interesting lore moment with the francophone yesterday (as in, it personally gave me brainworms) ft. qétoiles’ horrible, no good, stupid (lack of) self-preservation . subs in English, transcript below the cut
All spoken in French — translated into English subtitles
[Video transcript:
Etoiles: And, actually, I have a theory. Basically what happened is that I’ve just returned from a mission from Cucurucho.
Antoine: And what was the mission?
Etoiles: To do a dungeon, and to recover something from the dungeon.
Antoine: And what was this “something”?
Etoiles: And the “something” was a book that sorta says that I’m a test subject.
Antoine: A test subject?!
Baghera: What’s up with your arm? You’ve got a coded arm.
Etoiles: Uh, it’s from holding the shield, basically.
Baghera: Ahhh
(Pause)
Antoine: Watch out that it doesn’t contaminate you, or else you’ll turn into a code, man.
Etoiles: That’s impossible, man, I can’t be a code.
Antoine: That’s what the old codes said before becoming codes, you know.
Etoiles: No— well, we’ve never spoken.
Baghera: Maybe you shouldn’t be using the shield as much then, no?
Etoiles: Well, as it stands, I’ve been using it for a really long time, and my mind is still healthy, honestly. And the proof is—
Baghera: Well, half of his face took the brunt of it instead.
Etoiles: Yeah, but it’s not all there is, you know.
(Pause)
Baghera: Let me worry, Etoiles, right now.
Etoiles: You’re right. You’re right! But everything’s going well, I’m doing very, very well—
Antoine: It’s true that you look a bit sick.
Etoiles: Uh, yeah, for the past seven years, it’s a chronic illness, it happened—
Antoine: No, but not this one, the other— you seem even sicker, still.
Etoiles: Yeah, okay. Yeah but no, I’m fine. No, no, it’s fine, honestly.
I think my ultimate thoughts re; Kipperlilly is that I wish we got a scene where a character was allowed to show her... sympathy. I know there's a tone you wanna hit with a victorious season finale, and a somber note of a teenager falling into a deep well of rage doesnt match that tone but it would've been nice to see.
In my dream world, we get an extra epilogue scene where Riz goes to see Jawbone to go and talk to him, and brings up the thing he mentioned about "seeing Kipperlilly in himself" -- relating that to what Jawbone said at the beginning of the year, and wanting to talk about that deeply set in need for control, and the latent anger he has, and all the ways he is like Kipperlilly, and doesn't want to be.
And in response, Jawbone is able to address the ways in which he failed Kipperlilly, and let her down. That she needed more help than he could provide, that she needed someone who wasn't too afraid of their own biases to shut down her anger, someone who could maybe have given her a support system to turn to instead of Porter. Someone external to the school and the social dynamics within it. Just an acknowledgement from, as far as we know, the only adult in Kipperlilly's life who earnestly tried -- and earnestly failed -- to help her find a better path than her rage.
Just a small moment of acknowledgement that Kipperlilly was a child, an angry, scared, biased and deeply insecure child who was looking for help when she first walked into Jawbone's office, and because of all the adults who failed her, she was turned into something unrecognisable by the time she was 17.