#ash is dead theory

[madame-mortician]

Reposting from my TikTok, but I adore this theory/headcanon, I haven’t seen anybody else talk about it but I basically see it as canon.

Basically, I think that The Evil Dead is the actual events that happened that first night. Cheryl getting possessed first and then the rest dying until Ash kills Cheryl and Scotty and survives the night. This is basically 100% canon because Cheryl returns so it wasn’t just that they retconned this movie out of existence to say that only Ash and Linda went to the cabin like Evil Dead 2 implies.

So what is it then?

Technically it’s just shitty continuity. Originally Sam Raimi was going to include the others in the opening recap (with himself playing Scotty) but they didn’t want too much of the film to be rehashing the first movie, so they cut it back down to just Linda since she as arguably the one that most impacts Ash.

But that’s no fun, so here comes my headcanon/explanation for these recaps despite the first movie being the truth. So essentially I believe Ash became so traumatised and went slightly insane, and this caused not only memory loss but also him to misremember what actually happened.

The Evil Dead is how the first night actually went down, and the second night is just Evil Dead 2 with Linda coming back and biting his hand before he finishes her off. Then the rest of the movie and whatnot. Now is there actually any differences besides the lack of characters? Yes. Subtle ones and definitely just continuity errors but shhh.

Firstly, Ash remembers Linda being attacked through the window like Shelly was. He also doesn’t know how he ended up finding out about the cabin, despite the first movie saying that Scotty rented it (but Ash doesn’t remember Scotty, so he doesn’t remember how he got the cabin.) And finally, Linda’s deadite looks remarkably less-gorey and visually ghoulish. She’s still scary and supernatural, but compared to the first film she’s very toned down.

I think Ash only remembers Linda since she fucked him up the most mentally, due to how close they were and how scary she looked. That and she is one of the only deadites to go absolutely nuts on him. Cheryl hits him, so does Scotty, but Linda stabs and hurts him so much more. This, and the fact that only Linda returns in the second night AND it’s her necklace that saves Ash, means he would remember her.

But why forget the others existed? Surely they traumatised him too? I think he forgot them because of his massive survivors guilt. He couldn’t kill Shelly because he was too scared, he did kill Cheryl and Scotty, and then with Linda he didn’t kill her. He left her outside and only killed her once he absolutely had to. With how mad he becomes, especially after he learns that deadites can be saved, it’s any wonder he would feel horrible about killing his little sister and his best friend.

Then if you factor Army of Darkness into it, the recap shows no blood or gore, and Linda looks completely different and we don’t see her deadite form again. If I had to guess, going off personality, by Army of Darkness Ash has basically gone mad and circled back into being a charming asshole (which he wasn’t in the OG film) so him forgetting most of the cabin besides the important details makes sense. Him remembering Linda wrong could also mean he’s either forgetting about her (which also makes sense since he finds two new lovers in this film) or he’s still so traumatised he doesn’t really remember what she actually looked like.

It’s much easier for Ash to go crazy and lie to himself about how many people died because of him, instead of being constantly haunted by horrifying images of his loved ones in agony.

TL;DR: The Evil Dead is what actually happened, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness is what Ash remembers due to trauma.

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Basic math time for basic bitches who actually think Emberlynn is based on Medrano and will try to bring her actual face into it as "proof" (since we're resorting to being *that* petty...)

I'm so sorry to be the only one showing the work, but...

+

+

So obviously =

(Included because...Of course Nichols is that type of Tenderqueer, of course...)

And

But most importantly ...

Reasons/motives for this well deserved pettiness and revenge? Exhibit A:

(That bullshit not to mention Nichols defending the people snubbing her former employer and meetcute organizer...)

But most unfortunately for the fandom...

Exhibit B:

And Medrano just had to sit there and take what this fangirl who fell in love with this character design and voice actor of a gay spider was doing with her characters until Viv herself became uncomfortable enough to put a stop to it because the fandom ran it hard into the ground until these kinds of interpretations became fanon enough to do some serious irrepressible damage to perception of the fandom both in and outside of it? Not saying Ashley and Micheal's coupling was cringe but eh? Like ... Imagine falling in love with a fictional gay sex worker character you're helping animate so hard that his straight ace voice actor becomes your boyfriend? And then you feel so protective over this character that's not yours and your boyfriend, who is yours, that when, inevitably, your boyfriend gets recast and you're both let go from this pilot job, your relationship with your former employer goes to shit? But your straightbro jock of a "third" that the fandumb culture also ships with you/your boyfriend, and has known/worked with your former employer far longer than both of you have, is caught in the middle of it...? So yeah I take it back, actually, Nichols ... Kinda cringe. Kinda spoiled. Kinda entitled. Not the vibe. But if this was an intentional ...stab... at Ashley and The Hunicast Culture it's kinda deserved. Lol.

But I'm telling you, now all we need is for Emberlynn's Boyfriend to be a stab at Micheal voiced by Blake so we can sit back and watch The Cult of Kovach go psycho.

The real question is ... Do we think Bosco would have the balls to voice like a jacked up parody of his hunicastsona who died of a brain injury playing college football or something and Emberlynn and her softdrink guzzling boyfriend Adopt Him TM because "we saw u frm across the bar at the Chunk E. Chez n dig ur vibe or wateva! ;3 <3" and the only reason Emberylnn even wanted to do that is because she saw Blitz with Loona and wanted A Hellhound of Her Own and her boyfriend is jealous so he keeps trying to like, freeze this poor footplayers brain with soft drinks so he can stuff him in a freezer to switch bodies with him eventually so that Emberlynn will like him better, because they're Pinkle and The Brainfreezer, get it? And this poor WereDude is too brain damaged to escape the toxic polycule shenanigans and he doesn't explicitly want to be their third but eventually Emberlynn herself kinda grows on him like a tumor so he just submits to following her around. keeps her from getting into the more intense fights at the back of a denny or whatever at three am. kinda like a more "mature" Buttons and Mindy dynamic or whatever and aside from Emberlynn's jealous boyfriend with an inferiority complex constantly trying to switch bodies with him without Emberlynn noticing ...It's cute. It's fine.

But do we think Bosco would agree to voice that? I think he would .

Final piece of evidence to suggest Emberlynn specifically might be a parody of Ashley('s misconduct and handling of Viv's characters during Hunicast days...):

So... Ashley's main inspiration for 'Far Fetched' is Danny Phantom. right? And who's the most remembered character on Danny Phantom?

No one:

Absolutely no one:

Not a single soul:

A result from Ashely's own twitter that came up from 4years ago when I just searched up "Emberlynn Pinkle Ashely Nichols" to make sure nobody already made the hilarious connection I'm about to:

Like okay... If the blue and black fit, girl...

Knowing Viv, just add "lynn" to the end of a name if you want the perfect parody of someone ...

Blam. And you can take that joke after the joke you made out of Medrano's characters and got a boyfriend out of it too!

Look... All's I'm saying is I might be sheltered in this but I've never seen a femme vivizepop fan talk or behave like Emberlynn Pinkle does either outside of or before the hunicast popularized any of the weebshit behavior first, ever!

And again, if that short was a short Revenge Story, if you will, then... it's perfect!

[sambadeamigosgato]

I'm got a ramble i have to go through but THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT THOUGHTS AND A THEORY OF SORTS

So in Evil Dead Regeneration, Ash has the ability to become a deadite ("You kill deadites, absorb their bad mojo, become Bad Ash, kick major ass!") or go into rage mode as the game calls it.

Now when you do there's a cutscene where ash gets struck by lightning and becomes a deadite, with orange lighting surrounding him and even his boomstick shooting out lightning bolts.

Earlier before the ability is unlocked, Ash fights "Sparky", the deadite version of a electroshock therapy patient. And they ALSO control lightning.

We also see Ash after the second boss very clearly in pain and struggling to regain control. He's also very hesitant to take in the spirit of "The One Who Got Away", as he calls the monster.

Now in this, we see Ash was STILL a deadite when they found him.

So how did he turn back to normal?

Well, I have a bit of a belief that links all the earlier info together.

Ash possibly ALSO had to go through electroshock therapy. And it was possibly almost traumatizing to the point where he didn't want to deal with the deadite form, so much so because of that trauma.

I mean, being suddenly electrocuted for no reason isn't something anyone wanted to go through. And we do know Sunny Meadows wasn't the best of places to be...

[xxslashyashyxx]

god. i have so much ashscotty/scottash art that would make all 5 fans of scottash/ashscotty go insane...... (affectionate)

but i can't post them here, i need to post them on my actual art account (marrstar), since that's what it's for

[the-ipre]

[id: a digital drawing of Clove and Gia from the waists up. Clove is a pink Zeltron with purple vitiligo and shoulder length brown hair, wearing red and cream robes with gold details. Standing beside vem is Gia, a brown skinned human with shoulder length purple hair and a vest, a security earpiece in her ear and a cane in her left hand. Clove has a hand out from blowing a kiss and winks at the camera, while Gia looks over at them, unimpressed. A gold halo sits behind Clove's head, overlapping with the silver halo behind Gia /end id]

@stonehenge-asexual's guys clove and gia in star wars :D clove is space beyonce whose music definitely isnt rebellion aligned but its So sweet that you think that <3 and gia is his security guard who can't wait to get out of the public eye so the persona drops alskdf

[affectionatepro]

And this starts a conspiracy theory on the relationship between Red and Bats. And the goons soon find out that trying to find where Red Hood fits into Batman's dysfunctional family is surprisingly difficult without knowledge of lazarus pits.

Batman gets frustrated with Red Hood one night and automatically just yells in his most 'Angry Dad Voice'- That's it! You're grounded!!

Jason, caught off guard and reacting on instinct, stomps his foot and starts protesting- Are you kidding me?! This isn't fair! I didn't even do anything!

The argument continues until they both realize that Jason's men are watching them with growing confusion

[theveryworstthing]

The 6th Headless Haunting: Dryad

It was easier to take the land with her out of the way. Money and threats didn't work, and poisoning the dog just made her louder and more annoying than ever about the plan that they were passing off to any local official who asked as a "conspiracy theory". So it was time to escalate. Send a few boys over one evening pretending to be lost hunters. Do it in the woods. Make it brutal enough that the rest of family FINALLY gives up, but give the cops they paid off leeway to lie and call it a bear attack.

1 stubborn 50 something year old woman living out in the boondocks alone. Light work.

The bodies started piling up before they even found her.

The trail cameras were mostly destroyed, but the ones that survived recorded lenticels shifting on tree trunks like bulging veins, and far off human screams playing in short strange bursts, like the sound itself was being chopped to pieces. By the time her ashes were scattered on the forest floor, the whole operation was in chaos.

If you love the woods like she does and you're willing to share space with everything living and dead inside it, you're welcome there. If not?

Get off her fucking property.

[ravenclaw-for-all-seasons]

His Soft Spot (5) - Mattheo Riddle

A/N: If there are any specific scenarios you want me to explore, please let me know 🥰

The Slytherin common room was dimly lit, the fire casting flickering shadows as you slumped over a pile of parchment, feeling like your brain was going to melt. Your Ancient Runes essay looked like gibberish, your Potions notes were a disaster, and Transfiguration theory? Forget it.

And, of course, Mattheo was in detention, meaning your usual study distraction was nowhere to be found.

"You're gonna combust if you keep staring at that essay like that," Theo remarked, lazily watching you from across the room.

Enzo, stretched out on the couch, hummed in agreement. "Yeah, seriously. You need to relax."

You groaned, rubbing your temples. "I can't. If I don’t finish this, McGonagall will murder me."

Theo twirled something between his fingers, smirking. "You need to chill."

You shot him a glare. "Brilliant advice, Theo. Got any actual suggestions?"

Instead of answering, he pulled out a cigarette. "Here. Always helps me."

You blinked. "Are you serious?"

Theo smirked. "Dead serious."

Before you could answer, Enzo snorted, shaking his head. "Mate, I give you ten seconds before Mattheo walks in and loses his absolute shit."

Theo chuckled. "Oh, come on. It's one cigarette. What’s the worst that could happen?"

You hesitated, glancing at Enzo, who just grinned like he already knew how this would end.

"...Fine," you muttered, taking it. Theo flicked his lighter, holding it up.

The first inhale was awful—your throat burned, and you immediately coughed.

"Merlin’s beard," you choked, waving the smoke away. "How do you do this?"

Theo just laughed. "You'll get used to it."

Before you could bring it back to your lips to try again, the common room door creaked open.

A wave of tense silence spread as Mattheo walked in, his uniform slightly rumpled from detention, tie hanging loose, sleeves rolled up.

His dark eyes landed on you immediately—and more specifically, on the cigarette between your fingers.

The room might as well have dropped ten degrees.

"The fuck is this?" His voice was low and dangerous.

Theo and Enzo froze, exchanging looks.

You slowly lowered the cigarette, feeling caught. "...Hi, Mattheo."

"Don't hi, Mattheo me princess,” he challenged, stalking over. His gaze flickered between you and Theo. "Since when does you smoke?"

Theo opened his mouth, but Enzo elbowed him. "Told you, mate," Enzo muttered. "Ten seconds."

Mattheo completely ignored them, eyes fixed on you. Before you could even react, he plucked the cigarette from your fingers—but instead of tossing it away like you expected, he brought it to his own lips and took a slow, deep drag.

You stared. Hard.

So did Theo and Enzo.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," you muttered.

Mattheo exhaled a stream of smoke, smirking. "What?"

You folded your arms, raising an eyebrow. "Double standards much?"

His smirk only grew as he tilted his head. "Angel, there’s no hope for my soul," he murmured, flicking some ash away. "But you?" He leaned in, his voice dropping lower, just for you. "I won’t let anyone corrupt you." His lips brushed your ear as he added, "Except me�� when you ask really nicely."

Then he winked.

Your stomach flipped.

Theo gagged dramatically. "Merlin, I regret everything. Take the cigarette back, this is unbearable."

Enzo howled with laughter. "I told you, Theo!"

Mattheo shot them both an unimpressed look before turning back to you. He exhaled another puff of smoke, his free hand slipping around your waist. "Promise me, princess—next time you're stressed, you come to me. Not these two idiots."

You huffed. "You were in detention."

"Then you wait for me," he murmured, tapping the cigarette ash away before leaning down to kiss your forehead. "I'll always take care of you."

Theo groaned. "I'm actually going to be sick."

Mattheo ignored him, his eyes locked on yours, waiting for your answer.

You sighed, giving in—because, really, how could you say no when he looked at you like that? "...Fine. I promise."

His smirk softened into something dangerously sweet. "Good girl."

Then, just to be an ass, he took another drag from the cigarette and kissed you slow enough that you could still taste the smoke on his lips.

Enzo whistled. "Oh, that's just evil."

Mattheo just grinned against your lips, clearly having the time of his life.

[nixnight1]

That one Big Bang Theory scene but:

James never loses his composure but sometimes like this when he's tired and lost and doesn't know what to feel, he brakes a little.

James: You LOST my mother's ashes??

The girl that works at the airport:...No...I-I'm just saying that sometimes bags are misrouted.

James: Alright FINE, where did you misrout the only woman who EVER LOVED ME.

--- an hour later ---

The girl: Mr and Mr Potter? As far as I can tell your bag arrived in LA

Regulus: So where is it?

The Girl: Well I don't know, perhaps somebody took it off the carousel by mistake?

James: So some stranger has my mother? It's thar what you're talking about? My poor mother can be anywhere in Los Angeles rightnow?

The Girl close to tears: I- I wish I was telling you that. Uhm but the passenger could have gotten on in an international flight

James: Okay, grate. So...your ENTIRE job is to find lost luggage, and you've narrowed down the location of my mother to the PLANET EARTH

--- James starts to walk away ---

Regulus to the girk: Listen to me very well, you better find my husband's mother's ashes, because one way OR ANOTHER we are walking out with a dead woman. Do you understand?

The Girl:...

Regulus: Do you?!

The Girl: Yes, sir

[madame-mortician]

I wanted to do a quick analysis on Ash’s clothes throughout Evil Dead so here we go.

In The Evil Dead, he wears a blue shirt and brown pants, both of which are rather saturated and vivid. By the end of the film he is drenched in blood and barely any of the blue is showing through, and I personally think this represents a loss of innocence, with the events he had just survived and witnessed. At the start he was simply your everyday college student, but by the end he had lost all his close friends, to a demonic entity and he himself had to kill all of them, with this being reflected by his colourful clothes now being completely blood soaked and dirty.

In Evil Dead 2, he is wearing the same thing however the clothes are much more desaturated, with his blue shirt and brown pants being more grey than before. I feel this shows how he has literally lost his colour, and how the tragedy that occurred the night before has made him more serious and depressed. By the end he is covered in blood again, showing the bloodshed he just went through again, yet at the very end when he arrives in 1300A.D. he ends up covered in dust and sand becoming even more grey and dull. Since in this scene he is crying out after realising he is essentially doomed, he has literally lost all his colours and had basically given up before this was retconned in Army of Darkness.

In Army of Darkness he wears his muddy and sandy clothes from the end of Evil Dead 2, however he changes out of them after getting the kingdoms approval and is given a new blue shirt by Sheila. This one appears in a similar colour scheme to his original fit, however it is just slightly duller. This, to me, shows Ash’s slow acceptance into his hero role, where the tragedy that made him lose all his colour is changing him into the cocky jokester everybody knows him for. His colour has returned as he is no longer serious and depressed however it is not as colourful as it was in the first film, because no matter how hard he tries he cannot just get over what happened. His clothes are clean and no longer bloodstained, and he is wearing fancy knight armour. At a stretch you could interpret this as him literally shielding himself away from others.

In the TV show his clothes are darker and still more saturated, signifying he has grown past his trauma and isn’t as saddened by it, however the darker colour scheme as opposed to the lighter one he used to have could symbolise how he has grown into an darker person all together, laughing and finding solace in being a cocky asshole whilst others suffer around him. His comedic attitude towards these horrific events are reflected with his clothes being colourful, yet he is no longer innocent enough to have lighter clothes.

That or they just changed his outfit in each film 🤭

[scliffe]

I know how the current relationship between r!Ciel and o!Ciel looks like, but here is a sentimental theory on our little twins’ relationship:

They used to be inseparable, two peas in a pod, and our Ciel seems to be the more sensitive one compared to his older brother, but if you look closely, r!Ciel was the one more deeply attached to his younger twin.

Now, from our point of view, this older twin rises up from the dead in such a disconcerting manner; leaving piles of dead bodies sacrificed for his resurrection. Since he was supposed to be the sacrificial lamb required to summon the demon, it becomes a question of whether r!Ciel even still has a soul, or if he has become something else entirely. This “soulless” brother killed Agni then proceed to frame o!Ciel for his crimes and ousted his twin brother and the servants from the manor.

But what was it like from r!Ciel’s point of view? After being cruelly murdered on the altar, his body was butchered to retrieve the Phantomhive ring from his stomach. His younger brother was consorting with the very same demon who ate his soul. Not only does o!Ciel not seem to resent Sebastian at all, he trusts and relies on the demon, treating him like a most trusted confidant, the only person o!Ciel allows to carry and touch him in such a familiar manner. From all manners of appearance, it seems almost like his younger twin has been coveting his position from the start, using the chance given through his demise to usurp his rank, steal his name, his position as the heir, and even his fiancé.

From our Ciel’s point of view, Sebastian is merely a demon summoned by the people who killed his brother: he does not begrudge Sebastian for being what he is. He negotiates a fair contract with terms of service clearly defined and a promise for the payment to be delivered at the end. Our Ciel cannot trust other people, but he can trust the contract; thus making Sebastian the only person worthy of his trust, the only one who can’t abandon him, can’t betray him, and will definitely stay by his side until the very end. From r!Ciel’s point of view, this is the demon who consumed his soul and stole his younger brother. After all, before Sebastian was there, they used to be each other’s closest confidante.

His little brother has changed so much, and he seems to be living happily as the Earl of Phantomhive with this filthy demon by his side tending to him, catering to him, touching him so familiarly with the same hands which ripped Ciel’s stomach apart to dig for that ring; the ring that was supposed to be their promise to return home together. His little brother left him behind on that altar and told the demon to reduce everything to ashes. He couldn’t even be bothered to give him a proper burial. He acted like he never had a twin brother in the first place: nobody aside from their closest family friends and relatives even knows that the Earl of Phantomhive had been born with a brother.

While he was left for dead, forced to become an undead abomination prolonging his miserable existence by stealing the life and blood of other people, his twin took his place and denied him of his existence. It was the pain of betrayal like no other, from his most trusted and beloved brother.

But therein lies the paradox: who was it that our Ciel truly buried, with no sentimental feelings left, given that he took the name of his brother?

We don’t even know the birth name of our Ciel. Rather than Ciel Phantomhive has disappeared, it was more like his brother has disappeared. Almost without a single trace.

Why did the little brother choose to take his older brother’s name? The readers know that it was not only for the inheritance; but this is because we read what was going on in his head. The real Ciel does not necessarily know the reason why his brother chose to take his identity; and by saying that he does not intend to pursue it, he likely does not dare to hear the reason why.

Our Ciel was haunted with the guilt of being the only one who survived. The spare should have died in the place of the heir, not the other way around. Even when making the deal with Sebastian, he constantly thought of ‘what would Ciel do?’—but Ciel is gone, and he’s the only one left. No matter how difficult and insurmountable it seems, he had to live in the place of his twin, acting like it was Ciel Phantomhive who had survived.

So he has killed himself and removed all traces of his existence; all for the sake of revenge—in order to let Ciel Phantomhive rise from the ashes and restore honor to the name of the Earl of Phantomhive. There is no use for the spare, there is only place for Earl Ciel Phantomhive. The only remnant left of the person who used to be Ciel Phantomhive’s spare was the toy company. It was a silly childhood dream, and our Ciel has accomplished it true to his words… in the place of his brother.

The toy company was perhaps the last remnant of his selfish desire; the wish that if his brother had been the one to survive, he would fulfill the childish dream of his dead younger brother. If the real Ciel was truly the one who survived that night, maybe he would also think to remember his little brother this way. Even if the spare was to disappear without a trace, with his soul gone into the bowels of the demon, surely his older brother will commemorate him so, letting him leave their mark in the world; symbolized by the rabbits that were their tenth birthday present.

It’s just such a shame that the spare was not the one who died and the dead does not remain dead, so both were left hurting each other; each thinking the other wants him to be gone, leaving their brotherly affections broken beyond repair.

[brookghaib-blog]

Silence between hearts - V

Pairing: Robert ‘Bob’ Reynolds x reader

Summary: After Project SENTRY fails, Robert Reynolds is declared dead and sealed in a glass coffin to be hidden by O.X.E. Y/N, a doctor who secretly fell in love with him after a complicated path between them, refuses to believe he’s gone—fighting to save what’s left of him while grief and denial consume her, the path to look for him would ruin her, but to what extreme.

Word count: 8,8k

Warning: emotional abuse, suicidal intentions, eating disorder, depression, character death, attempt homicide

--

The Manhattan skyline was suffocating.

Not because it wasn’t beautiful—because it was—but because it was familiar. Familiar in a way that tied chains to her ankles. The glittering lights that once meant hope now only glared like judgmental eyes, watching her every breath as if waiting for her to mess up.

Y/N had been back in New York for three weeks. Her return had been marked with nothing more than a silent car ride from JFK to her parents’ towering brownstone, the driver quiet, the air thick with the unspoken grief that clung to her like second skin. Her father didn’t meet her at the airport. Neither did her mother. They were waiting at home like she had merely gone out for groceries.

"Finally back to your senses," her father had muttered during dinner, inspecting her like one of his lab specimens. "Now let’s work on something real."

Real.

Apparently, the man who had loved her in silence, in quiet nights and fleeting glances, wasn’t real. Apparently, the beat of his heart recorded on her phone and played on loop when she couldn't sleep wasn’t real. The project she built from nothing, the theory she bled over, wasn’t real. Bob wasn’t real to them.

She didn’t correct them.

Most days, she spent in her father’s lab, shadowing projects she had no interest in, half-listening to meetings, giving data evaluations she didn’t care about. Her work was lifeless, an echo of the passion she used to carry like a torch. At night, she went home to her parents’ house where the air always smelled of lavender and too many expectations.

“You’re getting older, darling,” her mother said just the other night, pouring herself a glass of merlot with the grace of a socialite. “All this science, this lab work, it’s lovely and all but men want something soft. Something elegant. Not… equations.”

Y/N had stared blankly at her.

“Mrs. Dempsey’s son is coming back from Yale soon,” her mother added, as if that was the answer to everything. “He’s in banking. I told her we’d attend the fundraiser next week. I’ll pick a dress for you.”

She didn’t respond. She just left the room.

That night, like every other, she lay in the dark on her childhood bed, curled beneath crisp, cold sheets, clutching her phone like it could anchor her. She hit play on the audio recording, the only one she hadn’t had the heart to delete.

It was static at first. A few distant clicks. And then it came.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Bob’s heartbeat. Strong. Measured. Human.

The only thing left of him that hadn’t turned to ash.

She didn’t cry that first night. Or the second. But by the end of the first week, the silence of her room cracked her open. She wept into her pillow, careful to muffle it, careful to keep her sobs quiet so her mother wouldn’t hear and come knocking with a lecture about composure. About feminine dignity.

Bob’s voice sometimes joined her in her dreams. Sitting on the sterile edge of the lab bed, smiling that crooked, shy smile, fingers brushing hers when he thought no one noticed.

“Thank you,” he had once whispered to her, forehead pressed to hers after one of those nights they shouldn’t have shared. “For letting me feel human again.”

She hadn’t felt human since he died.

Every day she forced herself out of bed and went back to the lab was a betrayal of what she had wanted. The project in Malaysia had been hers. It was her idea. Her rebellion. Her desperate need to prove that people didn’t have to be monsters to be powerful. That trauma didn’t disqualify someone from salvation.

Bob had been that proof.

And they took him.

Now, the lab was a mausoleum of voices that didn't listen, charts that didn’t mean anything, and experiments that forgot humanity. Her father never asked what went wrong. Just told her the data was lacking. His disappointment wasn’t new—but it had new weight now. Because she was too tired to care.

She had become a ghost in her own life. Wandering.

Every now and then, she’d glance in the mirror and barely recognize herself. There was something dull in her eyes now. Something sunken. And when she touched her chest, where her heart used to beat fast in Bob’s presence, it only ached.

One night, while her parents were out at yet another society event, she crept into the kitchen, barefoot, hair a mess, wrapped in one of her father's old lab coats because it reminded her of Malaysia. She poured herself a drink and sat by the window, gazing out over the city.

A whisper of a memory hit her.

Bob’s laugh, rare and rough, as she dragged him down the lit streets of Kuala Lumpur. “You’re going to get us both caught.”

“Then don’t walk like a super soldier,” she had teased, grinning.

He had looked at her with those eyes then—soft gold in the dark—and said, “You make it easy to forget what I am.”

She downed the drink.

--

The chandelier above her head glittered like judgment. Sharp-edged crystals, refracting light the same way her mother’s voice did—bright, hard, unforgiving.

“Stand up straight, darling.”

Y/N blinked, caught between sleep and obedience. The silk robe around her felt foreign, like a costume someone else had chosen. Her mother circled her like a designer evaluating a mannequin.

“You’ve always had such good bones. The weight loss has helped them show. Your cheeks are finally defined. Maybe all that humidity in Malaysia did something to your metabolism.”

Y/N didn’t answer.

If only she knew the real reason the weight had disappeared—because food had lost all taste, because even hunger felt pointless now, just another reminder of being alive when the man she loved wasn’t.

Her mother moved to the vanity, sifting through powders and lipsticks like a surgeon selecting her instruments. “Now, we need a dress that shows off your waist. Something elegant, but not desperate. That blue one from Paris. The one you’ve never worn.”

Y/N stared at herself in the mirror. Pale skin. Dull eyes. Hair pulled into soft waves she hadn’t touched herself—her mother’s stylist had come in earlier that afternoon, humming and tugging and transforming her into a version of herself that felt utterly distant.

“You’re lucky,” her mother continued. “You still have time to marry well. Most women your age in this city have either sold out or given up. But you—you still have that glow. And tonight is important. The Patersons will be there. Their son just got promoted. Vice president, darling. At thirty-one.”

Y/N tried to respond, to summon a nod, a word. Nothing came.

“God, don’t give me that face,” her mother sighed, brushing a rose shade onto Y/N’s cheek. “You’ve always had such a sensitive expression. I swear you were born frowning.”

“Maybe I was,” Y/N whispered.

Her mother paused, mascara wand in hand, and gave her a look—equal parts disdain and worry. “What does that mean?”

Y/N didn’t answer. She couldn’t say what it really meant: that she was born into a world that already felt like a cage. That she had tried to run from it—across oceans, into research, into Bob’s arms—and now that cage was smaller than ever.

Her mother went on, ignoring her silence. “When you walk into the gala tonight, you need to radiate grace. No slouching. Don’t talk about science. Just smile. Men don’t care about molecular theory. They care about charm, about softness. Don’t bring up Malaysia unless asked—and even then, keep it light.”

The mention of Malaysia tightened something in her throat.

Softness. She had been soft with Bob. Gentle. Vulnerable. It wasn’t charm. It was real. It was warm skin in cold sheets, whispered jokes between test results, his lips brushing her forehead in the dark like a prayer.

She hadn’t smiled like that since.

“You’re quiet tonight,” her mother remarked, fitting earrings into her ears—blue sapphires to match the dress. “Not that I mind. You get so argumentative when you’re tired. Or hormonal. Are you eating properly?”

Y/N’s stomach churned. She’d survived on tea and water for days. The idea of food was nauseating. She thought about the chocolate Bob used to steal from the lab pantry just to get her to eat something during late-night analysis sessions.

He would nudge her with a grin, holding it out like an offering. “I heard chocolate’s good for genius brains.”

That same chocolate had sat untouched in her nightstand drawer since her return.

“I miss when you used to dress up like this more often,” her mother said wistfully, smoothing the bodice of the gown. “Before all that lab nonsense. Before you went chasing ghosts in jungles and locked yourself in basements.”

They hadn’t talked about what happened.

Not really.

No one in this house had asked what she’d lost. What she had risked. The name "Bob" never passed their lips, as if by ignoring it, they could will it out of existence.

“You could still turn this around,” her mother said softly, finally meeting Y/N’s eyes in the mirror. “A good husband, a proper home. You’re not lost. You just got distracted.”

Y/N looked at her own reflection.

A beautiful stranger stared back. Perfect makeup. A designer dress. Collarbone jutting like a blade. Her eyes betrayed everything. She looked like a woman wearing a corpse.

“You don’t have to stay long tonight,” her mother added, mistaking the silence for agreement. “Just enough to be seen.”

Y/N nodded once, slowly, like her neck was made of glass. And her mother smiled, satisfied, kissing her on the cheek like she was proud.

“You’ll thank me for this someday.”

Maybe. Or maybe, Y/N thought, she'd look back on this night as one more moment she disappeared a little more. One more time she smiled through the ache, pretended the heartbeat in her phone didn’t play in her mind like a funeral song.

She gripped her phone in her hand and whispered to herself, just once, under her breath:

“I miss you, Bob.”

--

The ballroom was gold.

Gold chandeliers, gold filigree on ivory columns, champagne bubbling like liquid gold in tall flutes held by men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns so crisp they rustled like expensive paper.

Y/N walked through it like a ghost.

The heels her mother insisted on pinched at her ankles, but she barely noticed. Her spine stayed straight under pressure—years of training at dinner parties and galas taught her that. Her lips curved into a passive smile. Her eyes scanned, but didn’t linger. She was moving, presenting, nodding. Floating above herself.

People she didn’t recognize greeted her with polite delight.

“Oh, you're Henry’s daughter!”

“I heard you were in Asia for a project. How fascinating.”

“Still working in science? Good for you, my dear. But when are you going to settle down?”

Every question felt like a brick to her chest.

She stood next to her mother near the Patersons’ table, nodding as the man—Harold, she thought—launched into a monologue about fiscal expansion and generational investment. His son, Nicholas, was tall and clean-cut, polite but not particularly attentive. He asked about Malaysia once, but didn’t wait for an answer. He offered her champagne, and when she declined, he raised a brow.

“Too strong?” he asked with a laugh.

No, she thought. Not strong enough.

She excused herself before dessert.

The powder room was all mirrors and orchids. Y/N locked herself in the furthest stall, heels clacking quietly over marble. Her hands shook as she opened her purse. The sound of her breath quickened.

She pulled out her phone.

Opened the voice memo app.

"Heartbeat_Recording_Bob_023" Timestamp: 3:12 a.m. Duration: 0:21 seconds

She hit play.

That sound—that low, steady, rhythmic beat—played like a lullaby through the speaker. A sound once meant for scientific observation, logged during a midnight scan just weeks before everything unraveled. His heartbeat had lulled her to sleep back then. Now it anchored her grief.

She pressed the phone to her chest, eyes shutting.

A heartbeat that had stopped. A man who had died in front of her. And yet here it was—proof that he had been real. Not a dream. Not a delusion.

Her breath hitched.

A sob broke loose—quiet but sharp, like the snapping of a violin string. She stifled it with the sleeve of her dress, but it didn’t stop. Her chest trembled.

She had been pretending for weeks.

Pretending to be alive.

Pretending not to remember how his breath felt against her collarbone. How he mumbled her name like it tasted too good to lose. How they used to hold hands in the dark, afraid of what morning might steal away.

Another sob escaped.

The sound of her heartbreak, reverberating in gold-tiled silence.

The door creaked open—soft footsteps outside.

“Y/N?”

Her mother.

Y/N didn’t answer. She held her breath. The footsteps hesitated.

“I hope you're not hiding again,” her mother said, voice low but irritated. “The Paterson boy just asked where you were. Honestly, can’t you make an effort? For once?”

Y/N didn’t respond. She waited until the footsteps retreated, heels clicking briskly against tile.

Only then did she allow her knees to give in.

She sank to the floor.

She stayed there, in the stall, her gown bunched around her, listening to the heartbeat of a dead man.

Outside, laughter erupted like fireworks. Champagne glasses clinked. A string quartet played a waltz. But Y/N remained in that tiny room of mirrors and marble, mourning a man no one knew she loved.

She couldn’t stay much longer—not at the gala, not in this life that wasn’t hers.

She wiped her face with trembling fingers and whispered to herself, like a vow:

“I can’t keep doing this.” She says as she gets out of her stall.

The mirrors betrayed nothing.

Y/N stood before them again—composed, cold, elegant. Her makeup reapplied with trembling fingers, only barely concealing the red-rimmed eyes and the slight puffiness under them. Her lipstick, darker now, gave her the illusion of control. A crown painted back onto a woman who had long since abdicated.

She walked out of the powder room and into the cacophony of the ballroom—its laughter, its wine-soaked glamour, its artificial warmth. The chandeliers glimmered like stars over a world she no longer belonged to.

And then she saw her.

Leaning effortlessly against the edge of the bar, swirling a glass of something amber in a crystal tumbler—Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

Y/N’s heart dropped.

She had seen ghosts. Heard voices. Dreamed in vivid detail of moments long gone. But Valentina was real.

A shark in satin. Wearing a gown as dark as oil, her hair swept up with deadly precision, as if even a strand out of place could ruin the lie of grace she projected.

“Well, well.” Valentina’s voice cut across the room like a razor wrapped in silk. “Didn’t expect to see you in lipstick and lace. Malaysia made you soft.”

Y/N stopped in her tracks. People moved around her, unaware. Uncaring. She could barely breathe.

“What are you doing here?” Y/N asked, voice cold. Strained.

“Oh, sweetheart. I'm always where the important people are,” Valentina said smoothly, taking a sip from her drink. “And you? Still mourning your little science experiment?”

Y/N flinched—visibly.

Valentina smiled. A slow, cruel thing.

“You know,” she continued, stepping forward now, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I warned you. About getting attached. But you didn’t listen. You thought you could fix him. Mold him. Save him. Like some tragic little girl trying to rewire a bomb.”

Y/N’s jaw clenched. “He wasn’t a weapon.”

Valentina laughed—genuinely amused. “No, darling. He was a time bomb. You just didn’t like the sound of the ticking. But it was always there. I saw it. And you? You were so naïve. So emotional. Thinking you were tricking everyone being some cold doctor with a porpuse, when you are just a little girl playing daddy dearest. You gave him a heartbeat and thought it meant something.”

Y/N looked away, but Valentina stepped into her path, blocking her retreat.

“They say you ran to him the second he lost control. That you shoved people out of the way. That you screamed his name like a madwoman. Romantic. Pathetic. Sad that you did all that just to find a corpse.”

Y/N swallowed the lump in her throat, but the pain in her chest was volcanic. “You don’t know anything about what we had.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Valentina crooned, tilting her head. “I know everything. I read every file. Watched every feed. You think I didn’t notice when you started cutting the camera at night? Or how he looked at you like a goddamn puppy? It was adorable. But in the end... you couldn’t stop him. And he still died in your arms. So tell me—how’s that for powerless?”

The words hit like bullets.

Y/N’s composure shattered—just a flicker. Her hands trembled. Her breathing became shallow.

“You’re disgusting,” she whispered.

Valentina’s smile widened. “No. I’m honest.”

Then she leaned in, voice now like poison poured into honey.

“But you, darling... you’re broken. And no amount of red lipstick will make you look whole again.”

Y/N stood frozen. Humiliated. Grieving. Enraged.

Then, without a word, she turned and walked away—past the gold, the laughter, the polished lies. Out of the ballroom. Out into the night.

She didn’t stop until she reached her family’s car, her hands shaking so badly she fumbled with the keys. She sat there for a long time, in the back seat, staring at nothing. Letting the tears fall freely this time. No powder room. No mirrors. No mother’s voice hissing about appearances.

Just the cold silence of grief.

--

The sun had long since risen, golden streaks bleeding through the sheer curtains of her childhood bedroom. But Y/N hadn't moved.

Her body lay curled atop the ivory bedspread, sheets untouched, her pillow still damp from a sleepless night. She hadn’t even changed out of the dark dress she wore to the party. The satin now wrinkled, tight around her knees where she had drawn them up to her chest. Her eyes, bloodshot and hollow, were locked on the white wall ahead of her—blank, sterile, void. Like the lab. Like Bob’s room after he was gone.

She hadn’t cried.

Not since the party. Not since Valentina had shoved her grief into a corner of shame.

Not until now.

The shrill ring of her phone broke the silence like a knife to glass.

Y/N reached for it slowly, like underwater. When she saw her father’s name on the screen, a tightness formed in her chest. She answered with a dull, rasped voice, barely above a whisper.

“Yes?”

“Y/N,” her father’s voice came through, steady but strangely subdued. “You’ll need to make arrangements for tomorrow.”

She didn’t respond. Not immediately.

“Tomorrow?” she echoed numbly.

There was a pause. Then, quietly—too quietly for the man she had known all her life—he said:

“Ilari is dead.”

The words struck with no warning.

She blinked once. Twice. As if they hadn’t landed properly. Her breath caught in her throat.

“There was an explosion at the O.X.E. facility. Contained, but… he was in the wing when it happened. His body was… unrecoverable.”

Y/N sat up too quickly, her hand gripping the edge of the nightstand as the world tilted.

“No—no, no. What do you mean? Ilari—he—he was in the lab, he—” her voice cracked like thin glass under pressure.

Her father remained calm, factual. “I’ve spoken to the board. There will be a closed memorial. You'll attend.”

She could barely speak. Her lungs were tight, crushed under the weight of grief trying to push itself out.

“You knew—didn’t you?” she accused, her voice rising like a storm surge. “You knew the place was unstable, you—you knew it wasn’t safe—. How the fuck was there in explosion capable of this?”

“I’m telling you so you can prepare, not to argue,” he replied firmly, that cold edge back in his tone. But there was something underneath it this time—strained, brittle.

Before she could say anything else, he added, “I'm sorry,”—and hung up.

Two seconds passed.

Then five.

And suddenly—she screamed.

It burst out of her with no warning, guttural and sharp like a wounded animal. She hurled the phone across the room, the screen cracking against the far wall. She screamed again, this time louder, and collapsed onto the floor with her hands clawing at the carpet like she was trying to rip the pain out of the earth.

Dr. Ilari was dead.

He had been the only one who treated her like a human being. Not like a daughter. Not like a tool. Not like a disappointment. He had joked with her. He had listened. He had protected her from the worst of the project, from Valentina, from her own father’s looming shadow.

He had known—about her and Bob. And he had never judged.

He had called her “kid.” He had once danced like a fool when her protein synthesis had shown its first signs of success. He had made her laugh.

And now he was just—gone. Another name. Another file. Another burnt-out light in a hallway of ghosts.

She wailed, her nails digging into her arms, her chest heaving, sobs erupting with no rhythm. Pain was no longer something inside her—it was her. It had filled every cavity, taken her shape, worn her skin like a shroud.

The door burst open.

“Y/N?!”

Her mother’s voice sliced into the chaos. But it didn’t register.

Y/N was crumpled on the floor, shaking, screaming through her tears. Her mother rushed to her side, gripping her shoulders, trying to calm her, but Y/N flailed in her grip.

“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “Don’t—don’t you dare—!”

“What’s happening?! What happened?!” her mother demanded, suddenly pale.

“He’s dead!” Y/N howled. “He’s dead! He—he—he’s dead and I—I can’t—”

She collapsed again, curling into herself, sobbing so hard it seemed like her lungs might collapse. Her mother froze, unprepared for this kind of grief, for the rawness of her daughter’s agony.

The woman now sat in silence, watching her only child fall apart in a way that no silk gown or elegant husband could ever fix.

Y/N couldn’t stop crying.

Not when her mother finally stood and awkwardly left the room.

Not when the sun faded from the sky.

Not when her throat gave out.

Only when the silence returned—empty, brutal, total—did she fall asleep on the floor.

Her phone’s cracked screen still blinked with the last message she would ever hear from the only man who believed in her work, her mind, and in her heart.

"I'm sorry."

--

The calendar said two weeks

Two weeks since the explosion.

Two weeks since the voicemail that shattered whatever was left of Y/N’s resolve.

Since then, she had become a ghost in the house her parents still tried to call a home.

Some mornings she didn’t move from bed. Others she wandered into the kitchen in silence, barefoot in a shirt that hadn’t seen the laundry in a week, only to make tea she wouldn’t drink and stare blankly at the marble counter. She’d forget she had left the kettle on. She forgot a lot of things.

Emails from the lab piled up unanswered. Her father’s voiced irritation had long since turned into cold silence. Her mother still tried to coax her out of bed with forced smiles and harsh judgments. But Y/N no longer had the strength to push back. Not even the will to fight.

The only thing she did with purpose anymore was remember.

At night—when the house was asleep and her parents retreated behind their walls of money and legacy—she curled beneath her blankets and went through old photo albums. Not just of Bob. Not just of Malaysia. But older. Kinder. Safer.

Pictures of her and Dr. Ilari at O.X.E., smiling over papers, a coffee mug in his hand. Notes he’d scrawled in the margins of her research with dry humor and care. Images of her as a child—back before everything. Her fingers trailed over the faces of those who had once meant something. Her hands trembled like a patient with tremors too deep to medicate.

And that night was no different.

She sat in bed, laptop dim on her thighs, light flickering as she scrolled through digitized photos. A younger Ilari in a lab coat, smiling with one brow cocked. A candid one, Bob blurry in the background, caught mid-laugh. She pressed two fingers gently against the screen.

A tear fell to her pajama shirt.

She didn’t hear the window open downstairs.

Didn’t hear the soft tread of boots across hardwood.

Didn’t hear the deliberate way a shadow moved past the ornate staircase, or how it paused at the family portraits on the wall, eyeing them coldly.

Yelena Belova moved like a ghost. Silent. Efficient. Lethal.

She’d come in through the south side of the townhouse. She knew the layout. Valentina had provided it, along with the schedule. Parents in the master wing. Daughter alone in the west hall. Lights out by midnight. She was to be in and out in fifteen minutes. No mess. No witnesses. Only a file to close.

She didn’t expect the girl to be awake.

Yelena opened the bedroom door, gun raised, finger just resting near the trigger—not on it yet. Her blade was holstered on her thigh. Quiet work. Always quiet. But her eyes locked with Y/N’s the second she stepped into the room.

Y/N startled, breath catching in her chest.

She froze.

Yelena saw it all at once—the confusion, the fear, the way Y/N’s limbs curled toward her chest instinctively, like a wounded animal expecting the blow.

“Wh-who—” Y/N stammered, voice weak with terror. “Who are you? What—what are you doing in my room?”

The gun glinted in the low light.

Yelena stayed silent. Her green eyes narrowed as she approached slowly, cautiously. She had expected sedation. Sleep. Not this.

Y/N’s breathing quickened. Her hands flew up, shaking. “Please—please, my parents—if you want money, we—we can give you whatever you—”

“I don’t want your money,” Yelena said, flat and low.

That voice—it cut sharper than the metal she carried.

Y/N’s eyes flicked to the gun. She sank lower into the bed, almost folding into herself. “Are you going to kill me?”

The question hung in the air like smoke.

Yelena hesitated.

Valentina’s words echoed through her mind. “She's the daughter of one of my scientists, she has become a liabilly to my work, I need her gone, she's too dangerous.”

But this—this woman in front of her? She wasn’t some weaponized threat. She was grief in a human shell. There were bags under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises. Her body was thinner than the medical file had indicated. She was shaking.

She looked broken.

And Yelena had killed a lot of people. But she had never once enjoyed killing the broken.

Y/N’s voice broke again. “Please… did you hurt my parents?”

“No,” Yelena replied after a long silence. Her tone was clipped. “They’re asleep. You should have been too.”

“Why me?” Y/N whispered.

Yelena exhaled through her nose. She wasn’t supposed to answer questions. She never answered questions. But this girl—she had nothing. It bled from her like light from a crack.

“It’s not personal,” she said.

Y/N gave a small, bitter laugh. “It’s never personal, is it?”

The sound twisted Yelena’s stomach in a way she didn’t like. She stepped closer.

And that’s when she saw it—the laptop still glowing. The photo on the screen. Ilari. Smiling.

Yelena’s mouth drew into a hard line. She recognised the man in the picture.

“She probably won't fight back anyway, it will be fast.” That’s what Valentina had said.

Yelena knew what that meant.

She had lived it. She had been it.

Y/N noticed where her gaze went. “He was everything good about that lab,” she said hoarsely, referring to Ilari. “And she killed him too, didn’t she?”

Yelena’s jaw tensed.

Y/N’s shoulders dropped with a small whimper. “Then go ahead. Do it. There’s nothing left anyway.”

The silence stretched long between them.

Yelena looked at her.

She saw past the tears, past the fear. She saw a woman not begging for her life, but welcoming its end.

It was too familiar.

The gun remained raised—still and precise. Yelena’s silhouette framed by the soft gleam of moonlight spilling in through the old window. Y/N sat on the edge of her bed, motionless except for the trembling in her shoulders, her eyes wide and hollow. Her breath came in short, panicked bursts.

The room, a quiet monument of someone else’s life, felt like a stage now. Like a place that had never truly been hers.

And now, she would die in it.

Yelena took one cautious step forward, head slightly tilted in calculation. Her voice cut through the brittle silence.

“…Who were you to Valentina?”

It wasn’t the question Y/N had been expecting. For a moment, she just blinked—disoriented, scared, and unsure whether this was part of some mental torture. Her voice came out faint, like a fading echo.

“I wasn’t anyone.”

The answer made Yelena narrow her eyes.

Y/N cleared her throat weakly, then looked away from the barrel of the gun, toward the dark corner of her childhood room—toward the corner she used to crawl into when she had nightmares as a kid. Her gaze was distant.

“I… worked on a project. A biogenetic one. In Malaysia. It was mine—well, it was supposed to be. Valentina just bought it. Put her name on it, like everything else.” Her mouth curled, not in amusement, but in exhausted defeat. “That’s it. I was just a name on a report. Not even a good one.”

The air between them thickened.

Yelena didn’t move.

Then Y/N’s gaze snapped back up—slowly, searching the assassin’s face with sudden realization swimming behind her tired eyes. Her voice was soft, cautious. Almost frightened of the answer before she even asked the question.

“…Did Valentina… ahm…”

Yelena’s body tensed, her grip on the gun shifting subtly.

“…did you do something to a doctor in Malaysia?” Y/N asked. Her breath hitched. “By her order?”

Yelena didn’t speak.

She didn’t have to.

The silence—coupled with the barely perceptible flicker of regret in her eyes—said everything.

She hadn’t expected her to know the name. She hadn’t expected the file to include that kind of intimacy. But this—this girl knew. She knew what Valentina had done. And now Yelena saw it:

This wasn’t a project gone wrong. This was a woman standing in the graveyard of everyone she loved.

And she had dug every hole with her own bare hands.

Y/N didn’t scream. Didn’t curse. Her body just folded forward as if the air had been torn from her lungs. A long, guttural sob escaped her lips, one that cracked the fragile composure she’d worn like armor. She collapsed from the bed to the floor, arms wrapped tightly around herself, rocking with the weight of grief too vast for words.

Ilari.

It was her fault.

She had brought Bob into the lab. She had given Valentina the research. She had failed the project. And now Valentina was covering the tracks.

Erasing the names.

Erasing lives.

Y/N gasped for breath between choking sobs, clawing at the blanket as if she could tear away the reality sinking in.

Yelena watched her from the other side of the room.

Her hand—still holding the gun—shook.

She’d done this before. A hundred times, maybe more. But never like this. Never with someone who looked like a version of herself—lost, desperate, begging the world to give them one reason to stay.

Then Y/N looked up, her face soaked in tears, eyes swollen with despair.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please… just… kill me. Fast. No pain. Just—just make it stop.”

Yelena’s lips parted slightly.

She’d been asked that before. Some had begged. Others had cursed her.

But this? This was something else. This was a woman who didn’t want to die—she wanted the suffering to die. The guilt. The grief. The waking up to an empty silence that never stopped screaming.

Y/N began crawling toward her. Slowly. Almost mechanically. As if dragging herself through mud. Her knees hit the floor with heavy thuds. Her hands trembled as she reached the assassin’s boots, pressing her forehead against the ground in front of them like someone offering penance.

“I can’t…” she cried softly. “I can’t carry this anymore…”

Yelena’s eyes brimmed with tears.

It burned.

The thing inside her that Valentina had never managed to kill. That thing Natasha had once told her made her human. It screamed now—louder than protocol, louder than orders.

Her finger twitched against the trigger. But the shot never came.

Instead, she dropped her arm to her side.

The gun hung loosely in her hand, as useless as the lies they were all told to protect.

She reached down with her other hand and gently, silently, touched Y/N’s hair. Not to comfort. Not really. Just to anchor her. To remind her she wasn’t a ghost yet.

“I’m sorry,” Yelena whispered.

Y/N’s sobs became violent again, her whole body wracked with the kind of cry that only comes from knowing the truth and having nowhere to place it.

And the assassin who had come to kill her just left without her noticing. Unable to do a job that seemed so simple. Why? She never cared, it was a job.

Everything happens for a reason.

--

The gray wash of early morning poured faintly through the windows like smoke from a dying fire, casting long shadows across the floorboards. Dust hung in the air, visible in thin beams of light—suspended like time itself.

Y/N stirred.

She didn’t wake so much as return—to her body, to the memory, to the stench of grief clinging to her skin. Her cheek was pressed against the hard wooden floor of her childhood bedroom, the tear-stained pillow just out of reach. Her joints ached. Her breath came in shallow pulses. For a moment, she didn’t move.

The world was quieter than she remembered. But not merciful.

Nothing was merciful anymore.

Then it hit her again—the encounter. The intruder. The assassin with a gun and eyes like winter. Yelena. She wasn’t a dream. She wasn’t a hallucination conjured by too many nights without food or peace.

She had come.

To kill her.

And she hadn’t.

Y/N slowly rolled onto her back, her eyes locking on the ceiling fan above. It didn’t spin. Nothing did. Not the air. Not the clock. Not her mind.

Except one thing.

Valentina.

It all clicked into place like broken glass reassembling.

Bob—coerced, manipulated, stripped of his humanity.

Ilari—murdered. Silenced.

The O.X.E. project—scrubbed clean, sterilized, disposed of like a failed experiment.

And she—she was just collateral. A witness. A loose thread Valentina hadn’t clipped yet.

She’d let her spiral.

She’d expected her to break.

And she had. She broke beautifully.

But something stirred in the fracture now. A new, quiet burn that curled through her chest like a cigarette pressed to skin.

Rage.

It wasn’t hot or explosive. It didn’t roar.

It seethed.

And for the first time in months—maybe years—Y/N sat up.

Unwashed hair clung to her face. Her hoodie reeked of sweat and tears. But her eyes—her eyes were steady.

She stood. Slowly.

Her body screamed in protest. She hadn’t eaten in two days. Hadn’t truly slept in longer. But she made her way to the bathroom anyway, turned on the light, and stared at herself in the mirror.

What she saw wasn’t pathetic anymore.

It was haunted.

It was hollowed.

And it was dangerous.

Her fingers curled around the sink.

“I’m going to kill her,” she whispered.

Her reflection didn’t flinch.

“I’m going to take everything from her like she did to me. And it won’t be quick.”

She didn’t have a plan.

But she had access.

The lab.

Her father’s lab.

It was still state-of-the-art. Still partially funded by O.X.E. contractors before the explosion in Malaysia. Still stored data, blueprints, rejected prototypes that had never been tested due to “morality clauses.”

Y/N would find what she needed there.

Later that day

Her mother didn’t even notice her leave.

The housekeeper gave her a polite nod as she slipped out the front door, dressed in jeans and an old blazer, dark sunglasses covering the swollen bruises under her eyes.

The sky over Manhattan looked like dull steel. The city buzzed beneath her with no idea that something inside her had been lit like a slow-burning fuse.

She arrived at the lab by noon.

It felt strange to badge herself in after weeks of absence—stranger still to feel her heart beat for something again. Not love. Not even justice.

Just revenge.

Revenge that felt justified.

The lab was half-empty on weekends. Perfect. She moved silently past rows of beakers and data terminals, past the clean rooms and cryogenic storage.

And then she reached it.

Her old prototype archive.

She keyed in her passcode, surprised the clearance hadn’t been revoked yet. Her father probably hadn’t noticed—or didn’t care enough to follow up on her permissions.

Inside, it smelled sterile. Like frozen metal and memories.

Shelves lined with failed designs. Papers. Discarded samples. Nano-injectors. Sonically-charged disruptors. Things meant to disable mutant biology or super-serum variants.

Her fingers hovered over the drawers.

Which one would hurt her the most?

Poison?

Too easy.

Explosion?

Too quick.

A device that destabilized neural frequency?

Closer.

Something painful. Invisible. Slow.

She remembered one in particular—a failed device once imagined to sever a soldier’s sense of direction, leave them stuck in a state of perpetual disorientation, causing nausea, pain, internal hemorrhaging over days. It had been deemed unethical.

It had also worked.

She reached for the blueprint, unfolding it like a priest revealing scripture.

The lights buzzed softly above her. Outside, someone wheeled a cart past the door. But inside this little pocket of hell, Y/N smiled. For the first time in months.

Not because she was happy.

But because she’d found it.

Protocol V4: Neural Erosion Cascade.

She could build it. Refine it. Use it on Valentina when the time was right. Inject her with it and smile as the woman who took Bob, who erased Ilari, forgot how to walk. How to eat. How to breathe.

Y/N would make her beg.

Then she’d whisper, “This isfor Bob.”

Maybe she wouldn’t have to die.

Maybe this was what survival looked like now.

Not healing.

Just retribution.

--

The gala was everything Valentina Allegra de Fontaine wanted it to be—polished, decadent, and politically charged beneath the glitz. A celebration of progress, she had called it. The future of global intelligence, biotechnology, and security initiatives.

To others, it was just another elite event with crystal chandeliers, imported string quartets, and laughter bubbling through a thousand-dollar-a-glass champagne.

But to Y/N?

It was the stage.

And she was ready.

The doors parted with a hush of warm air as she stepped into the grand ballroom. Marble gleamed under her black stilettos. A low-cut velvet dress—charcoal, soft as ash—clung to her like a whisper. Her hair was pulled back, clean, elegant. Her lips were a dark wine. Her smile? Perfect. Hollow.

A glass of merlot danced in her fingers as she walked through the sea of diplomats, CEOs, and carefully curated influencers. No one recognized her at first—she’d been a ghost for so long. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Wasn’t supposed to be anywhere.

Which made her entrance all the more exquisite.

She sipped slowly, locking eyes with no one for too long.

Until she saw her.

Valentina.

Standing in her signature black suit, pearls draped around her throat like a leash she wore willingly. She was laughing—effortlessly, commandingly—with a congressman and two security heads from Eastern Europe. Her voice, always just a touch too smooth.

Y/N’s smile widened.

She raised her hand.

And waved.

Valentina froze.

The conversation didn't break. But the air did. Cracked like glass in a slow freeze.

The congressman turned, confused, to see who Valentina was suddenly ignoring.

Y/N walked toward them with a grace that felt sharpened by glass. The scent of her perfume—lavender, laced with iron—drifted ahead of her like a warning.

“Oh, Valentina,” she said, voice smooth as silk over steel. “What a lovely party. Everything about it is so… decadent.”

Valentina’s lips twitched, unsure whether to smile or call security.

Y/N extended her hand toward the congressman instead. “Y/N L/N. I used to work on one of Valentina’s favorite projects, back when the science was a little more… experimental.”

The man blinked, taking her hand. “Ah, yes—Malaysia, wasn’t it?”

Y/N nodded. “Such a tragedy, what happened at O.X.E. labs. But you know what they say—some things are meant to be buried.”

She turned then, slowly, with all the theatrical grace of a woman too calm to be unarmed.

Her free hand rested lightly, deliberately, on the back of Valentina’s neck.

Valentina didn’t flinch. She froze.

It wasn’t fear. Not yet. It was the realization.

She should be dead.

That’s what those eyes were saying.

Y/N leaned in, her smile tightening just a little—less teeth now, more war.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly, voice so low only Valentina could hear. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Valentina’s lips parted, but no words came out.

Y/N chuckled, brushing her thumb—casually—against the nape of her neck.

She could feel the pulse there. Sharp. Erratic.

“How long has it been? Since Malaysia?” she continued, sipping her wine. “I hear the body count's finally settled. But oh—what’s one more, right?”

Valentina tried to speak. “You—”

“I’m sure I have a seat somewhere,” Y/N cut in, feigning innocence. “Though I might crash the head table just for old time’s sake. It’s funny, though…”

Her hand slipped away from Valentina’s neck, but she didn’t step back.

“…I could’ve sworn someone tried to kill me.”

The congressman was clearly out of his depth now, watching the two women like they were speaking an entirely different language.

Valentina’s jaw clenched. “You’re mistaken.”

“Am I?” Y/N said, tilting her head with a theatrical sigh. “That’s the problem with power, isn’t it? You make enemies. You forget which ones remember everything.”

She tapped her wine glass against Valentina’s.

A soft clink that rang like a gunshot between them.

“Well,” she said brightly, stepping back with a dancer’s grace, “we’ll catch up later. I wouldn’t miss the closing speech for the world.”

She turned away, disappearing into the crowd.

Valentina stood perfectly still.

The congressman whispered something to her.

She didn’t hear it.

All she could feel was the cold shadow of a dead project come back to life—and the press of a hand, too warm, too gentle, that had delivered a message loud and clear.

Valentina slipped into the upper floor just moments after Y/N’s departure, her heels clicking sharply against the polished floor. The grand gala’s festive noise faded behind the heavy doors as she closed herself in with Mel.

Mel waited by the sleek console, eyes narrowed. "Your "visitors" have arrived,” she said quietly, pulling up surveillance feeds on the screen.

Valentina’s gaze hardened as the images flickered: a stark, concrete room bathed in harsh fluorescent light, with four figures confined and restrained, the heavy metal doors sealed tight.

“The incinerators have been prepped,” Mel continued, voice low but resolute.

Valentina nodded once, sharply. “Good. They’re liabilities. Each one carries too many secrets—too many loose ends.”

She folded her hands, the faintest trace of a smirk curling her lips. “Y/N is stirring the hornet’s nest. She’s alive. She’s playing a game.”

Mel’s eyes flicked to Valentina, concern threading her tone. “Something’s off. Yelena... she didn’t complete the job.”

Valentina’s eyes darkened, sharper than steel. “I know.”

Mel leaned in, voice dropping even further. “She hesitated, Val. She could have ended it when she had the chance. Now Y/N’s alive and breathing, and that means trouble.”

A long silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken danger.

Valentina’s voice was cold, a whisper of threat and calculation. “We will watch closely. The failure of one assassin doesn’t mean the mission fails.”

She tapped the screen, zooming in on Yelena’s face—the conflicted assassin who had once shown mercy to Y/N.

“No mercy for weaknesses. We’ll finish this, and soon.”

Mel nodded. “Everything is prepared. I have actived it already.”

Valentina’s eyes gleamed, resolute and ruthless.

“Let the fire purge the past. And if Y/N thinks she can hide, she’s gravely mistaken.”

--

Y/N stepped out of the glittering gala, her smile never faltering even as her heart hammered against her ribs. The soft click of her heels on the marble floor echoed faintly beneath the fading music and laughter behind her. Outside, the cool night air brushed her skin like a whispered promise — or a warning. She moved with purpose, her posture regal, her eyes sharp beneath the careful mask of calm.

The sleek black limousine idled quietly near the curb, its polished surface reflecting the ornate lights of the party. The door opened smoothly, revealing the front seat where a large man sat — Alexei. His broad shoulders filled the seat, and his expression was unreadable, a watchful sentinel cloaked in silence. He was clearly waiting, though his eyes flicked toward the crowd inside as if tracking someone.

Y/N slid into the front passenger seat with practiced ease, her gaze locking on Alexei’s. She didn’t recognize him. Her fingers brushed the edge of her clutch as she pulled out a thick envelope, pressing it casually into his hand without a word.

“Keep your mouth shut,” she said quietly, her voice steady but carrying an unyielding edge. “Wait for Valentina and Mel. When they come, you’ll do exactly what they tell you. No questions, no hesitation.”

Alexei’s eyes narrowed slightly, but the weight of the envelope was clear. He said nothing, only gave a small nod, the faintest acknowledgment of the unspoken bargain.

Y/N leaned back, her eyes drifting to the tinted windows, her mind racing beneath the calm exterior. Every second here was a step closer to the trap she had carefully walked into — the moment where she’d finally confront Valentina, face the woman who had shattered her world.

Alexei adjusted his seat, the faint scent of leather and something metallic surrounding them. Despite the quiet, tension hung thick between them, a silent understanding that neither fully trusted the other.

The heavy car door swung open with a soft hiss as Valentina de Fontaine stepped into the dim interior of the limousine, her stilettos clicking against the metallic footrest. Her sleek black dress shimmered in the faint light as she slid elegantly into the backseat, followed closely by Mel, whose expression was pinched and tense. The door closed behind them with a muffled thud, sealing them off from the world.

Neither woman noticed the silhouette seated quietly in the front passenger seat. Y/N remained motionless, barely breathing, her back rigid and her hands clasped in her lap as she stared out the windshield, listening.

Valentina exhaled, glancing at Mel. "Well?"

Melina didn’t waste time. "They’re working together. All four of them. Ava, Walker, Yelena."

Val raised an unimpressed brow. "That's three?"

"They’re not alone." Mel's voice dropped slightly, conspiratorial, layered with something that sounded like disbelief.

Y/N’s eyes narrowed.

"There’s someone else in the containment room with them," Mel continued, adjusting the data pad in her hand. "We ran facial recognition through the old Sentry project archives just in case. The system returned a match."

Val leaned forward. "Don’t play dramatic, Mel. Who?"

Melina hesitated, then spoke the name that split the air like thunder.

"Robert Reynolds."

A beat of silence. The breath caught in Y/N’s throat, but she didn’t move. Her nails dug into her palm.

Valentina blinked. Once. Twice. Her lips parted slowly in disbelief.

"That’s impossible. He’s dead. I saw the vitals. The protocol was enacted. We disposed of the body."

"We thought we did," Melina muttered. "But he’s alive. Or at least—he’s something now."

Valentina let out a low laugh. It was brittle. Unnerved. "So. The ghost comes back. We need to get him back."

The air inside the limo grew thick. Tense. Deadly.

In the front, Y/N’s entire body trembled. Her heart had stopped once tonight—and now it tried to restart in violent flutters. She stared at her reflection in the rearview mirror, her mouth parted as if she were silently begging the image not to betray her.

Bob.

Bob was alive.

Her pulse pounded in her ears, loud and consuming. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t ash in the wind or a ghost in her memory. He was alive.

She wanted to scream. To cry. To run.

But instead, Y/N kept still. Let the wave of revelation crash over her in silence.

Behind her, Valentina let out a bitter sigh. "We clean this up tonight, Mel. Kill the rest of them and take the project sentry back."

Y/N opened the door to the front seat and stepped out, the wind catching her hair as she walked with purpose toward the back. She opened the door and leaned inside, and the look in her eyes was something neither Valentina nor Melina had seen before.

"Where is he?" Y/N asked. Her voice wasn't loud, but it struck like a whip. Cold. Controlled. Laced with rage.

Valentina blinked, caught off guard. "Excuse me?"

"Bob," Y/N said, stepping one foot into the limousine, her body tense and shaking. "Where is he, Valentina? What did you do to him?"

Valentina recovered quickly, her mask slipping into place. She smirked, tipping her head. "Oh sweetheart, you're still on that little fantasy? You think you were special to him?"

Y/N didn’t flinch. Her eyes dropped for half a second to her own hand, now gloved in sleek, translucent film. Neural Erosion Cascade, coded and constructed in secret. It had taken her days to calibrate. But it needed direct DNA contact to activate. Which she had already.

"You know," Y/N said softly, voice trembling but not from fear, "I said I'd regret it. But I'm way past regret now."

She stepped into the back of the limousine fully. Valentina frowned, caught between annoyance and suspicion.

Y/N reached and seated with them.

Valentina opened her mouth to protest, but it was too late. Y/N pressed two of her finger together gently.

Then pain.

Valentina's eyes went wide as her jaw clenched, teeth bared. The Cascade activated, targeting neural memory clusters and pain receptors simultaneously. Not enough to kill. Just enough to shred composure.

Mel jerked in her seat, frozen, unsure whether to intervene or run. Her lips parted in horror.

"Where is he?!" Y/N demanded. Her voice broke with anguish as tears spilled without shame. "Where is he, Valentina? Tell me!"

Valentina let out a strangled, hoarse scream, clawing at Y/N's wrist, gasping as if drowning.

"Tell me what you did to him!" Y/N screamed again, voice cracking. Her whole body trembled from the effort to stay upright, to stay steady in her hate. "You buried him once! You used him like a monster! You made me bury him in my head and now he's alive and you will tell me where he is!"

Mel whispered, almost a plea. "Y/N, stop."

But Y/N didn’t. Not yet. Not until Valentina’s eyes flicked—desperate and swimming in pain.

"He’s... he's in facility four," Valentina gasped. "Coastal wing... reinforced cell."

Y/N pulled back, releasing the grip. Valentina collapsed against the seat, shaking, her breath ragged.

Y/N stood, her chest rising and falling, staring down at her like a ghost. Mel didn't say a word.

"You are going to take me there, and you are going to give him to me. And you put your funny business towards me and I'll make sure your little slave here will take a shower with what's left of your brain. Remember you have you're position because of you're money and the one's you make do your dirty work. I can have whatever I want because I have the brains. Don't make use your skull as a vase."

Valentina wasn't scared, but she had lost control for once.

All her actions and one mistake, and she had created her own death. She doesn't even remember once seeing Y/N smiles this hard.

"You've gone mad."

[arcane-ish]

Preliminary Zaundads timeline

(note: this is not a great, story, it's just what I think fits the facts presented the most)

Vander either falls in love with his miner buddy Silco or they knew each other first and became miners together.

They strike up friendships with their miner budies, Felicia, Connel and Sevika. Maybe they all meet in this shack to spend their breaks or plot their revolution.

At some point they organize. They create or take over the drop. According to Vi's mom they "turned a crack in the earth into a thriving commuity" on the very day where Vi's mom tells them that she's having a kid and Vander names the kid. She credits both Vander and Silco with having had that idea of creating the thriving community.

At this point Vander is satisfied with what they've achieved (We're done).

[admittedly, that could be sarcasm because he knows that they still have work ahead of them] However, Silco is thinking of more, of Zaun. Felicia describes their situation "living week to week" and says that that's "a lot of shit down here" that she would have to protect Vi from.

Vander seems to be into the idea of raising children and already talks about raising more than just a single one.

She talks about carving Zaun out of the bedrock through menial work ("blisters") and that Silco and Vander will figure it out together. Silco toasts to Zaun. Vander only toasts to blisters and bedrock (note that he calls back to that in the letter to writes to Silco after nearly killing him).

Vi gets born, Powder gets born. It seems Mylo and Claggor are sort of around?

Note that even though Powder and Vi are older, their mom and dad still work as miners.

My theory:

1.) Whatever Vander and Silco and the others were doing, they probably funded themselves through the mines? That's why Felicia and Connel kept mining. Or maybe they do deeper tunnels for additional housing? My theory is still that their big thing was to take over the mine they were working in and running it themselves (seize the means of production!) and they were able to fund a their thriving community.

2.) At this point Vander and Silco's relationship becomes more and more unhappy. And Vander distracts himself by throwing himself more and more into his role as an uncle and living vicariously through Felicia and Connel's relationship.

Vi and Powder apparently have a very happy childhool.

However something happens, leading to the Day of Ash uprising. (maybe something threatens their "thriving community") Where Felicia dies and Vander snaps and attacks Silco. However, he afterwards feels bad and writes him a letter, but Silco keeps his distance, not returning for years later.

Now, granted, most of this is still pretty unsatifying. For example, everything about Vi and Powder's childhood looks way too pristine and clean. Mining looks too happy and clean for how shit it should be.

Even Vander's Lanes after he drove out Silco were never that clean. (this is probably my hate for beardless Vander talking, maybe beardless Vander = Vander's self image of his more innocent self)

And that is aside that head canoning Vander and Silco running a criminal enterprise together is just way more fun than them completely sanely funding it through respectable mining.

How exactly did Vander get his Hound of Underground name anyway? I like to headcanon that he was a pit fighter like Vi, but was that before he became a miner or during or afterwards?

And how exactly did he get a reputation as a revolutionary at all when it feels that he barely did anything?

I'm just gonna pretend:

1.) Warwick is not dead. His healing factor will kick in. 2.) These are just the happy, sanitized, idealized memories of Vander's. We will get another flashback that will reveal that the truth was way darker and more fucked up and that Vander's happy memories were as fake as Viktor's happy cult community.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS WILL PROBABLY NOT HAPPEN BECAUSE THERE'S ONLY THREE MORE EPISODES AND THOSE WILL BE DEDICATED TO OTHER STORYLINES THAT STILL NEED TO WRAP UP. I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

[wn11ow]

Unstable UNI spoilers/rant

I lied, I do have something to say about the video. ALOT to say, actually.

This video, is very VERY different from the usual style of UU videos. Upbeat Kevin Macleod music that was used 7 years ago? Not to mention the 100 day video style? The fourth wall breaking narrating by Spoke? The day counter at the top corner? Fever dream is what pops up in my head.

Fever dream, Dissociative episode, Coping mechanism.

Not to mention, Spoke has diamond armor and his ender chest is... well, uh not the best.

The exact definition of dissociation is a mental process where the person feels a disconnect from their memories, thoughts, sense of identity and reality as a whole.

Plays into what Spoke felt like this episode. "When I was on the Unstable smp-" That has never been an opening in a single UU episode ever, Spokes way of narration makes it seem like a normal video-- But it doesn't make sense, why is he aware of us? why is he narrating in the first place?

The hype, joyful music is a complete disconnect from the usual serious music UU has. Not to mention the narrating-- The narration is such a whiplash, its the disconnect of his thoughts. Its completely distracting the viewer from noticing the big ahh elephant in the room.

Point two, he's isolated. Where's Mapicc? where's Minute? Where did they go and why is Spoke alone? Spoke has never fared well in isolation, the Mafia infiltration episode PROVED that-- He completely loses himself in that, he needs social interaction to ground himself to reality. Without that? he loses it.

He barely talks in the episode(to me, atleast), its all narration to US, the viewer. He doesn't speak to himself or anyone else at all, is it a coping mechanism? But why is he coping?

Is Mapicc dead?

No. Can't be. Why would it be a off-screen death in the first place, and its just downright stupid to kill him off. But It makes sense, This episode shows the side-effects Spoke is faced with after Mapiccs death, and thing is- Dissociation is a symptom you face when grieving.

And Spoke seems like he's grieving. Completely disconnected from reality, not mentioning Mapicc or anyone else, absorbed in distracting us, the viewer and himself from that elephant in the room.

Guess what, Dissociation can cause memory loss.

Its a unique way to showcase a death, to show the grief first and then the big reveal later. If he is, then it just plays into my theory that UU or the director is actively isolating the MC's.

Okay, enough of that. I have another question.

Why is Spoke so focused on Material Wealth? Why does Spoke wanna be rich so bad? Why is that the focus instead of the isolation? Spoke decided to stay at Point Nemo SO THAT he can steal stuff and become rich. What happened to his netherite armor? All the shit in the previous episode?

Why is it, that the fact that Ash has sold the dragon egg ignites such an erratic reaction out of him?

The End Of The Minecraft Mafia - 3:55:12

"The pursuit of existence, just by playing on the server everything we do is to get more power in some shape or form. Building a redstone build, making a Contraption, building a house, even farming- everything in Minecraft is about collection and whole concept of an inventory is having things So the more you play on the server spoke you're going to want to collect more and more you're going to want more power you're going to try and grow as much as possible. All of you but you especially because you think you are following the right thing and that's the most dangerous kind of person.

You're going to end up just like me spoke."

I mean. Ash was right. Spoke does want more, Spoke does want to collect more items and become rich, Spoke does want material wealth and in return, power. Spoke is a cause of destruction, embodiment of havoc, and he's going to take down reddoons to get what he wants. Thats what males spoke dangerous.

And maybe that entire 9 minute speech in the last episode was foreshadowing.

Okay this is getting too long-- One last thing! The music on day 98 DRASTICALLY changes and reverts back to serious UU music. Why? Because Spoke has finally now had social interaction, it notably changed when he's talking to Ash and reveals himself.

The dragon egg is mentioned, and Ash said he sold and whaddya know? the music reverts back to the styupid 2016 music. The music very heavily contributes to knowing Spokes mental state, the entire time that stupid 2016 music is playing, he's gone, back in a fever dream like state and the moment he talks with ash he SNAPS out of it.

Material wealth and a want of Spokes is mentioned? Boom, back to stupid 2016 music. He FLIPS out, knowing the egg is in Reds hands, it seems awfully like dissociative rage, i wont lie.

Okay thats it this has gotten too long im not checking for spelling mistakes aaaaaaaaaaaa

[rei-ismyname]

X-Manhunt Chuck Hunt Omega Review

It's been a short and baffling road that's led us here to the finale of Chuck Hunt, but fortunately it's very easy to sum up for anyone coming in blind. Charles Xavier received a distress call from his Shi'Ar daughter Xandra and escaped from prison while affected by a brain tumor. Inconveniencing various X-Men along the way, he resurrected his long dead wife, Lilandra, and brought her up to speed. He's fucking off to space (again) with his imperialist bird wife (again) to heal a sickness (again.) It doesn't make any sense at all, so join me in the absurdity of disconnected action scenes and OOC moments before a big goodbye. Like Game of Thrones season 8, it looks great and makes little sense while blowing stuff up.

Frankly, I've found this event really frustrating. Chuck visited most of the X-books for an issue but the character and relationship payoffs have been slim. Exceptional X-Men handled it best by not having him appear at all, Red Skies Crossover style. Xavier has had a tremendous impact on everyone's life but he's only engaged with them performatively and superficially. It feels like he doesn't really care about the chaos he leaves in his wake, which is nothing new, and the resolution of his mission has been spoiled by solicits. I'm not mad about it, it's so ridiculous that I have to laugh.

In what's becoming a hallmark of From The Ashes, a flashback recontextualises the inter X-Men team dynamics. Scott thinks Xavier should stay in prison; Rogue disagrees and thinks Scott has some scheme requiring his absence, for reasons. Scott's dream speech is hilariously nonsensical while Rogue is just being obnoxious.

Gambit interjects before Scott can finish a sentence and Magik says what I've been thinking - 'what did Scott do?' What's the fucking problem, yo? We've seen in Uncanny that, yes, it is personal. Scott's name has been used as an insult. They relitigate the fall of Krakoa for some reason, with Rogue having an interesting summation. 'Taking out Phoenix' had only the broadest relationship to Krakoa's fall. Xavier surrendered due to ORCHIS sneaking a kill switch into Krakoan drugs, then he forced everyone through the gates. Rogue had the best view of anyone, as she carried Xavier to Krakoa where he broke down over thinking he'd killed everyone. She missed the rest because of Avengers duty.

The characters and the readers are both being gaslit into swallowing this tripe. I don't have room to show it, but Mystique is here to look sad. Mystique hates Chuck, and she should. Melee, Bronze, and the Outliers are here crying over a dude they've never met. Magneto has nothing to say, nor does Juggernaut. X-Manhunt has been a mishmash of discontinuity with motivations changing from page to page, let alone between issues. It's simply unbelievable that anyone would believe the narrative Chuck is selling, but that's what's on the page. There's no resolution here, no nod to history, recent or otherwise. Chuck is leaving and that's that, delusional goodbye speech and all.

I find it helpful to imagine circus music playing in the background of this discussion. Rogue has conspiracy theories, Gambit backs up Rogue, Scott is rendered speechless, and Magik tries to be the adult in the room. The only thing they achieve is a tentative alliance, something they probably had anyway. The best part is that none of this matters even a little bit. By the end they'll all be herded to where Chuck, ringleader of this circus, wants them.

Ilyana has multiple swords now, and Scott powers one up with optic blasts for THE RED SURFER! She could just teleport, but this is looks cooler. Why show tactics when you can go fucking cowabunga dudes! Lilandra is having a yarn to Chuck while giving him brain surgery, lol. It's standard curriculum for all Shi'Ar rulers. Gladiator could do this but he doesn't want to. She talks about her and Chuck feeling pain but it's overwhelmingly his 'children' that suffer. Obviously Yana is blown out of the sky, only to be caught by a demon Kaiju she summoned. Obviously.

Sage appears out of nowhere with John Wraith in tow, who has a robot Kaiju Sage borrowed from Storm. Yeah, Storm has Evangelion shit on her spaceship. Anyway, John speaks entirely in bible verse. They have a Kaiju fight, which wasn't on my Chuck Hunt bingo card, and Magik gets fucked up. SCARLET SCATTERSHOT! No onomatopoeia here - we're naming moves because it's just so 3P1C!!!1! Magik is explicitly said to be bleeding out but nobody takes it very seriously. She'll be fine.

Magik easily teleports Scott onto Mr and Mrs Avian's fleeing ship, so yes they could have done this at any time. In a Hallmark moment, Scott removes his visor with a single tear streaming down his face. That's how we know this is emotional. It's been ten minutes and the brain surgery is nearly done lol, but it's kinda irrelevant because Chuck sends his astral form to just talk to Scott.

Xavier says the most insane shit possible in his speculation as to why he's being pursued. 'I'm trying to bail on all my responsibilities after fucking you all over. Why are you chasing me?' Scott's muzzle is finally removed so he can tell this man how delusional he is. Xavier comes clean about his moronic schemes and then claims that he's sacrificed so much for others. Probably not the best argument for a child soldier whose life you controlled since he was 15. Who's spent his entire life bleeding for your dream, which you're giving up on. Chuck is actually mad that Scott doesn't get it, when he's kept everything a secret. What's more, Scott has zero reaction to this revelation. None. Chuck is leaving and there's no time to payoff even the meagre emotional stakes that were setup. Don't worry, they'll get shit on even further.

Obviously he's yeeted off the ship by an unnamed move. How can we tell what it is? My suggestion would be END OF ACT 2 BEAM! As Scott plummets to his death, the ringleader cracks the whip and X-Men come tumbling out of a clown car. Rogue catches him, in a completely unearned moment of solidarity. It's surprising, yes, in the same way a baby is surprised at peek-a-boo. There's no object permanence here as people just appear where they're needed for the next bombastic moment. Instead of being relieved, Scott feels that he's failed. That they'll be blamed for the mess Chuck left behind. It's a valid position, considering The O*N*E came for them over a lot less than this. He has a panic attack and starts shooting optic blasts everywhere. That's not how they work, but it doesn't matter. Just pretend everyone has a red nose on as the circus music intensifies.

Yep, that's definitely the most appropriate way to handle Scott's very real mental health issues. Stab the motherfucker. Only the homoeroticism of Logan gently penetrating his ex gives it any kind of grace. Circus music clashes with 'intimate violence in the rain' vibes but that's what Chuck Hunt is - disparate scenes that would be powerful with setup and context smashed together to elicit unearned emotional response.

I'm not even going to touch Logan's lengthy Super Saiyan speech. He says some dumb shit then stabs Scott in the gut. Rogue could have stopped this far more safely. The point is that Chuck is gone and they have to make their own way. Scott already knew that, in fact he knew it twenty years ago. Scott's dead and Xavier is in space.

Good news everyone! Scott is totally fine, despite the very lethal gut stabbing. Ilyana too. Xavier's tumor is fixed like the trifle it is and he's back already, having summoned an arbitrary group of mutants for an unearned goodbye. The guard that killed his family and the entire city of San Francisco? Fuck them, somebody else's problem. It takes some gall to make us jump through all these hoops and present dire problems (like Xandra) only to not pay them off at the end. In fact, they never mattered in the first place. Xandra is barely mentioned, just a McGuffin who's probably having her teeth pulled out with pliers.

We also learn that Xavier had some great soup here once. Nice!

Logan doesn't want to fight. Growth! He apologises for the trivial wound he gave Scott, who shrugs it off. I don't care what Brevoort says, this is flirting.

Xavier has the balls to say that mutants are choosing to fight each other, when that's clearly not true. It's also the reason he formed the X-Men - to beat down mutants who weren't behaving themselves. They were fighting because of you, buddy. For some reason nobody challenges this, nor his claim that he never wanted to be a general. Scott didn't either - you made him one. Shit, maybe we're still in Graymalkin and this is all a hallucination. It doesn't look anything like reality. I suppose it's a small price to pay for being rid of Chuck for a few years, but it's an audacious misrepresentation of X-Men history.

It's cost you? YOU? Motherfucker that is a terrible apology. 'Well, it's been tough for me, which I'm sorry for, and that's why I'm leaving. Good luck living in the mess I created. Catch you later when the MCU synergy comes.'

Emma kisses him on the cheek and tells him he deserves it. Why not? It's not like she hates him or anything. 🙄 Kids who have never met him or heard of him are crying but Scott has zero reaction. Nada. Contradicts everything we've been shown, even in this event. If that's what it takes to get rid of Chuck? Sure, see you later dude. Scott should start a school, you say? I know a great place for that, but it's been turned into a ghoulish prison due to someone's actions. Scott is at war with the USA - fortunately DOOM is building schools. Let's go with that. Maybe he's just exhausted with this man and his schemes within schemes. He should have known the chessmaster had a ruse going, one that gave him PTSD and fucked everything up.

There's so many things I could be mad about, but who has the energy? We jumped through flaming hoops to get here and ignored character moments that make any sense in favour of dizzying spectacle. As Gambit does cartwheels, the circus music plays Chuck out, and I choose to clap like a walrus. X-Manhunt wasn't very good - it wasn't trying to be good, but maybe the X-books can figure out a new Chuck-less thesis or identity. Imperial should be fun, and really we're just playing a familiar beat - Chuck bailing to space while the X-Men get on with their lives. Nice to see he's recovered quickly from brain surgery too. Good for him, and nice work Lilandra.

[kino-der-infizierten]

THEORY ABOUT BREAK ON THROUGH!!!

WARNING: MAJOR BLACK OPS COLD WAR + BLACK OPS 6 SPOILERS

While Break on Through is loading you can hear "Perseus" saying things to Bell

“Do not trust Adler. Adler is lying to you. Do not trust Adler. Do not listen to Adler. He is lying to you. Find the truth. He is lying to you. Do not trust Adler.”

Perseus' lines in Break on Through loading screen

We know that Bell was a commander (when selected non-binary/classified gender Perseus' operatives call Bell "commander" in Ashes to Ashes) and Perseus' right hand which means there's a high chance that they were very loyal to Perseus, at the point of not telling anything at any method of interrogation the CIA used.

But it would be impossible to actually be him, and even if he somehow could get into Bell's head literally, he still didn't had no reason to, Volkov tells Bell Perseus wanted them DEAD and that is stated MULTIPLE times. He clearly was unaware that Bell was brainwashed and didn't willingly betrayed him.

“That makes this much less unpleasant for you. Perseus has been looking for this one.”

“Perseus has a large bounty on your head.”

“Perseus is paying me a fortune to smuggle his merchandise out of Europe. I bet he’ll pay even more when he finds out I’ve killed you.”

Anton Volkov's lines when Bell gets captured by Franz Kraus in Brick in the Wall.

So then while replaying Break on Through over and over came the idea that maybe the Perseus we see it's actually Bell's mind trying to break out of the MK-ULTRA brainwash

Adler says more about the drug used in Bell in Black Ops 6 when preparing that same drug for Harrow

“Its official name is phenosorazine, but MK-Ultra coined it "Separation". I've had it for a while. Let's hope it doesn't have an expiration date.”

“In most test subjects, it fragmented their psyche. A form of induced schizophrenia. We're gonna find the part of Harrow that's willing to talk to us.”

Russell Adler explaining about the drug used in MK-ULTRA in The Rook: Interrogation (Black Ops 6)

Bell's mind could've separated his loyal part from the rest, which was ""personified"" as Perseus, just like Harrow has her normal side and the 'crazy'(?) side in Separation Anxiety.

This part of Bell wanted them to break out of the brainwashing, using the figure of Perseus because they would listen to the man they were loyal for so long.

And clearly it wasn't only in the Break on Through intro that Bell's loyal part tried to break the brainwashing.

During the mission it gets to a point you enter Perseus' office(?) and it's full of notes, possibly what Bell was thinking during the interrogation/brainwashing, with some being like Bell actually talking with themselves, while others looks like someone else talking with them, which would be his "Perseus" side (not putting all of them here):

"На кого они работают?" → Who do they work for?

"Кто они?" → Who are they?

"HE ДОВЕРЯТЬ НИКОМУ" → DON'T TRUST ANYONE

"не доверяй никому, кроме себя" → Trust no one but yourself

"ОСТАНОВИ ЭТО " → MAKE IT STOP

"ПЦРУ или КГБ?" → CIA or KGB?

"Они хотят убить тебя" → They want to kill you

"Вы знаете, что боль больше?" Do you know that there's more pain? (??)

"Что они с тобой Долают?" What are they doing to you?

"ВЫ Должны БОРЬБА" → You must FIGHT

"УБИРАЙСЯ" → GET OUT

"do you hear it?"

"DO NOT TRUST"

"THEY WANT TO KILL YOU"

"WHO ARE YOU?"

"TELL ME WHO I AM!"

"MAKE IT STOP"

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

"WHERE AM I?"

"WHY CAN'T YOU REMEMBER?"

"WHO IS PERSEUS?" [medusa drawing]

"YOU ARE GOING TO DIE HERE"

"DON'T TRUST ADLER" [pic of Adler]

"PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN"

TL;DR

The Perseus voice we hear in Break on Through is actually Bell's side that's still loyal to Perseus trying to break out from the brainwashing