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nixxx11 · 3 years

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Ending Umbrella Scene Analysis (Mr. Pigeon 72)

I loved this scene so, so much from the new episode, I'm going to be rewatching it on repeat for 5 years 😍

So anyways, I noticed some interesting things about the parallels of the umbrella scenes...thought I'd share...

Marinette got trapped under the umbrella when she was standing alone under it in Stoneheart.

In Mr. Pigeon 72, they are both trapped under the umbrella together and are standing next to each other.

It symbolizes the fact that now both of them hold the umbrella, showing their mutual love for each other, Marinette not being alone in her feelings for Adrien anymore.

“Wow, have you kept it all this time?”

Immediately after, the scene shows us rain and lighting, the same situation in Origins when Marinette first fell in love with Adrien. It’s indicating that she’s fallen in love with him again.

Marinette's love for Adrien was originally depicted in the umbrella scene. He gave her the umbrella. It’s the moment that sparked her love. But it doesn’t end there. He's also given her something else, which she's kept for a long time. It's not just an umbrella. The umbrella is supposed to symbolize love between them. More than a reverse in the love square, it’s a reset.

Adrien's question about keeping the umbrella doesn't just refer to the umbrella. It refers to her feelings.

Marinette has kept the umbrella concealed, the same way she’s kept her feelings concealed. What’s special about this scene? The fact that she didn’t conceal her feelings. She’s been trapped, like an umbrella, but she’s finally opening it up in this scene.

The symbol here is that she’s had the umbrella the entire time.

She’s kept her feelings for Adrien buried inside the entire time, finally taking them out during this scene and falling in love again.

The umbrella served as a symbol of her love for him, and by showing that she kept it, it suggests she never lost it.

Yes, Marinette spent so much time in denial of her feelings. She even tried dating Luka. She tried to forget about Adrien. But she never did let go of Adrien. Marinette still has the umbrella, but she's using it for the first time after falling in love during this scene.

I can't go to describe how well the dialogues are written in this scene.

Although Marinette wanted to return the umbrella, Adrien told her she would need it to get back home.

They're literally speaking through the umbrella's terms here-

Their love is symbolized by the reoccuring situation. Adrien is telling her that it’s too early for him to accept the umbrella. He tells her she needs it to go home. Before he can accept it, Marientte needs to accept her feelings for him and become comfortable with herself. She needs to feel comfortable around Adrien before he can accept his love for her. That’s why they’re both standing under the umbrella this time. Not just Marinette.

When they were both holding the umbrella, Marinette asked him to walk home with her. The way she asks for love is indirect. He was happy that Marinette wanted him to walk alongside her, but looked back and realized there were still too many responsibilities for him too. That it wasn’t time yet.

I think this scene was trying to tell us that it’s too early. It’s not time yet to hold the umbrella together, before walking beside each other, before accepting those feelings. He first needs to get control over his life. They must be prepared to hold the umbrella together, not just as Marinette and Adrien. As a team.

But he can’t accept the umbrella just yet.

Life is not waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain.

I love what Alya said here. The quote essentially suggests that you should enjoy the present moment for what it is, rather than wasting time watching it pass.

Adrien and Marinette falling in love under the umbrella happened all over again, and it’s really not a coincidence. Alya said that she wanted Marinette to understand that she needs to live for the present rather than constantly worrying about being a guardian night and day. No matter how bad the circumstances are, she's still got to take breaks. Marinette found out immediately after that Adrigami had split up. But instead of going to console Adrien, she went to console Kagami because she knew Kagami’s only friend was her. She learned to accept circumstances as they are and immediately decided to go to Kagami. Because that’s what (girl)friends do.

When the storm passes, you can dance in the rain. When you wait for a storm to pass, you will freeze. Life is a struggle, and you will have to deal with daily struggles that are outside of your control. Depending on how you handle your struggles in life, you’ll either build yourself up or break yourself down. In the midst of the storm, you can find peace if you take the right steps.

‘Learning to dance in the rain' refers to the need to prepare for difficult times rather than merely wait for them to pass. This means that, despite all the challenges in life, it is still possible to find happiness. Despite being stuck in the middle of a bad storm, it’s important that Marinette learns to dance in the rain. It’s about how to view things, and how we keep optimism about our future, and recognize that we're heading in the right direction. You won't put your life on hold if you make it a point to enjoy life, even if it means you might have to sacrifice something to let loose once in a while. When the storm passes, you shouldn’t sit down to wait for it to pass since you may forget to get back up and continue your life. That’s what Alya is trying to tell Marinette. You’re going to get tired, and you can pause for a break in the weather, but dancing in the rain helps you get back up and finish what needs to be done.

Whenever there is a storm, Marinette isolates herself from love. Not just Adrien. Any type of affection. Her friends, her family, Luka...That’s what happened in Gang of Secrets. Marinette wants to keep her friendships but she doesn’t want to reveal her secret. It's important to her not to involve her friends in this. They shouldn't be burdened by her. It’s safer if no one finds out. Having a secret, and a struggle to prioritize, and maintaining her relationships causes her to do that to herself and people around her. In spite of the fact that it hurts, she's avoiding relationships entirely because she hopes it will protect those around her. Her time and energy is limited because relationships take a lot of effort and time. As a result, she avoided any type of romance. To the point where she was in clear denial of her feelings.

Now that she has Alya, she can help her. Of course, Alya's support for Marinette cannot be underestimated, but the episode is also a reminder that things aren't close to being ideal. As strong as Alya is, she isn't so strong that she can completely reverse Marinette's fall and reset everything back to normal.

Marinette’s definitely recovering. Nevertheless, the show is doing a lot to demonstrate that it is still a process. She’s still spending lots of time battling Shadowmoth. She has been making all kinds of crazy contraptions to hide the miracle box and kwamis in her room, and it’s driving her a little insane. She’s spending most of her time working on translating the grimoire while maintaining her double life and duties as a civilian. The storm is waning- but it isn’t over yet.

Why is that line from Alya so important? Because Marinette does need to let loose. Take a break from all the plans and simplify her life sometimes. Her approach is to take charge of situations, make plans, and set up things to make them happen. When she’s Ladybug, her assertive behavior means she is automatically paid attention to, and her clever plans save the day. Sometimes her anxiety is spiking and it goes a little too far. A flaw shown throughout the show: She goes from trying to lead a situation to trying to control it, steamrolling the other people involved. Complicating things often stresses her more.

Gamer 2.0 is a perfect example of this. This episode shows how she goes to great lengths to make people happy and even overworks herself in order to do so. She attempted the same approach over and over again out of stress and confusion in response to the situation. The concept of “dancing in the rain” is actually what Chat Noir did and was trying to tell Ladybug in the episode. Yes, there was indeed a storm. Yet, it was the enjoyment he found in the midst of it that helped them in the end, wasn't it?

Another example from this episode. Marinette did that with Kagami. Marinette was determined to reconcile Kagami and Adrien since she thought that would be the best outcome for their relationship, regardless of Kagami’s multiple attempts to tell her she didn’t want to make up with Adrien.

She, however, reevaluates the situation and reconsiders her approach when she's calmed down.

It took Marinette a while to allow herself to be happy again because she was waiting for the storm to pass. Alya advised Marinette to take a break and get her mind off of those things, but Marinette kept insisting that she couldn’t until she had everything figured out. While Alya tried to make Marinette forget about her stress by telling her about Adrien's commercial and the breakup, Marinette denied any sort of feelings she had for him, because if she tried to pursue Adrien while Shadowmoth was still active, it would end in the same way as Luka. And she doesn’t want a repeat of that. That’s why she seems to be avoiding romance.

Her avoidance doesn't just stop there- she fights as hard as she can to keep Kagami and Adrien together. Why? Because she can’t get distracted. Because she’s put a barrier on herself. Marinette is evidently not allowing herself to be happy until Shadowmoth has been defeated and her life calms down.

Marinette unknowingly recreated the moment where she first fell in love with Adrien, except this time they were holding the umbrella together. It's a symbol of reciprocation.

Kagami: The beating heart, the tingling..I felt all this. At your place. You’re the one that blushes and stutters when you’re around Adrien. You know his schedule over three years. You’re right, Adrien is perfect. He’s perfect for you.

The whole point; Marinette had a very specific goal in mind: scheming to make Kagami realize that Adrien loved her. Yet it clearly did not work that way. Mariette managed to avoid all that pressure once Adrien found interest in someone else and for once, she didn't have to worry about it. Because she didn't aim to be the one with Adrien, she didn't obsess over how every move she made could lead to him disliking her. Her downfall in past episodes was that she anticipated Adrien's reaction and panic over how it would ruin her life.

In much the same way as the first umbrella scene, Marinette didn't focus on her feelings for Adrien due to the fact that she didn't develop them until after the moment. As a result, her romantic feelings were able to blossom without thought or hesitation. In this interaction with Adrien, Marinette conveyed exactly what she wanted. She barely even stuttered or stumbled over her words when asking him to walk home with her.

Since Marinette was still convinced Kagami had a chance with Adrien, when Kagami told her that she’s the one who should be with Adrien and then walked away, she had little time to reflect, since Adrien immediately approached her.

Marinette and Adrien allowed themselves to be themselves and let the unfolding of events be an unplanned event.

Adrien still has a special place in her heart, despite it taking her longer to recreate a moment with him. The parallels show that this is the moment they fell in love all over again.

Marinette took advantage of being alone with Adrien in the rain to ask him to walk her home with her, spending more time with her. His father wouldn't approve of him skipping Chinese lessons if he turned her down despite the fact that he wants to.

In that moment of walking home, she was not only smiling, but also enjoying "dancing in the rain." Both literally and figuratively.

And I really, really want to talk about the end card. After three episodes of Marinette being curled up alone, crying, depressed and helpless, look at her now- She’s happy, she’s dancing, laughing and so in love!!

Marinette dances in the rain, as Alya suggested, indicating that we can still let loose even in tough times.

Not everything is fixed; it's clear that there’s still lots of duties for her. But even though she has a storm coming, she's in one at present in the midst of it all, but despite these responsibilities, it's fine to enjoy herself in the moment!

Another very important thing to note from the scene…

When Marinette takes out the umbrella….

She didn’t give it back to him. But he didn’t take it back.

She isn’t losing hope or giving up on her feelings for him, she’s content to keep and enjoy the feelings and accept wherever that leads her.

Despite still having much to think and reflect about, she now acknowledges her feelings, something we’ve seen her struggle with since the end of S3.

Another thing on the end card...the pictures of Adrien. In the pictures, she’s dancing in the rain, so it emphasizes yet again her happiness to enjoy her feelings for Adrien. In one of the pictures, Adrien is wearing the scarf Marinette made for him; I feel that this could be foreshadowing? Because if what was needed was pictures of Adrien, what was the need to include the scarf in two of the pictures? I’m thinking maybe it has something to do with a scarf reveal in the future. (That’s just a theory though)

And the most important thing from this end card was also because of the scarf. Marinette was the one who gave Adrien the scarf, and Gabriel is the one responsible for Adrien not knowing about it. He’s like a barrier between them- both as Gabriel and as Hawkmoth. (@sugarcubetikki Sugar I was talking to you on Discord about that so I thought you might want to be tagged)

Adrien has no idea that it's from Marinette, he thinks it's from his father. The thing standing in their way is his father.

Similarly to this scene- what gets in the way of him walking home with Marinette is his father. He has too many responsibilities. He needs to go home. Same with the scarf. It's his father's actions that limits him and hides the truth, it's the same reason he isn't able to realize Marinette's love for him in both situations. Gabriel’s like a strain putting a restriction on them. It’s the same thing that happened in Chat Blanc. That’s why they couldn’t date.

The next part is probably my favorite :)

It’s so silly and cute. The umbrellas closing in on them.

But even that, note the difference between the two- Marinette was trapped under the umbrella by herself before. Now they’re trapped under it together. They’re both trapped under their own love. That’s why this scene wasn’t necessarily a reverse love square. It’s indicating that the next step is for both of them to carry the umbrella.

In a tender moment with Adrien where they retrace past steps, Marinette falls in love for the second time after getting Kagami's blessing to pursue Adrien. Her umbrella symbolizes the love between them, and thus she offers it to Adrien.

The difference this time is that she is in control of her feelings, rather than allowing it to be given to her.

She willingly offers the umbrella to Adrien. She isn’t trying to make a disinterested Kagami try to date Adrien anymore.

There’s also something so different about his look. When he initially befriends her, he’s careful because he’s never done it before. He’s never had friends, it’s all new to him and doesn’t want to mess up. At this moment, he isn’t really going for friendship or romance or anything specifically, it’s just a relationship he wants to fix. Adrien has made a friend for the first time, and Marinette wouldn't even look at Adrien before that happened. It’s a situation where he’s happy to have befriended her. He is delighted that after several attempts he managed to become her friend. But this scene is so different. It’s almost like a realization. It’s perfectly reflected along with the fact that he isn’t the one lending his umbrella this time.

In the first umbrella scene, Adrien passed the umbrella to Marinette. The love is something he gave to her.

But in this scene? They’re holding it together. This perfectly represents that love is reciprocal and it takes the two of them to hold on to it.

Literally nothing to analyze here, I just love them so much lol-

The parallels here are absolutely adorable, they’re laughing at each other’s clumsiness and being silly. They’re both nervous and making silly mistakes out of love. It’s one of the times we get to see Adrien’s goofy, clumsy side around Marinette and it’s a parallel to the same reason they fell in love in the first place. Their reactions to each other here are so genuine and full of warmth. They’re so in love.

Adrien gave the umbrella to her in the first scene. She accepted that gesture of love and carried it with her, sometimes in denial but ultimately ended up taking it out. When she tries to give it back in this scene, Adrien tells her she still needs it.

She can’t give up just yet. That’s why she’s full of happiness at the end of the episode. Marinette wants to enjoy her feelings for Adrien, she’s overjoyed to be in love again.

Adrien can’t accept the umbrella from her just yet because…

Marinette needs it.

It’s too early for him to.

But it’s such an important moment of growth.

It’s vital that they’re ready to hold the umbrella together, not just as Adrien or Marinette.

Those two are made for each other. Kagami said it. Master Fu said it. There’s no doubt there anymore.

This episode carries a very important theme. The entire show does, actually. While life isn’t all about waiting for the storm to pass, we all have to learn to deal with the thunder and rain through experience and learning. It’s what Marinette and Adrien do every single day. We can allow life-threatening challenges to overwhelm us and leave us in darkness or we can embrace them with well-lit light. What made Marinette grow in this episode was that realization.

It’s about deciding if we want to embrace the rain by learning to dance in it, or if we want to make it even harder by waiting the storm out. Marinette finally danced in the rain. Things are headed in a good direction.

An important symbol I personally found memorable from the episode; Even in the middle of the storm, Adrien and Marinette are still tied together by their umbrella, they’re trapped under it, because they’re trapped under their love for each other.

(Or you know, you can just ship Marigami and move on with your life)

#miraculous ladybug #mr pigeon 72 #miraculous analysis #mr pigeon 72 analysis #ml season 4 #ml spoilers #ml season 4 spoilers #mr pigeon 72 spoilers #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #umbrella scene #miraculous #ml season 4 analysis #long post #tw long post #adrienette #marigami #ml love square #my analysis

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demonslayedher · 3 years

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Ramble on the Limitations of Looking for KnY Interpretation based on Japanese Mythology

One thing I notice a lot in the Japanese side of KnY fandom theories is a lot of deep dives into religious and mythological reasons behind Gotouge's creative choices. It is super interesting stuff, and Gotouge borrows enough and does homage to enough that there is a clearly a solid knowledge base there. While I find historical details handy for interpreting the characters, ultimately, I find that the canon of demons and Breaths can be interpreted in a vacuum without relying too heavily on the uncanny coincidences lurking in deep dives. This isn't going to be a well-supported essay, this is going to be a ramble that may include a bunch of interesting nuggets. (And then she went on to ramble for 3249 unedited words...)

First things first: I'm a nerd. I like to say I broke the weeb scale a long time ago, but I'm not exactly a university professor or anything like that. That said, I do read a lot of stuff from experts who have jumped on the KnY trends to talk about how elements in KnY are taken from, say, the sword making traditions of the Okuizumo region that results in black swords or simply making comparisons to famous swords, or local legends of supernatural encounters that resulted in split rocks, or comparing specific oni with and the heroes who slayed them or at least comparing elements of specific characters to other famous oni legends, or that Hinokami Kagura is based on a specific Shinto legend and has 12 forms based on existing Kagura traditions, etc. And I love reading this stuff, because I wouldn't had learned about some of it without my interest in KnY leading me to those articles, or as I read it I cheer because they're making references to things I already (as a nerd) really enjoy and therefore it strokes my inner echo chamber bias, or I nod along and think, "oh, yes, why of course, that makes total sense, Hinokami Kagura must be based on the dance Amenouzume performed to enticed the Sun Goddess Amaterasu out of the cave, how silly to think it could be based on anything else" but I then also take a step back to think, "...but it also doesn't have to be." For as many similarities as there to existing legends, it feels to me that Gotouge made it a point not to make specific reference to any particular mythological or religious elements. As an example, Gotouge considered titles with reference to a Shinto fire god named "Kagutsuchi" but never made actual reference to any fire god (or sun god) by name in the finalized direction canon took. Granted, a lot of fan theorists have read into that, going so far as to say because Nezuko's fire powers she represents Kagutsuchi, Yoriichi represents Amaterasu, etc., but while I find the idea of borrowed elements makes for highly interested interpretation of canon, one-to-one comparisons really don't work for this series. By not invoking a name like Kagutsuchi in the title or otherwise, Gotouge succeeded in not being boxed in by the canon of any particular deity. (Granted, "canon" for mythology can vary significantly by whatever historical writings you're looking at, with standard interpretations going through many big changes throughout the centuries. It can be as loose as it is limiting, depending on what sort of historical/mythological/religious figure you're talking about.) I feel there's more evidence of this avoidance by never invoking Amaterasu as a deity, despite the emphasis on the power of the sun in slaying demons. Even looking back and trying to figure out who Akeno placed so much faith, it was only called a "god of sunlight" as opposed to a "sun god." It's as though KnY works with a generic approach to religion. Even if the use of Buddhist element, the Nenbutsu prayer is called such, and Himejima's repeated phrases are legit Buddhist practice, but there is a huge variety of Buddhist sects and practices and theologies, and throughout history, many of them didn't get along. Going back to Akeno and wondering if she might had been Buddhist, I went so far as to suspect she was influenced by Nichirin sect philosophy based on its emphasis on the "Nichi" (sun) representing Japan and incorporating Shinto gods into its philosophy, and for its likely influence in the Kanto area in Akeno's time period, and for its encouragement for the salvation of women and therefore popularity among women. I felt pretty satisfied that it was all lining up, but also, none of this is necessary for a quality interpretation of canon. If Gotouge wanted to say specifically what informed her religious conviction, then it would had been said. But that's not what was important, was it? What was important, and therefore focused on, was Akeno's feelings toward her son and wishes for his sake.

While KnY's worldbuilding feels richer with all the clear religious influence, the details are not actually important. If anything, I feel like Gotouge dove into the heart of the elements of, say, Shinto mythology, and played those core elements up. It's different, yet still familiar, to take sun-associated elements and used them in a way that serves the story without being boxed into existing traditions. The sun is clearly important, and once you start looking for it, you find subtle recurring references to it. Like, Akeno's name? The "Ake" is one way of writing "red," and there are all sorts of uses of other ways of writing "red" throughout the series, in everything from the sand used for making Nichirin blades to the way that Haganezuka calls Tanjiro an auspicious "red" child with a very rarely used kanji. Our commoner main characters, though, just use regular old ways of saying "red" when referencing Tanjiro's appearance without thinking deeply into it, like there's something special right in front of them but they don't recognize it. Similar to how something as special as Sun Breathing was hidden right in front of them in Hinokami Kagura, with a name so generic and simple that it's entirely unsurprising that the Taisho era Kamado family would interpret it as "fire god." The very lack of limiting real-life details is what allows Gotouge to sprinkle these deep touches around, cover them up with branches and leaves, and then sit back and wait for readers to stroll through and invitingly pleasant looking field and then trip and fall down a rabbit hole. This is also what I think gives Gotouge the freedom and malleability to work with the sun in a way that serves the story, especially in ways that tie it to fire. While I don't think there's strong ties for this is general Japanese culture, the way canon is written implies a close tie between fire and the sun as being a very closely related element, hence the influence on the Kamado family, Tanjiro's appearance, his suitability for Sun Breathing based on a history of tending fire for careful charcoal burning, and Tanjiro and Nezuko capability as demons to overcome the sun. Here is where I go into a bit of a tangent about the purification element. This, again, is not strictly tied to any particular Shinto canon (and Shinto does place heavy emphasis on purification), but instead is an example of Gotouge getting to the underlying heart of a lot of common religious elements. Fire is associated with spiritual purification in everything from Buddhism to Catholicism, it's very easy to apply Nezuko's fire abilities as something which burns away something evil (demon poison) so as to purify something good (human flesh, or even other physical substances). Maybe lesser known, but very deeply entrenched in Japanese culture, is the purification element of charcoal. While it may be known around the world for soaking up undesirable elements and therefore used in everything from fish tank filters to treating food poisoning, in Japan, there's a bit of a spiritual side to it as well. For something so closely tied to the way of life for citizens throughout hundreds of years of history for everything from cooking to heating the home, it's unsurprising that quality charcoal would receive as much emphasis as good water and rice. Japanese charcoal is especially known for not producing undesirable smoke or odor, making it appropriate for use in a lot of settings. Charcoal farmers have often not just been that; they've been caretakers of the forest. Keeping the right trees, at the right sizes (both for use as charcoal and for how you pack it together when making charcoal), and in the right numbers to ensure you have stock for coming years, requires management of the forest. (Other tangent side note: many of the other names in the Kamado family are references to plants. Sumire both has the "sumi" sound of charcoal and is the word for violet, Kie is in reference to hollyhock, Nezuko is in reference to red beans (and the asanoha pattern of her kimono is in reference to hemp leaf, an

auspicious symbol of strong and quick growth), Takeo is in reference to bamboo (ironically bamboo can be a problematic plant for charcoal farmers, because it may spread too fast and take resources from other trees--stop stealing all the takuan pickles, Takeo!), Hanako is in general reference to flowers, Shigeru is in general reference to (plants) flourishing, and maybe by the time they got to Rokuta they gave up and said "he's our sixth child, let's just call him 'Six-Boy', lolz." BUT I DIGRESS.) That means the Kamado family not only had careful management of fire in the actual days of charcoal production, but of a wide variety of natural resources to ensure the trees were healthy. Natural weather phenomena, clean water, pest control, minerals from rocks getting into the soil, hmm, so many elements to pay attention to. Hmm. These sure sound a lot like other Breaths. And Breaths all stem from Sun Breathing. That means there may be certain elements of Sun Breathing that have been emphasized in each of them, but none of them encompass so many qualities of the natural world. The natural world which Yoriichi saw with such clarity than nature accepted him with open arms, practically, in how well animals took to him. Sun Breathing, while especially using that all-important purification aspect of sunlight which burns evil demons, is like an all encompassing embrace of nature. While being closely tied with fire is hugely important, there's more to it than just flames. While Shinto is very much so closely tied with nature (the extent to which this is emphasized may vary from shrine to shrine, scholar to scholar), what I see in KnY is a clever use of emphasis on spirituality in nature as opposed to emphasis on Shinto mythology. And I think that was a smart move. While stories based more directly on various theologies, mythologies, and religious ideologies often use those building blocks often wind up having very creative takes on them (even and especially with the confines of them), ultimately, the story of KnY is whatever Gotouge wants to do with it, and it does not seem guided by the specific conventions of more specific religious elements. But again, those deeper elements are still everywhere. You know what color Japanese charcoal burns? It's a gorgeous jewel tone red, spanning many of those rare shades of red Gotouge make reference to. And, in wider Japanese culture, red is the color of the sun (as opposed to how other cultures may represent it as yellow or orange or white or so on). (Not as exactly a KnY tangent, just personal: Japanese charcoal is so freaking pretty, I had no idea until I saw it used in the tea ceremony at parts when guests crowd around to enjoy the sight of it as the host prepares it for boiling the water. I can stare and stare and stare, it is so so so so so pretty, but also this element of the ceremony has gotten rarer both as many places have made a more practical switch to electricity, and tea ceremony quality has gotten more rare both due to fewer producers and due to beetle-related damages to the trees used, and I will always state HOW DISAPPOINTED I am that Kanata and Sumihiko are not out there raising charcoal, because charcoal is precious and I'm always so terrified of wasting charcoal in my practices because its so precious, but seeing the amazingly beautiful burn of the charcoal is absolutely one of my favorite elements of the ceremony and this of course gives me an extra soft spot for Kamado Tanjiro BUT I DIGRESS AGAIN, I TOLD you this was going to be a ramble, but SERIOUSLY IT IS SUCH A GORGEOUS RED).

So anyway. My point is, as interesting as incorporating outside elements may be, I don't find them necessary in interpreting KnY's canon. Even if it takes tons of Taisho Secrets to do so, Gotouge presents the details necessary, and that's more than enough to work with. After all, despite all the care taken in historical details in building the setting, KnY takes place in a fictional universe, it can make its own rules when it comes to things that don't actually exist in our universe. Demons, for example, follow a chronology and power system with sources and limits that is unique to a this universe, as tempting as it is due to general cultural familiarity, it does not call for a one-to-one comparison with existing demon legends. Breath as well, as a power system, is very interesting. Again, this is because it has a lot of basis in core concepts of real life physical and spiritual training. It's presented as a method available to anyone who can pick it up, not drawing on a mystical outside power or summoning the actual superhuman elements of nature. Other stories that present their power systems like that are well and fine, but when it comes down to it, this is a story about mere humans doing everything in their limited power to wave swords around and defeat creatures that seem so likely to outpower them. This is a common, relatable basis of stories throughout history, and a lot of analysis I've heard of KnY's success says that it shows how classic this story structure is. Many Japanese demon stories have their origin in epidemics, and some people suggest that the world looks for hope in stories like KnY in times of seemingly insurmountable crises like coronavirus. I think that's an oversimplification of KnY's success, but again, because of Gotouge's use of core cultural elements, it can be applied easily. OKAY BUT ON THAT NOTE we can do some really interesting digging if we want. : D Gotouge does make some highly specific references, included religious ones (granted, not in ways that impact the plot). The example coming to mind is the Seventh Form of Thunder Breathing, the "Flaming Thunder God." In Japanese, this is "Honoikazuchi-no-Kami," the name of a lightning deity who had a very, very brief mention in the Kojiki and who appeared among a handful of other lightning deities named in reference to other aspects/phenomena of lightning, like the sound or the rumble through the ground. Honoikazuchi is not so much the lightning itself, but the fires started by lightning. Stick with me a bit longer, I'm building up to something here. You've probably heard of the twelve animals of the Chinese (poorly translated as) Zodiac, right? Well, the system is way more complex than that, and really, if you want complexity, skip Japan and go dive straight into ancient China. I laugh and cry at myself for having a graduate degree in Chinese studies, the extent of my knowledge is is pitifully small, I know nothing, nothing. Suffice to say, China has its own five element system of water/wood/metal/fire/earth, it's more a philosophical application than a more physicality-based four element system popular in the west (fire/water/air/earth, why hello there, Avatar), with attributes of these elements assigned to every about anything through Chinese culture, from medicine to, you guessed it, the Zodiac animals. Japan saw all this and said "cool, we'll do that too" albeit their sort of mixed and matched a bit and made their own take on it in Onmyodo. An Onmyoji, who keeps track of, like, really any other-worldly matter you might have on your hands as a Heian noble, is someone who is paid to know all this stuff (it was very likely an Onmyoji who told the Ubuyashiki clan, "yeah, you got an evil family member to blame for your curse, squash him"). Yours Truly is not an Onmyoji and therefore will not attempt to go into more detail, save the one that a handful of Japanese theorists in the KnY fandom love to bring up: The Boar is a water sign. This means that, especially in Shinto practice, boars are considered an animal that protects against

fire, hence, a lot of practices to protect against fires were done on days of the Boar, in the month of the Boar, etc. So? So-o-o-o-o-o? You see it? You see it??? Boar = Water, Honoikazuchi = Fire, Inosuke and Zenitsu are basically foils to Tanjiro? Yes, yes, see it, yessss??? Deep dive Kamaboko theory, yes?????? Hahahaha. Naw. It's just a fun coincidence. ^_^ Again, I find these details completely unnecessary, for we are already given so many details in canon to work with on its own, and I think Inosuke and Zenitsu as foils to Tanjiro works entirely well simply based on their personalities, not because of any supernatural elements that require a high level of nerdery to have any hope of appreciating. Besides, once you start reaching too hard for cultural details Gotouge might have used and clinging too tightly to those ideas, there's likely something in canon to make it doubtful. For instance, Inosuke more widely presented as a king of the forest who wears deer and bear hide as well, and the fanbook state that Beast Breath is considered a likely offshoot of Wind Breathing. Even if we rely more strictly on historical detail, there's still the question of, say, what one of the basic Breaths, Thunder Breathing, even was when it was but a thunder inspired sword form not necessarily powered by Breath, you know, back when swords were longer and it would have been harder to make the fast draws katana would later be better suited for. Maybe they called it Thunder because it was practiced by swordsmen who stomped around really hard, and then when they added Breath technique, they figured out "oh dude, we can use our strong legs to go fast"??

Those are the kinds of things I find more fun to play around with in interpreting canon by bringing in little outside details, because as a work of fiction, there are already so many fun details to work with already even when treating it in a vacuum. But, giving Gotouge extensive and subtle use of cultural elements, especially core elements, it sure makes a lot of outside details applicable. Which is all to say, it's all super interesting, and I think the more people realize these things, the deeper they read into it, to an extent more than canon calls for. As much as I like it, and as much as I've enjoyed pulling outside elements in to fanfiction (like Kagutsuchi and lightning god tidbits), ultimately, if Gotouge thought these things were necessary, they'd have been included. Since they are not, I try to stick to canon details and Word of God-touge in answering Asks (lolz, I didn't plan on becoming a meta blog, it just kinda happened). BUT ALSO, JEEZ, I AM SO EXCITED IF PEOPLE TAKE A DEEPER INTEREST IN JAPANESE CULTURE BECAUSE THEY LIKE KIMETSU NO YAIBA, YOU CAN HAVE SO-O-O-O-O-O MUCH FUN PLANNING A TRIP TO JAPAN AROUND KNY THEMES, DO IT DO IT DO IT, GO TO YAGYU AND POSE IN A TANJIRO HAORI AND STICK YOUR SWORD IN A SPLIT ROCK, THE LOCALS THERE LOVE IT, DO IT but also like maybe learn about the tea ceremony and appreciate how beautiful the charcoal is with me k thx bye

#kny fandom theories and meta #sooooorta #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #am I a Pillar or a Demon?#neither #I am but a nerd

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jj-babebank · 3 years

Text

Room 107 // chapter III // JJ Maybank (smut)

This story picks up where season 2 leaves us.

TW: May contain mentions of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex and violence.

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS CAN BE FOUND HERE: one ; two

Chapter 3 - La Ganga

Samara’s hand was still resting on JJ’s knee as her eyes sultrily bored into his, waiting for his response. JJ’s head was spinning in a thousand different directions, trying to assess what exactly was going on. The main issue he had with this whole ordeal was that she didn’t in fact invite him over because she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. The sad truth, as JJ came to realise, was that this annoyingly attractive girl had simply overheard him boasting to his friends about the gold that they had found, and respectively lost, and now she wanted a piece of that instead. JJ sighed loudly. As much as he hated to admit that this was a bad idea, he pushed that thought very far to the side and tried to negotiate with the part of his brain that didn’t think logically, which in his case was the dominating one. What exactly could he lose here? The chances of them finding the Royal Merchant gold were extremely low, to the point where they were almost non-existent. This girl was voluntarily offering to help them find it, and she was also willingly to let them stay in her family’s hotel for free until further notice. How JJ saw this was extremely straight-forward and simple - Samara asks for part of the gold, Samara offers her help in return for the gold, JJ accepts said offer and lets her help, growing closer to her in the meantime, seducing her and eventually winning her over, so that even they don’t find the actual treasure, she realises that the real treasure was right there with her all along, at it wore worn down biker boots and went by the name of JJ Maybank. Yep, that sounded like a great plan, one of his best plans yet, if he did say so himself. He looked down at Samara’s hand still on his knee, a ball of excitement growing in his stomach just at the sight of it being there, then he looked up at her face, twisting the corners of his thin lips into a smirk. “You have yourself a deal, gorgeous,” he said, his confidence suddenly returning to his body. The old JJ senses were coming back headfirst and he was feeling great about it. Samara smiled in return, raising her glass for a toast, “To working together,” JJ clinked his glass with hers, sending her a wink, “To working with each other,” The pair sat in silence for a moment, JJ mostly admiring the girl sitting next to him, before she broke the silence, “Where did you say you were from, JJ?” “We never got to that part, actually,” he answered, glad that Samara was taking interest in him, “I’m from a place called the Outer Banks, more specifically Kildare. It’s in North Carolina, right by the coast.” He explained, painting an imaginary picture of what he was saying with his hands, "You know, prior to ending up here, which was a total coincidence by the way, the furthest I’d been from Kildare was Charleston. I, uh, I haven’t really been anywhere.” Samara was studying his face while he was talking. She had asked him a simple question and was expecting a simple answer, yet this boy could just seemingly not stop talking. She couldn’t decide whether it was annoying, or strangely endearing. She almost felt bad for having to shut him up to change the topic to what she had actually called him over for, “So tell me about this gold,” Lucky for her, JJ didn’t seem to mind her direct approach to the change of subject, instantly going into another story - the one that interested her the most. “Funny you ask,” he said enthusiastically, taking a rather big sip of his wine, “So as I said, I’m from the Outer Banks. Let me describe the OBX to you - it’s an odd place, you see, a place much like any other in the sense that it’s divided into rich and poor, however that divide is a suuuuper big deal to us. You’ve got the rich and elite bastards called the Kooks, and you’ve also got the not so lucky ones who work for them - the Pogues. Me and those guys you so kindly invited into your home, are, well, were Pogues. Except for Sarah, she was rich-rich.” There it was again - JJ getting completely side-tracked in his own thoughts, talking about irrelevant to the topic of conversation things.

Samara somehow found it entertaining and she wasn’t particularly bothered by it so she just let him speak, hoping that he’d eventually get to the point. “- so one day, it turned out that John B’s old man was dead, although he’d left behind all these clues and well, one thing lead to another, we found the gold, except we weren’t the only people looking for it, obviously,” Bingo, there it was - the gold. Samara knew this was her cue to focus, “- so when we were finally within touching distance of the gold and the cross - boom - we threw ourselves of the ship to dodge getting totally killed, and, well, here we are.” JJ wrapped up his story, leaning back into the couch and sighing contently with what he believed to be a great short summary of what had happened to him and his friends, finishing the rest of his wine. Samara frowned as she did the same, “Hold that thought,” she said, standing up and disappearing into the diner for a brief moment, before coming back with a bottle of the infamous whiskey from earlier, it had just enough contents to fill up one more glass each. JJ smirked at the sight of her when she sat back down next to him and she frowned dramatically, “What? I thought this called for something a bit stronger.” JJ didn’t protest as the pretty brunette refilled their wine glasses with the harder liquor, “I have a cousin up in Daytona,” she said as matter-of-factly, “He owns a motel in the Holly Hill area. We can crash up there while we head up north. We’ll leave first thing Thursday morning, before my aunt and cousin come back. I’ll make sure we have everything we need by then, we have just enough time.” “Why are we heading up north?” JJ looked puzzled, “And how many cousins with hotels do you have?” “Seeing as we know virtually nothing about where these people were heading, the most logical thing that we can do is go back to the Outer Banks and try finding out as much as we can from there. There must be someone who knows.” The more she spoke, the more it made sense to JJ. Ward would have made sure to erase all of his traces by now, Rafe would have tried his best to follow in his father’s footsteps, however there was one member of the Cameron family who was, for the lack of a better word, messy. And that was Wheezie Cameron, Sarah’s younger sister. JJ was sure that Ward would have changed all of their phone numbers, if they were even still allowed to have a phone, however the thought of Wheezie Cameron totally removing herself from social media was by far absurd to JJ. He was sure that they would be able to somehow trace her even without having to go all the way back to the OBX, but before they could do that, this was their only option. Samara had turned out smarter than he had made her out to be initially. She was cunning, generous and helpful, all traits that JJ never thought he’d find this attractive in a woman. Hell, up until now he’d never even looked for any traits in women beyond their physical appearance, yet here he was - a changed man. “You, miss,” he pointed at her with the hand he held his wine glass in, “Are a genius. Has anyone ever told you that?” Samara snickered, although she couldn’t help the slight blush that was painting itself across her tanned cheeks, “Don’t push your luck too much, JJ, we’ve only just met,” she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, almost appearing shy for a split second. This didn’t go unnoticed by JJ and he took it as a green light to scoot a bit closer to her, to the point where their faces were inches apart. He couldn’t help but breathe her scent in, and boy did she smell alluring, her perfume heavy and somewhat oriental, at least that’s how JJ would describe it. It reminded him of all the times he’d served tables down on Figure Eight and rich Kook girls would walk past him, leaving behind a scent of expensive designer perfume. Samara almost reminded him of a rich Kook girl, she looked so well put together and so on top of her shit. Good thing they weren’t in the OBX anymore, otherwise his friends would grill him for breaking the one promise he had made to himself

long, long ago - never getting with a Kook. Except she wasn’t a Kook, they weren’t in the OBX and much to his dismay - him and her were hardly getting with each other. He realised that winning Samara over would take time, and lucky for him, he had all the time in the world. Finding Ward and the gold would take a while and he was up for an adventure, especially since it included this gorgeous young lady. He studied her some more. Her skin looked so soft, and so did her lips - so soft, so inviting. Her eyes were dark and mysterious, shaped like almonds, and the way she batted her luscious lashes almost made her seem like she was keeping a number of dark and dangerous secrets. JJ knew that deep down she saw something in him, too. She just needed the right push to admit it. A stray strand of her hair fell in her face and before she could react, JJ gently tucked it away behind her ear, taking his time when his fingers met her face. He let them linger there for a second before pulling his hand away. “Thanks,” was all that she could say. “Don’t mention it,” he said gently, “We’re gonna be partners after all, we’ve gotta help each other out, right?” Samara almost rolled her eyes at the sound of JJ referring to them as ‘partners’, but she withheld from it. Something about this boy was very endearing to her, in a lost puppy type of way, and she didn’t want to admit it, but she didn’t entirely dislike his company. Au contraire, it had been a while since she had had someone around. This didn’t seem all bad to her - she would go for a little adventure, make some friends, and if all goes to plan, she’ll come home with a bag full of gold. Hell, if she felt frisky enough she could even JJ the time of day once or twice - no strings attached, of course. He seemed keen enough, that much she knew. And she had never been with anyone in that way before, much to everyone’s disbelief. She wasn’t going to tell him that, of course, especially not now. Perhaps it was the alcohol speaking, but she suddenly found him so attractive. He was her usual type - seemed like the local bad boy back home, the one who didn’t abide by the rules and got himself in trouble more often than not - and only God knew just how much Samara liked the bad boys. His fingers, although rough and calloused, left the softest touch, and she was ashamed to admit she wished he’d left them there for a moment longer. She crossed her legs and sat up straighter, trying to regain her composure. She knew she’d had enough to drink. She couldn’t do this here, especially not tonight, not in her aunt’s hotel. She knew that if she didn’t call quits to the night now, things might get ugly and she didn’t want to lose her composure with JJ yet. “Shall we?” She said, trying her hardest to sound as confident and unfazed as she could, “Head to bed I mean,” She quickly added, mentally kicking herself for not clearing it up and potentially giving JJ the wrong idea. Judging by the growing smirk on the boy’s face she realised she’d just dug herself a hole. “I thought we’d only just met, Miss La Guardiana,” he winked, standing up and offering his hand to help her up. She accepted it and turned on her heel towards the stairs as soon as she was on her feet, sassily flipping her hair as she did so. JJ followed after her, smirk only growing as they walked up the stairs and into the hallway to their respective rooms. When they reached JJ’s room, they both stopped, Samara leaning against the wall. “Fill your friends in on our plan so far,” she said, “About heading up to Daytona, I mean. I’ll take care of everything else until then.” JJ raised an eyebrow, not entirely sure what she meant by ‘everything else’. She noticed his confusion and decided to clear it up, “I’ll sort out some clothes for all of you, food is on the house, we’ll also need some cash so…” she eyed JJ up and down, an idea forming in her head, “Perhaps you could be useful while we’re still here and work for it, I’m thinking… waiter?” JJ almost laughed, “Baby girl, you name it - I’ve probably done it. Back home, there isn’t a job I

haven’t worked, just to make enough to put food on the table. Besides, serving food and drinks is the least I could do to repay your kindness,” his eyes darkened as he took a step closer to Samara. His face was getting dangerously close to hers, never breaking eye contact, “It’ll be my pleasure to work for you, miss La Guardiana,” Samara held her ground, trying to keep her cool as much as she physically could. On the inside, she was on fire. “Likewise, mister Kildare,” she whispered, inching her body closer to JJ’s; she wanted to push his buttons as far as she could in the moment. They stood there in silence for a moment; they didn’t need to say anything - their eyes were doing all the talking. JJ couldn’t keep his eyes off Samara’s lips, though when he finally gave in and leaned forward, the girl took a sudden step backwards towards her room, leaving him breathless. “Make sure you wake all of your friends up early tomorrow,” she simply said, “You didn’t think you’d be the only one who’d have to work for a living around here did you? “ she faked a grimace, still stepping backwards towards her room, “Meet me tomorrow in the lobby at 8. We’ve got work to do,” she stopped in front of her door, pressing her key into the lock, “Oh, and JJ?” Her door clicked open, “I really enjoyed tonight. Looking forward to our next date. Goodnight,” with that, she was gone. Did she say date? JJ stood in the hallway for a moment before going into his room. He couldn’t hide the grin on his face even if he wanted to. Samara totally had a thing for him and he couldn’t wait to dive into this new adventure - the gold being the last thing on his mind, because maybe, just maybe, Samara wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

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maxbernini · 2 years

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At this point I’m sure s9 was an ego thing, plus being completely detached from your audience to even just imagine that s9 would have been a success. It baffles me that Deborah and Shirley really thought that it was a good idea to put out this mess. People that hope for a s10 endgame and want to watch it for it, pls don’t give this team views! Remember that Deborah referred to mayla as “sugar and nothing else” this woman hasn’t understood anything about good representation. Surreal

oh absolutely an ego thing on so many levels; ardi points out the main one here and the issue with wanting to do a skam equivalent of another show (though tbh?? i don’t think it’s a coincidence that the network bought the rights to normal people and aired it at the same time as s9. like the banner at one point was split between maya & normal people lol. so it’s either “deborah watched normal people and didn’t understand it and wrote a season based on her shit interpretation” or it’s “deborah’s using s9 to promo the network’s other shows” orrrr it’s “deborah wrote the season she wanted to write, may or may not have based it on a shit interpretation of normal people, is now using normal people to hype up her writing, and unintentionally or not is doing promo for the network”. all are bad options!). though it was obvious how detached they are from skam’s point and their audience when they picked tiff as the first main and never even attempted a redemption arc over a max season lmao.

honestly what gets me is the degree to which shirley fumbled the bag here like. i thought s9 would be slightly better than 7/8 bc they’d both know how popular a maya season would be, know that this’d be their chance at critical (and fandom) acclaim, and that shirley being a queer creator herself might mean more effort would be put into it bc she’d have a personal connection to the plot and basically have the rare opportunity to deliver everything that she might’ve wanted to see as a teen. and yes her priority should always be the characters & audience they represent first, but on a personal level?? this could’ve been big for her lmaoo, the show is so accessible & people are always hungry for rep…she easily could’ve used s9 to cement herself as iconic if she’d wanted to (bc none of the new viewers would know or care about 7/8). and if there’s one silver lining i’m enjoying rn, it’s that she fucked it up entirely and will now always be known in fandom spheres as the lady who accused viewers of homophobia for being mad she broke up the show’s only sapphic couple and then compared her (90% straight) webseries to the l word 🤡

#the way the sugar and nothing else comment isn’t even the worst part of that interview.#deborah has never met a rock bottom she hadn’t immediately dug past #ask #anon #french posting

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thefirstknife · 3 years

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Sorry for the long ask, but as somebody who's recently been enjoying the tries revamp and the accessibility it gives to middling pvp players, I've been getting into the lore on the trials gear, and there's a lot of entries so I'm having trouble keeping track. I've mostly been interested in Sola, who only seems to come up a few times? She ends up torturing a guardian in the trials, looking for 'something inside them like in her.' It's interesting though, because the power she wields, (and seemingly seeks when Aunor catches her tracking an anomaly in arrivals) isn't described as darkness or stasis, but some kind of corrupted void light? I can't find mention of anything else like this, and I feel like there's lore entries I'm missing?

Anyways, Trestin, another trials guardian, gets killed unnecessarily viciously by Sola (I think, that lore entry mentions they're competing against Crimiq-5, who is on Sola's fire time, so this seems right) and later goes on to become obsessed with stasis, torture house salvation refugees as well as her own fireteam, and gets put down by Aunor as well. Is this a coincidence? Does Sola do what she does to Trestin because she sees the same temptation towards corruption? Or is it more direct? It almost seems like she passes it on, virulently, and I'm mainly wondering if that's something that has any other evidence when it comes to corrupted guardians. I figure you might know, I'm having trouble searching since some of it is trials gear, some isn't, and they don't all mention everyone's name

Took me a while to get the full info on this because I wanted to put all of the lore entries in order and they're kinda scattered around!

Okay, so, this story is told on Trials weapons lore. First batch was released in Season of the Worthy and then the sort of conclusion in Season of the Chosen. There's a minor update in Season of Arrivals on non-Trials gear (Temptation's Hook). The first batch of lore details a single Trials match between two fireteams.

One fireteam consists of Trestin, Yara and Sadhij. The other fireteam is Sola, Crimiq-5 and Katake. Roughly in some semblance of order, the lore on items is as follows:

The Summoner - This seems to be the start as it shows Trestin meeting up with her fireteam and going into the match. The one important thing to note here is that Trestin was apparently deeply affected by what happened on the Moon (during Shadowkeep and the discovery of the Pyramid) and seems to be resigned that the end is coming and that there's nothing anyone can do about it. It appears she was somewhat influenced by the Pyramid into despair and losing hope.

Astral Horizon - This is somewhere at the start of the match. Sadhij tells his teammates Trestin and Yara that he's going for one of the enemies (Katake). He charges with a shotgun and uses Thundercrash which completely obliterates Katake. No surprise there. However, at the end, there is a rifle shot and then silence.

Exile's Curse - This details the start of the match from the other team's perspective. We see the same event of Katake being Thundercrashed by Sadhij from the eyes of his teammate Crimiq-5 who warns Katake about being out of line of sight. Crimiq-5 witnesses Katake being obliterated.

Eye of Sol - Again from Crimiq's POV, he is standing in the back with a sniper rifle and he watches Sola attacking Trestin. He seems to be very distraught about this:

Sola had ripped through their previous opponents with off-putting ferocity, and Crimiq was ready for this to be their last match of the day. He looked over her through his scope. Sola's silhouette marinated in an eerie shimmer that distorted the air as she moved.

He shoots a warning shot at her position to keep the third opponent (Yara) in cover. Then he hears Katake's cry for help against the Thundercrash and aims there, killing Sadhij. That's the rifle shot at the end of Astral Horizon lore.

The Scholar - This moves us to Sola's POV, where it's described that she's torturing Trestin and telling her that she can feel "it" in her too. I assume that both Sola and Trestin were deeply affected by the Lunar Pyramid and were both in the early stages of corruption by it. Sola felt it in Trestin.

"So…" Sola's intent bit deeper, malleable claws that flexed against her prey's Light. They probed through blood and muscle to an umbral center. "…it's within you too."

After the torture incident, Saint steps in to end the match and reprimand Sola. He also reprimands Crimiq, but Crimiq says he doesn't want anything to do with Sola. This further angers Sola and she leaves, telling everyone they're "as good as dead anyway." Note the same kind of despair and loss of hope that Trestin exhibited even before she was attacked by Sola.

Tomorrow's Answer - This brings us a bit back to the final person who has a POV which is Yara who witnesses what Sola did to Trestin:

A violet shockwave pushed away the dust. Trestin knelt a few paces away, beaten. The Warlock bent her glowing hand into Trestin's chest plate, lodging a vortex grenade into her armor. Yara met her eyes and saw the Void overtake her. She did not hear the scream, or the splitting armor. She only saw flickers of Trestin break apart and scatter as the vortex ate away at her.

Sola lodged an entire vortex grenade into Trestin. Horrible way to die. Yara yells at Sola about Trestin not deserving that and Sola snaps back:

"None of us 'deserve.' It's about what you can get." The Warlock smiled and raised a hand of gnarled Void. "Brace yourself."

This shows how far gone Sola was. Definitely far more corrupted than Trestin. Presumably, Sola also finished off Yara in the match before it ended.

In Season of Arrivals, there's an update about this on Temptation's Hook. It's shown that Sola has been captured by the Praxic Order. The Praxics lead by Aunor know that Sola took another Guardian "to the outer system" and that they did not return with Sola.

I assume "the outer system" means Europa, but that's only because now we have additional information from Season of the Chosen. Since this is from Season of the Worthy, it could also mean that Sola and Trestin went out further into the outer system and met with the Black Fleet (the Black Fleet lurking at the edges of the system is mentioned in this lore). Sola also says some strange things:

"I learned the secret. The one your hounds have hidden away in that quaint little vault." Sola smiles red through split lips. "You're on the losing side."

"Do you think you have nothing to lose, or that I wouldn't take it from you? You're sorely, and soon to be regretfully, mistaken."

Sola spits in Aunor's face. "You have limits. You have masters." A twisted Light shimmers in Sola's hand as she moves to attack. "Enjoy hanging to death in your strings!"

This is probably referring to the presence of Darkness on Europa to which Sola and Trestin were either directly exposed OR they may have been told about it during their visit to the Black Fleet (depending on where they went exactly). It appears her Ghost was also exposed. Both Sola and her Ghost are contained by the Praxic Order: Sola killed and her Ghost disabled from resurrecting her.

The next, roughly chronologically would be The Messenger. Some time has passed. Aunor meets with Ikora about the problem of another corrupted Guardian who tortured Eliksni civilians, asking them about Eramis and how she accessed Darkness, as well as torturing her own teammates. It's revealed that the Guardian in question is still located on Europa and trying to access Darkness as well as that the Guardian's name is Trestin.

That leaves us with the final entry which is Sola's Scar. In it, we follow Trestin on Europa as she's nearing the Darkness obelisk, eager to get its power. She details how she betrayed her fireteam and what was driving her:

Over the radio, Lord Saladin's voice grew staticky: "Cabal incursion… Vex… up ahead." Without a word, Trestin's Ghost switched it off. There were others nearby to carry out the Iron Lord's orders. He wouldn't miss them.

She doubted anyone would—her ex-teammates least of all. She had betrayed them, or so Sadhij had screamed: "We're supposed to be the thin line drawn before the Darkness, you traitor!"

|| Thin indeed. So why not step over it? ||

Because they didn't have it in them. She checked. Cracked them both open and dug deep, just to be extra sure. But it wasn't there. That hunger, immense and buried, like the ocean under Europa's glacial crust. A riptide, undetectable from the surface, yet unrelenting in its pull. She never meant to betray anyone. She just wanted release.

|| Soon, you will have it. Soon, you will be freed. ||

She has brief memories of her fireteam, namely one of Yara's jokes. Darkness makes sure to tell her that such attachment is weakness. Just before Trestin reaches the obelisk, Aunor catches up to her and asks her to come quietly. Trestin disobeys and Aunor strikes her down with a sword.

I assume the name of the weapon where this lore is written, Sola's Scar, refers to the "scar" that Sola left in Trestin when she tortured her during the Trials match. Both Sola and Trestin seem to have been deeply affected by the Lunar Pyramid and it drove them to extremes which eventually led to both of them becoming corrupted and betraying the Light. It's interesting that in Sola's case, there's no Stasis involved: her Light was corrupted. Specifically her Void.

Not sure about Trestin and if she ever got Stasis and which other power and/or knowledge she was seeking from the Darkness, but either way the corruption of both of these Guardians came from the same source, entwined them together and eventually led to both of them being taken down by Aunor.

It's a really tragic story and the reason why I really like this type of lore about just some other Guardians and how they're experiencing the events we go through with in the game. Especially how it highlights just how much of an outlier the Young Wolf is and how things we do are really difficult or downright impossible for other Guardians to deal with. Both Sola and Trestin were victims of powers they could not handle.

#destiny 2 #sola #trestin #darkness #pyramid #lore vibing #long post #ask #there are so many cool stories like these in the background #also i think that's all of their lore but if i missed some feel free to add it on #hope it helps with understanding this story

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aio-rya · 3 years

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Theory — Malleus Overblot and Lilia's Participation

As I said earlier on the first part of the theory, Lilia's concern for Malleus is the same as a father for a son, since he raised the Prince and has been by his side his entire life —Malleus himself has said that Lilia is family, plus they both raised little Silver and, later, Sebek was left under Lilia's care.

Now, the point of this is to explain some facts I've noticed on the opening and some influence the ancient fae may have at the very end of this adventure.

We can split two points from here:

He find out something about his family which Lilia was aware of, but never told him was it an order or for his own sake —in case he don't know or what he know is not the truth. Obviously, this will break the decades of trust he had over his guard and, additional to it, we won't be able to comfort him. Lilia has been present over Malleus' entire life, which means he knows —maybe better than anyone but Malleus' Grandmother 『who is, according to Malleus conversation with Sebek, the Witch of Thorns herself』¹— what happened to his parents or even if she had something to do with that. I bet she hadn't, but this game has brought us many unexpected turns and we are, actually, talking about a Twisted place where fairytales are not what we have already seen.

Malleus is hiding something from Lilia, not only because he's always chased because of his royal title and he don't like it, but the feeling of loneliness growing up because of MC. He might be confused about his feelings but he is a Prince, he is one of the most powerful mages on NRC and he is one of the greatest five in the world —he is aware of his image and he will repress his feeling to keep it like that.

The first one is not that probable, why? Malleus himself knows about his parents or at least that's what he had let us see. And he loves his grandmother so much as even he helped her back home with throne issues.

But the second is some different matter. He has always been lonely, hasn't he? They were only Mr. Vanrouge and him and not always since Lilia used to travel a lot alone and her grandmother, as a Queen, had too much to deal with. He knew nothing else than an almost empty castle, though his excuse is that he is "used to it". We can even see that's not true at all when Lilia talks with Deuce on his SR Halloween Card about how he played Trick or Treat with Silver when he was a toddler, the kid knocked at the door and Lilia pretend to be a different person every time until his bucket was full of sweets and Malleus asked if he really did that and why they never did it together? Of course, since he helped raising Silver too, he won't argue and it was just "a comment".

But we take another theory: something about Silver. We know he's the adoptive child of Lilia but how? Why? What happened? We could argue that Malleus might have lost control over some village on his dragon form, but Silver is a 17 year old man, and Lilia said Malleus learnt self-control long ago, some time after burning his bangs but what if this is not true? Maybe Malleus had an accident and Lilia was in charge of easing such memories but considering the youngest fae's power it's less probable. We don't know how Lilia got Silver but what if he just arrived to the castle with him? What if there's some hidden truth in there? A fact is that, as we see on the Wish Upon a Star event, Lilia has always wanted peace but he painfully states that there has always been war between fae and human kind, even though there's peace now, he said history is a cicle. Malleus is sort of fond of Silver too, his own way, but what happens if he discovers something?

Now, we have assured that this Overblot will be Malleus —yeah, at some point I thought it could be Lilia or Sebek too since Silver... Well, is Silver, he's such a pure creature. Buuut... why? Grimm's Overblot. He has many of the characteristic references to the past transformations and maybe the most remarkable is a pair of huge dragon wings. And we know Malleus is a dragon fae.

Now, the relevance of Lilia on this arc which was re original explanation. Not only because of his relationship with Malleus, independently from the already mentioned theories, but because he is mastered on every magic too.

That leads me to this part of the cinematic:

Lilia Vanrouge is not only an ancient and wise fae but a very powerful one too. He may be gentle, sort of spontaneous and mysterious, but when he get serious, he is a mage to fear.

He's chasing Malleus trough the forest once, here, he is on a triple formation with Sebek and Silver, two men he raised and trained on magic and combat. The attack Lilia releases is very powerful, why would he need such kind of magic on a school?

As I already said, I don't like making theories out of the opening since almost none of the scenes have had any coincidence but the possible context of the two cinematic is just exciting.

Think it this way: Lilia is the only character who has lived long enough to get to know Malleus as well as he knows himself, as well his magic level is the only one who can get near, even for a bit, to Malleus' and the most important thing, prince Draconia listen to him and Lilia knows how to calm him down and how to comfort him.

If there is only one person able to fight and defeat Malleus power, is him.

1 — On the dialogue between Sebek and Malleus, the first one praises the prince's habilites over the Witch of Thorns'. Malleus asks him to lower his praises since "She was more powerful than even any of the other Great Seven. My power can't even hold a candle against my grandmother's. She's so advanced so there's no point on comparing us when she's on a whole other level."

ー・Φ・ー

I hope you enjoy this random stuff that just pop into my head. If you want to share out of here, please ask and leave credits~

#ツイステッドフンダラーンド #ツイステ #twst #twisted wonderland #ディアソムニア寮 #マレウス・ドラコニア #リリア・ヴァンルージュ #diasomnia #malleus draconia #lilia vanrouge #twisted wonderland malleus #twisted wonderland lilia #Random theories by Aiorya

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tiny-maus-boots · 3 years

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Queen of Hearts pt 14

A/N: thank you as always to @chloes-yellow-cup for being my bestie and still doing all the things i hate to do. and a big thanks to @kimmania for your constant encouragement and supply of Legos. i love you awesome nerds.

14.

“Hit me with your best shot…”

Aubrey’s long arm stretched out along the back of the dark leather of the modern style sofa she was settled on. For the most part she could tune out the dry croak from the desk, but…

“Why don’t you hit me with your best shot.”

This was the sixth time in an hour that she was hearing the song. She was going to have to remind Lilly to remove it from the jukebox after tonight.

“Hit me with your best shot…”

The rough warble across from her died down and she thought for a moment that the singer had finally drifted off asleep. Aubrey’s head turned to the screen that showed a live feed of the cameras around The Dirty Bird. Movement flickered though them as Stacie and the Doc walked between the tables and around the bar toward the back office. She turned her head to check on the figure standing but slumped over her desk only to find dark blue eyes watching and waiting for her attention. The small woman raised herself to her elbows from her slouch and belted out just as the door opened.

“FIRE AWAAAAYYYYY!!! Pew pew pew.”

Aubrey sighed as Detective Mitchell’s finger guns gave out on the click of her tongue and she collapsed back over the desk to cradle a half empty bottle of grappa, ass up where she stood. Stacie’s wide eyes panned slowly toward her, body bouncing lightly with barely restrained glee.

“Oh my God….” Chloe took one look at the Detective and pinned Aubrey with a glare. “How drunk is she?”

The blonde raised a shoulder as she considered. “She’s been worse.”

“Doc. Doooooocccc….I hurt. Right. Here.” Beca raised a hand and brought it back to point at her butt. Her finger wavered as she tried to locate the exact spot which caused the most pain and then pointed for emphasis with a little too much enthusiasm. “Right. OW. Here. OWIE.”

Stacie eased onto the sofa and settled in comfortably in Aubrey’s lap to watch Doc Beale work. The redhead moved behind Beca and settled her bag on the desk. She took a great steadying breath before wrestling away the grappa from the prone detective and snapping on a pair of gloves. Aubrey admired the way Doc Beale efficiently and deftly managed to get Beca’s jeans over her hips and halfway down her legs with practiced ease. Beca seemed to admire it too because she stirred enough to look blearily over her shoulder with a smile.

“If you wanted to check out my assetsssss Doc, you didn’t have to wait til I got stabbeded in it. Right. There. Ow.”

“Yes, I see. Please stop poking the wound in your ass cheek. How even….?”

“I was tailing my guy. My big fish. Fishy fishy fishy. That’s a fun word to say.” Chloe muttered something Aubrey couldn’t hear over Stacie’s soft chuckling. “I heard that! Plenty of people would be DE-FUCKING-lighted to spend their date night starin’ at a little of this action.”

Aubrey bit her lip to keep the laugh from breaking free as the detective wiggled her ass unmindful of the tight skinny jeans trapping her legs and toppled into a slide nearly off the desk before Chloe managed to grab and right her teetering form.

“Head down, ass up. Now tell me again how you managed to get stabbed in the butt cheek with glass?”

“You said that like you’re used to giving that order. I might be down for that, just be gentle with me.”

Beca gave her a leer that the doctor promptly ignored as she prepped her tools.

“Detective, remember that I have some very sharp instruments here that I am excellent with.”

Beca gave her a dubious look but obediently turned and bent over the desk again so the other woman could examine the wound. Chloe was utterly focused on the task of cleaning and debriding the punctures in a circular pattern. Aubrey had been sure it was going to require at least a few stitches from what she saw before she called for real medical help.

“I told you. I was following the big fish.”

“And you followed him into a bar I’m guessing.”

“Right, rule numero dos of detectivering. Don’t stick out like a sore thumb.”

Chloe blinked and looked up from her work to focus on Beca. “What’s numero uno?”

“That’s not a real number, Doc.”

“Solid rebuttal.”

“Did…did you just make pun of my rump? Oh my God I’m in love. I’d get down on one knee right now and propose. Except you’re feeling up my butt right now and that’s kinda nice.”

The doctor’s bright blue eyes narrowed and she jabbed the needle into the hunk of flesh she had just grabbed in preparation for the injection. She depressed the plunger quickly as her patient yelped and attempted to squirm away.

“HEATHEN! Oh God. I’m dying. Help. I’m dying, Dr. Kevorkian is killing me….my vision…I can’t see.”

“Open your eyes, idiot. That was just an antibiotic booster. Have you had a tetanus shot recently?”

“Pretend I said whatever answer will prevent you from being a literal pain in my ass.”

It was too much for Stacie and she turned her head to bury her laughter in Aubrey’s neck. The blonde tightened her grip on her fiancée and enjoyed a satisfying laugh at the detective’s expense. She hadn’t known what she’d find when she had gotten Beca’s distress call. They had all been on high alert since coming back to Los Angeles, trying to close ranks as best they could without being obvious about it. She had been waiting for an attack to come and her first thought when she had gotten the call was that it had finally begun. Each moment waiting in her office while Lilly retrieved the Detective from her hiding place in an abandoned warehouse building down at the port had been like a stone on her chest. She had needed this humor to ease the cold grip of fear on her heart.

Aubrey’s line of business didn’t lend itself to close relationships with members of law enforcement, at least not for long. What she and the Detective had was something altogether different than any of the other criminal-cop business agreements she had formed during her career. Beca was someone she trusted at her side, more…trusted at her back. The idea that someone would try to take her out was sobering and her laughter faded. Stacie sensed the change in her and cupped Aubrey’s face gently to bring their foreheads together. Words weren’t necessary for Stacie to understand what she was thinking and feeling. The blonde took a deep breath and straightened her spine. One hand came up to adjust and smooth her tie. If it had started…she wanted to know who was coming for her people.

“So, who’s the fish?”

Beca lifted her head from the desk and struggled to focus on Aubrey. It took her a few seconds to process the question. She seemed to have forgotten the conversation while Chloe worked silently to finish working on her wound.

“A security guard. He’s got bad taste in bars and also what I would loosely refer to as ladies.”

She couldn’t imagine where a security guard would fit in with Alice’s plans and frowned. Maybe this wasn’t about her. Beca had other cases she was working, maybe this was just another Tuesday night for the cop.

“A security guard? Sounds kind of small time for you.”

Denim blue eyes flashed to hers, some of the haze of alcohol burned away by intensity of her drive. The small brunette’s lips quirked into a smirk. Aubrey was suddenly very sure that nothing Beca did was small time or without a very good reason.

“It only takes a small stone in the right place to make a rockslide.”

Chloe slowed her movements as she finished her work. Something about what Beca said must have been interesting to the doctor because she kept her attention on the detective while she cleaned up the trash and peeled her gloves off to toss in the black plastic trash bag left there for that purpose. Aubrey guessed she was re-evaluating her previous estimations of the foul mouthed, perpetually smug, woman.

“You’re not wrong, Bec. So, what’s this small stone guarding?”

“Not what. Where. Dude works at the port.” She grunted and stood gingerly with a backward glance at her own butt. “Hm. Nice, think chicks will dig the scar?”

If Chloe had been considering there may be more to Beca than outrageous flirtation it was only a brief passing fantasy. She sighed and rolled her eyes then glared at Aubrey.

“18, Aubrey.” It was almost enough to make her face split into a grin and she had to turn her chuckle into a soft cough. Chloe tied up the bag and dropped it in the trashcan sure that it would be disposed of carefully. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to patch one of them up, they knew the drill by now. “You owe me so big.”

“I’m good for it. So, Detective, what about this dock rat?”

Beca stopped checking herself out long enough to pull her pants up and wink at Chloe before answering. Doc pretended not to notice but Aubrey could see her watching Beca from the corner of her eye while she played around with the tools in her bag.

“When I figure how he connects to Richie Rich, I’ll let you know.”

Stacie’s body tensed in her arms and Aubrey glanced at her curiously. Her girl chewed her lower lip in thought, a habit that Aubrey found adorable. “Something on your mind, Stace?”

“It’s probably nothing. Just something Edith said about someone I went to prom with. His dad got him a job down at the docks.” Stacie shrugged it off but Aubrey could tell she was still chewing on it. “Probably just coincidence.”

Aubrey and Beca exchanged a look. After a lifetime of double crosses and plot twists, neither of them believed in coincidences. The detective dug around in her pocket for her phone. She wasn’t quite sober yet but a hell of a lot steadier than a few moments ago. Aubrey snatched the phone easily out of the air when it was tossed her way and glanced at the screen.

It was a video and she angled it so Stacie could see too. Her fiancée pressed play and sighed. Beca could be heard in the background giving a lot of very specific direction to the two women practically fucking on a pool table in a disgusting looking rathole of a bar. Aubrey was pretty sure the women were hookers and the corner of her mouth quirked in amusement. Stacie took the phone out of her hand turned it to face back to the detective.

“Really Beca?”

“I thought it was pretty good for my directorial debut. But your gutter brain is making you miss the real show.”

Aubrey took the phone back and focused on the whole scene. Behind the women in a shadowed booth two men were clearly having an animated discussion. One was further into the shadow than the other but his gestures were strong and decisive. She watched as the other, younger seeming, man’s gestures became conciliatory and submissive the longer the conversation went on. In the foreground a flurry of noise and activity caused the camera to shake and wildly as if it were being swung around. There were glimpses of rough faces and snatches of shouts and curses. At one point there was a good stretch of scuffed flooring where she assumed Beca had been crawling away from the obvious brawl happening around her.

The camera came up again in time to catch the men leaving their booth in a hurry. Each of them caught in the neon blue glow from beer signs on the walls. Stacie snatched the phone out of her hand and hit pause. Long legs dropped down to the floor from the sofa and she stood in shock.

“Bree…this is Senator Grant. The guy he’s with is his son Kodie, we went to high school...Jesus Christ…”

“You know him?”

“Weston stole his money.”

They looked at each other then turned twin green-eyed gazes on Detective Mitchell. The small woman’s brow was furrowed in thought, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she worried it.

“The kid is on the videos.”

Mitchell didn’t have to say which videos, they all knew. Even Doc Beale. Stacie looked away from them, uncomfortable with the knowledge that she had been in some of those videos. Aubrey let out a long settling breath and stood. She gently took the phone from Stacie’s shaking hand and brought it to lips to brush a soft kiss over Stacie’s wrist. It gave her a wan smile but it was something. Stacie would be okay. Aubrey looked down at the phone and watched the video again. And again. And once more. She studied every gesture, every twitch of posture, every unconscious expression she could make out.

“I want the kid. He’s the weak link.”

Beca grunted and limped around the desk to grab her keys and helmet, ready to go back to work with a hole in her ass nearly as big as the one in her pants. It wasn’t going to happen that way and Aubrey reached out to snag both items from the sidebar and hand them to Stacie who easily placed them on a shelf far too high for Detective Mitchell to reach without finding a stand on.

“White she devil.”

“Sorry, Bec. Can’t have you half-assing anything.”

She didn’t like it and Aubrey could tell but Beca sighed and grunted. “Solid burn.”

Aubrey gave her a quick grin then turned to eye the Doctor who was watching them all curiously. Her gaze met Aubrey’s and a brow went up. Honestly, she almost felt a little bad about needing to have the Doc take Beca somewhere safe. She didn’t ask, she didn’t need to. Chloe knew what she was thinking and started to shake her head no until Beca tried to drag a chair over to the get her stuff.

“I really hate you, Aubrey Posen.”

“No, you don’t, Doc.”

“You WILL be making a very large donation to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.”

“Absolutely.”

“And vacation for my office girls. Two weeks!”

“I’ll buy the plane tickets myself.”

“And if she pisses me off just once I will trank her and leave her on a park bench.”

The last was a bluff but Aubrey treated the threat seriously. “Understood. Anything else?”

“….I’ll think of something!” Aubrey bit back another grin and nodded seriously. She slipped her hands into her pockets as the doctor steeled herself mentally to take on Beca. “Come one Detective, as much as this pains me to say…you’re coming home with me.”

Beca dropped the helmet she had finally just retrieved on the ground and left it like discarded trash to limp over to Chloe. “Okay.”

“God…you’re so easy.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing, Doc.”

Chloe gave her a final glare and slung the detective’s arms over her shoulder to help her limp out of the office. Stacie settled the length of her body along Aubrey’s back, hands coming up to finger the buttons of her vest.

“How well do you know this Kodie, joker?”

Stacie hmmm thoughtfully. “Not as well as I did in high school. Edith told me he got caught up in some trouble recently. I think I know how we can get to him though.”

“How?”

“He likes cocaine and paying for his um let’s call them dates. I had Happy make some calls for you.”

The smile came to her face easily and she leaned into Stacie’s embrace. This wasn’t anything like what her mom and dad had. Her mother had never been this involved in what her father did for work. She had kept as distant from it as she could, turning her nose up at the family that protected them, running from the darkness of the business. Stacie would never do that to her. She knew it all way down to the bottom of soul. Aubrey turned in her arms and brought their heads together.

“You got more cards up your sleeve than a Vegas croupier, you know that?”

“Hmm. I learned from the best.”

Aubrey closed the distance, her brushing softly over Stacie’s. There were a lot of words she could say about how she felt about the woman in her arms. She could probably write pages on it, but words didn’t matter half as much as action did. She was going to marry this woman and spend her life giving her the best of everything. They were going to be happy and she didn’t care who she had to kill to make it happen.

“Let me take you home?”

“Aubrey…in your arms? I’m already there.”

#queen of hearts #staubrey #pitch perfect au #the debt collector series

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celticcrossanon · 2 years

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Camilla’s temporary disappearance

Hi CC, I don’t know how you archive your own readings to keep them accessible but I seem to remember that you yourself posted a reading on this subject just about after Prince Phillip’s funeral. It concentrated on Camilla’s feeling of disappointment/grief and disillusionment about how everything turned out in the end and her distance from PC. This may well have been connected to finding out about the relationship between PC and M. On another note, I think that Camilla herself always had an iron determination to become the first commoner to become queen (never letting this on, but definitely aiming at that); maybe now if only to make all the sacrifices worthwhile. I actually also once read a post about this somewhere where her apparent indifference to the subject of princess consort or queen was called into question. Take good care of yourself in all the ongoing turbulence!

***********

Thank you Nonny <3

It is hard for me to remember everything I see in the cards. I focus very intensely on them when I do read, and afterwards a lot of the details just vanish from my mind, so I remember some bits and not others.

Is this the reading you are referring to? It certainly makes more sense with what we have discovered now.

How is Camilla feeling right now?

https://celticcrossanon.tumblr.com/post/647974559086231552/brf-reading-9th-of-april-2021

This note from chinawoodfan is also pertinent to what Camilla has gone through in the past, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to post it:

The period from right around Charles’ 70th birthday (Oct 2018) until early 2019 was marked by open tabloid speculation that Camilla had moved back to her own country house and demanded a divorce (And £400 million ). Compounded by her no-show at all the usual Sandringham Royal Christmas events, ostensibly due to the flu. Things had been hushed up in the press etc by early 2019 and they did royal travel together to NZ. this timing coincides with the emerging Harkle mess re pregnancy/ family split

I can't comment on Camilla's ambitions, as I have never read on them or thought about them.

#submission

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jaceyneedsabetterusername · 3 years

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Broken Down (p.2)

Pairings: Arvin Russell x F!Reader (I just realized that though there’s a few little flirty parts or thoughts, it’s actually pretty platonic and open ended)

Summary: (Part 2 of Broken Down) After escaping from Carl and Sandy, you and Arvin find yourselves in Knockemstiff. Little did either of you know, there was somebody else following you there.

Warnings: Murder, Mention of Suicide, Canonical gore and violence, Reference to sexual assault but no depictions

Word Count: 6.6k

Find Part 1 here!

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Meade was the last big town until you hit Knockemstiff and you had decided to pull off at a gas station to fuel up to avoid accidentally running out of gas in the middle of nowhere. When the car’s tires rolled to a crunching halt, Arvin jumped out to pump the gas for you. You stepped out of the car and stood beside him while the tank filled with fuel. “What do you wanna do when we get to Knockemstiff? It seems like why ever you’re here is pretty personal so I understand if you wanna do this alone.”

“Where ‘re you gonna go?” He dodged the question, the pump clicking to a stop in the background. He moved to shake the last few drops from the nozzle before replacing it at the pump.

You and Arvin had talked a bit on your long overnight trip about your lives and your plans. He had told you that he was from Coal Creek and admitted to murdering a preacher named Preston Teagarden that impregnated his adopted sister, Lenora, which led her to committing suicide. He had told you all about this monster of a human and why he felt he had to do what he did and, though it felt twisted to genuinely support the murder of somebody, you couldn’t help but support Arvin’s actions. When you asked what was so special about Knockemstiff, he confessed that it was where he used to live, where his parents had died.

Arvin had never found himself the overly talkative or trusting type. Coal Creek residents only seemed to judge him and his family, from bullies to the richer folk who looked down on his family simply for not having much money. There was something special about you though, and perhaps it was some unspoken bond that came about from nearly being murdered and then murdering said murderers, but it made him feel like he could open up to you more than he’d ever felt with anyone.

You told him about your life and family thus far. You told him about your hometown of Barren Springs, not that there was really much to tell. It was just some small town full of cows and churchgoers. When he asked you what you were gonna do after today, you really weren’t sure. Hell, you were barely sure what you were doing now.

You looked around at the surprisingly clean gas station before picking at your nails, “I don’t really know. Figured I’ll drive around for a few days. Maybe head back to Meade after I drop you off and stay here for a few until the story comes out in the newspaper. Just gotta make sure they don’t have any leads, y’know?”

Arvin adjusted his baseball cap, “You ain’t gotta just disappear. I mean, you been mighty kind givin’ me a ride all the way out here but I don’t wanna just use you for a ride ‘n send you on your way. Not after everythin’.” He paused to think for a moment. His story wasn’t a pleasant one and his entire point in coming all the way out here was to try and find some peace with all ghosts in his closet. It was a personal journey, one that he didn’t really want anyone else to join in on, but he really did feel terrible just using you for a ride so far away and leaving you alone. “‘M gonna go visit my old home from back when I was a boy. There’s some things I gotta do there. It’s, uh, it’s somethin’ I gotta do alone. You’re more than welcome to leave me here if you wanna go somewhere else but I don’t want to make you feel like I just used you for a ride.”

You chewed your lip to hide the small way the corner of your mouth turned upwards at his ever-courteous manner. “Well what’re you gonna do after all this? You gonna be able to make it wherever you need to go?”

“I ain’t got anywhere to go but I’ll figure it out. Don’t you worry ‘bout me,” he admitted, leaning against the car beside you.

You looked up at him with your arms crossed, “How ‘bout I wait in town till you’re done doin’ what you need to do and then you can come stay with me in Barren Springs until you get a plan. It’s better for you to know where you wanna go and what you wanna do before running off.”

Arvin’s eyes narrowed skeptically, “You sure you’re alright with that? I don’t wanna put you out anymore than you’ve already done for me.” He was never one for charity and didn’t want to take anything he felt like he couldn’t reciprocate.

You nodded, pressing yourself off the side of the car and swinging towards the driver's side of the car, “It’s no problem, really. Now how much further to Knockemstiff?”

The drive to Knockemstiff wasn’t long at all and within the hour you and Arvin found yourselves driving along the road that he found hauntingly familiar. Even so, everything looked so different. Arvin couldn’t imagine the town changing much over the last eight or so years so he figured that the place just must have felt darker and grimmer with the ghosts of the tragedies that took place there.

“Where’s your house?” You leaned forward over the steering wheel to peer further ahead up the road, trying to see through the thin layer of condensation that had built up on the inside of your window from the contrast of the heated interior with the dreary drizzly outside.

Arvin gestured up the road you were headed down, “Should be just up there but it’s been a while.” You could see the way the road split off into a fork just up ahead and you could tell by Arvin’s face that he wasn’t quite sure which road was the right one.

“Should we ask someone?” You pointed towards a small building up ahead, pulling over when Arvin nodded.

The pair of you got out of the car to see an older man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. “Howdy,” he greeted with a thick accent, “You pair look like you been travellin’. Where you headed?”

Arvin shoved his hands in his pockets as he answered, hiding beneath the brim of his hat from the rain. You shielded your face with your hand from the mist, tiny droplets accumulating on your eyelashes. “There used to be a house and a barn up on that hill over there. Some lawyer owned it. You know it?”

“Sure I do. Up in the Mitchell Flats.” The man answered sure as could be.

“Still there?”

The man leaned back, eyeing Arvin, “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re that Russell boy ain’t you?”

You felt the way Arvin tensed up a little beside you, clearly not comfortable with the legacy he seemed to have in this town, but stepped forward nonetheless. You followed him under the shelter of the porch awning, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “I just thought, seeing as I was this way, I’d stop by and see the old place again.”

The man sighed heavily and stood, “Son, I hate to tell you this but that place burned some years ago. They think some kids did it. Wasn’t nobody livin’ there since you and your folks.”

“Well, heck, we came all this way. May as well walk up there anyways.” Arvin insisted.

The man’s eyes flicked over to you and back to Arvin, “Sure, just cut across Clarence’s pasture. Don’t know if you remember but there’s some pretty flowers growin’ up there this time of year for your girl there, too. He won’t mind if you take a few.” He glanced at you with implying eyes and you tensed up.

“Oh, uh, we’re not- it ain’t like that.” You stammered over your words, hands waving slightly with a flustered chuckle.

The man put his hands up, “My bad, ma’am. Just figured since you two were…” he paused and cleared his throat, “well, anyways. It’s nice to know you’re doing alright, son.”

Arvin nodded in a brief farewell before turning to head back to the car and you followed, only stopping when he turned back to the man on the porch, “I never did thank you for the night my dad died. You were awful kind to me and I just want you to know that I ain’t never forgot it.”

Even though you didn’t know the extent to which Arvin had suffered that night, the fact that he was thanking this old man that barely recognized him for the good deeds of nearly a decade ago spoke miles in your opinion. You stood back silently, knowing that this was his path to healing and resolution and that, at least for now, you were merely a spectator.

“You had that pie smeared all across your face,” the man reminisced almost as if it were a happy memory, “Damn Bodecker thought it was blood. Remember that?”

You looked at the ground with a silent chuckle at the thought of Arvin as a young boy with pie smeared across his face but that faded when you heard the way he said, “Yeah, I remember everything about that night,” with such heaviness.

“He ain’t the lawman that I expected,” he continued, “Shame about his sister though.”

“Why? What happened?”

“His sister and her husband were found dead. Not far from Meade.”

Your heart stopped beating and you glanced over at Arvin to find him already casting a nearly imperceptible but highly aware glance at you. “That’s awful. They know what happened?” You questioned, trying to force as much sincerity into your tone as possible. There was no telling with certainty that Bodecker’s sister and her husband were Sandy and Carl but that would be a huge coincidence for two different couples to wind up dead not far from Meade on the same day.

The man nodded, “Last I heard, they don’t know for sure. I got a friend who’s son works in the sheriff’s department, though. Said they thought it was a murder-suicide at first but found bullets from a gun that they couldn’t find at the crime scene so they ain’t so sure no more. Looks like they’re investigating it as a murder.”

Your mouth fell open, trying to find the words that would secure your innocence, as if this man had any reason to believe you were guilty anyways, but it took a moment for you to find your voice, “That’s terrible. I hope they figure out what happened,” you lied, less convincingly than you hoped but this man had no reason to not believe you.

He nodded in agreement, “Yeah, real unfortunate to hear. But, uh, I won’t keep you any longer. You two stay safe out there.” He waved the pair of you off and you and Arvin returned to the car.

The second both doors were securely shut, you let out a breath of air you weren’t aware you’d been holding, “We’re fucked, ain’t we?”

“They ain’t got no reason to suspect us.” Arvin tried to reassure but the way he gripped onto his thighs tightly made you nervous.

“He said they found bullets that didn’t match the guns at the scene. Did you pick up the bullets at the church? Can they trace the gun back to you?” Your questions flew frantically, pulling out onto the road and following the fork that the man had pointed down earlier.

Arvin nodded, fingers rolling over the lumps in his pocket where the empty cases had been residing since yesterday. “Yeah, I picked ‘em up. ‘M pretty sure I got ‘em all.”

You let out a shaky breath, feeling sick to your stomach, “Good,” You lied, feeling anything but, “good.”

***

You sat at the tiny diner in town at a booth all to yourself, sipping at a soda and picking at a basket of fries. At first, you had thought that you could possibly read the book you’d packed into your bag for the trip but it sat on the table beside the napkin dispenser, untouched since you set it down after giving up at trying to read after your third time rereading the same paragraph and retaining no information.

How could you read at a time like this? No matter how much you thought you had processed what had happened over the last twenty-four hours, it felt like the reality never truly weighed in. They knew that there was an additional gun so they knew someone else was involved. Carl and Sandy were murdered and the police knew it.

And of course Sandy would turn out to be the fucking sheriff’s sister! Just your luck, right? Carl probably could have disappeared and nobody would have noticed but the sheriff’s sister was going to be a hard one to hide from, especially now knowing that they suspected foul play. There’s no reason for anyone to suspect us, you breathed deeply, trying to calm yourself.

The picked at basket of fries hadn’t been nearly as much comfort as you had hoped and your soda was none too great a therapist either. You didn’t realize you’d actually miss Arvin, the man you’d only known less than twenty-four hours, when you’d only dropped him off at the site of his old home thirty minutes ago but there was a loneliness now that made you uneasy. When Arvin was around, the last day’s events felt bearable but now that you were alone, the paranoia gnawed at you.

Reaching for the ice cold Coca-Cola brand glass full of soda, you dragged it towards you, the sparkling liquid fizzing against your tongue as you took a long sip. Focus on the bubbles. Focus on the bubbles. Arvin will be done soon and you can get the hell out of Knockemstiff and as far from the crime scene as possible.

There was a light chime from the small bell that hung over the door that drew your attention and you watched a tall dark haired man walk in, looking around like he owned the place. One of the waitresses walked right up to him with a warm smile, “Heya Sheriff! What can I get you?”

Your blood ran cold at the realization of who this was and your fears were only confirmed when he turned and you could see the heavy expression in his eyes, “‘M not here for food, Sally. You seen a boy and girl come through here? They’re both young and pretty good looking. He’s kinda average height, brown hair?,” he went on to describe you briefly as well before continuing, “Might have been hitchhiking.”

As casually as you could, you picked up the book and buried your face in it, letting your hair drape over the sides of your face to conceal yourself as much as possible. Sally thought for a moment, “Hm, we get the usual hitchhikers through here. The boy got a name?”

“Arvin Russell.” Bodecker’s voice was flat and serious and the waitress could tell that he was in no mood for stretching this out.

She shook her head apologetically, “‘M sorry, Bodecker. I ain’t seen nobody come through here with that name or a new couple at all. I saw Henry talkin’ to a pair who might’ve matched that description though. Saw ‘em on my way into work. Couldn’t see ‘em too well but sounds like they might have had the same hair color. I don’t know… they didn’t look familiar though. Maybe check with him?”

It was amazing how your breath could reverberate so loudly off the thick walls of paper that shrouded your face from view. Your heart pounded in your chest as you continued to eavesdrop in silence. “Yeah, I’ll go do that. Thanks, Sal.”

You peeked over your book to see her nod and perch up on her toes while she gestured to the kitchen, “Can I get you somethin’ for the road? Coffee maybe? You know it’s on the house.”

Bodecker just shook his head, a solemn look on his face, the look of a man on a mission, “Nah, I better just head out.” With that he walked out the door and you watched him carefully as he climbed into his police car and drove off down towards the old man’s house that you and Arvin had been at not more than an hour ago.

This was bad.

As quickly as you could, you paid for your meal and hustled out to your car, practically throwing yourself into the driver’s seat and speeding down the road after the officer. If he was stopping at the old man’s - Henry, as you just learned - house, that could possibly give you enough time to find Arvin at his house and drive off before Bodecker could even find the pair of you.

Your knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as you sped down the road, grateful that the roads were mostly empty at this time of day. The only sound was the wheels spinning against the asphalt and you talking aloud to yourself, trying to devise a plan. “Just get there before Bodecker, pick up Arvin, get the hell outta dodge.” You repeated it over and over again as if it were that simple.

Soon, you passed Henry’s humble abode and, sure enough, the sheriff’s car was parked just outside and you saw his large figure questioning the old man. Neither of them paid your passing car any mind, which you were grateful for as you peeled off down the left fork of the road, the one that led up to the Mitchell Flats.

You pulled up to the flat area that only had remnants of a house’s foundation now. Slabs of cement were the only signs that a house ever was here, mostly broken from years of abuse from the elements and teenagers. When you pulled up, you noticed that Arvin was nowhere to be seen. “Shit!” You hissed, jumping out of the car and jogging down towards his backyard, the direction he had headed when you dropped him off earlier. He couldn’t have made it far.

“Arvin!” You called out, arms reaching out in a desperate attempt to keep your balance as your feet skidded every few steps along the leaves and moss that slicked the hill you hustled down. “Arvin!”

“I really need you to fucking respond…” You groaned the words meant for Arvin aloud to yourself as you nearly tripped over logs on your trek through the woods. The trees all looked the same and you kept glancing behind you to ensure that you weren’t going in circles, often choosing little landmarks, like that one log that had mushrooms growing on it, to make sure you could find your way back.

Finally, you saw Arvin’s form kneeling before an eerie wooden cross, his white t-shirt dirty from several days of less than ideal situations. You ran towards Arvin, tripping slightly over a few rocks here and there along the way. He turned, ears perked up at the sound of your footsteps. “Arvin! Thank God I found you. We gotta go. Bodecker’s onto us. He came into the diner looking for us and is at Henry’s now.”

Arvin stood up hastily, “Where’s the car?”

“Up by where your house used to be.” You pointed over your shoulder in the direction you came from, “C’mon! If we leave now we might be able to get outta here before-” There was the distinct rustle of footsteps coming from uphill that made you freeze. Your voice lowered to nearly a whisper, “Did you hear that?”

Arvin froze as well, the only sound being your breathing, as you both waited for the sound again. Sure enough, there was a rustle of footsteps again. “Arvin Russell! I know you’re down there somewhere!” Bodecker’s voice rang through the forest clear as day, “You ‘n that girl you’re with. I know y’all are out there.”

Arvin literally tackled you to the ground and hugged your body close to his as he rolled the both of you into a small crevice between a fallen tree and a hole beneath it. He pressed you close into the tree, hiding you as far into the small space as he could while he fumbled around in his pocket for his gun.

“It’s Sheriff Bodecker, kids! I just got some questions to ask you!”

Arvin perched up on his elbows to try and peer over the log. You reached up and fisted his shirt, trying to drag him back down. “What the hell are you-”

A gunshot blasted through the empty forest and both you and Arvin flinched aggressively. His body dropped against yours and you held his chest tightly, burying yourself in his body and pulling him as close to you as possible, concealed in the shelter of the log. You let out a tiny shriek of surprise that you muffled by biting your thumb. His arms wrapped around your body in both an attempt to shield you but also as a knee jerk reaction looking for safety himself in you.

“Sorry ‘bout that! Goddamn bird scared me!” Bodecker breathed heavily somewhere to the west of where you were, his footsteps getting closer and closer. “I ain’t here to hurt you! And I know that y’all don’t wanna hurt me. Come on out so we can have us a talk!”

While Bodecker spoke his lies, Arvin laid back on his back and fumbled around with his gun yet again, this time gripping it and loading the clip with shaky clumsy hands. Finally, he got the clip loaded and he cocked the gun, holding it with both hands like an inexperienced marksman.

You looked around frantically for something to use as a weapon, anything to not feel helpless. Rocks and sticks seemed to be your best choices but you knew damn well that wouldn’t do jack shit against a gun. Arvin glanced over at you with fear in his eyes, the fact that you both found yourselves facing death yet again for the second time in two days. Tragedy seemed to loom over Arvin like a storm cloud but, looking in your wide beautiful eyes, he’d be damned if he let you become another ghost in his past.

“I had a feeling you’d be here. Remember that night you brought me up here? That was an awful thing your daddy did.” His footsteps were terrifyingly close now and you did the only thing you could think of to help. You tossed a stone as far away as you could. According to plan, Bodecker jumped and shot at the sudden movement. “God damnit, don’t fuck with me!”

Arvin may have had the gun but if you could make Bodecker waste his ammo, that was less chances he had of shooting you and Arvin. It was the best solution you could come up with in the heat of the moment. Bodecker sounded furious now and when you peeked over the log, you saw him hiding behind a tree.

You threw another rock in his direction and he wasted yet another shot. “Fuck! I swear to God-” He cursed angrily, knowing he was wasting his shots on nothing.

“Put the gun down, Sheriff. I got one pointed right at you!” Arvin yelled back and your eyes blew wide in panic. You smacked him on the arm and the question in your eyes was clear: What the hell are you thinking?

“Can’t do that son!”

“Just set it on the ground and step away.” Arvin’s voice shook despite his attempt at sounding firm.

“What?” Bodecker asked with a notable change in his tone. Footsteps started approaching again.

Poor Arvin fell right into the trap. “Just set it on the ground and step away!” He repeated even louder. You smacked his arm again and held a finger to your lips.

“So you can kill me like you did my sister and that preacher in West Virginia?” Bodecker hollered back. “You and that girl murdered my sister, didn’t you?”

For the first time since the incident, you felt actual guilt for what you’d done. Hearing the way Bodecker’s voice cracked with grief made you realize that Sandy’s death did actually have an effect on other people, even if she wasn’t a good person. Arvin swallowed hard too, “We ain’t bad people, Sheriff. That preacher weren’t no good. He hurt my sister so bad she killed herself, Sheriff. I had no choice!”

You shook your head and waved your hands at him, desperately pleading him to stop talking. Bodecker’s footsteps were only getting closer and you knew he was getting Arvin to talk so he could locate the two of you. Arvin just had to explain himself, though, and before you could move, Bodecker was right on top of you. From your new position, awkwardly creeping up a nearby tree, using its trunk for cover, you could see Bodecker’s shotgun peek out from around a tree.

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Sheriff, but your sister and her husband… they weren’t no good neither.” Arvin continued to explain yourselves to the sheriff. By then, your upper back was pressed up awkwardly against a standing tree but you were still lying down, hiding mostly against the fallen log still. Arvin stayed laying on his back, gun up against his chest. “I got a snapshot in my pocket of her huggin’ on some dead guy. And Y/N… you shoulda seen what they was doin’ to her,” Arvin’s eyes met yours and you could see a well of unshed tears as this poor boy was on the verge of breaking at the thought of watching you relive that horror. It was a brief moment that he wanted only you to see before he continued, “What they wanted to do to us. We had no choice! Let loose that gun and I’ll show it to you!”

Suddenly, Bodecker jumped out from behind the tree and Arvin pulled the trigger as soon as he saw him coming but not before the sheriff got a shot off right at the two of you as well. You shrieked out in pain as a few pellets from the shotgun grazed your arm, tearing holes in your jacket. They weren’t deep wounds but they tore long thin gashes across your flesh that began bleeding immediately.

“Agh!” You yelled out, clutching your bicep that was already wet with crimson liquid. Arvin rolled over next to you, having flinched away from the bullets in the opposite direction. You wanted to ask if he was alright but he rolled back over to look up at Bodecker, confirming that he was thankfully at least alive.

Your attention went to the sheriff as well who stood there looking dumbfounded at the red spot blossoming on his shirt. His jaw went slack and his knees buckled before he finally dropped to the ground. You and Arvin shot each other glances of disbelief. You both pressed yourselves off the ground and hopped over the log towards the sheriff.

Bodecker was on the ground, gasping and trying to hang onto what was left of his life. The first thing you did before even looking at him long was kneel down and take his gun from his hand. Now that you were sure he couldn’t hurt you, you looked down at him sadly. Killing Sandy and Carl had been disturbingly easy because they were genuinely terrible people who were trying to murder you. They also died quickly. Bodecker lied helpless on the ground at the mercy of two young adults, gasping and gripping desperately to this world. This time, the murder made your heart feel heavy. Yes, he had been trying to murder you and Arvin but it was for his sister’s sake. There was a twisted nobility in the action that you could empathize for.

Bodecker looked up at Arvin and then up at you. “So it was you in that picture,” he attempted to say, his voice a hoarse whisper.

Your brows furrowed in confusion, “What do you mean?”

He laid his head back, too tired to continue straining himself, “In… in my pocket… Found some pictures in Carl’s camera of… of a girl crying with her shirt.. With her shirt…” Bodecker attempted to explain but his voice failed him as much as his the rest of his body was beginning to shut down.

You gasped at the mention of the photographs. In the heat of everything, you had completely forgotten that Carl had taken a few pictures of you. You patted down the sheriff’s pocket until you found a developed picture of you with your shirt torn wide open, bra out for the world to see, and tears streaming down your face despite the defiantly angry look on your face. Sandy was topless behind you, her lips pressing against your neck and her hands gripping your breasts, pressing them up and inwards to amplify their suppleness. Her direct eye contact with the camera was chilling.

You shuttered at the picture, shoving it in your own pocket instead of giving it back to Bodecker. You weren’t sure what you’d do with it but you couldn’t risk anyone else seeing it.

Arvin had caught a glimpse of the picture and noticed the way it shook in your hands. He noticed the way your eyes glazed over looking at it like you couldn’t believe it was actually you. When you shoved it in your pocket, he sighed and pulled out his own photograph to show the sheriff, the one of Sandy posing nude behind a man’s corpse.

“We had no choice.” He told Bodecker. There was such sincerity in his voice and almost an apology in his eyes for the harm that he had caused to Bodecker and his family. It was never meant to be like this for either you or him. Neither of you were supposed to have become killers. Your hands were never meant to be stained red but life or death situations called for extreme measures and it had been you or them every time. “They was gonna kill us. I swear.”

“We didn’t wanna do it but they had a gun to our heads and tried to force us to... We didn’t have a choice. They were gonna kill us.” You reiterated, voice just as shaky as Arvin’s as you had to sit and come to terms with the events of the last twenty-four hours.

“I’m so sorry.” You and Arvin apologized in uncoordinated unison, hanging your heads low to genuinely show how sorry you were for causing him pain and that it had all had to boil down to this.

Bodecker’s eyes left the pair of you and stared upwards at the trees. You glanced up to see what he was looking at and saw a beautiful clearing in the branches that framed the perfectly clear late afternoon sky. It was a beautiful view to have to be your last, you thought morbidly but truthfully.

You and Arvin sat by Bodecker’s side, listening to his ragged strained breaths until they finally stopped and you knew he was gone. It felt like the least you could do after everything, staying with him so he didn’t die alone. You hoped that maybe it counted as some shred of redemption for the sins committed over the last two days.

When Bodecker’s body finally went limp and his eyes glazed over, you reached up and brushed your hand over his face, closing his eyes. You couldn’t stand to see the empty blue orbs stare off into nothingness and know there was nobody behind those eyes anymore. Arvin stood up and walked over to where you had been hiding, not giving Bodecker’s body much attention at all after he finally slipped away.

With a heavy sigh, you pressed yourself to your feet and walked over to where Arvin stood, looking down at a hole full of animal bones that you hadn’t noticed earlier. You visibly cringed, wondering what in the hell you walked into, “What’s that?”

Sadness overtook Arvin’s features as he stared at the pile of bones, “My best friend from when I was a boy. I had to come back and give him a proper burial.” His vague answer clearly had a story attached to it but you didn’t have the heart to press him further on it right now. Arvin turned his attention to the pistol in his hand, the one he had used to shoot Teagarden, Carl, and Bodecker, and saw nothing but the bloodshed it had caused.

You wished you could know what was going on in Arvin’s brain as he twisted that Luger in his hand. His eyes were deep with remorse, grief, and heartache and you could tell that this boy had seen too many tragedies for one lifetime and somehow, they were all related to the gun he held in his hand.

After almost a minute of silence, he placed the gun gingerly on top of the bones in the makeshift grave and piled it full of dirt until it was indistinguishable from the rest of the forest floor. The only landmarks to signify its location were the three crosses that humbly stood above it. “Why’d you do that?” You asked with gentle curiosity.

He stood up but kept his eyes trained on where the hole once was, “My daddy always told me to wait for the right time to do anything.,” He nodded his head, as if agreeing with his own decision, “I think it’s the right time.” His answer was cryptic and, yet again, you could tell there was a story behind it that you would have to wait to discover.

There was a cool breeze that sent goose bumps rising across your arms and you glanced around the forest to see the leaves rustle and fall to the ground. That was when the black and white clothing of Sheriff Bodecker stood out against the gold and brown foliage and reality settled back in.

“We should probably get outta here soon, Arv.” You urged with a gentle tone, a hand coming to rest softly on Arvin’s bicep.

Arvin’s jumped slightly, eyes darting down to where your skin gently grazed his own. The softness of your touch and the sincerity in your eyes was one that he wasn’t sure he’d experienced since his mother. Even Lenora hadn’t filled that gap that he was secretly desperate for to be filled. She was kind and gentle but had a childlike naivety that you lacked. Arvin’s mother had never looked at him the way you did either. His mother had been tender and compassionate but there was a different kind of understanding in the way that you looked at him. One look into your eyes validated all of his sins over the last few days, for better or worse.

His opposite hand reached across his body and rested over yours, revelling silently in the way your hand fit against his. “Yeah… you’re right.” Arvin took one last look at the three crosses that had haunted his dreams for years and it was almost as if he could feel himself kneeling before them with his father. These weren’t memories he ever thought he’d want to hold onto but now that he was faced with the possibility of never coming back, a part of him felt reluctant to leave. “Rest easy now, Jack.” He let his hand fall from yours with his last good bye and while you weren’t entirely sure who Jack was, you were fairly certain it was the name of whoever those bones in that grave belonged to.

“‘M sorry,” Arvin said out of the blue from the driver’s seat of your car, shaking you from the silent daze that both of you had been sitting in for the last thirty minutes.

You tore your eyes from the dashboard where they had long since zoned out on, emotionally overwhelmed, to look over at him. “For what?” You asked, brows furrowed.

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten caught up in all this.”

You shook your head, “That ain’t true, Arvin. We both ended up in Carl and Sandy’s car yesterday and we both pulled those triggers. Bodecker was shooting at us because he couldn’t settle with the fact that his sister was a monster. It’s like you said, us or them. I probably would’ve died with Sandy and Carl if it weren’t for you being there so if anything, I should be thanking you. You saved my life.”

Arvin looked over at you, his eyes red from holding back tears for so long but he still shed none. He wasn’t sure what to say to that. The way you had been sitting so quietly had him convinced that you hated him for dragging you into a life ruining situation. “Well I wouldn’t have made it this far without you either so thank you.”

You nodded with a small appreciative smile but there was an exhausted sadness behind your features that Arvin shared. Silence settled back over the car aside from the faint ever present sound of the wind outside the car as you and Arvin drove on down the highway headed for Pennsylvania. Neither of you knew what your next steps were but since killing Bodecker, you’d both decided that heading back to Barren Springs was not a wise decision. The two of you needed to get as far away from this area as you could, at least until everything blew over - that was, if it ever would. If Bodecker could track Arvin, that must have meant the other police officers knew that he had killed Teagarden as well. You weren’t sure if the police knew that you and Arvin were responsible for Carl and Sandy but you could assume as much since Bodecker came after the two of you. Even if they didn’t, there were pictures of you on Carl’s camera but your body wasn’t at the crime scene. Finally, when Bodecker didn’t return, wouldn’t that just put you and Arvin at the top of the suspect list?

So with all the uncertainty in the world, you sat in the passenger seat of your own car with a stranger who you felt like you understood more than you’d ever understood anyone, driving across state lines with no clue as to what you future held. You didn’t know where you were going, when you’d get to come back home, when you could safely see anyone you cared about again, or what was going to happen to all your life goals now. Everything that had been planned and comfortable had been stolen away by a twisted couple picking up a poor girl with a broken down car.

You didn’t know what was waiting for you in Pennsylvania, or anywhere for that matter, but even with all the uncertainty, one thing felt beyond doubt. Maybe it was the exhaustion from going two days with no sleep but you just knew Arvin Russell was going to be in your life from this day forward. There was something you couldn’t explain between the two of you. A spark felt like an inappropriate way to put it under the circumstances of your relationship thus far but it was an understanding, an empathy, a trust, a sense of protection of one another. When you tore your eyes off the road ahead long enough to look over at the man sitting beside you, his hair parted messily down the middle and his face and shirt smudged with dirt, you could have sworn you saw your future. Whether it was a future in prison together, as partners in crime, friends, or lovers, you weren’t quite sure, but a content smile crept up on your face at the inexplicably comforting knowledge that Arvin Russell would be there with you for whatever ups and downs were to come.

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