumes that it's part of another "mean experiment," immediately feeling a kinship with whatever exists in the blackness beyond those windows. He moves on, leaving through another door.

Next he enters a dance floor, empty and unused and covered in dust. There are no light on in here either. He sees a "metal ballerina" standing frozen on stage, but she doesn't move or react to his presence so he walks right past her. (Is that really Ballora that he's seeing? Or is he seeing Ballora's empty outer shell, or a statue made to look like Ballora? The fact that she apparently doesn't move or respond to him is really strange.) On the other side of the dance floor, Rory finds a breaker room. He has a memory of watching his dad flip a breaker in their home, and he mimics the action, trying to turn some lights on in this place. It doesn't work though. Nothing happens, and no lights come on. Frustrated, Rory leaves the breaker room.

Rory finds a storage room full of unused animatronic parts. He thinks the workshop looks like a doctor's office, and the space makes him feel uncomfortable. After this, he finds a large room, just as unused and empty as all the other rooms have been. There's a lot of dining tables and chairs arranged around a stage, and a sign above the stage reads "Funtime Auditorium." He sees a "cracked and empty shell of a pirate fox animatronic" lying in a heap on the floor. Looking at it makes him uncomfortable, as it reminds him of the fox that's been haunting his nightmares. He leaves the room quickly.

After this, Rory finds another observation room, this one with a big fan and several clown faces on the walls. (So now we're in the main hub of "Sister Location.") He digs around in some cabinets full of paperwork, and finds blueprints for the building, labeling the entire space as an "Underground Testing Facility." Rory realizes that he's been underground this whole time, and gets mad that even the sunshine coming through the windows of his house was fake.

"He didn't know what had been observed, and he didn't care." Lmao, this guy is so done with Afton's bs.

Rory studies the blueprints for a bit, comparing it to the rooms around him, and finds the elevator (and it is definitely the same elevator we saw Michael ride down in "Sister Location"). The elevator seems like it's the only way out, but it isn't working since there's no power down here. Rory does some more searching around the abandoned underground facility, and he finally finds a two-way radio.

Drawing on all of his memories of watching Wade manipulating radios, Rory manages to turn the radio on and (somehow???) manages to contact Wade on the old walkie-talkie that Wade still has. Wade is happy to hear from his friend that's been missing for so long, and tells Rory that his parents are still looking for him, that they haven't given up on him, and that he has a younger sister that he's never met. He asks where Rory is, knowing that Rory ran away from home as a child and assuming that, against the odds, Rory is somehow in a safe environment now.

Rory explains to his friend about his kidnapping (which he knows must have happened, but he doesn't remember it happening) and about the experiment that's been performed on him, and about the underground facility that he's currently trying to escape from. The two boys brainstorm for a little bit, and then Wade points out that Rory's fake house still had power, even while the rest of the facility doesn't, so it must have its own generator that's separate from the facility's main power. Wade says that he's going to try to get help for Rory from the outside (as best as he can when neither boy knows where this underground facility is), and Rory disconnects the radio and heads back to the fake house, planning to look for the generator so he can try to hook it up to the elevator so he can escape.

Back in the fake house, the "windows" have gone dark, indicating that night has fallen. Rory watches as the various locked doors pop open and the Nightmare Animatronics file out and fly down their tracks, heading toward his bedroom. While they're gone, Rory checks in all their hiding spaces to see if there was a generator hidden behind any of them, but finds nothing. He then wanders through the sparse living room and dining areas, but doesn't see any place where a generator could be hidden. He can still hear the fridge humming in the kitchen, and then remembers that the "fridge" isn't an actual appliance, so something else must be making that sound, and he starts to follow the humming. He finds a generator inside the kitchen island, hidden and muffled behind a wall of soundproofing.

When Rory starts messing with the generator, he triggers a response from a connected mechanism, and a voice recording starts speaking to him through a speaker in the ceiling. Rory doesn't recognize the voice, but can tell that it's a grown man's voice, and assumes that it must be the person who was running this experiment. The voice addresses him by name and warns him not to move the generator, lest the entire house cease to function. He reminds Rory of how he ran away from home as a boy, reminding him of how lonely and unloved he felt as a child; Rory concedes that the voice is right, remembered how unloved he felt at home, and how cruel most of the other kids in his school were, and how unhappy he was.

"Rory's mom cared more about the way things looked than she did her own son."

Rory has a hard time connecting the image Wade gave him of his parents (loving, missing him, still desperately searching for him all these years later, still hoping that they'll find him someday) with the image from his memories (his father often being absent and neglectful, his mother being verbally and emotionally abusive, both constantly upset with him over minor things). The voice on the speaker tells Rory that his home life was so bad that Rory ran away from it, and, looking back on what little memories he has, Rory is prone to believe it.

The voice says that Rory "came here because [he] knew [he'd] be taken care of here," and assures Rory that he's been taken care of here far more than he ever was at home. He says that the generator is hooked up to a steady supply of gas, and that it's "always there" to "care for" Rory. As the voice speaks, Rory feels comforted by the voice, feeling complacent, and feeling as though the man behind the voice really cares about him.

"You've never been abandoned here." Well, that's a lie. The entire experiment was literally abandoned, and Rory with it.

The voice stops talking, and Rory has some time to think, and several fears begin to set into him. He doesn't really want to go home -- he's afraid that his parents will be unhappy with him again, and that his new sister won't like him, and he'll have a miserable home life again. He also thinks about how far behind he is in his education, and he worries that he'll never be able to catch up with his peers, and he shrinks away at the idea of being a social outcast again. Here, in the fake house, he knows he'll be provided for, and that he'll be provided with an imitation of care. He'll never have to second-guess himself or face another person's anger or judgement. The worst thing he'll have to deal with in the fake house is some nightmares (that he doesn't think can physically hurt him) and loneliness (something that he thinks he'll have to deal with if he escapes, anyway).

Ultimately, Rory decides that certain artificial love is better than uncertain real love, and chooses to resume living in the fake house. He puts the generator back in its hiding place. He climbs back out through the tunnel, repairs the gas pump and re-hooks it to all the gas canisters, and climbs back into the fake house, sealing the door up behind him. He replaces the "fridge" just as the gas starts pumping into the "house" again.

Within minutes, Rory is blinking in confusion, trying to remember why he's standing in front of the fridge in the middle of the night. He tries to remember if he went to school today but can't, then shrugs to himself and heads to bed. He walks back into his (clean and fixed up once more) bedroom, changes into his pajamas, and climbs into bed, promptly falling asleep. It's made very clear to the audience that the hallucinogenic gas is in full effect again, and that Rory is once again perceiving himself as a child, perceiving this house as his own house, and has forgotten everything about the last day.

In the mechanism attached to the speaker in the kitchen ceiling, a cassette tape in a player reaches the end, clicks, and then rewinds back to the beginning, "once again ready for the next time Rory wandered too far." . . . Okay, so this story is… a lot. Lot of "Plato's Allegory of the Cave" vibes. And, while I have nothing concrete to say for sure about it, I have a few thoughts about it.

My first thought was "none of those early theories about this story are correct." By which I'm referring to the popular (at least at the time) theory that the story was telling us that William was torturing and experimenting on Michael for years. Now, I understand where that theory is coming from, don't get me wrong! Over the years, we've gotten plenty of evidence that Michael has been in the FNAF4 bedroom, at least at some point, and we know from the "Security Logbook" that Michael has seen the Nightmare Animatronics, as he draws a detailed picture of Nightmare Fredbear from memory. This story is telling us that the Nightmare Animatronics were William's creation to torment someone, and if Michael has seen them, doesn't that suggest that Michael was the one William was tormenting? It seems pretty straight-forward.

However, that theory has never sounded right to me, and it still doesn't sound right even after reading this story. And I'm going to try to explain why.

First of all, what exactly are we being told about the Nightmare Animatronics? Yes, we're being told that they were created by William with the express purpose of tormenting a child. But we're also being told that they are physical animatronics that he built, and that they are in the "Sister Location" bunker, at least for a time. And you know who else is in the SL bunker at some point, who is sent down there with express orders from William to complete specific tasks, and who works at the time as an animatronic engineer and technician? Michael.

I'm going to posit the suggestion that Michael knows what the Nightmare Animatronics are not because he specifically was haunted by them, but because he's had to repair them for his dad before. Throughout the game series and in the "Security Logbook," we're shown multiple times that Michael can repair (or tamper with) animatronics, and that he's often willing to follow his father's orders, so why couldn't he have just seen the physical Nightmares at one point? "But he specifically draws Nightmare Fredbear in response to being asked about his dreams!" Yeah? They're called Nightmare Animatronics. They're meant to cause nightmares. He can operate on them and know what they are and still associate them with dreams, whether those dreams are his own or not.

There's also the fact that Rory doesn't seem to be a Michael parallel character. By this point in the series, most readers should have gotten familiar with characters that represent Michael in some way, shape or form. They often share physical and similar traits, so they're pretty easy to pick out. And our buddy Rory here? He doesn't check enough boxes to qualify.

Primary Michael representative traits are:

brown hair and/or blue eyes, with blue eyes often being the more important trait

tall

looks like his father

has Daddy Issues and/or actively thinks about his father throughout the story, usually with complicated but ultimately positive feelings

likes to draw

likes playing video games

good at building/repairs

bully (if child) / actively dislikes children (if adult)

seems to know more than he says

bad/morbid sense of humor and love of puns

Not every Michael representative character has all of these traits (and this is by no means an exhaustive list), but they tend to have a decent handful. Rory has brown hair, and he exists in some of the same spaces that Michael has been in, but that's where their similarities end. Rory simply doesn't resemble Michael enough for me to be okay with saying "obviously this is a story about Michael!"

There's also the fact that we're being told that this story takes place after the events of "Sister Location." The bunker is deserted. The Funtimes are gone. No one has been down here for years. Rory doesn't even have Hand Unit for company, he's that alone! Yes, he seems to see Ballora on stage in her gallery, but she doesn't move or react to him, and it makes me wonder if that was actually Ballora he was seeing or just like… her discarded outer shell or something. But, given the overall abandoned state of the bunker, I think it's safe to assume that the Funtimes have already left as Ennard, Michael is gone as well, and the place has been completely empty for awhile now.

"Okay," I hear you say. "So he's not Michael! But what about Crying Child? We've had that theory that William made the Nightmare Animatronics to scare his younger son away from 'Freddy's' for years, so what about him? Does this story prove that one?" To which I say… maybe? Rory shares a few similarities with Unnamed "Crying Child" Afton, as well as with some of the CC representative characters. For example, he

Is the same gender and similar age, size, and general appearance (small white boy with brown hair).

Exists in the FNAF4 bedroom, a space from the game where we were first introduced to William's younger son; the game has been slightly retconned here and there over the years, but the original implication seemed to be that you were playing as the Crying Child for the entire duration of the game, indicating that that is his bedroom.

Is kept in a constant state of fear, and is specifically afraid of the animatronic characters. And is especially afraid of Foxy, who he views as an even worse tormentor than the others (an interesting callout, since the cutscenes in FNAF4 show us CC being tormented by Michael who is dressed as Foxy).

Is observed passively and from a distance by William during the entire time when he's being constantly scared again and again; in FNAF4, Crying Child is observed and spoken to by a Fredbear toy he carries around, and we see the Fredbear toy on William's desk in "Sister Location," a speaker on its chest and microphone nearby, suggesting that William was using the stuffed toy as a nanny cam to watch and communicate with his youngest throughout the day (and it's also conveniently next to a set of monitors that William uses to observe the inside of the FNAF4 bedroom)

We've also had Crying Child representative characters before that were portrayed with hazel eyes like Rory has (Hazel from "Lonely Freddy" being the main one coming to mind right now), as well as freckles.

So yeah, Rory certainly checks enough boxes to seem like a stand-in for Crying Child! Except for the most important one: "is an actual child." Rory believes himself to be a child, but isn't. Crying Child doesn't live to adulthood, and even his stand-ins are almost always children.

But there's also two important details to take into account: William knows who Rory is, but Rory doesn't know who William is. And that destroys any assumption of Rory representing either Afton boy.

William knows everything about Rory. He knows Rory so well that he builds a fake house that replicates the house Rory's family lives in (and we know this because Rory distinctly remembers his mother walking around the house with him, explaining terms like "great room" and "chair rail"). He knows Rory so well that he has a recording talking about why Rory ran away from home as a small child, and how much Rory hated school, and several other details about Rory's life that we know are true. And he knows Rory so well that he knows to set up this recording in a way that Rory will find it, because he knows what Rory will do if the gas ever stops pumping.

But Rory doesn't know anything about William. He has no memory of being kidnapped. He only recognizes William's voice as being that of a man "about his father's age," but not a voice he knows. It's made very clear that William isn't his father or anything, because Rory remembers his father's voice and knows that this isn't it, and the voice elicits emotions out of him that his father's voice never did. (William's voice makes him feel safe and loved, but his father's voice always made him feel on edge and alone.)

There's also the fact that, based on the abandoned state of both Rory's experiment and the greater facility, William has likely either been springlocked by this point, or is simply in hiding somewhere as "Dave Miller" or something. Either way, he's not around anymore. And Wade specifically calls out that Rory's dad is still around and looking for him; and since Wade seems to be a trustworthy character according to the text, and we can believe what he says, we can see a clear contrast between "Rory's dad is still around" and "William has disappeared." If William were Rory's dad, Wade would have likely told us a different story, saying that Rory's dad vanished less than a year after Rory did.

Either way you slice it, Rory isn't Michael, and he's not Crying Child. So… where does that leave us?

I'm not sure. The fact that William knows everything about Rory but Rory doesn't know anything about William frustrates me. I can't make sense of that. William isn't really in the habit of knowing what his victim's bedrooms look like (aside from his own children), but it's made pretty clear (to me) that Rory isn't his child. And I don't know what to do with that information.

My best guess is that Rory doesn't represent anyone at all, and is just a brand new character that we've never seen before. And I have a couple of ideas for what this Fear Experiment is.

Fear Experiment Interpretation #1: My actual first theory was that Rory was a child that William kidnapped in order to recreate Crying Child's last days and eventual death, presumably with an end goal of figuring out how to bring Crying Child back in some way or other. I mean, William has already seen the effects of Elizabeth haunting Circus Baby by this point (presumably), so it would stand to reason that he tries to create a similar scenario for his other dead child, so that CC could come back somehow. William is just forced to abandon the experiment (and Rory) before he can finish it.

The problem with this is that we're directly told that the fake house is a replica of Rory's house, meaning that it's not meant to be a recreation of Crying Child's bedroom or life.

Fear Experiment Interpretation #2: My second theory is that this is what William did with all of his victims, at least at some point. I mean, this experiment space is right near where the Funtime Animatronics are kept, and we know they're meant to be used as kidnapping containers, right? And we know William has, at different points, tried studying the creation and effects of both Remnant and Agony, two different substances that come from dead people, with Agony being created when the person dies under extremely stressful circumstances (and leading to hauntings). So it would stand to reason that William was using the Funtimes to lure and kidnap children, having them delivered after hours to this space, and then running experiments on them in attempts to create Agony or something.

And Rory's character works with this theory, because while he doesn't really act like any of Afton's kids, he definitely acts like Afton's other victims. Despite not knowing the man, Rory has a strong love-hate relationship with William, something he shares in common with the MCI kids, who (in both the "Silver Eyes" trilogy and the in the movie) we see go back and forth between viewing William as their enemy/tormentor and as their friend/caregiver. William is very good at gaslighting and Stockholming his victims, and Rory, who decides to trust the voice on the recording above the voice of his real life friend, definitely exhibits that sort of behavior.

The main problem with this theory is that Rory has no idea who or what the Funtime Animatronics are. He's never seen them before. Circus Baby, Ballora, and Funtime Foxy don't hold any meaning to him, and he never encounters any form of Funtime Freddy at all. So it seems like that idea is out, or at least that portion of it.

This story is definitely worth noodling around, but boy is it confusing! Ultimately, the only concrete things that I can take away from this story is that William Afton has specifically experimented on children to observe their reactions to fear and stress, possibly with the intention of creating Agony and causing a haunting as the result, and that the FNAF4 bedroom may have been the primary location for those experiments. Valuable information, but it raises a lot more questions than it answers.

Other parts of this story that stuck out to me:

The FNAF4 bedroom existing in a fake house that exists as part of the "Sister Location" facility explains why we can see it on the electrical map when Michael is working in the breaker room -- it's plugged into the greater electrical grid of the bunker, but it also has its own source of power, explaining why it's visible but the player can't access it. (Are the Plushtrap hallway and the sidewalk path also underground experiment spaces? Are there other children being kept there, or are they areas that Rory was supposed to be moved to at some point?) (How much does Michael know about these experiments? He can see them on the electrical map, and he's seen the Nightmare Animatronics, so he's at least passively aware of them.)

Rory doesn't know who or what Circus Baby is, but he immediately relates with the empty room she used to be kept in, empathically assuming that she's the victim of another cruel experiment like he is.

FNAF4, like many games from Scott, is very imperfect and has some janky game mechanics. This isn't a bad thing! Many people think that's part of the charm of the FNAF games! But in FNAF4, while visual and audio cues around the bedroom during the main game tells us that our player character is a child, they don't always seem to be child-sized, and some players have said that the movements and POV of the player character looks more like an adult crawling on their hands and knees. While I think that's just a weird developmental error in the game, I think it's interesting that this story offers us an in-wold explanation, saying that the character is a young adult who believes himself to be a child, and so is still behaving like a little boy.

I think it's funny that, from Wade's POV, he's in a Mimic story. I mean, our man suddenly starts hearing static coming from an old walkie-talkie he's kept for sentimental reasons, and then his long lost / presumed dead childhood friend starts talking to him, saying things like "I'm trapped underground" and "I need help!" This is exactly how Cassie gets got in "Ruin!"

And speaking of the Mimic, it's finally time to wrap up the epilogue story!

"Epilogue"

We pick up right after Kelly's death. The Mimic has wandered off, but Lucia is still hanging around in her rat costume, staring at the puddle of blood that used to be Kelly and still in too much shock to move. After some time, Lucia finally calms down enough to start thinking and processing her surroundings again. But as she looks cautiously around herself, she sees more remains of more dead friends, and the reality that she's the only one left hits her hard. After sitting alone with her thoughts for a bit longer, Lucia decides that the Mimic needs to be destroyed or deactivated, and she begins to come up with a plan for how to do it.

"There was nowhere in this tomb of a pizzeria where Lucia could safely hide."

"There was only one way that she was going to get out of this place alive: she had to kill the Mimic."

Remembering the springlock jester suit in the costume room, Lucia decides that the best way to disarm the Mimic would be to trick it into wearing the springlock costume, and then triggering the springlocks to snap down on it. Since the Mimic keeps changing the costume its wearing every so often, Lucia begins to sabotage all of the costumes in the costume room aside from the jester costume, so that the Mimic won't have any other option the next time it comes in for a quick costume change.

"The yellow-walled costume room…" Bit of a "the Yellow Wallpaper" moment there.

There's an unnecessarily long section that just describes Lucia breaking off or otherwise ruining the zippers on all the costumes. I think it's just padding out the page count for this epilogue.

While Lucia is jamming and tearing out zippers, the costumes start moving, and she realizes that something has jostled the rod that they're all hanging on. She assumes the Mimic has entered the room, and she finds it in a gopher costume. With only three costumes left in the room (the jester costume, a lion costume, and the rat costume that Lucia is still wearing), the Mimic crawls out of the gopher costume and tries to climb into the rat costume.

The Mimic grabs the rat costume, peering in through the eye-holes and making eye contact with Lucia inside. It then opens the costume's mouth and starts to climb into the costume through the mouth, squishing Lucia against the back of it. Lucia manages to pull the back zipper down and jump out of the costume just as the Mimic climbs inside, leaving the Mimic in the rat costume and Lucia exposed.

While the Mimic is still re-configuring its body to fit into this new costume, Lucia grabs some rope off the floor and ties the costume's legs together. When the Mimic tries to grab or chase her a second later, it trips and lands on its face. Lucia ducks behind the jester costume, which is pretty big and conceals her almost entirely.

The Mimic is described throughout this section with such awesome phrases as "segmented worm," "expanding viper," and "pulsing, squirming snake." This thing is not in a humanoid shape right now, that's for sure.

Lucia positions her head against the jester suit, making it look like she's wearing it, and calls out to the Mimic. She ducks down as the Mimic lunges for her, and it climbs into the jester suit, clearly intending to kill her the same way it killed Kelly. Lucia picks up an unused metal rod from the floor and starts beating the Mimic like a pinata, trying to set off the springlocks. When this doesn't work, she ends up stabbing the rod right through the Mimic's mouth like a spear. This sudden action finally sets off the springlocks, and they all start snapping at once, crunching down on the Mimic. The Mimic starts flailing, and "viscous, black fluid" that smells like engine oil starts leaking out of the suit like blood. Lucia backs away to a hiding spot for a moment, watching the Mimic flail around in a pool of its own "blood."

"[The Mimic] was no longer the menace in control -- it was the victim!"

When the Mimic's movements have slowed down enough, Lucia approaches it again. Remembering what she read in the notebook, she begins searching and feeling around on the back of the Mimic's head, where she finally finds the power switch. She flips it, and the Mimic deactivates, falling limp in front of her.

Lucia escapes the Pizzaplex, managing to scale up the wreckage of the basement stairs and then busting through an upstairs window. It's now morning outside. A construction worker (described as a handsome young man with "gentle blue eyes") sees her and helps her out. He tries to comfort her when she bursts into tears, and tries to ask her what she was doing in the unfinished building, but Lucia can only cry and smile at him, both in relief and hysterics. . . . Interesting to "kill" the Mimic in the same way William is killed, with a springlock suit… Especially interesting since our first introduction to the Mimic (all the way back in the first epilogue) featured it having rabbit ears. And that we now know that Mimic AI (different from this Mimic, but connected) is portrayed as Glitchtrap in some of the games. Lot of Mimic/Afton parallels. Not sure if that means anything, but it sure is interesting.

Yay! Lucia survived! I honestly didn't think she would, but I'm happy she did. :)

And yay! The Mimic is gone! (For now, anyway…)

And most of all -- yay! I'm done with this series!!! Cue the party streamers and confetti canons! Hallelujah, I'm done!

[chzdavmpr]

Delicious in Dungeon Reading Diary Vol 4

Spoilers below

First thing I notice about this volume is that the red dragon is very central on the front and back cover, and the table on contents has 6 chapters of red dragon.

Also while I'm talking about the volume cover I gotra say I love the art on these things

Like they look like they make food/wash dishes WHILE fighting the monsters, and Senshi is just doing a little mario hop with his fried rice. And all of the other covers have been similarly pleasant. Plus I love how the red boarder helps add both visual cohesion between volumes as well a nice bit of flair that helps it stand out amongst other manga.

That's how they teleported out of the dungeon? I was expecting the flash of light thing Falin did. Could it be that their gear wouldn't come with them? I don't think so if they kept their stuff on them. Must just be different methods.

Also this might be more evidence for my "living paintings are time portals" theory. Not quite sure yet.

It's very smart to go over the rules of death and resurrection in more detail now, considering what the whole point of this mission is. It both keeps stakes alive and adds tension to if Falin can even be revived.

Go off, King.

I've seen this panel before, I did NOT expect it to be in such tense context.

And the dragon is down! I gotta say that was some excellent action, all the tactics were creative, both made sense for the characters to use, as well as made sense why they failed. Plus it was just really cool, the ending bit with Laios getting his leg bit especially.

Quite morbid how Laios is basically just doing a fun jigsaw puzzle with his own sister's bones.

DON'T SHOW THE NUTRITIONAL INFO!!!

Wait are they seriously not gonna tell Falin about how she was a skeleton for like a month? Like when someone asks "did I died" I feel one of the worst things you can say is "don't worry about it." Maybe it's just a translation thing idk.

Falin no longer having brockitis* anymore is significant. It will be very relevant. I feel it in my bones.

*brockitis: a term used by the anime community to describe a character with perpetually closed eyes, named after Brock from Pokemon

I'm sorry, you have NO follow up questions? Cause I sure have a few; what resident, this place is abandoned? Or that's one of the fake doors so how was there someone there? Or were they a ghost? Laios is not beating the himbo allegations.

YOU!

Honestly it's good news to see this guy. Partially cause it's a cool new plothook, but more importantly some of my living painting questions might be answered!

I just think the mermaid is drawn real cute here.

Laios had a whole 2-second crisis over being a fake dragon fan.

Closing thoughts for the volume: the best so far. 10/10. Not only does it finish off the overarching plot so far with a really cool action scene, but sets up a lot of questions to get answered later. Plus the tension is really well done, pretty much from the point in the first chapter where they explain there are limits to resurrection to the point where Falin speaks a complete sentence there was that gripping sense of both danger and uncertainty, it makes it gripping enough to where I decently easily finished this volume in 1 sitting. While I think the coming volume or 2 will have to some work to get me invested in the next adventure I am more then confident that it can be done.

[nymphsconstancy]

i actually have a lot of thoughts about rhine and why she's like that! way more than i thought i did. see under the cut for a lot of soundboarding/internal theorising:

explanation 1: rhinedottir's like that because of abyssal corrosion. we know from the little witch description that she has "precious little lucid time," which i'm personally taking to mean that she experiences something like the 'living hallucinations' we see in natlan's interlude chapter. unfortunately, i don't think this holds up as well - from what i remember, they were described as fairly permanent, where rhine seems to be fairly back-and-forth? so it could go either way on this one.

explanation 2 (sort of joking, sort of not): little witch vol 3 is an allegory for either rhine herself or for her kids. rhine's experiencing the "dissonance in self-perception and self-dissociation" that the mold demon king is. her 'truth of the world' is something like the mold's questions about senses of self, and in rhine's case she's more like. who can 'i' be when the world itself is illusory? i'm leaning pretty heavily on simulanka for this one, and i'd otherwise discard it, but tomorrow we're getting hexenzirkel information and little witch volume 2 is set on the same day, so. you never know!

explanation 3: rhine genuinely sees nothing wrong with what she's doing. this one relies a lot on concepts of 'vision' - as in literal sight, for once - and not so much the way that rhinedottir sees the world, but the way that her children do.

albedo's an exception to the rule, but all of rhinedottir's 'children' and related creations have differences in their perceptions of the world. durin sees his destruction during the cataclysm as both a form of play and a dance with dvalin, the rifthounds want to both 'replace' the real wolves out of jealousy and to 'make names for themselves' per the wolflord description, and elynas and the melusines both have different perceptions of what makes the world 'beautiful'. i think subject 2 fits into this pattern, following the same ideal as the riftwolves - replacing the ideal in the hopes of acknowledgement, or something like that?

so there's an established pattern of gold's creations having warped perceptions of the world. worth noting also is that they do not understand death, with the exception of sigewinne and elynas. in line with that, i think it would make sense if rhine herself also saw the world differently, and instead of the cold rhinedottir who taught albedo and the colder rhine who discarded all of her earlier creations, it was all just one version of her, who saw cause but not consequence, who like her creations did not understand that she brought death with her actions? a lot of this is more inference than anything, but it's the theory i'm most fond of

I'm thinking about Rhinedottir again, I find it so hard to place her motives and personality. She is one of the five sinners, has created many monsters and even abandoned her creation. Albedo describes her as cold and strict yet cares deeply about her and Rhinedottir spoke very lovingly of Albedo as her only child. She is also a dear friend to Alice and at least an ally to Barbatos. The latter is especially interesting considering how much her creations has caused trouble for Mondstadt. I like the conflicting dynamics and reputations she has but I wonder how things have played out. Hopefully in this patch we'll be able to get more answers.

[brookieeboo]

my stranger things 4 volume 2 theories (?) that no one asked for -

• enzo dies to get murray, hopper, and joyce out. murray might die too? (i don’t want him to but anything can happen). the scene in the trailer w hopper being attacked by a demo dog he’s looking sideways and i think he might be witnessing enzo’s death

• out of the teenage group i think eddie is the most likely to die which breaks my heart, but idk what it is i just have a lil feeling. i’m worried for steve tho. i think nancy makes it out based on some of the trailer footage and i think robin saying “i don’t think it’ll work out for us this time” is misleading but idk man

• will has GOT to be connected to eleven & the upside down somehow. how does he know about vecna when he’s talking to mike???? that’s the part i’m super interested in. so many questions about will’s part in this. why was he targeted in the first place? how did he survive in the upside down so long? why the visions? i think he has something to do. powers maybe? unlikely but could be possible.

• also what is eight’s deal. did she escape the lab before we see eleven’s memories?? i hope we get to see her again. how did eleven run into her in chicago? why wasn’t she in any of the memories? my memory is v shaky on s2 to be fair so i might not be remembering something. as far as we know they are the only two still around from the lab. eight might have something to do??? like help eleven out? idk man

• i don’t think they defeat vecna at the end of the season. i think it’ll continue into next season, and then the rest of it will be dealing w trying to completely get rid of the upside down??? if vecna does die at the end of this season what’s the play for next season? they bring in ANOTHER new monster and expect them to defeat it within the season? i should rewatch at least the end of s3 but did the mind flayer actually die??? that would be the only thing i could see coming back next season if dustin is right about the mind flayer being the overall big bad.

anyways this post is based on nothing but my personal vibes.

[mlchaelwheeler]

Why Will Byers is the answer to everything (and the key to vol. 2)

After making a post yesterday about why I think Vecna was the one stalking Will in 1x01, I was reading into some other posts about why this is relevant now, given what we know from S4V1, and how that could affect how S4V2 goes down. I'm going to be exploring the possibility of Will having powers, mirroring Henry Creel (Vecna), and having been watched by Vecna since he was taken in 1x01. This is probably going to get pretty long, so buckle up brochachos!

So, I already explained this in my post yesterday, but I'll reiterate it here for those who didn't see it. When Will leaves Mike's house after the campaign where the demogorgan gets him, the garage lights flicker. It's important to note here that only the garage lights (and the light on Will's bike) flicker, not the rest of the house. While there was a power outage that same night (when El opened the gate, making contact with the demogorgan), Mike's house is on the opposite side of town and wouldn't be affected by the blackout (pointed out by @willel).

Now, on his way home, Will runs into a shadowy figure on the road--I believe this is in fact the demogorgan. You can hear it growl (a sound unique to it that Vecna doesn't display) and it is within the demogorgan's hunting ground, as it would've just escaped from the lab and into the woods. Seconds earlier, you can see Will bike past the HNL fence. However, this begs the question of why the lights were flickering at Mike's house? In stranger things, flickering lights are associated with supernatural creatures or psychic powers. No one was using powers at Mike's house, so it must've been a supernatural presence, not the demogorgan bc it would've just escaped from the lab, which points toward it being Vecna.

Before we get into why Vecna would be stalking Will in the first place, let's quick go over more evidence of why it was Vecna, in case anyone is still doubting my theory. Once Will gets home, he immediately calls for his family, but once he realizes he's home alone, he immediately calls 911, only to hear something growling back at him. As far as I know, demogorgans are only foot soldiers for the upside down and don't possess any sort of powers. Now, I know that in the show characters claim that the demogorgans are capable of opening gates, like the one in the tree Nancy enters. However, I'd like to think that it's actually Vecna who's opening these gates, making it easier for the upside down to infiltrate the normal dimension. If demogorgans can open gates, why did it have to wait for El to open the gate in 1983? And why wouldn't the demogorgan in Russia have escaped by now? But I digress.

When else do we see phones or radios being messed with in relation to the upside down? Think back to the multiple times El has used radio static to find people in the void. Radio static has been associated with psychic powers. We know Vecna has very strong powers, but the demogorgan does not. It would make sense that Vecna was the one messing with Will's phone here. It's also brought up a lot that Will's front door is unlocked and opened using telekinesis. Besides this scene, there's been no indication the demogorgan has powers--but Vecna does! Hence, it was almost certainly Vecna who was stalking (and kidnapped) Will.

So why does Vecna want Will specifically in the first place? Based on what we know from st4v1, Vecna had an unhappy childhood, killed his family, was taken by Brenner, then tested until he was given Soteria to weaken his powers so he could be easily controlled. He spends years in the lab as Peter, biding his time to get back at Brenner. However, he seems to take a liking to El, and before he tries killing her, he attempts to convince her to join him. She says no and banishes him to the red void--his mindscape?

Now why did Vecna wait 7 years before he started killing people again? It's likely that being banished to his mindscape drained him, forcing him to bide his time until he could regain enough strength to get back to the normal world. It's likely that he either needs to absorb enough energy (from people's fear right before he kills them, a parallel to Pennywise from IT) or absorb someone's powers to escape the mindscape.

Since he was banished in 1979, Vecna has most likely been on the lookout for someone with powers (not El, because last time went so poorly, and not Kali because she's "out of range") to target, in an attempt to get his full powers back. So when he senses Will, Vecna goes out himself to snatch him, bringing a demogorgan for backup. Once he catches Will in the shed, the light becomes blinding before suddenly going back to normal, with Will gone. If that has been the demogorgan, Will most likely would've immediately been eaten. However, @willel pointed out that the light in the shed lights up similarly to how the flashlights stay blindingly bright in the Creel house. This points to it being Vecna.

It's also interesting to note that the upside down is stuck on time at November 6, 1983, the night Will went missing. Who do we know of that has time manipulation powers? Vecna. I think that the first time Vecna majorly used his powers (since being banished to the mindscape) caused time to freeze. It's really the only explanation I can think of as to why this occurred. The night Will disappeared was obviously the start of all this, and it seems to be leading back to Vecna.

Furthermore, Will is able to escape his capture and hides in Castle Byers for nearly a week. The whole time, he's singing "Should I Stay Or Should I Go," which is brought up multiple times throughout S1. There's even a flashback to show how meaningful the song is to Will. Mike mentions that Will is "always singing that weird song he loves," and when El finds Will in the void, he's humming his song. Who do we know that's deterred by favorite music and happy memories? Oh right, that's Vecna.

During his time in the upside down, Will is resourceful! He uses lights multiple times to talk to Joyce, like "one blink for yes," the alphabet wall, and the circle of lamps in his bedroom. Now, I know that S4V1 expanded on this lore and showed how to communicate with lights from the upside down, but this actually just raises more questions for me. How likely really is it that Will was able to reach the christmas lights? The alphabet wall wouldn't have even been there if the upside down was frozen the night he went missing. Also, there's no way he would've been able to turn on those lamps in the circle so quickly.

This points back to Will having powers. He seems to be more resourceful when in the upside down than other characters, and is the only one to have survived more than a few hours alone. Even when he's eventually caught, why isn't he immediately killed like the other victims? Instead, he's brought to the library and a vine begins to suck the life force out of him. Why? We've seen that vines feed Vecna's powers, and likely recharge him. Is it that much of a stretch to say that Vecna was using the vine in Will to transfer powers, making Vecna stronger? The mindflayer does a similar thing in S3 with El, as biting her absorbs her powers, rendering her powerless.

Once Will is saved, he attempts to readjust to normal life, but is unable to stop seeing the upside down. His friends say he has "true sight," but what if that's not the case? Vecna could be giving him visions, attempting to weaken his resolve so he can be targeted again. In S2, we even see Will with his eyes closed multiple times, looking like how the tranced people did in S4V1.

Perhaps what Vecna really wants is a vessel in the real world? Even Jason said that the devil needs a vessel, so this could be foreshadowing to Vecna wanting to weaken Will enough to possess him fully. We saw kind of what that would be like in S2 with the mindflayer, but Will was still strong enough to fight back.

However, now, Vecna has been biding his time, waiting for Will to be as weak as possible. He's been alienated at every turn: ignored by his friends all summer, perpetually connected to an evil dimension, abused at home and at school, and now, his whole family and best friend (crush) forgot his birthday. Will is at his most vulnerable right now, so I believe the minute he arrives to Hawkins, Vecna will be taking full advantage of this.

Will is the perfect vessel for Vecna. Through flashbacks, they've been shown to parallel each other: called "sensitive" by their mothers, enjoy drawing as an escape, made to feel different from the rest of the world, and even dress the same. Both feel like they don't belong, and since El didn't work out, Vecna wants Will.

If you made it to the end, congrats, that was long. Hopefully it kind of made sense! This is where I think S4V2 could be heading, and Will is my favorite, so obviously I want him to have a bigger role moving forward lol

[yazzydream]

Gonna be here for a while so, right off the bat for any Jujutsu Kaisen viewers:

I tag #jjk spoilers for the sake of anime-onlys. That tag refers to content that could spoil things that have only happened in the manga so far.

I tag #jjk season 2 for official stuff related to season 2 of the anime.

I also tag #jjk manga for just general jjk manga edits, manga caps, etc. Lots of overlap with #jjk spoilers, obviously, but not only.

That's the important stuff for now. Will update if I think of anything else.

Oh right, there's the general #my jjk for anything about jjk I post about, including thoughts, gifs, caps, news, whatever.

I also try to tag ships in general. That goes for all my fandom reblogs/stuff so people can avoid them. Though, I don't always remember, feel free to dm me if you want me to tag something.

JJK Meta/rambling thoughts/theories

Gojo is a pretty boy, and I'm ok with that

Summarizing Domains

The Six Eyes (I have a better understanding of JJK now, so forgive any inaccuracies from baby Yazzy. 🐣)

Questions I'd like answered in JJK

Season 2 Episode Predictions

JJK Character Popularity Polls (thoughts)

Yuji as a protagonist

Women in JJK (I go off a little in the tags)

Prison Realm thoughts

How JJK will end *SPOILERS FOR ALL*

Character playlists

Mamaguro was a Zen'in

Jujutsu Kaisen Timeline (thoughts)

Three Great Families sigals/mon

Tankobon vol. 24-26 | 27 | 28-29

Speculating What the 16-Registered Special Grade Curses Are

Gojo's Past arc I'm excited to seeing animated

Shibuya Incident arc I'm excited to seeing animated: Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3

Popularity of the Culling Game arc characters

Toji Fushiguro is the key to saving the human race

Phantom Parade extra lore + trivia | Nanami

Snow camellias on the cover of vol. 26

Season 3 adaptation guess

Culling Game arc I'm excited to see animated

JJK Translations

2021 Valentine's Results Announcement

Yuichi Nakamura (Satoru Gojo) interview

Aya Endo (Shoko Ieiri) interview

My students are watching

Geto's Massacre Incident Report

LINE stickers (manga ver.)

LINE stickers Demaecan collab

LINE stickers [animated] Irasutoya collab

"SPECIALZ" OP4 lyrics translation

See #my translations to see all my translations, including the dialogue I've gif-ed.

Extra information/lists

Season 1 References

All the times characters in JJK have lost a hand or arm

Identifying everything on the "SPECIALZ" album cover

Similar names

Characters with siblings

Identifying the Higher-ups

Gege's style of casually dropping terms, phrases, info that becomes important/prominent later: A small collection

JJK comic extras not reprinted in tankobon

Gojo movie 0, season 1, season 2 character designs

"more than words" ED4 real-life Shibuya locations

Gojo appearances post-sealing

Phantom Parade extra trivia

[blood-orange-juice]

The problem is, this still doesn't explain anything. None of the questions we currently have even resemble a Nibelung reference.

Those that are relevant:

I wonder if someone *stole* an invention from Rhinedottir and used it in a wrong way. Maybe she isn't the only one to blame for the fall of Khaenri'ah.

Were Alberichs safekeepers of the cursed treasure or were they using it for their own gain? Caribert's quest implies the latter, Clothar being the Abyss Order founder (and Jakob says they are no different from the archons in their goals). It's such a specific surname to use, I refuse to think it's random.

The dragon's treasure the boy found is Nibelung's treasure. The forbidden knowledge (that was obvious but nice to see that it's the same thing the dragons acquired).

Everything else:

Why does Kaeya need an eyepatch? Maybe he sees things that shouldn't be seen? (or maybe it's a reference to the Khaenria'hn half-mask worn by others and nothing more)

The original Ajax seems to be post-Enkanomiyan. It had to be already fallen for him to find a dead king. A Cataclysm hero maybe (or, as Cricket says, this all might be a mishmash of different stories with a kid's name slapped on it). That would explain baby Ajax's father being so invested in the story. For Snezhnayans everything from that time still seems to hold a lot of significance.

(all other theories why he's so invested are too insane to develop them now)

Who the hell was the wise priest. Skirk/follower of the same tradition? Skirk is the whale-god's priest, I'm calling it. Kokomi with her whale video fits right in.

Who the hell was the king. "Was bright as day" is a dead giveaway that was Enkanomiya but it never had a proper king. So who the hell was that dude? Also Foul Legacy is called "armor of the demon king" in CN so I assume it's *that* king?

Also wait, from vol.2 of Before Sun and Moon:

"The Parable of the Tree" The king's gardener and the tree spirit of the royal garden were in love. But the king wished to repair the beams of his pavilion, and so needed to cut down the tree with the most spiritual energy within it. The king was the incarnation of the Primordial One, and the gardener could not defy the sovereign of sovereigns, and so he could only bring his plea to the king's priest, who was the incarnation of Tokoyo Ookami. The priest had pity on the gardener and said to him: "Go, and cut the branches of the spirit-tree down." The gardener did so, and afterward did as the king ordered, cutting the spirit-tree itself down. Then the priest said: "Plant the spirit-tree's branches in the ground." But the gardener said: "A spirit-tree shall take five hundred years to grow." The priest said: "Your one thought shall echo through eternity." And so the gardener planted the branches in his back yard. In an instant, the slim branches grow into a new tree, and the new tree spirit was a continuation of the past one. For it is the God of Moments who is able to take "seeds" from this "moment" into the past and the future.

*ahem* sacred sakura *ahem*

I don't get this story at all and also that king sounds like a jerk and also... the incarnation of Phanes? the incarnation of Istaroth (Tokoyo Ookami)? hello?

(this would also imply that Skirk is the incarnation/priest of Istaroth. I don't like it)

I'm also curious about the gold that can cure sick friends. There's definitely a parallel with Jakob's story. Art of Khemia/creation magic, I assume?

Ok. Can we talk about The Ballad of the Fjords again. This is all extremely obvious but I'm starting to see the value of writing down obvious things.

I've been thinking about Kaeya's surname pretty much since his release. Because, you know, Alberich. The svartálfar king who safekeeps Nibelung's treasure in Nibelungenlied ("The Song of Nibelungs", 13th century poem. do you see the parallel with "The Ballad of the Fjords"?). And now three years later we have things to tie it back to.

The Things:

The dragon Nibelung who acquired the forbidden knowledge from outside this world and led the other ancient dragons into war against The Heavenly Principles (according to Nahida's second quest).

Nibelung refers to all kinds of creatures in Norse and Old German stories, sometimes it's a dragon, somethimes it's a group of svartálfar (dwarves/elves/fae, for simplicity).

Rhinedottir the alchemist, the creator of our beloved horrors. Theorised to be the one who discovered/created something that led to Khaenri'ahs downfall.

She's a reference to Rhinemaidens invented by Wagner, spirits of watery depth and keepers of magical gold. If you were looking for Enkanomiya/primordial sea/whale connections, here's another one.

Also in Wagner's operas Alberich is the main antagonist of the Rings of Nibelung cycle (one of the few characters that stay alive too!), the one who steals the gold from the Rhinemaidens (renouncing love in exchange for power) and the one whos actions lead to the death of gods and the desctruction of Valhalla.

(something something arrogation of mankind obligatory mention)

And now we have The Ballad of the Fjords BP spear and its description:

If this is not a Nibelung mythos reference I don't know what this is.

[chzdavmpr]

Goodnight Punpun Reading Diary Volume 2

Content Warning: I try to avoid going in detail about the more explicit parts of this story, but this does book gets real explicit for a while, so I'll still warn here that this post will discuss a plot point about abuse and sexualization of a minor. Also if you plan on reading this book yourself PLEASE LOOK UP THE TRIGGER WARNINGS FIRST CAUSE THAT'S JUST THE ONE I CAN'T AVOID TALKING ABOUT

Theory: perhaps "God" represents a part of Punpun's inner thoughts. (Note: I tend to be pretty bad at picking up on themes and symbolism in a story before finishing it, so for some of you that statement is probably pretty obvious.)

There's 2 of him now???

With the wager Punpun and Yaguchi set up it's very much them ignoring Aiko being her own person, but for different reasons. For Punpun he's in his incel arc but for Yaguchi it very much he more has his own issues in how he sees himself that he needs to overcome before he's ready for any relationship.

In volume 1 I thought Punpun's uncle was a chill dude, but he not only has a pretty cynical outlook at life, but he thinks his own sister should die just for having armpit hair, but gets off to a vhs labeled "high school hotties" and now I think I hate him. [Note from after finishing the volume: it get's worse. Now I 100% hate him]

Ok so either we are getting guy-with-afro lore that he works the this karaoke bar, or he's just a gag character that the author puts everywhere for no reason

Uh oh. UH OH. I see where this flashback is going STOP USING THE SAME WORDS YOU USED FOR THE POTTERY TO DESCRIBE THE 16 YEAR OLD!

As of the end of "part 3" I am very uncomfy. And that's probably the point, it forces the reader to be like "that's fucked up" and then look back at that whole date scene that was played mostly wholesome and say "this whole situation is fucked up" (which they probably should have already but the legacy of Scott Pilgrim has taught that you can never be too obvious with this stuff).

They have a lot of zoom ins on Yuichi's eyes in the scene where he brings- what's her name again (checks list of important characters at beginning of part 4) oh shit her name hasn't even been said. That makes this even worse then I thought.

Back to the point though, the scene in Yuichi's apartment has a lot of zoom ins on his eyes being drawn in a more human and realistic manner. I think this is to remove that "goofiness that undercut the darkness" I talked about for Vol 1. If this scene played out and was constantly showing Yuichi as a little bird in a crude artstyle it would make it easier to look past the monstrous behaviour of him by writing him off as "silly." But I feel the author really wants you to stew in the uncomfortability of this so that you really grasp that Yuichi is a bad guy.

Since Yuichi is the one telling this story, I wonder if he's lying about any details, in particular I wonder if he did actually go all the way with the 16 year old. I hope I'm wrong, but there is a chane.

WHY THE HELL IS THE CAFE GIRL STILL INTERESTED IN HIM? Honestly that makes me highly suspicious of her, cause I don't buy "love at first sight" for an appropriate motive to still be interested in a guy significantly older then you, who you've gone on ONE date with, who just told THAT story. Honestly I hope that there's more to her motive cause if not I will be honestly disappointed in that character writing.

Wait the guy who attempted to murder the mom and then set himself on fire isn't either dead or in prison? He's just fine?

The appearance of another "God" who is a different face raises a lot of questions and I don't think I have enough info to piece together an answer rn.

It's definitely healthier then being dead, but this relationship with Yuichi and cafe-girl doesn't seem healthy at all.

"God" opened his eyes. I wonder what that could mean.

So it looks like there will be a 2-year timeskip at the end of each book. Assuming Punpun was like 8 in Vol 1 he'll be like 20 in the last. Interesting.

Closing thought on the volume: This is honestly more what I expected going into Volume 1. I would no longer call this a "dark comedy." We are in full on dark drama now, just with some goofy elements.

Looking back at my notes I had a whole lot more to say about Yuichi's story then I did Punpun's, and I'm trying to think about why that is. Cause Punpun's story is one which I feel I probably should have more to say about but most of the time I'm just kinda along for the ride and don't end up having much to write notes about. The only thing I can think of that I probably could comment on is how Yaguchi is like the only morally good character (except maybe cafe-girl) in this whole volume.

I think part of this is that Punpun himself isn't really the strongest character to me. I know about him, how he feels, what he wants, but him rarely talking and has almost non-existent body language so his scenes flow weird. He can't really bounce off the other characters. I hope that by the end of this story I have less of an issue with this.

While reading this volume I also, as an exercise to get better at media literacy, tried to ask "what is Goodnight Punpun about?" What is the main thing this story is trying to tell? My conclusion so far is that I have no idea. My best guess is it has something to do with how being surrounded by negative influence can make someone worse. Which I guess isn't the worst first attempt at figuring out the theme. But with later reading diaries we'll check back in with this theme and see if it holds up.

Also I realized I only used 1 image for this, and it was for basically a background detail. I should be more liberal with them next time.

[strawberrybyers]

feel like we should focus on what they’re saying here: will’s journey is going to continue. they’re going to give answers as to why the upside down is stuck on the day will disappeared in season 5 and that it is a KEY PLOT POINT. so basically what i gathered from this is will byers main character arc coming in regards to his connection to the upside down and his love for mike.

they don’t want to leave any loose ends. they want all the characters to feel complete. they acknowledge the characters have been changing and who have we said has changed a lot since s1 and 2? michael wheeler. we also do not understand why he has changed, but with the duffers saying they want the arcs for everyone to feel complete that means we’re going to get an answer as to why he’s been acting the way he has. they also say “who’s going to end up with who” ok and let’s see which relationships are being questioned right now especially after volume 2: mike and el (people are seeing mike’s confession was off and that their relationship is falling apart), we have the nancy/jonathan/ steve love triangle, and we know will is in love with mike and that mike has been acting a certain way towards him that hasn’t been explained and they don’t want to leave any relationships ambiguous. they want an ending. anyways we’re getting answers in s5 and the duffers also said s5 is part 2 to s4 so maybe our theories for vol 2 were actually for s5? all i know is will byers is going back to being the main character and my hope for byler has gone up.

[mayahawkeswife]

u should rant a little abt the 'will has powers thing' bc im a little confused LMAO

of course i will :)) anything to info dump lmao

okay so this might be a lot but- stay with me here please— (and ofc ask questions or add on to anything 😭😭)

one of the main things pointing to will having powers is basically a lot of the shit that he did in season one, more specifically how he was able to do it.

some things he was able to do includes: controlling individual lights, speaking to joyce through the phone + walls (?? ig idk how else to word it), appear in joyce’s dreams/a sort of apparition of him appears (this one is def more theoretical, i’ll get to it in a minute), and the reason why he was even taken in the first place (or at least my theory as to why).

first off: while, yes, in season 4 vol. 1 when the teens are stuck in the upside down, they found a way to talk to people in the (for better lack of words) right side up through the lights, it doesn’t completely translate to what will had done so previously. as we know, the upside down is stuck on the day that will went missing, so everything is how it was on that day in the upside down (except well— more decayed and covered in vibes but- whatever yk). so, this would mean no alphabet wall. there would be no way for will to know that was there. and let’s say that will managed to figure out what his mom was trying to do somehow, the christmas lights were never turned on in the first place. the majority of them were never turned on. in vol. 1 we see how the lights need to be turned on and source in the right place in order to communicate through them. this… doesn’t really make sense in terms of will talking to joyce through the lights. there was also this post i made that touched on the scene with the lights in wills room flashing in a circle that directly parallels the scene in s4.

another thing with the communication between worlds that doesn’t add up comparing the teens to will in s1 is how joyce was able to actually hear will. somehow he had called her, and joyce was able to hear him breathing through the phone until (supposedly) the demagorgan came and.. something happened to will. (i’m not sure if i’m just not remembering correctly or if it was never clarified what happened then, so.. yeah). anyways, the teens were not able to vocally speak to the kids in the right side up, and seemed to not be able to use any electronic things while in the upside down.

something else i find interesting and hope is touched on in vol. 2 is joyce literally ripping the wall down and seeing will in the upside down (before he ran away and she broke the wall down with an axe). like— how the fuck? was will making a gate somehow? or was it the demogorgan?? either way, it wouldn’t make sense (unless… a certain boy had certain abilities 🤔). adding on, there is a scene where will seems to appear in joyce’s dream/vision, before it’s shown to actually be johnathan. this is just a small detail, but it sort of reminds me of whenever people are able to see el when she’s in the black room/using her powers. so… hm…

finally, there’s the biggest question about will: why was he taken in the first place?

there is a big theory going around (that i believe in) that it was vecna, rather than the demogorgan, that took will back in season 1. this could explain why he wasn’t killed right away like barb, and why he was targeted even though he wasn’t bleeding. the figure also stalked him down, all the way from the wheeler’s house to his shed. that’s not normal behavior for a demogorgan.

so… why did he target will? of course my theory is: will has powers. but rather than be made to be born with powers, like el and the others, he was born like henry creel.

there are many parallels between henry and will. they’ve both been described as being “sensitive kids,” they both have an interest in drawing, they both don’t fit in the ‘societal norm,’ etc etc. we don’t know how henry (aka 001) has his powers, but i theorize that he was somehow born with them. and however he was somehow born with them is the same way will ‘acquired his.’

a foreshadowing of this lowkey comes from season 1 when dustin is talking about how el has powers.

“So, do you think Eleven was born with her powers like the X-Men or do you think she acquired them, like Green Lantern?”

now, eleven was technically born with powers, but they were ‘acquired’ by experiments trying to replicate henry’s, not naturally born.

so, why did vecna take will? it could be something similar to him trying to make eleven join him (before she.. yk.. sent him to the upside down). or it could be something else entirely. but i do believe it does have something to do with will having powers (and also his trauma and personality could play a factor into it too).

so.. yeah, that’s why i’m a will byers has powers truther. again, most of this is theoretical, so probs take everything (especially stuff towards the end) with a grain of salt. hopefully we get answers during s4 vol.2!!! i dont know which interview this was said, but there has been talk that why will was taken first being address in vol.2 so fingers crossed iggg 🤞🤞🤞

[labyrynth]

they may not specifically address this question, but i do have a few more quotes that discuss the ritual and some of wwx’s work

first: as far as we know, Mo Xuanyu had access to the ritual manuscript, not Nie Huaisang.

during the encounter in his secret vault, Jin Guangyao says this (emphasis mine)

…“when Xuanyu was still here at Golden Carp Tower, he saw one of the Yiling Patriarch's manuscripts. This manuscript was a dissertation on a particular black magic: Sacrifice.”

the narration follows

…The explanation made perfect sense in every way. After Mo Xuanyu was chased out of Golden Carp Tower, resentment grew in his heart. He recalled the black magic he had read about, and in his desire for vengeance, begged for a malicious ghost to descend upon him.

(7S Vol. 2, Ch 10: The Beguiling Boy; p347)

We know from Villainous Friends that Jin Guangyao was trying to track down and collect Wei Wuxian’s work as reference for Xue Yang

[Jin Guangyao] took something out of his sleeve and handed it to Xue Yang. "Maybe you need this?"

Xue Yang flipped through it. All of a sudden, he straightened up in his seat. "Wei Wuxian's manuscripts?"

"That's right," said Jin Guangyao.

Xue Yang lowered his head and looked through it with eyes shining. … "Are these really his handwritten manuscripts? The ones he wrote when he was nineteen?"

"Of course," said Jin Guangyao. "Everyone fought tooth and nail to get their hands on these. It took me quite a lot of effort to gather them all."

… After flipping through them, he remarked, “It's incomplete."

"Given the raging fire and intense battle at the Burial Mounds, you should count your lucky stars that I could even find these remnants. Use them wisely."

(7S Vol. 5, Extra: Villainous Friends; p272)

This passage also tells us that Wei Wuxian’s work is hard to come by, and and even more difficult to actually obtain. His work is in high demand.

I am, however, adding another tally on my “MXTX is bad at timelines” count, because wwx being nineteen would imply that ALL of the war AND a significant amount of time after the war spanned only two years, which is absurd.

Finally, we do have this section, where Paperman Wei happened to hide from Jin Guangyao in between the pages of his own manuscript:

Wei Wuxian examined it further and discerned a few bits and pieces between all the damaged and smeared spots: "...different from possession...", "..revenge...", "..forced contract..."

He could finally be certain. This book […] was one of his own manuscripts. An essay on the forbidden magic of possession. He'd scouted everywhere for sources and organized his findings into a dissertation, along with his own added extrapolations.

He had written plenty of these manuscripts back then, all penned on a whim and tossed aside just as easily, scattered all around the cave where he slept in the Yiling Burial Mounds. Some of these manuscripts had been destroyed in the fires during the siege, while others were treated like his sword had been-taken as spoils of victory and hidden away.

(7S Vol. 2, Ch 10: The Beguiling Boy; p266-267)

Wei Wuxian has no way of knowing what happened to his work, so we can thank the omnipotent(?) narrator for confirming: people kept Wei Wuxian’s manuscripts as prizes.

we know that Xue Yang’s interest in wwx’s work is academic (practical?), so it’s probably fair to assume that others may have had similar interest, and there may have been some buying/selling going on (maybe even creating/distributing copies!).

Jin Guangyao was able to obtain one of these manuscripts for Xue Yang, so it’s not a stretch to assume it wasn’t the only one.

as to the original question about where wwx found the ritual…

“He'd scouted everywhere for sources and organized his findings into a dissertation, along with his own added extrapolations.”

this is all we know.

I personally think that there was no functioning ritual—just stories and rumors—until wwx, in compiling his research and extrapolations, included his theories on what that ritual could hypothetically be, and he just happened to hit the nail on the head. it’s certainly not like anyone could test it.

i hope this helps to answer your inquiry, anon!

I have a MDZS question and consider you an expert on all things JGY (he did crimes, good for him) so I hope you have some insight into this: I read that NHS found the Sacrifice Ritual in JGY’s Closet of Wonders, but how did JGY get it? Was it in WWX’s Burial Mounds “library,” and if so do you know where WWX found it?

Thanks, I very much enjoy your content!

hey there anon, it's very kind of you to consider me an expert, but i really am not 😬 i've certainly read, reread, and re-reread both the EXR and 7seas translations of the empathy flashback sequence many, many, many times, in addition to the guanyin temple sequence, because those are the parts of the text where jgy's actions are most frequently criticized and taken out of context. for details like the ones you're asking after, i've got to revisit other parts of the book again because my memory is a tea sieve, and i'm also not immune to medium bleed (no one is). so please bear with me, and keep tabs on the notes of this post for any discussion that follows since my pals often chime in with details i've missed.

first point of contention tho: it is never confirmed how novel canon nhs comes by his knowledge/familiarity of the summoning ritual, though wwx does speculate extensively in the guanyin temple denouement that he hears about the ritual from mo xuanyu himself. i don't think he gets his hands on the ritual himself, and i don't think he has access to the jin sect treasure room either. from vol 5 of the 7seas translation:

So yet another person came to [Nie Huaisang's] mind. Mo Xuanyu, who had been banished from Golden Carp Tower.

In the past, Nie Huaisang might have chatted with Mo Xuanyu to glean information from him. From the mouth of the dejected Mo Xuanyu, Nie Huaisang had clearned that he'd read one of Jin Guangyao's fragmented manuscripts of forbidden magic, in which an ancient, evil ritual was recorded. He had then incited Mo Xuanyu to exact revenge for the humiliation he'd suffered at the hands of his own clan members--to use the forbidden art of the sacrificial ritual to seek retribution.

in vol 1 of the 7seas translation, this is what the text tells us about the sacrificial ritual mo xuanyu uses to summon wei wuxian:

The nature of this "sacrificial ritual" was a type of curse. The caster was to harm themselves with a weapon, making cuts on their body and using their own blood to draw the array and write the spells within. They would then sit in the center of the circle and give up their mortal body to evil spirits, using the annihilation of their soul as the price to summon a nefarious, malicious ghost. This was all done in order to request the fulfillment of a wish. Thus, it was the opposite of "possession."

While both were forbidden magics of ill repute, the difference was that the former was much less popular than the latter. After all, few wishes were so strongly desired as to make someone willingly sacrifice everything they had. This was why the technique had been nearly lost after centuries of disuse. The examples recorded in ancient books had only a handful of cases that were backed by reliable evidence, and every single one of them had been for revenge. Every malicious ghost summoned by the ritual had fulfilled the caster's wishes perfectly, in cruel and bloody ways.

i've been thumbing through the rest of the 7seas volumes as well as the EXR translation, but i don't think there's anything more concrete about where the ritual comes from. i think it is entirely possible that the jin sect found copies of something like this ritual in the burial mounds, sure, but i also wouldn't rule out a ritual like this being contained in the treasure room entirely independent of wwx. there's canon precedent for it; case in point, recall the collection of turmoil in the gusu lan's forbidden section of their library.

anyway that's what i've been able to find today, but i'll keep poking around in the books to see if i trip over a passage that neatly answers all of our questions lol.

[black-klok-youth-pastor]

Charles and MMA Theory

Okay, I came up with this theory a while ago (and has been sitting in my drafts collecting dust for months until this point) but haven’t really shared it in that many places. Bare in mind this is also a sort of weird fan theory of a fan theory, that being the popular Dadlacia theory (the one where Salacia is Charles’s biological father in case you don’t know) so feel free to take this with a massive grain of salt, as we gather around the Pepe Silvia board to ask this one question that just clicked one day. That being:

What if Charles Offdensen and the Metal Masked Assassin were half brothers?

Now admittedly both characters are wrapped in mystery, so of course there’s gonna be a lot of fan speculation on both of them, albeit the main smoking gun is that we at least learn MMA’s backstory in Doomstar Requiem (in song form):

“Born and left alone Never knew his mother Who was killed during birth but left him a brother”

This verse seems to suggest that MMA and 216’s father wasn’t in the picture, either by neglect or being absent altogether, essentially leaving 216 to raise MMA by himself (which is particularly messed up since they seem to be a bit close in age). Sure in complete fairness in a sung-through musical like this we don’t have time for every single detail, but the specific word choice intrigues me.

And if you know the basic Dadlacia theory y’know where I’m going with this, mainly the infamous scene in the cold open of Fatherklok where Charles is suspiciously wistful about how it feels to lose the strength of a father’s touch and that his father had strong hands. Now am I saying all fatherless characters in the series are Salacia’s children? Not really. Like for example, I’m kind of skeptical of the fan theory that Salacia is Skwisgaar’s father, if not the real dad of everyone in Dethklok. The Skwisgaar one I can kind of buy even if I have some theories that I think are better but the latter I’m not as fond of since it kind of ruins the point of the found family aspect (honestly the only variant of this theory I can see is the ones involving Salacia only being their father in a past life, like the sort of Kronos figure in the pantheon but we’d be here all day if we dwelled into that).

What I’m getting at is that part of it kind of goes into the “but why?” aspect since by all accounts. After all, Salacia is immortal as far as we can tell so on paper he wouldn’t exactly feel the need to sire children. Short version as I go to my now outdated headcanons post, my sort of theory to that is that he has a plan not unlike Ego from Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 that involves fathering as many children as possible that through trial and error would grant him offspring powerful enough to serve his machinations. Human beings to him are pawns after all, why would his own offspring be different?

Although I freely admit a good chunk of my theorizing has been on the thematic level. The lore of Metalocalypse has taken a lot of influence from various mythology and religions, and what better way to tie into the themes of brotherhood throughout the series than good old sibling rivalry which can be found everywhere from Set and Osiris to Kalervo and Untamo to (of course) Cain and Abel, particularly how one brother more or less (except not really) kills the other.

Although funnily enough, Charles is simultaneously Abel and Seth in this metaphor considering how they didn't even meet each other until after 216's death.

[youkaigakkou-tl]

The Kyoto Arc Analysis Post (Part 2)

(Had to split this into multiple posts because image limit. This whole thing is meant to be read as one continuous thing)

This part covers the chapters in Arashiyama, and the scene where Seimei talks to Haruaki

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

Shatter

We get told that the soul pieces “flew in 5 directions, like a pentagram” but it’s not like a pentagram at all I mean look at this.

The Arashiyama location is fairly easy to pinpoint, even though it’s a mountain, since the bamboo grove is a very specific part of it and is a famous tourist attraction. Not gonna find where exactly in the bamboo grove this happens tho lmao

Speaking of Arashiyama, there’s a lot of updated pages in the volume release, so here’s some comparisons. Look at my meow meow!! Kitty!!!!

This is the heart sutra, a buddhist sutra originally in sanskrit. I was slightly considering transcribing the sanskrit here, but then I realised that was harder than just using the english translation.

Sensei is a genius for giving characters recognizable hands and fully utilizing it. I love how you can see Haruaki’s hand with the bracelet and instantly know it's him. I love how you can see this ring and instantly know “omg wifeguy”. (punches walls)

Also look at this updated page!! My favorite furries!! Also little soul-aki on Tamao’s shoulder!!

Can I just say. Sensei is INSANE and a GENIUS for this, to pose this question to the three who have an entire spinoff dedicated to them and their best friends. This is so evil. Diabolical. I love it.

Look at this updated panel. Rintarou and Haruaki are as important to him as his wife and kids. I’m going insane. (crying sobbing punching walls etc)

This is another one of those scenes that would have killed me if I didn’t phrase it just as well as the original. Good on Hatanaka-sensei for solving a trolley problem like it’s the easiest thing in the world. I think I would have chosen to kill the stranger to save my loved one. But also I don’t have loved ones who I would do that for so maybe I’ll just choose to kill the stranger for fun. Starting to realise I have the moral compass of Takahashi.

Also, the word for “thorn”, and sometimes also “rose”, is “ibara”.

Most Sane Yohaji Enjoyer

(We are now entering nonsense zone. Don't believe anything I say here.)

In case you didn't know/forgot, there seems to be some plot stuff going on with Hatanaka in the spinoff, and I have a crack theory that at some point in the future of the main story he's going to end up back in time to when Yamazaki and Takahashi were in school.

And you see. In the panel that Yamazaki brings this up. Hatanaka's arms are bandaged up.

And guess what happens in chapter 86. His arms are injured and he's hauled off to the hospital. Boom theory proven boom I'm a genius. (jk)

(Also want to show this sane comment on chapter 93: "What if Seimei is actually present day Haruaki who went back in time with all his knowledge now"

Can you Imagine. Insane idea, I want someone to write this fanfic.)

What the hell is up with this imagery

Anyway. Back to chapter 87. And also the inner color page for vol 13 since this seems to be the same place.

Easiest question: What are the pinwheels?

While pinwheels are associated with childhood in general, in Japan, they’re also associated with death, which is why you may see pinwheels on graves, especially children’s graves. This isn’t relevant really other than the death part.

The more interesting association is that in Buddhism, pinwheels also symbolise the cycle of reincarnation. (Notice how pinwheels kinda resemble the manji symbol) (Actually, maybe this is why pinwheels are associated with death in the first place? Nothing online points this out specifically but it seems like an obvious conclusion)

Also note the pinwheels on this vol 13 cover draft. (God I love this cover so much I love the final one too but oughhhh)

The hard question: Where is this?? The moon???

First thing I thought when I saw that scene and the color page was the moon, and also Tsukuyomi (god of the moon) -> Yomi -> ???

Also some stories say Tsukuyomi also rules over Yomi so -> ??? idk what the conclusion here is. word association

Saturn is also a multi layered word-association-pun-thing. The planets from Mercury to Saturn (excluding Earth) are named after the Gogyo (five elements) in Chinese and Japanese, Saturn specifically is named after “earth” (as in like dirt and ground not the planet we’re on).

The kanji for Yomi, 黄泉, is a loanword from the Chinese name for the underworld, and literally translates to “yellow springs”. However, elements in the Gogyo and their representative colors are often used interchangeably, so in this case “yellow” means “earth” since Yomi is thought to be underground.

So of all things, for Saturn to be on that color page makes a lot of sense. Of course, the simple answer is probably that Saturn looks cool as hell.

“Earth” is also the only element not represented in the four gods, since it’s thought to be central, and typically symbolises the emperor. But also, in this context, it being paired with Seimei… yeah this makes sense.

The hardest question: Why the big dipper?

There’s a number of obvious simple answers that jumps to mind: it’s easily recognizable, looks cool, it has spiritual importance in Taoism and by extension Onmyoudou, but I can’t figure out the specific association with Abe no Seimei, let alone why specifically it on this page.

And it does have a specific association to Abe no Seimei, it’s in the stepping stones leading up to the well in the Seimei shrine, and is sometimes featured in the center of his pentagram.

Perhaps this is just one of those things that “it’s just like that, stop asking questions”. Perhaps there’s a simple, straightforward answer in some corner of the internet that I haven’t found yet. You reading this! I implore you! Figure this out! As with all the other stuff I can’t figure out! I’ve given you all the pieces!

Just maybe, death of the author, I get to takeaway anything I want from this panel. The big dipper points to Polaris, and at the end of this scene Seimei points Haruaki to Sano. (????)

Actually, now that I look at it closely, maybe this is the little dipper??? Assuming it’s not a mistake, the handle is bent the wrong way! Then it’s the little dipper! That’s even more nothing! The little dipper isn’t even mentioned in japanese mythos! I need to stop thinking about this I’m going insane.

Anyway. Next page we get to see the name of this bridge. Only “modori-bashi” is written here, but this refers to the Ichijo Modoribashi bridge in Kyoto, first built in the Heian era and has a variety of stories associated with it, as well as specific stories pertaining to Abe no Seimei. The physical bridge itself has been rebuilt in the modern age and is just down the road from the Seimei shrine, but a miniature replica has been built in the shrine itself using the original materials.

“Modoribashi” means “return bridge”, and was used in funeral processions, and has come to be associated with a variety of meanings of “return”, including “return from the afterlife”.

What’s up with this guy’s soul?

First of all, a translation note.

In the raws, Seimei doesn’t say specifically “your” soul here, since japanese can work without possessive nouns, but there wasn’t a good way to phrase that in english without sounding weird.

With that out of the way, what is up with his soul????

Recap for the last time we saw his soul in Miki arc:

It was inanimate until a while after Mikimom ate it, at which point it was Seimei. Same with the flashback when Haruaki was a kid. At no point did the soul actually act like Haruaki. If Seimei could just do that why didn’t he do it from the start? idk

(real reason: it’s so we get to see Haruaki’s hot lifeless body. This is something I realised chatting w my friend: the way to get Haruaki to look hot is to get rid of his soul, get rid of everything that makes him Haruaki (fucked up thing to say lmao). Like, look at Ame and Seimei, they’re hot all the time)

But in this arc, all the split pieces are Haruaki, and at no point does Seimei take over his soul or anything like in Miki arc.

(Obviously this makes sense narratively, the point of this arc is that Haruaki is a different person from Seimei, especially after Byakko constantly calling it “Seimei’s soul”, but also what’s the practical reason?)

And now, the big question: How is Seimei in Yomi?

Every other time we’ve seen him makes sense (relatively):

Haruaki’s dream at the start of ch47, or maybe Seimei’s memories?

Manifesting from his/Haruaki’s soul in Miki arc

This scene in ch 82, while similar to the ch87 situation, this is actually a scene from the past so this gets a pass from me.

ch 88 to 90: Byakko’s recreation of the past. This makes sense, but it’s also weird in other ways, like how Seimei is able to see chibi soul-Haruaki. Remember, this isn’t even the actual Seimei, it’s Byakko recreating it. Unless this is what actually happened (Seimei turning to look at Haruaki)???? In which case he was able to see the future where Byakko is recreating the situation he was living through at that moment (????) This guy scares me

If you haven’t caught on to why the ch87 situation is weird to me, it’s because every other time we see him has been a memory or a manifestation of his soul, and this is neither.

For him to be in Yomi, his soul would have to be there or something like that, but clearly his soul is with Haruaki and is currently in pieces around Kyoto. So just what is this Seimei?

I have no doubts that this is Seimei, and that this isn’t Haruaki’s hallucination, for the sole fact that Seimei talks like he has agency to go wherever he wants. Funny enough, I think this is the most genuine we’ve seen him.

Just what is it that makes a person? Haruaki has Seimei’s soul, but is a different person. Obviously, because they’ve had different experiences in life, live in different time periods, etc. But even then, what is it? Is there something more intangible, more inscrutable than a soul?

And does this have to do also, with the idea proposed in the Haruaki student arc, that the true nature of a person isn’t so easily changed? What constitutes a soul?

Maybe one day I’ll have the answer.

The Principal

I’ve already picked apart this next scene in this ask, although that was written before ch93 dropped, I think it holds up pretty well. Take a second and read that if you want 👍

Hit the image limit again, so this continues in part 3.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

[elizabeth-mitchells]

“it’s easy to confuse feelings for something they aren’t, especially when eye-contact is involved” for ronance??

may i offer one last ronance story before vol. 2 drops? see you guys tomorrow after robin and nancy kiss xx

It’s easy to confuse feelings for something they aren’t, especially when eye-contact is involved. At least, that’s what Robin had been telling herself since she became friends with Nancy Wheeler. Robin had tried to explain away Nancy’s penchant for intense eye contact in many different ways. The most reasonable one being that Nancy seemed to be headstrong, confident, fearless, and a very talented journalist. She probably looked everyone in the eyes as if she were trying to solve a puzzle, Robin wasn’t all that special, she thought. She thought maybe that was usual behavior when doing a platonic friend’s makeup, or she just wanted to see which clothes would match Robin’s eyes from a purely technical standpoint. Perhaps she thought the rest of Robin’s face so unpleasant she could only tolerate her eyes, or maybe unbeknownst to Robin she had some uncommon thing going on in her eyes and Nancy was looking for the courage to tell her. Either way, it was a lot, and every time it happened, Robin could feel her heart skip a beat, beat a thousand miles an hour, and stop beating at all, all at the same time.

Eventually, one day, Robin’s mouth finally got ahead of her brain enough to blurt out the words, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Nancy wondered with a small frown of concentration. Still not breaking the wonderfully suffocating eye contact, if Robin might add.

“Like… you know,” Robin stuttered and lost the battle against the tide of words coming out of her. “Like one of my eyes committed a gruesome crime against the other and you are questioning it in a dimly lit room with a gun on the table. Like I kidnapped my eyes from an A-list celebrity, I’m holding them hostages, and they’re holding up tiny signs that say ‘Help me’. Like my entire face is a horrifying apocalyptic wasteland and my eyes were the last two wildflowers left on this godforsaken planet and you made it your life mission to keep them alive at all costs. Like… holy shit!”

“What?” Nancy mumbled, automatically, without the slightest idea what conclusion Robin might have reached. Usually, they were great at keeping up with each other, but this time Nancy couldn’t help but linger somewhere a few steps behind, still processing the hostage situation theory.

“You like me back,” Robin said with a breathless tone, terrified of being wrong, but somehow having no doubt in her mind about it, finally.

“Wait. Does that mean you like me?” Nancy replied, somehow managing to start to smile while her eyes still displayed confusion and the remnants of a frown.

“Does that mean it wasn’t obvious?!”

“No! I thought you were just a very good friend! Like maybe you treat all your friends like… you know,” Nancy shugged, “Like you would follow them to the ends of the Earth. Like they’re the most important person in the universe. Like you loved them in another life and you were always meant to find your way back to each other.”

Inevitably, by then both girls were furiously blushing, and also couldn’t hold back their smiles. “I am a very awesome friend,” Robin replied in a whisper, “but it’s always been different with you, Nance.”

Finally, the only thing left was to close the space between them and celebrate their groundbreaking discoveries with a kiss. A discovery that, perhaps, shouldn't have come as much as a shock to the girls that had spent the last couple of hours talking in hushed whispers, making promises and plans for the future, cuddling together under the covers in Nancy’s bed, doing everything about being in a relationship for weeks except calling it being a relationship. Well, there was a beginning for everything.