#i'm finally back baby

[flysafepapi]

the sin factor 14/?

masterlist

Warnings: mentions of murder, nothing too bad, other than that i don’t think there’s anything that needs a warning but let me know if there is

Summary: It’s in the eyes, too, the same ambition and clawing desperation to be more, get more, hidden behind a carefully blank stare. He also knows that Duke has something Tommy never had although it’s more likely that it’s the other way around, because Tommy has lines that he won’t cross for reasons that are his own. Duke has no such reservations.

tagging: @zablife​​​​​​​​ @the-makingsofgreatness​​​​ @peakyrogers​​​​​​​​ @hb-writes​​​​​​​ @caelys​​​​​ (let me know if you want to be added on or taken off)

The thing is, Tommy had assumed that eventually he would come to think of the boy as his son and not a stranger with eyes that looked too much like his own for comfort. It had been a foolish assumption, he knows that now, and yet he still can’t quite shake the idea. If everything had happened sooner, if he’d made an effort years ago, would it have stopped everything from happening? The thoughts turn over and over in his mind like a never-ending self imposed torture. Would it have stopped this? What was it that made Duke the way he was, something unspoken and hidden from his childhood, or was it something in their bloodline that did it? 

“You look unwell, are you ill?” 

From anyone else the words might’ve been concerned, but any warmth they might’ve held is smothered underneath the utterly blank voice they’re spoken in. Duke stares at him with eyes that might as well be carved from ice for all the coldness they hold within them. The gaze makes him feel like he’s underneath a microscope, being studied for purposes he’s not privy to, and for the first time he understands why people are so unsettled by his own stare. 

“There’s no shame in declining an invitation. Especially from someone like Oswald Mosley,” Duke says, still monotone, and if it wasn’t for the slight twitch of fingers Tommy might think he was completely unaffected by where they’re going. “The world is slowly going to hell and people are hosting parties like if they ignore it hard enough it won’t happen. 

“Duke-“

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll have an interesting night,” Duke says, turning to look out the window at the crowds gathering outside the ostentatious club, still with that blank mask concealing what he’s thinking. 

He watches Duke ignore Isiah watching him in the rear view mirror. It had been Ada’s idea, keeping Isiah close at hand, because where one goes the other swiftly follows, but something about it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It means they’re both close enough to strike if that’s what they’ve been planning, and he knows they’ve been planning something. Neither of them have been seen much the past week and normally that would be a comfort, so why does it feel like he’s walking into his own execution chamber?

There’s no point in ordering Isiah to stay with the car and so he doesn’t even bother, turning away when Isiah steps up behind Duke like a silent shadow, glaring at anyone who gets too close. Thankfully not many people do, though whether they’re deterred by Isiah’s glares or the dead-eyed look on Duke’s face is impossible to tell. The part of Tommy that wants to keep Duke away from Mosley and his mistress, to minimise any collateral damage that could happen, wars with the small part of him that wants to stand back and see what happens. 

“Try to look less like you’re going to slit everyone’s throats,” he says quietly, and if he hadn’t been watching so closely he would’ve missed the minute switches in Duke’s face. He might’ve thought they were two different people entirely, had he not seen it for himself. Isiah laughs and conceals it, poorly, behind a cough. 

“I would never slit everyone’s throats,” Duke says, smiling like he doesn’t have a care in the world, “It’s a bitch to clean out of clothes and these are new.” It’s not comforting, but he’ll take it. 

***

Isiah watches from one of the small tables as Duke shakes Mosley’s hand, smiling like he’s being paid to do it, like it doesn’t make him want to claw his own skin off. It’s impressive how easily he manages to hide it. He’s too far away to hear much of the conversation but there’s no point in getting any closer. It would look suspicious, for one, and he’ll be hearing all about it later once they finally get away from here. 

He doesn’t turn to look when he feels someone stop beside him. Isiah had already seen her as soon as they stepped inside. 

“Ms. Nelson. I heard about what happened to your husband. I imagine it was quite a shock, finding him like that,” Isiah says, and he can practically feel the rage rolling off her like it’s something tangible. Sooner or later, Isiah’s money is on sooner, she’ll say something she won’t be able to take back. 

“Tell me, is it you calling the shots, or do you let Tommy Shelby’s son fu-“

If anyone were to look at them, all they’d see is a young couple getting a little closer than proper for such a public spot, not scandalous enough for someone to say anything but enough that they’d make their assumptions and keep their distance. He tightens his arm around Gina’s waist slowly, dragging her closer under the guise of young love or whatever inane story people will decide on if they’re seen, until it’s far past the point of comfort and she digs her fingernails into his wrist. Isiah knows the knife is sharp because he’d sharpened it himself, and he doesn’t bother being gentle when he holds the blade of it against her stomach underneath the table, hidden from view. 

The smell of her perfume is enough to make him sick. 

“Baby, if you think your family name is enough to deter me from opening you up all over this freshly polished floor, I’d suggest you rethink that and shut your fucking mouth.”

“Baby, if you think I’m scared of you, I’d suggest-“

He’ll laugh about it later, the way Gina shrinks into herself when she sees Duke reach around her to pick up her forgotten drink, staring at her unblinkingly as he downs it in one smooth movement. They’re attracting more attention now, especially after Duke’s moves in on Gina’s other side, the two of them boxing her between them, and she flinches when Duke reaches out to tuck her hair back behind her ear. 

“Do you want to know a secret, Gina?” Duke draws the name out mockingly, looking her over for a few quick seconds before he reaches down and pulls her hand away from Isiah’s wrist, eyes flashing when he feels the wetness of blood there. Isiah almost wants her nails to have left permanent marks behind, just so he can watch what Duke does to her for it. “You’re so close to being right. I do call the shots, so you get a point for guessing that, but you know what that means? All I have to do is say the word and he’d use that frankly beautiful knife to gut you like a fish. I’m tempted to let him, all that red would be spectacular against all this marble, don’t you think?”

Isiah sees Tommy looking at them from across the room, and the carefully blank look on his face is so similar to his son’s that it’s amusing to see. Isiah shakes his head and watches until Tommy deliberately turns his back, and he can see that the inaction takes a toll, even if it is Gina they’ve got trapped between their bodies. 

“Then afterwards, when everyone has all run away and this place is empty, he wouldn’t think twice about fucking me in the blood you leave behind if I asked him to, because unlike you, I have a husband that truly would do anything for me. You don’t even have a husband anymore. He didn’t even call for you while I was spilling his blood all over my shoes.”

“Husband?”

Isiah isn’t expecting the box that Duke pulls out of his pocket, or the smile Duke sends him, one of the rare real ones and not just the one he uses when he’s hiding who he really is. He’s not expecting the familiar rings inside. 

“Your father gave them to me, I’ve been waiting for the right time.”

“And this is the right time?”

Gina has gone silent, probably from the knife digging further into her stomach, but maybe from the shock of what’s happening right now. It could go either way.

“We can never make it official, I know that, but I know how I feel, and I’m sick of pretending to care what everyone else might think. Will you-“

“Love, as soon as I saw you, I knew I’d follow you anywhere, and if I had to do it all over again I still wouldn’t change a thing.” 

The ring feels right on his finger, like belonging and home and acceptance all at once. He doesn’t even care about anyone that might be looking when he steps around Gina to cup his hands around Duke’s face, looking down at him. It’s a risk, even above all the violence and the bloodshed the two of them are personally responsible for, and he knows they’re both going to be subjected to a lecture on the way home but he can’t bring himself to care. 

“You’re my reason, baby.”

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Welcome to the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger.

[avephelis]

just misc dsmp doodles

[theminecraftbee]

incidentally if you don't see much of me for a bit: side order has reminded me that i do, in fact, DEEPLY enjoy splatoon 3, lol, and i am maybe a touch distracted by that,

[revenantghost]

STOP EVERYTHING YOU'RE DOING

THERE'S A TRISTAMP VASH MMD

[front-facing-pokemon]

[granadaholmesdaily]

2.06 — The Final Problem — (29/09/1985) 🔎 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

[momentomori24]

I may just be going bonkers, but I absolutely mistook her for a desertizised Sara doll because of the hair style at first glance. Am I crazy or does someone else also see it? The bangs just scream Sara to me. I don't know whether or not she's supposed to be a strawberry shortcake or a strawberry sunday or whatever other strawberry-centred deserts exist on God's green earth that I'm unaware of, but the fact that it's strawberry is worth pointing out, I think. Because-- correct me if I'm wrong-- Kai's laptop mentioned Sara really, really liking strawberry things, specifically jam. It could just be coincidence, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's supposed to be a hint of sorts or something significant.

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Purge March: Initial Thoughts

Hello everybody! Sorry this took so long to get out, I got more distracted by real-life stuff than I expected since the drop. I made the decision back on the night of the Amane drop to wait for the audio drama and give myself time to think, and I'm glad I did, because in my opinion, Amane's case is really complicated.

I used the audio drama translation done by @/muu_kusunoki on twitter, which I'll link here, I'll also be doing a lot of referencing both the Purge March (PM) MV and the Magic MV. This is still going in as my Initial Thoughts rather than a synthesis theory, but it'll definitely be closer to synthesis than normal.

As usual, I'll be making bolded claims and then discussing them. Let's get started!

TW: Many kinds of abuse, indoctrination, murder, animal death suicide

The person Amane healed WAS actually a cat.

Truly insane. I'd assumed the whole time that the orange cat was symbolic for a human, but it's actually genuinely just a cat. That sort of throws out the whole theory from Magic that Riyone didn't have a role listed because their role related to the falling stage light, meaning that the injury on the cat was staged.

...Wait.

I think it still makes sense that the cat's injury was staged. Rather than being staged because the cat did something inherently wrong, though, I think it's more likely that the cat was staged to test Amane's belief of cult doctrine. She knows she's not supposed to heal using medicine, but here's an injured cat, just waiting for you. Amane takes the bait and heals the cat (the good thing to do), and as a result, she gets punished. Tased, it seems.

Riyone is the one responsible for electric torture. Because of that, I'm going to make the claim that Riyone was the one with the taser in the MV.

I've seen a couple different posts floating around say that they believe this is Amane's mother. The most convincing piece of evidence I've seen is from this alleged picture of the storyboards, but I have no idea how this was procured or if it's legit.

I think Riyone being Amane's mother makes a lot of sense, though. I mentioned earlier how Riyone doesn't have a listed role at intro like everyone else; that's probably because, to Amane, the role is just "mom." We know Amane's dad is frequently gone, so this probably isn't him. Additionally, it seems like Amane may live in this house we see in the MV, and as soon as she gets home, this other person is there. It would make the most sense if this person was her mother.

So, based on that, Amane's mother (Riyone) would have placed an injured cat right outside of their house to see what Amane would do. Amane heals the cat, and that results in Amane being punished for it. Punished, in this case, for interfering with divine will by using medicine to counteract fate.

Being the flag associated with destiny, it makes sense if Riyone is the one upholding the torture related to the cat. The cat seems to be dead and gone later, too, so it's likely that Riyone "fixed" destiny by killing it. But, in that case, who's that other guy?

Gozake is responsible for the water torture.

Safe enough claim. It's right there.

Anyways, the important thing is that means the hand you can see here is Gozake's.

This seems like it's in the same house as before, which I've theorized as Amane's house. If I'm right, that means that either Gozake is her dad, Gozake has access to her house despite not living there (the most plausible imo), or that all the cult leaders actually live here and it's more of a shared housing situation. In any case, what's important is that Gozake was in Amane's living space and tortured her there.

For what, though?

If I'm right that Riyone was the one handling torture related to the cat, that means Gozake was focused on something else. Let's check out those flags.

"Discard vulgarity" just kinda sounds like not swearing at first glance. However, vulgarity is defined as a more general lack of sophistication. I take this one to mean something like, "Behave in a way that is befitting of the cult."

Gozake seems to be in control of the cult's image and what they say to the public or something like that. So, to me, I think this means that Gozake punished Amane for outwardly doing something that the cult didn't approve of. Could also be the cat, could be something else. From Gachata flicking Amane at the beginning, it seems like the torture wasn't limited to "big mistakes" in the cult's eyes. Anything she did wrong could result in intense punishment.

Gozake is the one she killed.

If it's one, anyways. I'm still not fully convinced that she only killed one cult leader, but that's doesn't matter at the moment. Right now, my job is to convince you that Gozake is extremely dead.

The biggest point against him is the fact that Amane's prisoner card in UNDERCOVER shows that her murder took place in the shower.

It's kind of hard to see, but that's a bathroom. Based on the other prisoners' cards, it seems like the location on the cards is the location that their murder/related death incident occurred. Because Gozake was the one who tortured Amane in the shower specifically, that's a pretty bad look for him.

There's also plenty of reason to believe that at least one of the cult leaders is the one who died. All of Amane's lyrics about how she was sorry, but now the roles are reversed, makes total sense if a previous abuser of hers was begging for her mercy against being killed. Plus, there's the scene towards the end of Purge March where she's twirling her baton. It goes from clean to bloody at around 2:17.

Notably, this shot is taken from between times it shows the four cult leaders up on the cloud. We never see them again after this. (That's part of why I believe all four could possibly be dead, but I honestly don't consider it very relevant.)

We already know that Amane's murder weapon is a pole of some kind based on her kill shot of Es in UNDERCOVER.

She also uses her magic wand in Magic similarly. The point is, we know that Amane killed someone via whacking them with a pole. That's what we see in the end shot of Purge March.

That person? That's Amane's victim. Or, one of them, anyways.

Amane may have had multiple victims.

Again, I don't know how much it really matters, but it's definitely possible. That person looks like they're killed in the bedroom or something, right? And there's the light on in the bathroom.

I've seen some people say that they just think the person (Gozake) crawled from the bathroom to the bedroom before Amane finished them off. However... why?

What situation would that help in? I'm under the impression that the door out of the house is the other way, so if the victim crawled to escape, they'd likely head the other way. Additionally, Amane is still a twelve year old girl. If there were a prolonged fight, it seems like it would favor the grown ass man. So, this would have to mean that Amane would partially damage him before he crawled, out of the bathroom but AWAY from the front door. That doesn't make sense to me.

There's also the question of what Amane's murder weapon is. Let's look at that shower scene again.

A clothes washer (I think), a sink, some sort of pole thing (is that part of the clothes washer? Or is it more of a vacuum or something?), and some conspicuous bleach.

A big question for me is what that pole thing is. Could that be Amane's murder weapon? Is it detachable enough to bring to the bedroom? That's really relevant.

Basically, I think there's two options based on this.

The pole is detachable. Amane hits the guy's face with bleach and he tries to crawl away, but can't see where he's going. She then carries the pole over to the bedroom and finishes him off there.

Amane uses the bleach to kill him in the bathroom, leaving him there with the light on. Then, Amane uses either that pole or a different one and heads to the bedroom, killing whoever else is there (probably Riyone, if I had to guess).

I'm honestly kind of partial to 1 now that I've written it out. However, there is also this:

This is Amane's associated image from UNDERCOVER. We don't know what it relates to, exactly; we just know that it's something to do with her.

I would... assume that this is someone in the shower, based on the water torture. However, when I first saw it (and I know this is true for others, too), I thought it was rain. The way the water drops fall looks more like rain to me. And, based on what we saw, Amane was kneeling on the shower floor. That means that it should be Gozake in the shower, thus invalidating the theory that Gozake crawled out of the shower before getting finished off in the bedroom.

Except, what if it is rain?

If it is rain, that makes this matter a hell of a lot more. Because, if that isn't in the shower, that means that someone ended up on the ground like that outside of that house. Possibly someone who never entered the house, possibly someone who never entered the cult. Who knows!

...Possibly the little girl with the balloon?

Obviously if that's the case, it's someone related to the cult. Still, the sky is clearly the same sky, at least. There's the same rainbow despite the same clouds. Plus, we see the little girl's balloon wander off later in the MV. Maybe something happened to her?

I don't know what her involvement is otherwise. I don't know why she's important enough to be depicted. Interestingly, I believe Amane is the only one who hasn't gotten the reveal of someone important's actual face in the second round. We've seen a LOT of people with impact on her life, but none of them have been singled out with actual facial detail. Unless you count the swarm of Amanes, I guess.

Amane has or expects to take over a cult leader role.

She sees herself leading the Purge March. She seems to place herself in a position of authority. This, I'm sure, also relates to a very complex self image she likely possesses, but the fact of the matter is, she's the one leading it.

If she killed at least one cult leader (likely, Gozake is so dead), she might believe that she'd be the one to replace them. We don't know if this is true or not; Mu doesn't know what happened to her surrounding any legal punishments or authorities or anything, so it's possible that Amane doesn't actually know what the aftermath of her murder would end up being.

Still, it's something to consider. If Amane, unchanged, returned to the world, she could very believably recruit others into the cult and continue the cycle.

Amane wants to be innocent, but she has changed the meaning of what an innocent verdict is.

Amane is pulling a Trial 1 Kotoko. She's offered Es a deal surrounding verdicts. That makes it much harder for us to communicate with Amane, because she changed what the verdict means.

Much like Kotoko in Trial 1, Amane's Trial 2 audio drama is her guiding Es through the discussion she wants to happen. She tells Es that she wants Milgram's forgiveness so she can turn it into the ideal world for her cult.

That means that, if we vote Amane innocent, she likely will take it as Es approving Milgram for her cult. That's obviously bad, but the other prisoners (other than maybe like Haruka) are hopefully not impressionable enough for it to be a problem?

However, I still do believe Amane wants to be innocent. She asks Es to remember her pleas for forgiveness at the end of the Purge March MV. We all forgive Amane; the question is how to tell Amane that we forgive her disobedience and we're sorry for the situation she grew up in without approving the cult's beliefs.

It's wrong to torture a child in order to get them to conform to your beliefs.

This is what Amane's story is about. The cult leaders tortured Amane until she was brainwashed into their beliefs. Amane insists that, just because her beliefs aren't the norm, that doesn't make them wrong.

Arguably, a guilty verdict could be seen as doing the exact same thing. We'd be subjecting Amane to audio torture, at least, given that we know guilty prisoners are bombarded nonstop with the reasons why people voted them guilty. She would also be restrained, and due to Kotoko's attacks, we know it's at least hypothetically possible she could get physically injured from it to.

That's obviously not cool. Don't like that part.

Amane wants to kill Shidou.

Amane warned us that Shidou's actions (saving Mahiru's life and healing up Futa) disobey with her beliefs, and if we don't do something about it, she'll have to take action. It's not entirely clear whether that means she'll punish Shidou as she was punished, or if she'll attack Mahiru to kill her as God intended.

Either way, it's bad news for Mahiru if that happens. It's been directly stated that Mahiru is in a critical condition, and it's possible that the removal of Shidou as her doctor could kill her even if she doesn't get hurt again. If Amane killed Shidou, it could mean both of them could die.

However, Kazui has also promised that, if he gets an innocent verdict, he'll protect anyone he can from harm. Kazui could take Amane in a fight (I forget where but somewhere it's established that Kazui is the strongest in a fight, plus he beat Kotoko who I assume could easily beat Amane), so hopefully Kazui will be able to protect Shidou.

That also opens up the door for a weird possibility, though, which is the case of Haruka. Given that, in this case, Kazui would be focused on protecting Shidou and/or Mahiru from Amane, that means that Kazui would likely not have time to look after other prisoners, such as Haruka, who's threatened suicide if we voted Mu guilty. Which we did.

So, basically, the whole thing's a mess and voting Amane innocent makes it much more likely that someone dies, whether that someone is Shidou, Mahiru, Haruka or some combination.

VERDICT: ???

If you couldn't tell, the last four sections are me deliberating on which verdict to give her. In my opinion, there are a lot of arguments in both directions, which makes it difficult to decide. If I was ignoring meta voting, I'd obviously vote innocent, given that Amane is a highly traumatized child and she killed her abuser(s). That's forgivable. However, given other circumstances surrounding the dynamics of her vote, I have doubts on if it's really the "right" move.

I think that with Amane, there's no good option. To be clear, I don't regret the Trial 1 guilty verdict. I've seen a lot of people saying that this state of no good options is a result of stupid people thinking guilty was right last trial. I think that an innocent verdict would just mean that she'd be like Kotoko is right now, believing that she's right without a shadow of a doubt. Milgram is mean, intentionally. They weren't going to give us good options either way.

As a result, given that I can tell a lot of people have WAY stronger opinions on this one than I do, I'm currently not actually voting. If the margin gets close enough, I'll probably commit to a direction, but for now, I'm letting the rest of the fanbase steer the verdict. I was fully team guilty when I was worried about Kazui getting a guilty verdict. With Kazui innocent, I'm much more open to the possibility of forgiving Amane, because that verdict hopefully won't cost Shidou and/or Mahiru's lives.

If you have a convincing theory or argument in either the innocent or guilty direction, please let me know! If I'm ever convinced enough, I'll probably start voting, but for right now, I'm honestly neutral on the verdict.

NOTE: don't yell at anyone. Do not insult anyone else or get aggressive when pushing for a verdict. This is a fan blog for a fictional series that exists to have fun solving mysteries and calmly discussing ethics. Please, have fun and don't take this too seriously.

[onegirlinallthewrld]

Buffy Summers icons

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Like or reblog pls

[letssetsailor]

Shall we do our own dance of deduction?

[rottenpumpkin13]

Doth my boi deserve headpats?

YES ALL OF THEM ASHSJSKSH 🖤

[connectionterminated13]

Michael (games) and Charlie (books) in that 1 AU where they do ghost hunting (Kind of the AU that I'm doing with @fyrefrostanimus)

Charlie: What are we doing today? Kids into giant gummy pinatas and then are slowly devoured alive by a horde of hungry children or teenage boy gets crushed in a jump for tickets machine while trying to rig it to buy an xbox?

Michael: You..

*Laying face down in an exhaustion puddle*

Charlie: Michael this isn't the time for stupid jokes! If we don't act soon or another bunch of toddlers are going to become cannibals!

Michael: Hear me out....

*Pause because hes very tired*

Michael: ....What if instead of doing that we just went home and ate a whole pie? We could like sit on the couch and watch a movie while we eat a whole ass pie in one sitting...?

Charlie: OK then we're going with the cat with a human face!

*Hits Michael over the head with a clipboard filled with different fazbear related events they need to deal with*

Michael: Fine but when we get home can we watch a movie and eat a whole pie??

*Michael getting up angrily*

Charlie: I'm sorry Michael but I do not want to help you clean gross pie residue out of your stomach

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

going to see The Boy and the Heron in about 45 min!!!

[disneynerdpumpkin]

⭐💜Wish💜⭐

Bonus!

Actual depiction of me waiting for Wish to come out:

If I have to wait any longer to watch this,

[alecmagnuslwb]

well, he’s trying