#Ivyvette Theory

[dracoria-azucar]

Here it comes! My super long, super overdue “Ivy is Yvette” theory post! (Below the cut, with photos and everything!)

Alright so this is a theory post about a character from the webcomic Never Satisfied by Taylor Robin. There are about to be MAD spoilers for the entirety of the comic so if you aren’t up to date with the comic then I don’t advise reading this! So we all know and love Ivy, the “familiar” of the protagonist Lucy Marlowe! How could you not love this face??

As the comic progresses we’re starting to learn more about Lucy’s vague past. Like how they used to be the child of Fidelia and Antoine who was at some point made to live on the streets with a younger Tobi and Su-Yeong, ultimately leading to them being taken in by Joe Rothart and “Dr. Malliet” who has been presumed dead by most up until this point. 

But that’s not the can of worms I’m trying to get into right NOW so we’ll come back to that later!

We surprisingly have learned a LOT about Ivy during this comic. A lot more than we have about any other familiar, which we could write off as natural since she’s the protagonists main companion. On the other hand, nearly HALF of the comic has been spent viewing the lives of various other characters and we haven’t gotten nearly as personal with any other familiar compared to Ivy.

So let’s cover what we know about Ivy! She is a lovely white cat with unnaturally blue eyes... Every other familiar in the series has had normal eye coloration. Not even when they’re being used as a visual conduit by their magician, like we see Joe do with Romeo.

So then why are Ivy’s eyes... Like That???

It’s difficult to write it off as a stylistic choice, since Ivy is literally the only animal, let alone the only familiar, with eyes like this. We even see that Isra owns a normal PET cat with two black dots for eyes.

In Never Satisfied, eye color is often indicative of an individual’s magical alignment. Every magic user we’ve seen has had an eye color that matches the color of magic that they use.

We KNOW this isn’t a coincidence because of individuals with unnatural eye colors as well as the fact that Ana’s eyes change their color completely when she loses her magic!

There’s more connections to eye color and magic though. When we meet Su-Yeong, a husk, we learn that Husks are most noticeable in their first stage due to their eyes.

Eyes that are glowing, with magically colored scleras instead of pupils....

..... Huh.

So, even if Ivy ISN’T a husk we can at least agree that she’s a magical anomaly. She’s unlike any familiar we’ve seen. She even said it herself!

In fact, she even makes it sound like she’s not a familiar at all..... Like she’s a person........ Wait a minute.............

In this scene Ivy is telling Lucy that she won’t be going with them to compete because she is THIERRY’S familiar, not Lucy’s.

But.... we KNOW that’s not true because Thierry is a HUSK and husks don’t HAVE familiars!

In fact, Ivy’s relationship with PIPER the frog we’ve seen subtly placed in the background of scenes before has more of a familiar relationship to Ivy then Ivy does with any human she’s been with.

It’s been established that magician’s can look through their familiars eyes, as pictured earlier with Joe looking through Romeo. 

In chapter 7 we see Ivy doing the same thing with Piper! 

Now that I’ve established that Ivy very obviously is NOT a CAT, or at the very least not a NORMAL cat, let’s get into why I think she’s Yvette!

The easiest thing to cover is the shade of magic shared between the two. The silhouette of Yvette we see is dressed in a light blue. Ivy is seen using light blue magic against Su-Yeong.

Now of course that isn’t conclusive evidence since January, Joe, Thierry, and a few other characters we’ve seen ALSO have blue magic. It’s not uncommon. So let’s get into more of what little information we have on Yvette and work back from there.

Yvette was the representative before the story began. She was seemingly mentored by Fidelia and went “missing” some unspecified amount of time ago.

Now that’s not a lot to work with I know but TRUST me.

Yvette was mentored by Fidelia who we’ve come to learn a lot about recently. Fidelia has been shown as manipulative, overbearing, and power-hungry. 

The way she speaks about Yvette shows that she held no real attachment to her, she just viewed her as another puppet to control behind the scenes.

In Fidelia’s original speech to January she talks about her experience with the guard. Glorifying January’s “heroism” in an attempt to flatter her. In fact, it seems like Yvette ALSO apprenticed with the guard, since Joe seems to know her well enough.

And at the end of her dialog with January, Fidelia speaks to her familiar about how January is “perfect” for what she needs. Easily controllable. Then ends the scene by stating the following,

...... Incredibly ominous, I agree. 

Now looking back at everything Fidelia has said about Yvette we can conclude that she was heavily manipulated by Fidelia. 

Yvette suddenly “disappearing” seems less and less likely the deeper we dig. It makes sense that Yvette could have recognized what Fidelia was doing and ran away. It also seems probable that Fidelia has no more use of Yvette and “disposed” of her... 

But the way Fidelia talks about Yvette seems to indicate that she’s at least a BIT mournful of the loss of Yvette. So while Fidelia COULD have done something to Yvette it makes the most sense that she would have kept her around as long as physically possible.

So maybe Yvette DID just run away when she realized she was being treated cruelly.

Now we know that Yvette and Fidelia had an abusive relationship but what does that have to do with Ivy?

Well, Ivy has never directly interacted with Fidelia but she has indicated how she feels about the woman once before. When Lucy first went missing and the seeker stones where flying around town.

The way that this is phrased makes it clear that Ivy knows that only one person is looking through these seeker stones for Lucy, and that person is Fidelia.

Why would Ivy be so afraid of being spotted by Fidelia if they’ve never interacted before? It makes no sense! Of course there’s the possibility that Fidelia could capture Ivy and question her relationship with Lucy but Ivy really isn’t Lucy’s familiar and she doesn’t know where Lucy is. She would be of NO help to Fidelia’s search. Then even if she thinks she might be questioned, it doesn’t explain why Ivy knows that Fidelia is the one looking?

Maybe it’s because she’s afraid that Fidelia will take her back. If she really is Yvette, and Yvette really did run away to hide from Fidelia then it makes more sense. Yvette ran, Fidelia wants her back to use her, and Yvette is scared of being caught.

A few pages before the seeker stones are shown, Ivy even directly states that she’s on the run!

From what, we don’t really know, but if Yvette is on the run and so is Ivy it’s certainly a strange pile of coincidences.

The last issue I wanted to cover is Ivy’s relationship with Thierry and Yvette’s apparent relationship with the Rotharts.

Now we already know the “Dr. Malliet” is actually Thierry Rothart who became a husk and faked his own death. We know that Lucy Marlowe was actually originally Morgan, a child under the direct care of Joe and Thierry, who was also presumed to be dead.

Lucy and Thierry being together just makes sense. Thierry became a husk and burned down their house, panicked for whatever reason, fled with the incredibly ill Morgan, and when it turned out that Morgan had lost their memories they became Lucien and Thierry became “Rothart”.

So then, where the hell did Ivy come from? She’s not anyone’s familiar and it’s clear that no one else we’ve encountered has recognized her beyond her connection to Lucy.

If Ivy was with Dr. Malliet and Morgan before they “died” then surely Isra or Neith would have recognized her? It makes sense that they wouldn’t see the face of Morgan (a supposedly dead 12 year old) in the face of Lucy (a super alive 17 year old) but I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t piece together a very distinct magical cat with unnatural blue eyes.

Except, it’s clear that Ivy and Thierry have a close emotional connection! Thierry has shown more compassion for Ivy than he has for Lucy who is his own child. He even remains non-violent with her despite being so overwhelmed by his own aggressive husk nature

So when exactly did Ivy join the duo??

Maybe she had been there all along.... just with a different name and a different body?

.............. Okay so I know french names aren’t ENTIRELY uncommon in this comic but hear me out.

Both of them have lighter blue magic, while this isn’t concrete proof that they’re related, having magic of the same shade has been narratively indicative of familial relationships in this comic MULTIPLE times.

Sylas and his father Antoine both have purple magic.

Seiji and his mother Rin both have red magic.

January and her uncle Joe both have blue magic.

Ana and her grandmother both had red magic.

Even the fact that Emilia had pink magic while neither her father or “mother” did was hinting at the fact that Emilia’s birth mother was actually FIDELIA. 

The same concept was used to show a relationship between Lucy and Fidelia! When Lucy flash-backed to a younger age and Thierry was trying to get them to use a spinel to focus their magic, it clearly showed that their magic used to be pink.

Thierry and Yvette being RELATED could explain why Joe was speaking so fondly about Yvette. Maybe she was even the reason he met Thierry in the first place! 

A younger Yvette apprenticing with the guard, befriending a young officer Joe, and ultimately introducing him to her older brother seems possible.

It would also explain why Ivy was so willing to defend Thierry to Lucy up until Lucy ran away! She didn’t want to abandon her family but when she saw that Thierry was treating Lucy how she was treated by Fidelia before she ran away, she realized she had made a mistake.

Also! It’s kinda cute to imagine “Ivy” being a nickname Thierry gave to Yvette when they were younger

Anyways this took me like two hours to type up so enjoy these screenshots of Ivy and Thierry having chaotic sibling energy.

[diagnosed-fool]

A reunion between a human and her magic frog, or, something.

(Ivyvette Theory! From human to cat to husk in three easy steps.)