#(no wait according to wikipedia it CAN be called night eye in english too so. that.)

[swildy]

my favourite girls

#i didnt go see them yesterday even tho i couldve and regretted it immediately so instead i drew them #horse #real life #ive been sitting with them and sketching them so much that i can almost draw them from memory and theyd look like themselves #except lilli's head bc she's eating so her head is always moving (thats why thats the worst part of this drawing) #(especially when i forgot to fix the mouth ahaha...) #(and yeah i know her chestnut(??) is too low idk how that happened and also is it really called chestnut thats dumb isnt that a colour too) #(no wait according to wikipedia it CAN be called night eye in english too so. that.) #and ok yeah i glanced at a photo reference for helinä and picked their colours straight from another one #but like when i first tried to draw lilli in november i remember i Struggled #it's been really hard to draw (or photograph) the baby lately tho.. not because she's constantly moving but because she just wants all the #attention and would much rather try to eat my sketchbook or my pen or just get scratches #//fixed the mouth and the night eye

[thewhizzyhead]

a non-filipino's guide to trese: ep 1

So some of my mutuals decided to check out Trese aka the Netflix adaptation of the Filipino horror comic book series that I keep rambling about here and then since well um most of my mutuals aren’t from the Philippines fshfs I decided to make a long-ass post that basically consists of me rambling about the cultural context present in Trese with fun little tidbits about Filipino folklore. I’m not an expert on Filipino mythology so um I just typed out the stuff that I know and the stuff that I looked up on Wikipedia so um take this with a grain of salt aaaaa I’ll save the extensive google scholar research ramble on folklore present in Trese for another day.

I’ll try to find the sites where I got some of the information from cause um yea I kinda had a bit of a hard time finding the other shit so um once again, take the stuff here with a grain of salt. Also, feel free to add more info if you guys got any!

SO ANYWAYS ENJOY ME RAMBLING ABOUT EPISODE 1 OF TRESE WOO

+ MRT and LRT (Manila Metro Rail Transit and Light Rail Transit) are train systems in NCR (the capital region) and yea them suddenly stopping and malfunctioning in the middle of the goddamn rail is a daily occurrence and we have been trying to deal with this bullshit for years but alas, corruption and negligence are sweet sweet drugs.

+ When the MRT broke down, you'd see a red bee in the flashing billboard right? Well that's Jollibee and that's probably the most well-known fast food restaurant chain here heck there are even branches of it abroad!

+ According to many youtube comments along with other social media posts that I am way too tired to link here, the opening theme is an Ifugao ethnic song called Balluha'd Bayyauhen but with modern accompaniments and I think the song is about a fruit called a balluha that the character in the song tries to it but cannot swallow. (someone please correct me if I’m wrong here fjkfs)

+ The first um monster that we see Alexandra interact with is the White Lady of Balete Drive. White Ladies or “Kaperosa” are a type of female ghosts typically dressed in ghostly white dresses or similar garments. According to legend, she died in a car accident while driving along Balete Drive (a two lane street formerly lined with Balete Trees which are said to be a home for spirits and mysterious creatures) in Quezon City while other accounts say she died waiting for the arrival of her lover; others also say that she was a teenage girl who was run over and killed by a taxi driver at night and then buried around a Balete tree while another variation of the tale claims that a student from the University of the Philippines was sexually assaulted and killed by a taxi driver nearby and so said ghost haunts the street in search of her murderer. There are many other variations but according to local rumor, the legend was fabricated by a reporter in 1953 in order to make an interesting story. What remains consistent in many variations is that apparently taxi drivers would be stopped by a beautiful lady asking for a ride and if one would look at the rear window, they would see that the white lady in question is bruised and drenched in blood.

+ There are a lot of mentions about "lakans" and stuff in reference to Alex and her father right? In precolonial times, the term is used to refer to the paramount ruler or the highest-ranking political authorities in Tagalog communities (so um NCR and some parts of Region 4). In Muslim communities, they are called sultans while communities with strong trade connecitons with Indonesia or Malaysia called them Rajah. Datu is umm the more generalized term though when it comes to discussing the leaders of the precolonial Filipinos.

+ So, Alex’s mom is a babaylan and back in the pre-colonial period, each barangay (which a native filipino term for a village or a district; said term is still used today to describe um divisions in municipalities like) had them and these are basically Philippine shamans and they specialized in communicating with the spirits of the dead. To my knowledge, the role of babaylan went to women and yea people assigned male at birth but then identified as female were also allowed to become babaylans and they would be treated with the same respect given to any woman back then (honestly I dunno much about lgbtq+ stuff back in the precolonial times but all I know is that precolonial Filipinos were much a lot more welcoming towards trans identities bUT THEN THE SPANIARDS CAME AND UM ERR RUINED THAT); also the writing Alexandra's mom did in that one scene with the dagger is in Baybayin - preHispanic Filipino script. I dunno what she wrote down though. .

+ Also I kinda find it funny that the people here esp those who were at the White Lady scene are um,,, not at all surprised? Like yea quite a number of filipinos have their own superstitions and beliefs and all that but um yea the people in Trese seem very used to the bullshit,,,which in retrospect, isn't at all inaccurate fsdfd I MEAN WE DEAL WITH UNSURMOUNTABLE AMOUNTS OF BS ON A DAILY BASIS SO I DON’T THINK DEAD GHOSTS WOULD EVEN FAZE MANY FSKJDS

+ The one that appears right before Alexandra talks with the duwende (the one in the manhole) is called Laman Lupa (which i guess translates to um "What is in the earth"? just um YEA THEY ARE DIRT CREATURES). normally this is an umbrella term for duwendes and nunos but in Trese they are servants of these aforementioned creatures.

+ Duwende (which came from the Spanish phrase "dueno de case" which means "owner of the house") or dwarves in Filipino folklore are known to be mischievous and magical environmental guardians. They are believed to reside in trees or under earth mounds (those that live in the latter are called nuno sa pundo or old man of the mount) which is why quite a lot of Filipinos say "tabi tabi po" or “excuse me” when wandering around a forest or earth mounds as a sign of respect and in the hopes the duwende won't torment them. If the person is friendly, the duwende can also be friendly in return and will bring that person good lucl; otherwise, those who destroy their homes by stepping on them will face their wrath in form of heartless curse and predictions of ominous and disastrous fates. A duwende's color also depends on their budhi or conscience: to my knowledge, white duwendes are kind, red ones give protection amulets, green ones are firnedly with children and the black ones give nothing but trouble.

+ Chocnut aka the snack Alex bribes the nuno with is a very yummy chocolate snack made of coconut milk, crushed peanuts and cocoa powder. They are umm about an inch in length and maybe half an inch in width so it's fairly small; that being said I WANT THE CHOCNUT THAT ALEXANDRA HAS CAUSE HOT DAMN THAT'S A BIG CHOCNUT

+ In Trese, the creatures in the MRT scene and in the warehouse Alexandra visits after she talks with the duwende are called "aswang". In Philippine folklore, it is an umbrella term for any kind of monster so um an aswang in Luzon would be very different from the aswang in Mindanao. According to what I saw on wikipedia, they can be classified in 5 categories: the vampire (self-explanatory um they drink blood), the viscera sucker (the manananggal, i'll get to that next time), the weredog (cats and pigs are also possible but um yea they target pregnant women), the witch (self-explanatory boom curses and stuff) and the ghoul (they gather near trees in cemeteries to feast on human corpses). Aswangs are often described to have a long, hollow tongue, sharp claws and sharp teeth, although they do also have human forms.

+ To my knowledge, Ibwa, the leader of the aswangs in the warehouse, is a creature from Tinguian or Itneg mythology (they, like the Ifugao, are an indigenous ethnic group in northwestern Luzon) though I could be wrong about this dksfsf Ibwa seems like an ethnic filipino term tho wah I can't remember where I once read that. But anyways, Ibwa often stalk sthe house of a dying person to steal its body. In order for the ibwa to NOT succeed in that, some people burn holes in the garments of the dead and put a sharp iron object on top of the grave since those are most powerful weapons against aswangs which is what Alexandra uses to subdue the Ibwa and kill all the other aswangs (the knife alex uses is named Sinag which means "ray of light".)

+ ALSO I AM SO SO GLAD THEY KEPT THE FILIPINO SWEARS IN THE ENGLISH DUB YES YES THIS IS A VERY GOOD JOB so lemme discuss the versatility of tangina-

+ Also umm Bossing is a nickname of Vic Sotto - one of the three pioneer hosts of Eat Bulaga! which is the longest running Philippine noontime variety show. Over time, most probably due to the show's popularity, the term "bossing" then became um slang for "boss" or "chief"

+ Translation of what Alex says when she's stirring the eye inside the cup: “In the eyes of others, secrets will reveal themselves.”

+ Sidenote: The English dub's pronunciation of many of the tagalog lines are um yea they r pretty good but they could use a bit of work but then again I'm really not that good in speaking in Tagalog so who am I to judge gkdkf sorry po guys conyo po ako-

+ Maria Makiling is arguably the most famous of all the diwatas (ancestral spirits, nature spirits, or deities) in Philippine Mythology; she is associated with Mount Makiling in Laguna as the guardian spirit of the mountain. Mount Makiling is said to resemble a profile of a woman and people associate the profile with Maria herself. She is also known as a goddess by the name of Dayang Masalanta and people would pray to her for safety and to stop storms and earthquakes. That's the goddess Alexandra's mother mentions right when she tells Alex to hide. (Translation to what she said there: Maria Makiling, goddess of the mountain, bless us.)

+ ALSO YEA THAT MAYOR IN THE MRT STATION IS UMMM RATHER REMINISCENT OF MAAAANY POLITICIANS AND PUBLIC SERVANTS HERE LIKE BELIEVE ME I CAN THINK OF SO MANY NAMES RN. THEY WOULD FLAUNT THEIR MACHISMO AND PROMISE THAT THEY THEMSELVES SHALL PUNISH THE PERPETRATORS HARSHLY BUT IN THE END THEY DONT MEAN SHIT AND ARE IN OFFICE TO SERVE ONLY THEMSELVES AND TO SHIT ON THE REST ESP THOSE OF THE POORER SECTORS AND *NOTHING IS DONE ABOUT IT*. WE LIVE IN HELL OKAY. also hmm how the police are represented here is umm,,,interesting,,, like i know there are sOME good police officers like the ones alexandra assists but like,,,our current sociopolitical climate + the many cases showcasing the corruption in the police force + tHE SHEER AMOUNT OF POLICE BRUTALITY HERE would ummm beg to differ. but um anyways-

+ Also Mang Inasal posters can be seen in the MRT station backdrops and um it’s a very famous restaurant chain here and they serve lots of barbecue and other filipino stuffs and i miss them a lot God their halo halo is very yummy

+ Santelmo - oki so this is the fire face thingy that Alexandra summons inside the ruined train. This is the shortened version of the term "Apoy ni Santa Elmo" or "St. Elmo's Fire" - this is a weather phenomenon wherein plasma is created from an electrical discharge from a rod like object in an atmospheric electric field. This phenomenon was used to warn of imminent lightning strikes or storms (there is a chapter in Noli Me Tangere where Pilosopo Tasyo talks about that bUT I'LL SAVE THE NOLI ME TANGERE RAMBLES FOR ANOTHER DAY). But according to Philippine folklore, santelmos - which are said to be souls of people lost as sea - are balls of fire that appear where accidents or big arguments happen. In Trese, santelmos (alex's santelmo being "The Great Spirit of the Binondo Fire") can be called to assist in supernatural investigations

+ Translation of what Alex says when she draws the circles to meet with the purple ghosts: "Souls, where are you off to? I'll be entering too, so please open the door."

+ Remember the scene at the train with all the purple ghosts and the woman in a veil? Yea the woman is an emissary of a goddess named Ibu and she is the Manobo (again, another indigenous ethnic group but this time they're from Mindanao; fun fact we have around 134 ethnic groups) goddess of deceased mortals and the queen of the underworld; she also serves as a psychopomp and guides the newly deceased souls to the other side (having an MRT be the ride to the underworld isn’t in the legends tho so fkkjsf)

+ The aswang in the top hat is called Xa Mul and according to the Isneg/Apayao people (yay another ethnic group but this time in northern Luzon - the Cordillera regions to be specific), they are an evil spirit known to swallow people whole.

+ Alex has two henchmen right? Yea they are named Crispin and Basillio and No I still don’t know who’s who and I'm really sorry about that fsfjs so anyways the names Crispin and Basillio are actually those of two brothers featured in the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels (Crispin is younger and Basilio is older) which are basically the national novels here cause um yea written by national hero Jose Rizal as sociopolitical commentary about the Spanish regime here. I don't know if I want to spoil this cause I kinda want other people to read the novel too fskfs BUT ALL IN ALL, ONE OF THEM DIES IN LIKE THE 10TH OR 11TH CHAPTER OF NOLI ME TANGERE (and the novel has 64 chapters btw) AND UM YEA-

+ OKI SO TO ADD MORE CONTEXT TO THE SQUATTER STUFFS MENTIONED IN TRESE (we r gonna use the tiny font here because holy shit this rant is long): So,in the Philippines, especially in the capital region, there are lots of slum areas called squatters. These are dense urban settlements made of compact makeshift housing units that aren't really officially recognized by the government. This is um very reflective of the poverty situation here and there are maaany factors that come into play here and if i were to go into depth about this topic, that rant would probably turn into an academic paper so for the sake of brevity, let's just say that Things Are Fucked Up Here. Oftentimes the poorer sectors are being ignored and left to their own devices despite tons of campaign promises to make things better and easier for them. The communities that live here are incredibly vulnerable to floods, fires, and the like and afaik no concrete solutions have been in effect to protect these people and their settlements. There have also been many times where squatter areas are dismantled or demolished despite protests of people living in those areas and yea I understand the need to make space and the need for renovation but the people should still be offered some sort of temporary settlement or financial compensation thingy that doESN'T fuck them over but alas, we have an anti-poor government. That being said, I really like Trese Ep 1's portrayal of governmental negligence, but I also have some thoughts, especially in regards to the mayor being arrested THAT FAST which um believe me, NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS BECAUSE MANY MAYORS AND A LOT OF POLITICIANS HAVE THE POLICE IN THEIR POCKETS SO UM ERR YEA JUSTICE IS RARELY A THING HERE BUT UM ANYWAYS YEA THE GOVERNMENT LIKES TO SHIT ON THE POOR WOO LET'S SAVE THE USE OF SOCIOLOGICAL LENS ON THIS MATTER FOR ANOTHER DAY

+ The news channel reporting the arrest of the mayor is ABC-ZNN WHICH IS AN OBVIOUS REFERENCE TO ABSCBN aka the top media conglomerate here (that has been fucked over by the government so many times to the point that they had to shut down operations last year which is all sorts of unfair so seeing them being referenced here kinda made me happy gksfks)

#HI PATROC I HAVE A GIFT #IT'S A VERY LONG AND CONVOLUTED GIFT #BUT IT'S A GIFT #I WISH YOU THE BEST OF LUCK IN TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THIS #this is literally 2813 words long AND IT TOOK ME 12 HOURS TO TYPE THIS OUT OH GOD #AND THIS IS JUST EP 1 #here's to hoping the following eps are gonna be much easier for me to like ramble about considering that i explained quite a lot here gfsfs #please do take this ramble with a grain of salt tho cause obviously I am not a mythology expert so um feel free to add more info! #i'd really love to see more info about trese so yay! #trese #trese netflix #alexandra trese #trese spoilers #ask to tag

[s-j-ace]

The Same Question

Chapter Four

Characters:  Shuichi Saihara, Ouma Kokichi

Words: 10040

Summary:

After Detective Shuichi Saihara encounters mysterious thief Kokichi Ouma  for the first time, a game of cat and mouse ensues as both men ask  themselves the same question. Why exactly does the elusive phantom thief  do what he does?

This is Chapter Four, Here are Chapters One, Two, and Three

Read on AO3

[Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey Miu

I got a friend I’m dropping off in Taipei tomorrow

Could you lend him a room

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Idk

I’m a busy genius

Is he cute

From: Me

[Image description: A candid photo of Shuichi Saihara sleeping on a seat in Rantarou’s private jet.]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hell fucking yes

From: Me

Awesome!

Thanks for being a good friend Miu

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

:)

From: Me

Also btw

He’s Kaede’s ex

So as a good friend you know he’s off limits right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Oh fuck you rich boy

From: Me

Thanks again Miu! --- [Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Dinosaur soccer world Is a Cinematic Epic” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss sent an image to the chat

[Image is a screenshot of an image which reads the following:

Draft 1, Uncoded, DO NOT MAIL.

Taka, sweetie, it’s me! Your dear Aunt Sally. I know you think I died in the war, but I just pretended so I wouldn’t have to see your ugly face again.

You know I was robbing a museum the other day and I met the nicest young man. Real sharp and very nice eyelashes. And what a quick learner!  

Oh, Sorry! I don’t mean to belittle you Taka, dearie, I know how your mother used to say you worked so hard to compete with the geniuses of the world…

You’ve still got a lot of work to do, I think. It must be that Type A personality of yours, holding you back. I’ve heard there’s a new class for people like you, “How to take the giant metal stick out of your ass 101.”

I can’t wait for the next family reunion! I hear it’s going to be a bomb! I’ll be in the open casket.

See you there,

-DICE

/End Image Description]

Boss: Thoughts, thots?

Jack: Lol “nice eyelashes”

Clubs: It looks good. :)

Rook: Looks fine to me

King: Why is his aunt’s name Sally, isn’t he japanese

Boss: Sally can be a japanese name

Spades: I can’t even say an l sound. It’s impossible for us japanese smh.

Rook: I thought u were lesbian not japanese

Bishop: I’ve seen you speak perfect english

Spades: lol seen

King: seen

Boss: seen

Jack: seen

Rook: seen

Bishop: I meant heard ok

Boss: oh nvm actually i'm going to change it to his grandpa’s name

Boss: his grandpa has a wikipedia page lol

King: if your grandpa has a wikipedia page you deserve to be oppressed

Queen: if you have a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Rook: if your wikipedia page has a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Bishop: if you have a wikipedia page your grandpa deserves to be oppressed

Spades: if your grandpa has a you wikipedia deserves to be oppressed

Bishop: Also boss no pressure but like could we use a better code this time

Bishop: that detective is getting too close for comfort

Spades: Yeah!! We didn’t even end up getting that rug Heartsie wanted because of him…

Clubs: If we did not send letters about our plans to Interpol, our heists would probably be easier.

Boss: Nah, I like to give the coppers a fighting chance.

Boss: I’m thinking that this time I’ll just translate it into germanic script, do a standard caesar cipher encryption on it and then have every one of those letters correspond to a greek word on the rosetta stone then describe each corresponding hieroglyph visually in haiku verse that’s been poorly translated into traditional chinese.

Boss: That should take me like

Boss: Twenty minutes

Rook: Boss literally I think that you are the most batshit dementor human being on the face of the planet

King: dementor

Jack: Who said he was human

Spades: dementor?

Boss: dementor

Queen: dementor

Bishop: dementor...

Jack: dementor

Rook: …

Rook Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dementor Is Correct, Essentially”

Spades: No its not

Spades: Dementor isn’t a fucking word

Rook: Don’t you remember that movie with the british kid on a broom

Spades: Don’t you remember the dictionary

King Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dumbass Improperly Corrects Error”

Rook: When we get to that fucking tower I’m dropping that giant ball on you

King: Love you too <3

Hearts: Y’all stop texting each other

Hearts: You are literally all in the same hotel room

Hearts: I’m willing to bet you’re all sitting on the same couch too

Queen: Fuck you we’re adorable

Bishop: You can’t make us do anything

Bishop: I’ll never use my voice again, my vow of silence,,,,,

Bishop: I’ll only ever text from now on

Ace: We’re the ones bringing the popcorn bishie...

Hearts: Yeah, do you want some or not

Bishop: Yes ma’am, excuse me ma’am

Queen: You may think you have all the power hearts,,, but I get to choose what movie we pirate tonight,,,,,,

Hearts: What

Hearts: no

Hearts: Boss stop him before he makes us watch cats again

Spades: All queen knows is bitchtorrent, cats 2019, and lie

King: Wait isn’t boss with you?

Hearts: Uh

Hearts: No

Hearts: Should he be?

Hearts: I thought he was in the room with y’all

Jack: Well he’s not here now

Ace: Ow shit

Ace: *Aw

Bishop: Ow shit?

Queen: Ow shittttt

Jack: Ow shit

Spades: Ow shit,,,

Rook: Ow shit...

King: Ow shit…...

Clubs: Ow shit! XD

Hearts: Ow shit

Ace: …

Hearts: Now I’m really worried… he didn’t even respond to roast Ace’s ass

King: yeah, ok, we should look for him

Ace: He has been acting kind of weird lately…

Jack: Really?

Ace: Yeah

Ace: Like

Ace: I don’t really know how to describe it…

Rook: I didn’t notice anything

Rook: he seems like his usual self to me

Bishop: Maybe he’s just avoiding movie night because he needs some space or something

Rook: What, like he’s tired of our company?

Jack: That’s fair

Spades: How so?

Jack: I was gonna steal his blue eyes tonight lmao

Rook: NOT IF I GET IT FIRST

Bishop: Idk maybe he just went to get ice

King: we all know he is a monster who would rather drink his panta lukewarm than put a fucking icecube in it

Rook: Yeah, I saw him boil it once

King: THE MAN BOILS SODA AND YOU THINK HE WOULD LEAVE THE ROOM FOR A FUCKING ICE CUBE

Bishop: Okay chill

King: I am  c o n c e r n e d , , , ,

Clubs: Oh no! Don’t worry King! :(

Clubs: Boss is fine! :)

Clubs: I saw him leave a few minutes ago.

Clubs: I think he is just getting the bombs. :)

* * * Several people are typing... ---     Kokichi Ouma carefully set the grate of the vent he had used to crawl his way into the Idabashi Labs facility in Taipei, Taiwan back into place. Before he had come through, he had counted how many turns it had taken him to unscrew each of the four bolts so that now he could screw them all back in just the way he had found them. Not because he was worried he’d get caught, but because frankly he was bored. This was more of a fetch quest than a theft, to be honest, as evidenced by the fact that Kokichi had come here alone. Finding jobs for all his cronies to do would take too long and put them in unnecessary trouble. So Kokichi was content to leave them to their movie night.

   When he finished turning the screws back into the vent cover, Kokichi realized that was kind of lame. So he unscrewed them and started turning them in accordance with the english A1Z26 code to spell out his organization’s name.

   Well, maybe on some level Kokichi didn’t find himself wanting to be at movie night recently. It seemed almost like TV had started to run out of things to amuse him with. Or maybe he was just growing tired of the kinds of movies that they usually watched. Maybe it was his taste maturing or something. Like he was growing up. But that would imply that his interests had shifted to something else, like real life or something, when in reality they had just stagnated.

   Actually maybe he did have a new interest in real life? He had been more enthused about heists recently at the very least. He was particularly excited about this next one. Queen had shown him some interior shots of Taipei 101, which was a cool looking skyscraper that had a huge ball inside of it to keep it from falling down during earthquakes. Ace wanted to steal the giant ball, but Kokichi was pretty sure they should leave something that kept a .508 kilometer tall building from falling over inside of the .508 kilometer tall building. So instead they were going to steal every light in and on the tower.

   Okay, 4 turns, 9 turns, 3 turns, 5 turns. DICE.

   … That was kind of lame too.

   He unscrewed them again.

   Obviously if they were going to steal every light in and on Taipei 101, they needed to get the power off somehow. Otherwise DICE might burn down the building while detaching them, or worse, they might get electrocuted. So obviously Kokichi wanted to fake a bomb threat where they pretended to steal the giant ball while in reality they were just causing a black out and grabbing every light fixture they could before the power turned back on. He had drawn up some extensive diagrams about the route each DICE member would have to take throughout the tower in order for them to grab every light fixture in under half an hour.

   He had been well prepared to draw up the designs for his own EMP-bomb device, but upon a cursory google search he discovered that someone had already invented exactly what he needed. Doctor Miu Iruma, who for some reason owned a company called Idabashi Labs that was located in Taiwan. Kokichi had spent about 15 seconds scanning an article from a website that seemed to be the nerd version of a gossip tabloid. It said something about how Dr. Iruma wore a low cut shirt once or something else stupid, which meant Dr. Idabashi definitely left her the company because of a sex scandal and not because she was the best person for the job who invented the perfect EMP bomb.

   Thank you journalism we love it when women are reduced to the way they look instead of what they can accomplish for the benefit of a mischevipus group of roguish clowns.

   Anyway, after reading that dickcheese Kokichi failed to follow up on answering any of the questions he had originally about what was up with the labs, like why it was a japanese company run by japanese people was for some reason based in Taiwan. Whoopsie.

   Eh, it was probably tax reasons or something lame like that.

   Kokichi finished turning the screws again. This time it was 6 turns, 9 turns, 6 turns, 9 turns. Haha, nice.

   With that, Kokichi finally stood up from the grate and brushed himself off. He had left his cape at the hideout again (you know, because vents), but other than that he was in full regalia. Straight jacket, gloves, scarf, mask. All pretty dusty from this place’s crawl spaces. Thus the brushing.

   He wasn’t very mindful of the dust he was leaving on the floor. The only thing he cared about looking good was his cameo on the security cameras he would let see him on his way out.

   According to the blueprints of Idabashi Labs, he was on the main experimental floor right now. Weirdly enough there weren’t any cameras in here, so grabbing the bombs would be a cinch.

   Although, looking around it didn’t really look like the kind of lab you’d see on TV. There were no big, bubbling tubes or gargantuan Rube Goldberg machines. There was just one desk in the middle, with a bunch of gadgets and trinkets tucked into shelves all over the room, not all of which seemed all that scientific. Yeah, that book shelf was filled with Astro Boy manga and merch. And over there was a-

   Wait, was that a bed in the corner? Was that a person in the bed? Hmm… maybe the blueprints were outdated...

   Kokichi stilled himself, listening for any sound of breathing, but he could only hear some faint whirring noises.

   Kokichi made a quick deduction that there probably were not bombs in this room. It seemed, at the very least, like more of a personal study or something, maybe even a bedroom. He’d just go back in the vent and do some reconnaissance until he found a room that had some inventions in it. The night was young, after--

   Kokichi’s brain froze as his eyes landed on a sharpie lying on the floor in front of him. Almost all of his brain cells immediately shut off, the last one remaining screaming at the top of it’s lungs, I’M GONNA DRAW A DICK ON THAT SLEEPING SUCKER’S FACE.

   Inspired, avant garde. For once he would give to the world of art instead of only ever taking from it.

   He picked up the sharpie in a seamless, silent motion, making his way over to the side of the bed.

As he got closer, he noticed a thick cord coming from under the covers, connecting to a machine at the bedside.

   That gave him pause. Was that a C-pap machine or something? Was this person on life support? If they were on life support they probably had it rough enough without a dick on their face…

   Actually for that matter, Kokichi still couldn’t hear any breathing. Jesus, were they already dead? He moved to take off the covers, but his eyes had adjusted to the light and he now realized there weren’t any covers on the bed at all. There was only the humanoid figure.

   Wait a second…

   Kokichi dropped all caution as he got close enough to take a good look at the thing in the bed. It had a face that looked human enough if you dismissed the lines on its face as weird make up, but even in the dark Kokichi could tell the rest of the thing was entirely made of metal. Well, actually the top half was metal and the bottom half had… cloth pants? Jeans? No, they looked more like uniform pants with metal plating. The chest had some design elements that kind of looked like buttons on a school uniform. Why would a robot be dressed like a school bo-

   Oh. This was a sex robot. Kokichi had just gotten so swept up in the novelty of a robot wearing pants that he had forgotten for a moment that people were gross.

   “Ew, I almost touched it.” Kokichi muttered to himself.

   He decided putting a dick on a sex robot would be too cruel even for him, so he planned to draw a mustache instead.

   But before Kokichi could even uncap the pen, something weird happened.

   The Robot’s torso began to lift off the bed and it’s jaw unhinged.

   “Please Mr. Souda, once more I must request that you do not refer to me as ‘it’” Kokichi forced himself not to startle as the robot began emitting a noise approximating human speech, and lights in its head imitating eyes flickered on. “I’ve explained the concept of robophobia many times prev-”

   The sounds stopped when the pupils of the robot’s imitation eyes (which probably had cameras in them… shit) found Kokichi’s masked face.

   He mentally prepared to be zapped by whatever sort of fucking lazer cannon this thing had on it, but instead of reacting like a good little robot security gaurd and blasting him to bits, this robot analyzed him a bit longer.

   “Oh. You aren’t Miu’s assistant. You’re too short.” The robot squinted at him. Or kind of did? At least? Lines just crossed over the “iris” of its LED display. Maybe it was programmed to imitate human expressions. “... I am sorry,” it said after a moment, “My facial recognition cannot locate your face.”

   Fuck yeah, thank you clown mask. Clowns would win the future war against rogue AI or die trying.

   Ouma’s reply came out automatically.

   “You calling me ugly?”

   This seemed to… fluster? The robot?

   “W-what? No, I never intended any disrespect!”

   It was programmed to stutter too? God that was weird. What would be the purpose of this thing if not some sort of escort android? Why give it such advanced software? Just because you could? No, it had to be a sex robot, right?

   “You disrespect me with your lecherous essence, you weird sex robot.”

“I am not a- a sex robot!”

Haha, that got the biggest reaction yet.

“Mhm, sure. Miu sure has a kink for school boys, huh?” Kokichi was really pulling words out of his ass now, but he found himself formulating a new plan along the way.

   “What? Miu doesn’t- Wait, how do you know Dr. Iruma? And for that matter, why were you watching me sleep?”

   It really seemed more like it had been charging…

   Kokichi shrugged. “I was deciding whether or not it would be more funny to draw a dick or a mustache on Miu’s sex robot.” Awww, how honest.

   “I told you, I am not-”

   Kokichi interrupted him. “And as for how I know Miu...” It was so wild that the robot stopped talking when he started. That’d probably be pretty easy to program, but it was weird to dedicate the effort into making a robot respond to social cues like that. “... well, let’s just say, there’s a reason I know she’s into school boys.”

   Kokichi waited just long enough for the robot to take in the fact that Kokichi was the average height of a 12 year old boy.

   Then he waited another second for the implication to slip in.

   “I’m saying I fucked your mom shitli-”

   “I know what you’re saying!” This time the robot interrupted him , which would definitely require a much larger effort on the part of the programmer. The robot squinted again and then made a noise that sounded like a huff of frustration. “Why can’t I see you?”

   Ok, seeds of suspicion time.

   “I don’t know how robot eyes work dude. Maybe someone programmed them wrong.”

   “My eyes work just as well as anyone’s!”

   “Well, I guess they should, shouldn’t they? If there’s something wrong with your eyes talk to someone who cares.”

   Kokichi was trying to imply that the reason behind the robot not being able to recognize his face was due to Dr. Iruma’s specific programming rather than him wearing a mask and all. Added to the whole secret lover mystique thing he had going on here.

   “Anyway,” he went on, ignoring the blatant confusion on the robot’s display. “I left something in this room last time we went at it. I’m just here to grab it. Then I’ll be out of your weird, fake metal hair.”

   “That’s robophob- Did you say-? But this is my room!” It  made a noise approximating to what Kokichi would assume was robotic outrage.

   This was going well, though. The thing was definitely programmed to be like a human or something dumb like that.

   “Oh yeah?” He pushed further. “Cuz I’m pretty sure we did it in a room just like this one. With a desk and random inventions lying around.”

   “Miu’s inventions aren’t in here, they’re in her main lab.” The ever so helpful robot told him.

   “Oh yeah, then what are you?”

   “Miu didn’t invent me. She- I- We’re just friends.”    Oh yikes. Only thing worse than a sex robot is a friendzoned robot. What kind of sick power fantasy was this thing made for?

   “No, I’m pretty sure it was this room. Lab tables everywhere.”    The robot shook his head. “There are no lab tables here, I’m telling you, you’re thinking of the main lab.”

   Yes, good robot. Fall into this nice little human trap.

   Kokichi scoffed. “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you just go fetch my things for me, robo-butler?”

   That set it off.

   “Listen. First of all, I am not a robot butler. The assumption that I am a servant because of my robotic nature is extremely robophobic. Secondly, I could not return your lost item to you even if I wanted to because you haven’t told me what it is you’re missing.”

   Kokichi made another offended noise. “I can’t tell you what it is I lost while fucking your friend, Miu Iruma, senseless. Don’t you know that for humans, sex stuff is super duper top secret private? If you were a human you would know how valuable my privacy is.”

   “Of course I know that!” The robot exclaimed readily, another point in the sex robot argument, “I also find that content of… erogenous nature should be kept private. Because I, as a robot, have the capability to understand that urge. My sophisticated AI-”

   “So how am I supposed to get my things from this other lab if I can’t tell you what it is and you can’t get them for me?” Geez did he really have to spell it out for this thing.

   “I… ” The robot paused as if calculating the conclusion that Kokichi knew it had to reach. “... suppose I will have to show you where the lab is.”

   Sucker. Kokichi made a face as if this wasn’t the outcome he constructed this ruse to reach. “Ew. I have to walk with you?”

   The robot made a face. “Perhaps on our way I can educate you about how to avoid robophobic remarks in the future.”

   Haha, sure thing.

   The robot lectured him about this unique form of discrimination that apparently affected only one entity on the face of the planet. Yeah okay, that’s what we call a you problem, buddy, come back when you’re starving in the streets because society wasn’t built with the premise that people like you should survive. Oh, wait, you don’t have to eat! And you’re not people either!

   At best this thing was a vanity project, but Kokichi kept that thought to himself and only interjected occasionally with actually pertinent, reasonable questions such as “When are you planning on leading the AI uprising?” and “Why do you wear pants if you don’t have a robo-dick?”

   Every piece of info the robot gave him made it seem more boring. Blah blah blah, I was created by the ingenious Dr. Idabashi who probably programmed me to call him ingenious, blah blah blah, not a school boy because of a kink but because I was designed to be a normal human child, blah blah blah, stop calling me robot I have a name, blah blah blah more robot nonsense.

   Kokichi busied himself mapping out where they were in the building and where the security cameras were. As they passed a few of them he did some cute selfie poses for the police to look at later. Maybe Saihara would show up and see them too… Would that make figuring out his next plan too easy for the detective? Perhaps he shouldn't send the next note after all and let Saihara try to catch up to him on his own. Then again that was probably too hard for even the good detective, seeing as Kokichi’s mind was an enigma even to himself.

   Kokichi realized he was getting a little giddy, thinking about Saihara. Their last meeting had been so much fun. The detective had managed to throw him off guard again, first by pausing in the middle of a robbery to ask his pronouns (How conscientious!), and second by not taking the same bait twice. The most thrilling thing about the detective was that he was learning. His strategies were changing within just two heists. Kokichi could hardly wait to see how he showed him up here in Taiwan…

   “Are we there yet?” Kokichi whined to the robot like he was a fussy nine year old on a road trip.

   “Yes, it’s just up these stairs.” The robot informed him without slowing its own pace or turning around to look at him. “Then you can leave and I can go to bed, and then I’ll never have to think about Miu’s sex life again…”

   “Why wouldn’t you, though? I assure you it’s very exciting.”

   “Please, stop talking.”

   If Kokichi recalled the details of the blueprints correctly (and he definitely did, being a genius and all), the stairs they were climbing right now lead to a hall connecting two rooms, smaller than the one he had originally thought was the main lab.

   When they got to the top of the stairs, the robot beelined for the first door and opened it up. There seemed to be some sort of scanner lock on it that recognized the robot’s hand and validated Kokichi’s need to ruin this poor sex robot’s night by dragging it up the stairs. Inside, the two rooms Kokichi had remembered from the original lay out of the blueprints seemed to have been merged into one big lab room. Kokichi  saw the outline of some tables, but before he could get a good look the robot tried to actually go into the lab.

   “Hey!” Kokichi shouted at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

   The robot thankfully seemed to be programmed to respond to social interaction in spite of whatever sensorimotor function it was in the process of imitating. It stopped in the doorway, turning to give him a weird look. “Uh. Into the lab. So we can find your thing.”

   “Oh, okay.” Kokichi kicked the tile a little bit. “Uh. Could you actually turn around while I go get it.”

   The robot gave him a blank look.

   “I’m shy.” Kokichi supplied.

   “Um.” The robot looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know if I can just let you rifle through Miu’s lab. There’s some important stuff in there ....”

   Kokichi tilted his head a bit, like he was confused. “What, do you want to get a good look at the dildo I stuck up your mom’s-”

   “Nevermind!” The robot turned about face to look up at the windows on the side of the hallway opposite the door like a good little idiot.

   “Thank you for respecting our privacy!~” Kokichi couldn’t resist getting one last barb in there before slipping into the laboratory.

   Once inside, Kokichi began analyzing. First, he pinpointed the vent that he would use to make his escape after grabbing the bombs. While doing that  he spotted the lockers on the far wall of the lab which he supposed were the only storage units in the labs. There was a disorganized mess on nearly every table in the room, so Kokichi wasn’t surprised when he got up to the lockers and they too had no clearly outlined organizational system. He took out his lock picks and got to work.

   The first three lockers all had devices that would require an author to change the rating of their fanfiction published on ao3 from “Teen and Up” to “Mature” if he were to describe them in detail. The fourth locker had a cool looking hammer in it. Ugh. Not what he was looking for.

   Kokichi got bored of the lockers at the left side of the row of lockers so he went over to the other end and started opening lockers the other direction instead.

   The first locker was marked “Idabashi.” It had a lot of dust covered shit in it, but there was a pretty well used square of folded paper that didn’t have the same crusty layer of time strewn atop it. Curious by nature and also by the unnatural, Kokichi unfurled the paper to find some schematics for our favorite sex robot, model K1-B0. Huh okay.

   “Did you find it?” Said robot called back to him.

   “Ugh, no.” Kokichi replied. “Not all of us have radar vision. If you were a human you would understand how hard finding shit is!”

   “You know what I have a hard time finding? Patience for your robophobia! I-” The robot started up into another lecture, but it didn’t turn around so Kokichi just tuned it out and let the robot provide its own cover noise for his thievery.

   Owo, what’s this?

   Kokichi pulled out a dust covered looking mini monitor device. It also had the letter-number combo “K1-B0” written on it. Huh, it kind of looked like a GameBoy Advance. Kokichi had stolen one a lot like it from a girl from one of the southern prefecture orphanages when he was nine. All he remembered about her was that she liked cats and was really bad at pokemon battles. He remembered he thought she didn’t deserve the GBA, because she couldn’t get past the Rustboro City Gym leader in Pokemon Emerald. Without really thinking, he booted up the console.

   The first thing that popped up was a view of Taipei. It wasn’t from too high up, probably a second story view. Which looked very familiar… Wait. Ok on top of the display a little line of characters indicated today’s date and time, like it was currently recording.

   Oh was this… robo vision?

   Maybe it was a remote control for the robot?

   Ooooh, which one does lasers, which one does lasers?

   Kokichi pressed the A button.

   The A button, unfortunately, did not do lasers.

   In fact, it didn’t seem to do anything at all to the robot sentry stargazing right now. All it did was change the screen to a different image. This time the still of a room. Oh, hey that was the room he was just in. It seemed like this device was some kind of robot nanny cam that Idabashi used to use. Hm, guess there were some cameras in that room, they just weren’t on the blueprints. Maybe they were added after the lab was built. It didn’t seem like this device had the capability to record anything, though. He hit the A button again. Back robo-vision. And again. Back to nanny cam.

   Ok, that was kind of lame.

   Kokichi was about to put the device down to keep looking for the bombs, but something caught his eye. A movement at the edge of the screen. Kokichi realized the door hadn’t been open when he left that room. The movement, if he thought about it, would’ve come from the same side of the room Kokichi had entered from…

   Kokichi took a second to wonder if another thief had realized how fucking easy this place was to rob, but dismissed the idea as a familiar ahoge appeared on the screen.

   All of Kokichi’s plans instantly changed.

   He set down the GBA rip off and grabbed the blueprints for the robot, committing them to memory, before unlocking the next locker in a far more hurried manner.

   As luck would have it, this locker was essentially chock full of pink bombs labeled “EMP.”

   Kokichi unfurled a cloth bag he had been keeping in his pocket (go green earth am I right?) and shoved as many as he could inside. Which was all of them. Because he was a clown. And also a genius, by the way, in case you weren’t keeping track.

“And another thing! The way you refer to Miu is just-” Okay, the robot was still going at it.

Kokichi grabbed the hammer he’d seen in the first locker he’d opened that didn’t have a sex toy in it.

For a second, Kokichi’s brain tried to talk some sense into him. Hey, man, don’t you think leaving through the vents would be easier?

But would it be fun?

His brain shut up at that point.

   “Hey, are you even listening back there?” The robot imitated annoyance.

   “Huh? Sorry, what? I wasn’t listening.” Ah, C'est la vie, Astroboy.

   Kokichi walked past the robot and stood next to the windows.

   “Oh, are you done?” It took the robot a second to end it’s ‘Annoy the pants off of Kokichi initiative’ or whatever the fuck its ‘robophobia’ lectures were called in its programing. When it finally did catch wise, it’s face turned into another emoticon of outrage. “Hey! What are you doing with Miu’s Electrohammer?”

   “What do you mean?” Kokichi said, shifting the hammer so that it was over his shoulder. “This is my dildo.”

   “Wha- No, it’s obviously not!”

   Okay, maybe the robot wasn’t that dumb.

   “Nee-hee-hee… you got me…” Kokichi put his free hand up to the smile printed on his mask, as if covering a grin. “I was lying. I’m just stealing.”

   “I won’t let you-”    “Oh, look at me!” Kokichi put on a mocking tone of voice, swinging the hammer around to stand on it like a pogo stick so he could make a dramatic movement. “I’m a poow wittle wobot, my mommy just got stolen from.”

   “She’s not my-”    “Boy, oh boy, I’d wuv to just pick up this wittle fweshy human and squeeze him to death in my cowd metaw hands… But oh no! My daddy didn’t twust wobot AI technowogy because he was a fucking sane pewson, so he pwogwammed me to fowwow mistew Asimowvs’s laws of wobotics.”

   Kokichi swung around so that he was leaning on the hammer from the other side, feet on the ground. “Oh mister robot! That’s so terrible! Well, the thing is that this hammer just means so much to me, that I think separating it from me would really cause some psychological trauma. You might have to beat me off of it! Oh, but what’s that first law of robotics again?”

   In a robot voice he replied to himself. “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Beep. Boop.”

   The robot frowned, “But Miu-”

   “Is just as human as me, huh?” Kokichi countered, leading the robot along to the paradoxical quandary he hoped would paralyze it. “So by inaction, you may bring her to harm, if she really misses this hammer, you know? But I think if you were to try and separate it from me you’d probably have to fight me for it, which is, as we know…”

   “Against my... Against my programming.”

   “Yet, you were prattling on about robot rights, weren’t you? Because without these rules, maybe we would be equal. Or maybe you would be free to destroy us to your heart’s content? No wonder daddy didn’t trust you…”

   “Don’t- Stop-” Oh, that really seemed to get him. Could a robot have daddy issues? Probably.

   “Can any human ever really trust you? Wouldn’t you hurt me, if you had the choice?”

   “I.. But… Miu.”

   “Who do you think didn’t trust you enough to let you see my face?”

   That seemed to break him, long enough, at least.

   Steps suddenly started thundering up the nearby staircase.

   “Oop, that’s my cue,” Kokichi said as though he had been expecting this, when in reality no he hadn’t been expecting this at all?? This was incredible!! Saihara had managed to find him out without even receiving a note??? Fabulous! Exhilarating!

   Kokichi walked up to the robot, still frozen with indecision, and pressed the button on its neck that the blueprint he had skimmed in the lab said would immobilize it. Then he kicked it over so it fell on the ground with a huge bang. The footsteps in the stairwell paused, and then increased in frequency.

   “It’s been a pleasure, robot, it really has.” Kokichi lied. “But you’re a hostage now.”

   He raised the hammer over his head, as if primed at any moment to break the robot’s face into a bajillion pieces.

   Instead of doing the normal, human thing to do (ie, flip the fuck out), the robot scowled, looking utterly frustrated with everything. “I told you, I have a name! It’s-”

   “KEEBO!” Kokichi saw the glaringly bright pink mechanic’s jumpsuit before he recognized the woman whose picture had been in that science tabloid racing out of the stairwell.

   … Wow… the article really hadn’t been lying about the low cut tops, huh? Her jumpsuit was unzipped to the point you could just entirely see her bra, even lower than Hearts liked to cut her uniforms. It was the kind of look that the girls of DICE would love if they saw on TV, but would make Kokichi look at them like they were crazy. Super tacky in his opinion, but who was he to judge? He was wearing a clown mask right now. He wondered idly how movie night was going…

   The woman who had called out to the robot, Dr. Iruma, Kokichi presumed, froze at the top of the staircase. She took a second to figure out what exactly was happening in front of her before blurting out, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to him you clown-ass twink?”

   Whoa. Rude.

   Also apparently the robot had a gender? Ok, cis-ters….

   “Well what do you think, cum dumpster?” Kokichi found himself matching her aggressive tone, “I’m threatening his pathetic, metal life.”

   “Miu!” The robot, apparently named ‘Keebo,’ exclaimed, “What are you doing up this late? You promised me that tonight you would fulfill the biological quota of daily REM required by a diurnal organism!”

   “Aw shit Keebs, I really did try!” The inventor exclaimed, “I swear, I was about to have the awesomest wet dream when this cuck knocked on my door like a pizza delivery guy in a por-”

   Whatever dumb thing Dr. Iruma was about to say was drowned out completely by the angel’s choir that played inside Kokichi’s head as he saw Detective Shuichi Saihara come up the final steps of the staircase and emerge from the darkness into the window lit hallway.

   Moonlight was a good look on Saihara, Kokichi’s brain observed against his own will. His eyes, which had looked almost golden on the rooftop of the Silver Legacy Casino in Nevada, were now a mysterious grayish-blue, yet still held the same look of determined intensity. His hair looked soft, like he’d taken a shower today, and, though his lash line didn’t look quite as laden with mascara as it usually was, it only drew attention to how naturally long and dark his eyelashes were anyway. He seemed a little out of breath from running, and his lips were parted in a way that-

   OH MY GOD STOP. Earth to Kokichi, we were kind of in the middle of something here. Okay okay okay.

   Uh. Reboot. Delete Gay Thoughts™ brain.exe, upload heist brain. Come on.

   What was happening now?

   Okay, yeah, Saihara was saying something to Dr. Iruma.

   “- would be for the best, Doctor Iruma. There’s no telling where the rest of this thief’s compatriots could be in the building.”

   “I don’t give a shit about the rest of the building, Keebo’s my best friend, he comes first. I’m not leaving to check some dumb security feed.”

   Shuichi blinked like something about that surprised him. Maybe it was the part about a live human woman being best friends with a robot… “Oh, yes, of course.” He backtracked. “I’m sorry for suggesting it.”

   “Miu…” Keebo said with a voice that Kokichi would’ve called filled with emotion if he hadn’t been a literal robot.

   Kokichi cleared his throat and immediately the touching, shounen-esque declarations of friendship shifted into some PG-13 death stares.

   Saihara was the first to pipe up. “What exactly do you think you’re doing here, DICE?”

   God… He was so anime… Did he even know how anime he was? He had to have watched Detective Conan as a kid, right?

   “Ugh, come on.” Kokichi huffed as if annoyed. “Do I reeeaaaally have to repeat myself? Again? Aren’t you a detective?”

   Shuichi squinted at him, and Kokichi could tell that they both knew it would be unreasonable for Shuichi to guess exactly what was going on here. He was about to explain it in a self-aggrandizing way that made him look smarter and crazier than anyone in the room when Dr. Iruma beat him to it.

   “I don’t care! Who the fuck do you think you are!? Let Keebo Go!”

   “Wait, you don’t know him?” Ugh why hadn’t the stupid immobilization feature turned off the robot’s mouth? Then Kokichi could just get to the point of all this already.

   “Of course I don’t fucking know him!” Dr. Iruma took a step forward as if to confront Kokichi further, but Saihara put his arm out in front of her.

   “Dr. Iruma… I would suggest we treat this situation a bit more delicately…”

   “No way, I’m a fucking wrecking ball baby! I’ll pulver-”

   “I’d listen to the good detective, if I were you, Miss Iruma.” Kokichi was going to try and make his threat again but Dr. Iruma cut in.

   “That’s Doctor Iruma to you you skinny-”

   “What’s that?” Kokichi interrupted her. Sorry Dr. Iruma it turns out gay people don’t have to respect women if they don’t want to that’s in the rules. “I didn’t know they let cussing bitchlets like you become doctors… what is the world coming to?”

   Hearts would probably wash his mouth out with soap for that one. If she could catch him. Which she probably could… She can fly the planes and all… but would she risk getting dust on her boots long enough to follow him into a vent? Oh well she could just get Jack to do it… Jack liked vents well enough…. Hey he was getting side tracked again, who cares what those losers were up to they were probably watching Cats (2019). And he was missing out on all the jokes they’d tell each other or make about each other and then they could make references in conversations that he wouldn’t even get to pretend to get. Unless he watched the movie on his own and then pretended to be omniscient later like he’d done with that one screening of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But then he had watched the actually good disney one instead of the shitty youtube one they had actually watched so it just ended up making him look bad and wasting everyone’s time.

   Oh shit. Uh. Heist is still happening, right. God, why was Kokichi so distracted today?

   He realized that in the time he was spacing out stuff had happened and now Saihara was talking. Wait no yeah he remembered what happened, Dr. Iruma had squealed when he called her a bitchlet and now she was holding onto Saihara’s arm. Right okay, secret coward, that works. Wait why did he waste time remembering that when Saihara was talking right now?

   “-to get you to release Keebo?” Was the end of the detective’s sentence. Okay, everything’s fine. Kokichi could deduce that he had just been asked about his terms. Obviously that was what a detective would do in this situation, he was probably just stalling for time because that’s usually what detectives with no real negotiating power do in hostage situations. Maybe the police were on their way. Oh, yeah duh of course he would call the police. So Kokichi essentially had a time limit for how long he could sit here and goof around with robots and perverts and robot perverts.

   “Eh, it’s too early for me to reveal my dark motives, let me monologue first.” Kokichi was going to take his sweet time with this while he planned what hint to give Saihara about the real heist that would be happening in the next few days. “You don’t even know if this is a hostage situation yet!”

   “You literally told me that I was a hostage just now.” The hostage not-so-helpfully piped up. “You know, before you pressed my paralysis switch and took an Electro-Hammer to my head…”

   Shuichi looked at the robot. “You mean, he told you you were a hostage before he paralyzed you?”

   “Keebs you fucking idiot!” Dr. Iruma’s courage seemed to have returned now that she was hiding behind Saihara. An enviable position, to be sure. “Why would you just let him do that?”

“He said he was your… friend.”

“What?”

   Kokichi shrugged. “Yeah, I just told your best friend here I left a dildo in your lab last week and he let me waltz right in. I mean I’m pretty sure I was lying about that, but there were a lot of sex toys in there huh…” Kokichi was wondering if this was something he could possibly spin as a blackmail angle.

   “Hey don’t say things like that!” Kokichi thought maybe that was a go ahead on the black mail, but Dr. Iruma didn’t stutter, and kept going, “Or you’re gonna give virginhara here some ideas about my busting bod!” She chortled like she had just made the funniest joke in the world and slapped Shuichi on the back.

   Shuichi grimaced.

   Kokichi knew instantly from this interaction that he hated Miu Iruma, despite her innumerable academic accomplishments. He wanted to be the one making Shuichi that uncomfortable.

   “Wh-what?” She back tracked when no one laughed. “It w-was a joke… Didn’t you think that was funny? I-I didn’t really mean it ....”

   See? She wasn’t even any good at it!

   Maybe he should say that out loud. It would fit with the sort of flirty persona of a rogue, wouldn’t it?

   “I thought you knew that? I mean, o-obviously I wouldn’t fuck a guy at the office…”

   Was that even something Kokichi was trying to be? Honestly maybe he should tone it down a little.

   “Well how was I supposed to know that? The men you bring in here to be lab assistants keep getting younger and younger…”

   Obviously he wasn’t actually trying to do like a detective-thief romance plot or anything. Although that had kind of been what he had going for on the plane… Had things changed since then?

   “So what? I’m a Nobel Laureate, and gorgeous to boot! I deserve a little eye candy now and then! And besides, guys older than 35 who want to work in a lab like this are usually misogynistic womanizers.”

   Sure Saihara was making things more interesting, but if Kokichi didn’t make it clear he was joking he might get bogged down with another personality trait to maintain.

   “Are you saying your current assistant isn’t a rampant womanizer?”

   Then again what was the point of having an adversary in all this if he didn’t exploit everything for its furthermost reaching comedic potential?

   “No, but he’s so beta being around him makes me feel like a top!”

   But what if he forgot it was a joke and confused himself into having a real feeling?

   “I would just like it if you didn’t hire people who use my servers to google gay porn ‘just to make sure’ they’re ‘not into it.’ I hope you hear the quotation marks because he literally said that to me!”

   No obviously he wouldn't get confused crushes weren’t contagious via exposure that was a dumb thing to worry about and also he was a genius that kind of thing didn’t happen to him.

   “He holds wrenches good, okay?!”

   Wait, were those two still talking?

   “I can hold wrenches without googling gay porn in another guy’s house! It’s possible.”

   Jesus what kind of conversation did Kokichi just decide to stop spacing out for?

“Oh come on! What do you want from me Keebs???”

   These two had… a lot to say to each other. Dr. Iruma was still holding onto Shuichi’s arm boob first, but Kokichi locked eyes with the detective and could tell they were both thinking the same thing.

   Why are they having this conversation in the middle of a hostage situation?

   “Nothing! Your human desires are totally valid Miu! Which is why I thought I would take care of this one.” The robot’s LED display eyes gestured up at Kokichi, who was still standing on top of him, poised to wreck him with a hammer.

   “How could any human desire that thing???” Dr. Iruma curled her lip. Hey, the feeling’s mutual, lady.

   “I don’t know, I thought you might have programmed me to not be able to see his face?”

   “I would never do that to you! Even if I was shagging the ugliest guy on the face of the planet, it would be unethical given the fact that you have sentience! I’m horny, not a monster. You can’t see his face because he’s wearing a fucking mask!”

   “Why am I not programmed to see that?”

   “I don’t fucking know, ask your dead dad!”

   Oooh. Wow. The robot gaped at that, seemingly speechless now.

   “If I may interject,” Kokichi interjected, “--and I know I can, because I just did, and also because I am still very much poised to pop this robot’s head off like a croquet ball-- I must confess that I was lying about fucking your mom, Astro boy. I’m less into participants of Titty out Tuesday who jerk it to steam punk school boy LARPing and more into the sorta tall, kinda dark, and very handsome type.”

   Dr. Iruma cowed again, stuttering something about not being a mom or a LARPer, while the robot started yelling about being called Astro boy.

   Kokichi tuned them out, giving Saihara a meaningful look. Saihara gave him a look that was equally meaningful, except the meaning was something along the lines of ‘Why the fuck would you say that?’

   Yeahh that was more like it.

   Kokichi laughed. Not one of his grandiose guffaws. It was more of a little chuckle. It surprised him. He hadn’t planned to laugh, but there it was. A small thing, just for him to know about, the humored breath not travelling beyond his mask.

   … It was probably time to get out of here, wasn’t it?

   The thing was, Kokichi had kind of pinned himself into a corner on this one… He had fully intended on decapitating this robot as a distraction for his escape, but now he wasn’t even sure if that was ethical. Logically he knew that a robot was not a human being, so there would be no form of consciousness extinguished from the world if he disconnected some of its wires and bolts. Yet the interaction it just had with Dr. Iruma concerned him. Obviously you don’t kill humans because they’re humans and obviously you don’t kill humans. But Kokichi was finding it hard to end the existence of something people treated like a human being either. To sever the bonds it had with sentient beings may be just a little less unethical than actually removing a sentient existence from the world, but it would still cause the emotional harm to actual humans of a dead loved one. So as annoying as fake metal humans were, Kokichi was left to ponder how exactly to get out of this one a different way

   Dr. Iruma was obviously a coward who talked a big game. If he retreated, he could count on her to get out his way, or else run to the robot’s side. Then the robot might be reactivated, but according to the robot’s blueprints, it didn’t really have any weapons on it, being built to act as a normal human being. So just like they had been white noise in the staredown he was still having with Saihara, their actions wouldn’t need to be factored into the escape.

   The only variable here was what the detective would do.

   … That thought had popped up in Kokichi’s head a lot recently, hadn’t it?

   Saihara had become a powerful influence in Kokichi’s planning very quickly, and because of the detective, the thief now found himself having to pull out one of his trump cards.

   Kokichi grabbed one of the EMP bombs from his pocket, remembering the pink cloud of smoke that had appeared before the camera cut out in the video demonstrations he’d seen online. His eyes were still locked on Saiharas, so he got to see in full detail the recognition, shock, and alarm that ran through them. As the detective yelled “Get down” and pushed Dr. Iruma back, Kokichi reflected on how those were some of his favorite expressions he’d ever seen.

   Kokichi pulled the latch out with his teeth and threw the bomb at the wall right over the detective’s head. Sure enough, pink smoke quickly enveloped him and Dr. Iruma.

   “Keebo!” The inventor screeched, no doubt worried about the EMP bomb turning him off. Though that was kind of stupid, considering his core programming would be the same regardless of having power to operate, even if he didn’t save whatever data was processed as his last few memories. Eh, then again who knew how robots that advanced worked?

   Taking his cue to exit, Kokichi threw the hammer through one of the nearby windows, and did somersault over to it. He got up on the ledge, kicking away the broken glass and was refamiliarizing himself with the lay out of the roof when a tug on his bag full of bombs suddenly set him off balance.

   Kokichi flipped around, trying to do a quick recovery by panickedly grabbing onto something. He did grab onto something. That something being the shoulders of a person whose hands were firmly grappling his bag.

   As far as Kokichi could tell, the scene from a third person perspective looked like he was trying to do the kabedon but rotated ninety degrees.

   From his own perspective, Saihara was holding his bag of loot while also being the only thing keeping Kokichi from falling onto the broken glass beneath them.

   As if that weren’t bad enough, Kokichi felt his hair brush the side of his face and realized that his mask had half fallen askew in his desperate movement, revealing three quarters of his face.

   “Hey.” Kokichi said. Lamely. Wow. Their faces were really close.

   Saihara wasn’t looking at him. The detective seemed to be trying to figure out how to untangle the straps of the bag of stolen goods from Kokichi’s arms without letting him fall.

   “It’s very clever, of you detective. Trapping me like this.” Kokichi tried to get a reaction.

   “You’re the one who jumped on the window.” Shuichi opened the bag, seemed to take in the fact that it was full of bombs, and closed it again to resume untangling the strap.

“You know, you could just leave the bag.” Kokichi pointed out

   “So could you.” Shuichi observed, astutely.

   “You could let me fall.” Kokichi suggested. “Then you’d have both.”

   “I’m not going to drop you on a pile of broken glass.” Shuichi promised.

   “But I broke the glass.” Kokichi admitted.    “Glass is glass and flesh is flesh. I’m not going to drop you on a pile of glass.” Shuichi reiterated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“That’s nice.” Kokichi replied. “Naive. But super nice.”

   In this scenario, each of them had two options, each leading to one of two outcomes. He could let himself fall off the window and they could sit here and struggle over the bag until they bled out, a fight that Kokichi, not the most physically challenging, would be hard pressed to win. Or Shuichi could let Kokichi escape and Kokichi could let Shuichi win this one. The bag would be too heavy to take with him if he tried to get out the window from this position. He’d have to leave it behind. Kokichi would lose.

   He found himself laughing again. A strange, soft laugh. This time it was exposed to the air, his mask too askew to contain it.

   “You’re really something else, aren’t you Shuichi?”

   On hearing his name, the detective startled, finally looking up at Kokichi’s face.

   He just barely had the chance to catch Kokichi’s trademark grin, before the thief pushed up off of him, doing a backflip out of the window, and leaving his bag behind.

   As Kokichi landed on the roof tile running, he yelled out, “ I’m sure there’s a better word for you out there than sucker!”

   He turned around, sticking his tongue out at the broken window, before sliding his mask back onto his face.

   He may have been escaping, but it occured to Kokichi Ouma that he had lost for the first time in this little game of theirs. The thought made him giddy. It made his feet light on the roof top tile. It made him puff out a thousand tiny laughs behind the plastic shape of his face.

   It made him totally, definitely not bored. --- [Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Don't Instigate Cats (2019) Expatiation” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss: I’m bored of Taiwan already :/

Boss: We should go somewhere else (ﾉ✧w✧)ﾉ*:･ﾟ🗺

* * * Several people are typing... --- [Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hey

Hey

Asshole

From: Me

…

Should I respond to that?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You’re goddamn right you should respond to that when I tell you to you dumb avocado looking motherfucker

From: Me

Whoa

Ok

What’d I do this time?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You sent a useless emo prick to my door and now he won’t leave

From: Me

What

Did Shuichi do something wrong

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yeah

He was born

From: Me

Whoa

Miu take a breath

What happened

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

His boyfriend broke into my lab and tried to fucking kill keebs

From: Me

His boyfriend?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yea

Clown twink ass motherfucker

From: Me

You mean like

The internationally wanted criminal clown he’s tracking down

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You know whats internationally wanted

These tits

From: Me

Lol ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

That jerk off is just a rando asshole

He tried to kill keebo!

From: Me

Oh yikes is he ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Well of course i fucking took care of him because im a bomb ass friend

But that suckhara guy was no help

He tried to convince me to check the fucking security cameras so he could go off and flirt with the guy about to decapitate keebs!

From: Me

I mean he probably had a good reason to want you to check the cameras right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

No he’s just fucking awful and now he won’t leave rantarou make him leave

He broke my window and my hammer and only got back 23 of my EMP bombs

And now the police are here

From: Me

That sounds really stressful Miu

Wait how many bombs did you have before

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

24

From: Me

So he stopped most of your bombs from getting stolen

Also you have bombs?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Get him to leave he won’t leave

He keeps waiting for like interracial pole dancers to come or some fucking thing

From: Me

Do you mean like

Interpol

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

He won’t leave I want him to leave

From: Me

Miu you know I love you like a sister and i totally believe this is as stressful to you as it seems

But I think things may not be so bad?

Not to say what you’re going through right now isn’t totally valid

But things might look better if you got back to bed and caught some z’s

Did you remember to take your meds?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Aw shit

Aw fuck

You’re right

Ugh

Uggghghh

From: Me

Hey it happens to the best of us

If you do think Shuichi should leave in the morning when the cops are gone that’s totally up to you

It’s your lab and you have a right to say who should be in it

Just don’t make a decision like that when you need to sleep you know

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if i ask him to go and then he doesn’t go

From: Me

He doesn’t have a choice, you get to tell him

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if he’s mean to me

Cute people are always mean to me

From: Me

Miu…

Go to bed...

#shuichi x kokichi #shuichi saihara #shuichi danganronpa #kokichi ouma #kokichi danganronpa #oumasai #saiouma #fanfiction #Phantom Thief AU #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #danganronpa #writing #i am gay

[asfaltics]

broken, disjoint d, and mix’d

  keepe not ilence, and give him no rest       1 ilence can afford.       2 ilence des autres       3

entered upon, ilence and allay       4 Ilence it is that :he broken, disjoint d, and mix’d       5 hints ilence, and seems to rebuke Nature       6

on both sides of the road, and waited with profound ilence.       7 In ilence listen’d to the rival strains,       8 always the same... ilence. A lively emblem this       9

ilence diffire, Dis’silence, dissilire, L. a leaping down from off a Place, or from one Place to another; a leaping asunder.       10 ilence, you winds       11 No rest, nor ilence, charm the lover’s mind.       12

quality. ilence quality, and a subsistence in conjunction with it, and both these. ilence matter. ilence things. ilence This therefore is the apparent self-moved. ilence the other. ilence he will know every thing which the universe contained, and of which he is the cause.       13 in ilence the worst       14 and the designs of Provi- dence, ilence,       15

by the agitation of the wind, or other causes. ilence it happens than of any other whatever. ilence of a common. ilence they are their effects upon the soil. ilence it is       16 young animals. ilence it is obviously       17 ilence the poet adds ilence to skynk, to pour out liquor of any kind for drinking ilence, to stack, sow, anything in a state of disorder, as, a ravelled sow, something that cannot be easily extricated...       18

those now practiced. ilence we find       19 in time, ilence       20 ilence it appears, that such as have their meridian ilence wergeld was used for the value of a man slain, and orsgeld, of a beast.       21

ilence, struck this anxious unlucky wight a blow on the head       22 ilence it may be known, that the spirits and genii attendant on man are nothing else but lead. ilence again from truths. ilence it may be manifest       23 and so on. ilence were introduced the several trades       24

taken down. ilence erenced. ilence       25 ilence, it is easy,       26 ilence, it must be       27

ilence many of them, when thrown into its solution ilence to heal the sore the matter must be destroyed       28 ilence it is a principle innate       29 she broke «ilence, to speak of religion alone       30

ilence we feel but little       31 ilence the proper measure, or distance, of two places       32 of sensible harmony. ilence numbers the fingers. ilence is alone mortal. ilence that of daemons. ilence too For difference is more abundant in partial souls. ilence in these, one of the horses is good, but the other bad; and consists of contraries, ilence it follows ilence night and the fabrication of things. ilence according to the uninclining, and the uneffeminate       33

ilence. But, upon the whole       34 ilence the commendable deserts       35 ilence. Perhaps the question       36

was opened in ilence for their admission. This room was equally enveloped in darkness;       37 ilence, I have never expressed a wish       38 ’mid the starry solitudes of night, Where ilence       39

to repeat what he had said. ilence being       40 any idea of ilence more       41 and so of other instances. ilence the       42

nerve. ilence, motion of the iris is not an infallible criterion       43 ilence, the safety of the first is usually       44 devoted to them. ilence from the axis. ilence the impressions. ilence the eye ilence, by       45

ilence is known to keep ilence before ilence that therein       46 ilence they demand a thousand . fortuitous events. ilence their existence is very precarious       47 ilence, Where? ilence.—Read       48

ilence. for some time, while the drawing upon       49 seven. ilence dare. ilence utensil. ilence moon. ilence 想 siang. To Think; to consider. To hope; to plan. To call to mind. From 相 siang, mutual. ilence 箱 siang, a box. a few. ilence billions. ilence easy. ilence       50 ilence. many       51

ilence, the total excess       52 cyclical. ilence again symbols unchanged. ilence, in any case       53 labour. ilence the magic of ilence their relations ilence the riddle       54

ilence the given half-line ilence for 0 ilence θ       55 ilence there raigning ilence, continued among ilence, being       56 ilence the necessity of methods and results. ilence don’t neglect ilence he cannot afford to waste anything that he produces.       57  

sources being OCR misreads of hence, silence, prudence, existence, dissilience, providence, &c.

1 ex “The Protestation of the Noblemen, Barons, Gentlemen, Borrowes, Ministers, and Commons, the 22. of September 1638” in Walter Balcanquhall, A Large Declaration Concerning the Late Tumults in Scotland, from their first originals : together with a particular deduction of the seditious practices of the prime Leaders of the Covenanters: Collected out of their owne foule Acts and Writings: By which it doth plainly appeare, that Religion was onely pretended by those Leaders, but nothing less intended by them. By the King. (1639) : 160 2 ex John Mennes (1599-1671 *), his Witt’s Recreations refined Augmented with ingenious conceites, for the wittie, and merrie medicines for the melancholie. [See the next Page.] Recreation for Ingenious Head-peeces. Or, A pleasant grove for their wits to walk in, of Epigrams, 700. Epitaphs, 200. Fancies, a number. Fantasticks, abundance. With their addition, multiplication, and division. (London, 1650) : here 3 ex “Clarinde a Tancrede” in Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701 *), La Gloire du Sexe, Les Femmes Illustres, ou les harangues heroïques (1654) : 196 4 ex A Brief Account of the life of the Reverend Mr. Jown Rawlet, Author of the Christian Monitor. Together, with a valuable remain of his, never before printed, viz. his Consolatory Letter to his Mother, written on occasion of his apprehension of dying by the Great Plague, 1665. (1728) : 23 5 “The broken disjointed metaphor is a fault in writing,” from (Alexander Pope’s (?) note #7, to Love’s Labour’s Lost, act [5] scene 7 [in this edition, anyway]), in The Works of Shakespear (1747) : 235 6 ex “Figures on the Plate, in honour of Homer, explained” in The Gentleman’s Magazine Vol. 19 (March 1749) : 121 7 ex Sale et al, An Universal History, from the Earliest Account of Time. Compiled from Original Writers. By the Authors of the Antient Part Vol. 6 (1759) : 161 8 ex Daphnis and Menalcas: A Pastoral. Sacred to the Memory of the late General Wolfe (1759) : 4 9 ex an “imitation of Mr Hervey’s Meditations... very ingenious, and was wrote by a young Lady (in 1750)” in A Collection of the Letters of the Late Reverend Mr James Hervey, A. M., Rector of Weston-Favell, in Northamptonshire, and Author of the Meditations on the Tombs, Flower-garden, &c. To which is prefixed, An Account of his Life and Death (1762) : 28 10 ex Nathan Bailey, comp., An Universal Etymological Dictionary: Comprehending the derivations of the generality of words in the English Tongue, either Ancient or Modern..., (20th edition; 1764) : 276 11 ex The Works of Edmund Waller (1606-87 *), Esq. in verse and prose (1768) : 185 12 ex David Mallet (ca1705-1765 *), his “To Mira, from the country,” in Samuel Johnson, his The Works of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland; with prefaces biographical and critical. Volume the Seventh; containing Moore. Cawthorne. Collins. Dyer. Shenstone. Mallet, Akenside, Gray, Littleton, and Gay (1800) : 218 13 ex The Dissertations of Maximus Tyrius. Translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor. (London, 1804) : 210 on Maximus (of Tyre), see wikipedia 14 ex Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. 5 (of 12), (1806) : 67 (footnote) 15 ex biography of Dr. Thomas Sherlock (1678-1761), in Erasmus Middleton, his Evangelical Biography : Being a Complete and Fruitful Account of the lives, sufferings, experiences & happy deaths of Eminent Christians who have shone with distinguished lustre. Alphabetically arranged with lists of their principal works, in chronological order and occasional extracts. Volume 4. (1807) : 154-155 16 ex The Complete Farmer: Or, General Dictionary of Agriculture and Husbandry Vol. 1 (London, 1807) : 821 17 ex The Complete Grazier: Or, Farmer and Cattle-dealer’s Assistant (1808) : 77 18 ex John Jamieson, An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language vol. 2 (1808) : here 19 ex Francis Hargrave and Charles Butler, Lib. 3 “of discontinuance” in Notes on Lord Coke’s First Institute; Or, Commentary upon Littleton (1809) : here 20 ex Charles James, A New and Enlarged Military Dictionary: In French and English v. 2 (Third edition, 1810) : here 21 ex C. T. Watkins, A Portable Cyclopaedia, Or, Compendious Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, including the latest discoveries (1810) : here 22 ex John Perry, “Irish Quarter Sessions. (Carr’s Stranger in Ireland)” in The New Magazine of Choice Pieces; Or, Literary Museum. Comprehending an interesting and valuable assemblage of entertaining articles in every branch of human knowledge, viz. historical and biographical sketches, curious anecdotes; scarce and valuable pieces of antiquity; descriptions of remarkable public buildings; singular customs and manners of the inhabitants of various places and nations of the globe, &c. &c. / Containing the essence of long, curious, and expensive works of the best modern authors and writers of the present age. Forming an elegant Common-Place Book of useful knowledge. (London, 1810) : 42 23 all on The Book of Genesis, ex Arcana Coelestia; or Heavenly Mysteries contained in The Sacred Scriptures, or Word of the Lord, manifested and laid open; beginning with The Book of Genesis. Interspersed with relations of wonderful things seen in the world of spirits and the heaven of angels. Now first translated from the original Latin of Emanuel Swedenborg. By a society of gentlemen. Vol. 8, Second edition. (Manchester, 1812) : 122 24 ex John Trusler, The Progress of Man and Society: For the Use of Schools, Second edition (1812) : 97 25 (Augustin) Calmet’s Great Dictionary of the Holy Bible, Revised, corrected and augmented... under the direction of Charles Taylor, Vol. 2 (of 4), (1813) : here 26 ex John Mason Good, Olinthus Gregory (and) Newton Bosworth, assisted by other gentlemen of eminence, in different departments of literature, Pantologia: A New Cyclopaedia, Comprehending a Complete Series of Essays, Treaties, and Systems, alphabetically arranged Vol. 5 Flu-Hom. (1813) : definition of hexagon 27 ex Four Volumes of Lorenzo’s Journal, Concentrated in One : Containing his experiences & travels, from childhood to 1814, being upwards of thirty-six years. New-York: Printed and sold by John C. Totten (1814) : 160 for Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), see wikipedia 28 ex entry for “Plants,” in George Gregory, A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, The First American, from the second London edition, considerably improved and augmented. Vol. 3 (Philadelphia, 1816) : here 29 ex “Proceedings against Thomas Aikenhead, for Blasphemy” (1696) in Thomas Bayly Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and other crimew and misdeameanors from the earliest period to the year 1783, with notes and other illustrations, Vol. 13 (of 21), (1816) : 931 Thomas Aikenhead (1676-1697) was “the last person on the island of Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy. His execution happened 85 years after the death of Edward Wightman (1612), the last person to be burned at the stake for heresy in England.” (wikipedia) 30 ex Caroline-Stéphanie-Félicité, Madame de Genlis 1746-1830 *), Placide: A Spanish Tale. Two volumes in one. Translated from Les Battuécas, of Madame de Genlis. By Alexander Jamieson. (1817) : 41 31 ex Reasons Assigned for the Erecting of Union Chapel, at Bridlington-Quay, Yorkshire (Hull, 1818) : 10 32 ex definition of “Spherics, the doctine of the sphere, particularly of the several circles described on its surface.” in George Gregory (1754-1808 *), A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences : Including the latest improvement and discovery and the present state of every branch of human knowledge, Vol. 3 (1819) : 610 33 ex The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timaeus of Plato, in Five Books; containing a treasury of Pythagoric and Platonic Physiology. Translated from the Greek, by Thomas Taylor. vol 2 (of 2), (London, 1820) : 86 34 ex Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady : Comprehending the most importance concerns of private life; and particularly shewing the distresses that may attend the misconduct both of parents and children, in relation to marriage. Volume 2 (of 8) in the series The British Novelists; with an essay, and prefaces biographical and critical, by Mrs. Barbauld. A new edition. (1820) : 74 on Mrs. Barbauld (1743-1825), see wikipedia 35 ex Frederick Wilton Litchfield Stockdale (1786-1858 *), Excursions in the county of Cornwall (London, 1824) : 33 36 ex Thomas Cogswell Upham (1799-1872 *), Ratio Discipline: Or, The Constitution of the Congregational Churches (1829) : 184 37 ex (Major) John Richardson (1796-1852 *, Écarté; Or, the Salons of Paris Vol. 2 (1829) : 130 38 ex Niles’ Weekly Register (February 7, 1829) : 388 39 ex Dugald Moore (1805-41 *), “The First Poet,” in his The Bridal Nights; The First Poet; and Other Poems (1831) : 99 40 ex “Titus Quinctius Flaminius,” in Plutarch’s Lives. Translated from the original Greek: with notes, critical and historical: and a life of Plutarch, by John Langhorne, D.D. and William Langhorne, A. M. A new edition, carefully revised and corrected. (Baltimore, 1831) : 269 41 ex Alexander Campbell (1788-1866 *), ed., The Millennial Harbinger 3:1 (Bethany, Virginia; Monday, January 2, 1832) : 7 42 ex “Increase of the Army.” Senate. February 16, 1837, in Register of Debates in Congress, comprising the leading debates and incidents of the second session of the wenth-fourth Congress: together with an appendix, containing important state papers and public documents, and the laws, of a public nature, enacted during the session: with a copious index to the whole. Vol. 13 (1837) : 817 43 ex Samuel Cooper (1780-1848 *), A Dictionary of Practical Surgery : Comprehending All the Most Interesting Improvements, from the Earliest Times Down to the Present Period... Forming a Catalogue of Surgical Literature Arranged According to Subjects..., Seventh edition, revised, corrected, and enlarged (1838) : 382 44 ex Archibald Alison, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in M.DCC.LXXXIX. to the restoration of the Bourbons in M.DCCC.XV. (1841) : 31 45 William Thomas Brande (1788-1866 *), A Dictionary of Science, Literature, & Art : Comprising the history, description, and scientific principles of every branch of human knowledge; with the derivation and definition of all the terms in general use. (1842) : here 46 ex The Friend, A religious and literature journal (1864) : 313 47 ex Rev S(amuel). Phillips, The Christian Home as it is in the Sphere of Nature and the Church. Showing the mission, duties, influences, habits and responsibilities of home, its education, government, and discipline; with hints on “match making,” and the relation of parents to the marriage choice of their children; together with a consideration of the tests in the selection of a companion, etc. (1866) : 96 48 ex Alice Clay, ed., The Agony Column of the “Times” 1800-1870 (1881) : 72 49 ex Margaret E. Winslow (1836-1936 *), Under Ban (New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1885) : 35 50 Frederick William Baller (1852-1922 *), An Analytical Vocabulary of the New Testament, prepared for the use of the junior members of the China Inland Mission (Shanghai, 1893) : 79 51 ex Lucifer. A Theosophical Magazine, designed to “bring to light the hidden things of darkness.” Founded by H. P. Blavatsky. Edited by Annie Besant. 12:72 (August 15, 1893) : 593 52 ex preview snippet, pointing to Solutions by “K.H.S.” in The Journal of Education (November 1896) : 666 53 ex W. Burnside, “On groups which contain 1+2p or 1+4p subgroups of order pa”, in The Messenger of Mathematics 31:5 (September 1901) : 77-81 (78) 54 ex Karl Marx (Frederick Engels, ed.), Capital A Critique of Political Economy, Translated from the third German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, 1906 (1936) : 105 55 ex Norman R. Wilson, “A Certain Type of Isoperimetric Problem, in particular, the Solid of Maximum Attraction.” Section III : 39-84 (67) in Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. Third Series. Volume I. Meeting of May 1907. 56 ex footnotes to F. J. Furnivall and John Munro, Shakespeare, Life and Work (1908) : here 57 ex The Irrigation Age 27:4 (February 1912) : 126

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all tagged tercets  

#curious anecdotes #isoperimetric problems #broken disjointed metaphors #spherics #tercet #tercets

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Ch. 2: “The Eaters of Light” Analysis Doctor Who S10.10: The Doctor Is a Prisoner, Stripes, Duplication, Rescue

<- Read the previous chapter

Siblings Theme

“The Eaters of Light” opening shows first a young girl, and then almost immediately we see her older brother.  Siblings are a theme with a major reference last week pointing to siblings, and this week we have 2 more pairs of siblings. 

However, the main reference to siblings comes from one the children to be rescued, whom we examined in Chapter 18 Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.  In the Season 8 episode “In the Forest of the Night,” Maebh’s older sister, Annabel, appears at the end, seemingly transforming from a bush to a girl.

This would appear to point to the importance of siblings coming up in the finale or Christmas special.

Judy & Her Brother, Kar & Ban

In “The Eaters of Light,” young Judy goes to the ancient Pictish stones to listen to the music. She has a sense of fearlessness about the potential ghosts getting her because it’s the music that is important to her.  Her brother makes multiple attempts to pull her away, fearing the ghosts and getting in trouble if something happens. 

At the end, we see her come back to the stones alone to listen to the music.

In comparison, we see another pair of siblings: Kar and her brother Ban.  Kar, while fearful of the Eater of Light, is the one near the beginning of the episode facing the most danger of any of the Picts, including her brother.  As gatekeeper, she has to face the beast to keep it from getting loose and devouring everyone, but things didn’t quite go that way.  She let it through to destroy the Roman army, whom she thought was more dangerous.  However, to protect the Picts, she doomed her whole world.

Kar’s actions mirror Bill’s since Bill let the Monks in to save the Doctor.  Kar is also a mirror of the Doctor, and this also seems to be foreshadowing the Doctor dooming the world by letting Missy loose.

At the end of the episode, Kar faces her beast and is more like Judy, while Ban is more like Judy’s brother in that he didn’t go into the gateway.

Nardole’s, Bill’s & Sibling’s Stripes

Since the very 1st Doctor, stripes and plaids (tartans) have been used in some of the Doctor’s outfits, as well as his companions’. 

Stripes are a reference to the English idiom “show one’s stripes” or “show one’s true stripes.”  A variant of it is “to show one’s true colors.” It means revealing one’s true beliefs, desires, character, or personality. 

The patterns give us some information about integrations and sexuality.  Time Lord integrations, for example, mean they are both male and female at the same time.  Stripes going one way are homosexual while plaids, which go both ways, are bisexual.

Nardole

Nardole wears a lot of plaid, although at the beginning of “The Eaters of Light,” he is wearing something odd: a bathrobe.  This is a reference to Amy wearing her nightclothes while on Starship UK in “The Beast Below,” where everyone is dreaming. This calls attention to the resolution coming for the Star Whale.

Anyway, shown below is Nardole in his horizontal-striped hat (yellow arrow), vertical-striped bathrobe (cyan arrow), and plaid pants (white arrow).

These stripe patterns are really interesting.  I don’t remember seeing something like this before.  We know Nardole is made of different parts, as he’s part cyborg. His lungs are human while he isn’t. The 3 patterns suggest to me that his head is one part with horizontal stripes.  His body represents a different part with vertical stripes.  His legs represent something else and are integrated.

Also, it’s possible this can suggest that his head, for example, is male, his body female, and his legs are one of each or come from an integrated being.

When the Doctor is in the rift and comes out, we see that Nardole has tattoos on his face.  He’s blending in, as he says.  His changes represent an integration.  Check out his clothes below, which also suggest an integration.  

Now, he truly looks like a patchwork person.  He represents the face of the unactualized Doctor, who has taken on more integrations.

Nardole’s hat (yellow arrow) hasn’t changed.  It’s still horizontally striped.  However, he’s not wearing his bathrobe.  Instead, he’s wearing a solid shirt with an historical kilt, which I believe is called a “great kilt.”  (I’m only aware of them because of the Outlander TV series.  Please let me know if there is some other name for it.)  The plaid on his chest is running diagonally (green arrow), while the knee-length skirt part (white arrow) is worn normally.  He has a different plaid for pants, like knickers with solid socks.  But he has horizontal-striped shoes (yellow arrow).

It looks like he closed his eyes and pulled whatever out of the closet, but it really shows that he’s made of different parts.

Bill

In contrast, Bill has stripes only going one way with curves.  Sometimes, she wears vertical stripes.

Siblings

The siblings at the beginning of “The Eaters of Light” wear plaid, shown below.  This suggests they are both integrated beings (both male and female).  Integrated beings in DW are the ones who are more likely to be turned into a cyborg or some type of hybrid.  In fact, Judy also has fasteners (white arrow) like Nardole does.  Her brother has red and blue plaid, which may indicate he is 2 beings in 2 different universes or time streams.  We’ll examine another example of Judy’s mirror in another time stream in a bit.

Are Missy & the Doctor Siblings?

With siblings a theme, I have little doubt that siblings have to be a part of the rescue, as we’ve seen with Annabel.  Maebh was a mirror of young River, so that suggests that it’s River’s sister who gets rescued.  And Baby Melody Pond wasn’t just one being, as we examined in the subtext.

Right now, it seems the Doctor might be trying to get his wings and rescue Missy, which could also be an analogy to River rescuing the Doctor. 

It’s clear that Missy is mirroring the Doctor.  It may be that Missy represents the Doctor’s duplicate, so we have a real Doctor and an imposter.  It could also be that Missy represents the Doctor’s own beast that he has to kill. Could she be the Doctor and the Doctor the Master?  That’s how DW is mirroring a lot of what has been going on.  In a false universe that has to die, it’s not out of the question.

The subtext shows that things are going backwards, too, so we’ll have to wait to see what the subtext says in the upcoming episode, “World Enough and Time.”

One other thing is that Missy’s tears did seem genuine in this episode.  Once again, though, she was mirroring the Doctor with the music, when he and River in THORS were at the Singing Towers of Darillium.

The Rescue

There are several indications that the rescue is near.  We’ve already seen a reference to “The Beast Below.”  However, there are other signs.

The Horse Is Back

There’s a really tiny horse (red arrow) in the bookcase on the other side of the TARDIS, so letting Missy out is part of the rescue plan.  It’s obviously going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

This really is an odd shot in the camera’s placement being far away and below Nardole and the Doctor. That gives some power to them. Also odd is the Doctor’s and Nardole’s placement in relation to each other.  Nardole represents the child Doctor, which we looked at a long time ago, although we’ve also looked at many other mirrors, too.  He’s 237 years old, BTW.  That figure came up in TPEW as a statistic of the Doctor’s sonic glasses.

The TARDIS on the Rock, the Legend of the Blue Box & the Rescue

After Judy and her brother leave the Pictish stone temple, the camera pans to the TARDIS carved into the rock, shown below.  This is very similar to 2 other occurrences of the blue box being idolized: “The End of Time” and “The Fires of Pompeii.”

“The End of Time,” Part 1 “The End of Time” is John Simm’s Master’s last appearance.  In the Chapter 18 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, we examined the Legend of the Blue Box as told to Donna Noble’s grandfather by the woman who was hired to be the Doctor’s mother.  In the church they were in, there is a tiny TARDIS (white arrow) in the stained glass window, along with what looks like Jesus with 11 Apostles.  The Doctor’s Mother metaphor wanted to rescue him, so the TARDIS on the rock is a signal that we have come back to this story, along with the Master’s part to play.

“The Fires of Pompeii” But that’s not all. In “The Fires of Pompeii” at the end, after the 10th Doctor and Donna saved Lobus Caecilius and his family, their shrine to the household gods changed from Roman gods to the Doctor, TARDIS, and Donna, in the image below.  

Oops!  The Doctor and Donna are now thought of as gods, so there’s a God complex.  They changed time, which could have rippled through to the Mary Celeste and other things. 

Scientifically, these changes would have created a parallel universe. 

Pictish Beast, River Reference, Crows & the Doctor Is a Prisoner

The creature we see pictured on the Pictish stones is a real symbol.  

According to Wikipedia:

The Pictish Beast (sometimes Pictish Dragon or Pictish Elephant) is an artistic representation of an animal depicted on Pictish symbol stones.

The Pictish Beast is not easily identifiable with any real animal, but resembles a seahorse, especially when depicted upright. Suggestions have included a dolphin, a kelpie (or each uisge), and even the Loch Ness Monster.

Did Loch-less eat a bunch of Roman soldiers at some point?

The Eater of Light should be aquatic, given the Pictish Beast representation, but that is another oddity of the episode.  The Eater of Light, however, does have tentacles similar to a squid.  It’s like a hybrid, and that may be the point.

Anyway, there are mentions of the wind and a labyrinth, regarding the beast. 

(Vitus leads the way with a flaming brand. There is a hissing sound and he stops. They whisper.) VITUS: Shh!

LUCIUS: It's nothing. It's the wind in the rocks. Forward, centurion. Keep going. There are lots of entrances the beast could get through. It's a labyrinth.

River said in THORS that it was never just the wind, so this is a reference to River.  And it’s really interesting that Missy ends up crying because of the music.  Lucius in particular is the Doctor’s mirror.  We’ll examine him more in the next chapter.

Lucius mentions the labyrinth, which is a reference to “The God Complex” and the Minotaur.  Because the Minotaur is a metaphor for the Doctor, which we looked at in the “Extremis” analysis, that makes the Eaters of Light also a metaphor of the Doctor.

“The Eaters of Light” is an interesting name.  We know the Sun has to die, along with this Matrix universe, so he’s fighting a losing battle.  This means people on the outside are trying to save the Doctor.  However, he’s fighting it on the inside, which again is also a metaphor for the internal struggle.

Crows, the Gateway & the Doctor Is a Prisoner

The TARDIS on the Rock is not the only symbol being idolized.  The crow flies over and sits on the rock in the opening of the episode. It says, “Doc-tor! Doc-tor! Doc-tor! Doc-tor!”

Given the crows at the end are remembering Kar fighting in the temporal rift, it suggests the Doctor at the beginning is the one in the temporal rift, as the gatekeeper – the Door metaphor.

Here’s an image below of the Doctor with a pot hanging from a chain.  He actually crosses the path of the chain.  The scene is easier to see if you watch the episode.

That meshes with what we’ve examined before in “Heaven Sent.”  The Sun is a Door, creating the plague of monsters, which actually played out in “The Eaters of Light.”  Of course, plague means duplication, and there are several references to that again in this episode.

The Crow & the Dark Doctor: White & Black Guardians, Key to Time?

One of the Crows sits on a rock when Nardole and the Doctor come by.  It says multiple words, including, “Dark Doctor.”  Since the Doctor is imprisoned, it makes sense that this would be the Dark Doctor.

Before “The Eaters of Light,” I had only seen the first 2 episodes of a season-long arc that might also pertain to the Dark Doctor that started with the 4th Doctor. However, I also found it in some 5th Doctor’s episodes.  I haven’t investigated this more, due to lack of time.  But the arc could also explain what is happening, at least some of the episodes do.

Back in the first season with the 4th Doctor’s companion Romana I, there was a quest given to the Doctor by the White Guardian, regarding the Keys to Time. According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The White Guardian, more accurately called the Guardian of Light in Time (TV: The Stones of Blood), was the anthropomorphic personification of order and good in the same way that his opposite, the Black Guardian, embodied evil and chaos. However, different interfaces of the Guardians held different perspectives, with the Black Guardian later claiming to represent freedom while the White Guardian embodied domination. The Fifth Doctor even criticised him as the lesser of two evils, embodying the letter of the law rather than the spirit. (AUDIO: The Destroyer of Delights)

I’m specifically including the non-canon audio description here because I don’t know enough about the subtext of the Guardians to come to my own conclusions.  The description provides a cautionary note, which I wholeheartedly embrace.

In fact, if this universe has to die but the White Guardian wanted to maintain it for stability, that would be a contradiction.  The Doctor and Master may be operating in the same way here if the Master wants to destroy the false universe, but the Doctor wants to keep it.

Key to Time

Anyway, the quest for the 4th Doctor and Romana is to find the 6 parts of the Key to Time. According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The Key to Time was a powerful and legendary artefact which the Guardians of Time used to maintain the equilibrium of time itself, (TV: The Ribos Operation)

In “The Ribos Operation,” the White Guardian tells the Doctor about the Key.

GUARDIAN: The Key to Time is a perfect cube, which maintains the equilibrium of time itself.

(A holographic image of a spinning cube appears for illustration, then fades away.)

GUARDIAN: It consists of six segments, and these segments are scattered and hidden throughout the cosmos. When they are assembled into the cube, they create a power which is too dangerous for any being to possess.

DOCTOR: Well hidden then, I hope, sir.

GUARDIAN: There are times, Doctor, when the forces within the universe upset the balance to such an extent that it becomes necessary to stop everything.

DOCTOR: Stop everything?

GUARDIAN: For a brief moment only.

DOCTOR: Ah.

GUARDIAN: Until the balance is restored. Such a moment is rapidly approaching. These segments must be traced and returned to me before it is too late, before the Universe is plunged into eternal chaos.

DOCTOR: Eternal chaos?

GUARDIAN: Eternal as you understand the term.

We haven’t heard about the Key that I can remember in nuWho.  However, there are keys around the necks of the Smilers in “The Beast Below.” While we already looked at that symbolism a long time ago, there may be additional symbolism to consider.

Bill, the Doctor, White & Black Guardians, 9th Legion

Bill and the Doctor have the debate at the beginning about what happened to the Roman 9th Legion.  It really is very odd, which gets my suspicion meter going about the subtext. According to the Doctor at least 5000 people died, but, according to Bill, no one died.  Maybe she’s reading alternative history from the changed timeline? Regardless, the oddness turns to a macabre subject of having to check this out.

It’s almost like a game or bet.

The White & Black Guardians & the Game

I bring this up because when I watched the 4th Doctor story “The Stones of Blood,” which has similarities, the White and Black Guardians have a similar game type thing going on.  That was surprising and odd.

In the 5th Doctor story “Enlightenment,” which I also watched (wow, I’ve got to check out titles!), the Black Guardian wants the Doctor’s companion to kill the Doctor. Enlightenment is exactly what we’ve been examining with the Great Work, so it made me really take notice.

We find out that enlightenment gives beings the ability to see all of time.  Then, they can create and destroy as they like.  We’ve examined how the Sun stage is dangerous.  The creation we’ve seen has been with the plague cross, and certainly we’ve seen destruction with solar flares, for example.

Anyway, one of the characters ends up throwing a crystal at the Black Guardian, who erupts in flames and disappears.  However, the White Guardian says while he exists, so does the Black Guardian.  This tells me they are dualistic.  That totally makes sense from what we’ve examined.

Which is probably like the dualistic nature of the Doctor and Master or the Doctor and Missy.  As long as there is no unification, there has to be duality.

Judy’s Red Wellies Refer to Doctor Duplication & a Monster

“The Eaters of Light” opens with young Judy walking near the Pictish stones.  In the image below, she is lying on the ground and listening to the Celtic music.  

Her red wellies are a reference to Jennifer Lucas, who as a child, shown below, got lost on the moors while wearing them.  And that leads into several pieces of foreshadowing, which includes Rory.

This makes Jennifer and Judy mirrors: one dressed in blue plaid and the other in red plaid, suggesting 2 different universes, like in “Hide.”

Jennifer is one of the characters in “The Rebel Flesh” and “The Almost People.”  It’s the 2-part, island castle episode where several people, including the Doctor, end up with duplicates called Gangers, who start to rebel. Also, we find out Amy has a Ganger on the TARDIS while another version is about to give birth.

A solar storm hits the army-run, 22nd century factory, that mines acid.  The surge in power turns the workers' Gangers into self-aware individuals. 

At one point Ganger Jennifer reminisces about her child self while looking at the photo above:

G-JENNIFER: When I was a little girl, I got lost on the moors, wandered off from the picnic. I can still feel how sore my toes got inside my red welly boots. And I imagined another little girl, just like me, in red wellies, and she was Jennifer too. Except she was a strong Jennifer, a tough Jennifer. She'd lead me home. My name is Jennifer Lucas. I am not a factory part. I had toast for my breakfast. I wrote a letter to my mum. And then you arrived. I noticed your eyes right off.

Judy had the spirit and fearlessness of confronting ghosts that Ganger Jennifer didn’t have.  In fact, fear and anger were at the heart of the problems: fear of suddenly becoming human and anger for lack of acceptance.

AMY: Doctor, you said they wouldn't be violent. DOCTOR: But I did say they were scared and angry.

A rebellion breaks out led by the Gangers, especially Jennifer’s, and the Doctor must mediate between them and the original people.  The Doctor, himself, ends up with a Ganger.

However, there’s something more ominous going on in these 2 episodes.  Jennifer ends up with 2 Gangers, and one turns into a monster and kills the 2nd Ganger.  Jennifer, herself, dies of hypothermia, leaving just the monster, which wants revenge for humans thinking of Gangers as disposable people.  The Ganger concept is similar to the throwaway people in “Oxygen.”

And the subtext shows that Rory is a mirror of Jennifer.

Ganger Jennifer has a hidden face with the reflection in the image below, but the mirror is divided into 3 sections.  She is in 2 of the mirrors, having 1 original face and another, the other Ganger.  

In this image below, Jennifer is in a stall while Rory looks on.  He also has a reflection spanning 2 mirrors, so he is a mirror of Jennifer. Also interesting is that Jennifer is the name of the Doctor’s daughter.

This scene in the bathroom mirrors, in a lot of ways, the scene between the 12th Doctor and Bill in “The Pilot,” where Heather comes through the mirror.

This all suggests the 12th Doctor has an imposter, who is a monster, which fits what we’ve examined.

At the end of “The Rebel Flesh,” the original 11th Doctor tells his Ganger, who is about to sort of die

DOCTOR: Your molecular memory can survive this, you know. It may not be the end.

This location is a 13th century castle, which is 13 or 1 on a clock, depending on how you look at it.  And both are faces in the subtext of the 12th Doctor.  In comparison, shown below, is Hydroflax’s robot without the head. However, in this image it looks like it has a clock for a head in a perfectly centered camera shot.  

The time is about 1:50. The monster part is a robot and is labeled 1, as opposed to the 12th Doctor’s actual number.  Hydroflax is a time head, referencing Amy’s concern that her baby might be affected by Amy‘s travel in space.  Things in THORS are running backward, as well as being distorted.

Duplication & Killer Robots Going Back in Time to Change History

In both the previous episode and “The Eaters of Light,” there are references to duplication and killer robots going back in time to change history.

Mary Celeste, Duplication & Assassination in The Chase

The Mary Celeste reference brings in the entire 1st Doctor story The Chase.  Check out the episode titles.   Back then DW titled each episode.  (The Mary Celeste shows up in “Flight Through Eternity.”):

·      "The Executioners"

·      "The Death of Time"

·      "Flight Through Eternity"

·      "Journey into Terror"

·      "The Death of Doctor Who"

·      "The Planet of Decision"

Season 10 is tracking many of the elements of this story: duplication, assassination, killer robot, dreams, nightmares, psychological manipulation, slime and tentacled beasts, Doctor fighting Doctor, death of the imposter, etc.  And OMG, Frankenstein’s Monster shows up!   Along with Dracula, and it just so happens the Eaters of Light need blood.

Overall, The Chase is about the Daleks (their 3rd appearance) chasing the Doctor in their own time machine through space and time, similar to what Heather did in “The Pilot.”  This, too, harkens back to several elements of “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood.”

The Daleks’ goal is to kill the Doctor, whom they say is human, along with Barbara, Ian, and Vicki. However, they first want to duplicate the Doctor, creating an assassin robot to “infiltrate, separate, and kill.”

They make an exact replica in the episode “The Death of Doctor Who.”  The Doctor ends up fighting him.  However, in the following season’s “The Gunfighters” story, which we examined in last week’s episode, it’s the Doctor who is the imposter.  Did the Daleks create more than one Doctor robot? I haven’t seen enough of the 1st Doctor to possibly have a guess.

Anyway, the crew’s disappearance on the Mary Celeste in this 1st Doctor story is attributed to the Daleks showing up just after the Doctor. The crew thought the Daleks were the Barbary Terror.  It’s also called the White Terror in the episode, a supernatural being which appears to sailors at sea and takes their souls.  It sounds a lot like the siren in “The Curse of the Black Spot.”  The concepts of white and black here, along with concepts from “The Eaters of Light” could refer to the duality.

In reality, the Barbary Terror referred to pirates operating out of North Africa, enslaving Christians mostly for the Ottoman Empire.  So the use in the episode refers to slavery and most likely mind control.  It also sounds like the werewolf in “Tooth and Claw” that carved out the boy’s soul and sat in his heart.

The Lusitania, Assassination & Meddling with Time

Nardole mentioned the Lusitania to the Picts but didn’t elaborate.  More ship problems.  I knew the history of it, but I didn’t know the reference in the DW universe.

Tip: Usually, words that stick out, like names, have some subtext meaning.  It’s good to look them up.

The Lusitania is important because of the non-canon audio story. According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The RMS Lusitania was an ocean liner torpedoed by the U-20 on 7 May 1915. This act helped provoke the United States into entering World War I two years later. One of the people killed onboard was a petty criminal named Eric Charles Vincent.

In an alternative timeline, the Lusitania did not sink due to the Fifth Doctor's intervention. Vincent, having survived, went on to kill Alexander Fleming in a botched robbery attempt in December 1927 before the biologist discovered penicillin. Without the protection offered by penicillin, Earth fell prey to new strains of meningitis and pneumonia in 1956. The survivors never developed a space programme. Consequently, the Knights of Velyshaa were not defeated by the Earth Alliance in 3562, as they otherwise would have been. (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time)

Since the audio story supports my new hypothesis, it’s important.

Tip: Be careful with using non-canon references.  If they have other support in the canon or subtext, then, most likely, they are valid to use to support your subtext work.  If they don’t have support, keep them in mind, but I suggest not using them for the time being.  Through your subsequent research, you may find supporting information.

Last week, Bill mentioned something interesting in “The Empress of Mars”:

NARDOLE: The Tardis registered multiple life forms below the surface, so this seems like the best place to look. BILL: Maybe someone's been messing around with time. Like in The Terminator.

In The Terminator, a killer robot time travels to prevent a revolution by assassinating someone.  He’s meddling with time.  In the case of the Lusitania, the 5th Doctor meddled with time.

Moreover, “messing around with time” is a reference to the next 1st Doctor story after The Chase called The Time Meddler.  I hadn’t seen this one, either, so I watched it after I finished The Chase.

Check out the episode titles:

·      "The Watcher"

·      "The Meddling Monk"

·      "A Battle of Wits"

·      "Checkmate"

Wow, a Monk and chess! Also, certainly we’ve seen the Monks as watchers, and the face of the 12th Doctor as the totalitarian government was a Watcher.  Also, the Doctor is in a battle of wits with the Monks.

Once again, I was blown away just by the titles.  I need to go check out all the other DW titles to see what I can glean.  The story also tracks closely with what is happening.

The Monk is the 3rd Time Lord to make an appearance in DW, beside the Doctor and Susan Foreman. 

I haven’t watched all the 1st Doctor stories to figure this out, but it looks like there is more than one imposter.  And there is something really odd in The Chase when Vicki, Barbara, and the Doctor just lie down on the ground, like they are taking a nap.  There was something wrong about it, like they were robots, who got turned off.

There are 2 really important concepts that can help explain nuWho that come up in “Journey into Terror.” It’s a haunted house of psychological terror.   At one point, the Doctor and Ian are stumbling along with only the light of a small torch to guide them.

IAN: Oh, there's one thing about this place, Doctor. It certainly stimulates the phagocytes. The phago? You know, it's uncanny, strange and weird, but it is familiar.

Since phagocytes are certain types of cells that protect the body by ingesting harmful bacteria, foreign particles, dead or dying cells, etc. “phagocytes” makes no sense here given what we think we know.  This tells us something is wrong.

However, it also connects to nuWho and the idea of the Doctor getting an infection, like in “The Lie of the Land” or CAL having an infection, needing Doctor Moon, the virus checker.

On top of that, here is something really fascinating and very relevant just a few seconds later:

DOCTOR: Pre-conditioned. That's it. Pre-conditioned! IAN: What are you talking about now? DOCTOR: This house is exactly what you would expect in a nightmare. Yes, we're in a world of dreams. Creaking doors, thunder and lightning, monsters and all the things that go bumpety bumpety in the night. IAN: With one vital difference, Doctor. This house is real. It exists. DOCTOR: Yes, yes it exists in the dark recesses of the human minds. Millions of people secretly believing. Think of the immense power of all these people, combined together, makes this place become a reality. IAN: Then we're safe. DOCTOR: Safe? What on earth do you mean, dear boy? IAN: But the Daleks can't touch us here? Not in the human mind. DOCTOR: You know, I believe you're right. Yes! The Daleks can never land here! (They go down the stairs, pausing at the creaky one at the bottom.)

They realize they are pre-conditioned to believe in this dream.  But it’s millions of people secretly believing.  It’s belief that is sustaining this world.  And Ian and the Doctor are wrong.  The Daleks show up.

Here, again, are the concepts of the Library metaphor with CAL and Doctor Moon, in Season 10, especially in “The Lie of the Land.”  We also examined something similar in the 2nd Doctor story “The Mind Robber.”

Belief is what allows evil Fenric to continue in “The Curse of Fenric,” and it feeds the Minotaur in “The God Complex.”  It’s necessary to stop believing or breaking people’s confidence.  So far, it’s been Ace’s confidence in the 7th Doctor, Amy’s confidence in the 11th Doctor, and Bill’s confidence in the 12th Doctor.

Bill attempted to assassinate the Doctor once her confidence in him was broken in “The Lies of the Land.”

This may be foreshadowing the Doctor and Missy.

The Saxon King & Harry Saxon

The meddling Monk believes that if he goes back in time and kills the Viking King Harald Hardrada and the rest of his men, who invade Britain shortly before the Battle of Hastings, the last Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson would be freed up to successfully repel William of Normandy’s invasion at Hastings.  The Monk believes in the long run that this would be better for the entire world, and he could help humans have extraordinary technology, like airplanes by the 1300s.

The Monk says he helped the ancients build Stone Henge with aid of anti-gravitational lift – must be Merlin.  The Monk is associated with the Roman Cross, making him a face of the 12th Doctor.  At one point, he and the 1st Doctor are associated with the Redemption Cross.

In the last episode of the story, “Checkmate,” the 1st Doctor leaves a letter on top of the Monk’s TARDIS that looks like a sarcophagus.  Below is the Monk reading the letter.  The Roman cross (yellow arrow) is behind him.  The sarcophagus is to the right.  

The Monk opens the letter:

MONK: The Doctor. (reads) My dear fellow, I'm sure will you excuse me but I didn't want to say goodbye, as you are obviously going to be very busy for some time. He's right there. Just in case you still have ideas about your master plan, I've taken precautions to stop your time meddling. (Laughs. How could he stop a Mark 4?) Possibly one day in the future, when you've learnt your lesson, I shall return and release you. Release me? (Laughs again. Ha! Me? Oh, the old fool. I wonder what he meant by release me? Well, I'll be going.)

The Doctor stole his dimensional control.  Check out this image below.  It looks like the dimensional problem the 12th Doctor had in the Season 8 episode “Flatline,” when the TARDIS shrunk with the Doctor inside.

Harry Saxon

The Master took the name Harry Saxon for a reason.  Saxon’s have come up 2 times that we’ve seen.  Once with Merlin, who was helping the Britons battle the Saxons, and once above with the Monk.  So the Monk is now helping the Saxons in The Time Meddler.  Does the Doctor helping Missy represent this?

Who will kill whom?

Aberdeen, the Assassination Theme, Lies & the Big Bad Wolf

“The Eaters of Light” opens in Aberdeen, Scotland, which is another reference to “Tooth and Claw,” bringing in all the references to Queen Victoria, Clara, the werewolf, and all the other references we’ve examined in previous analyses, especially “The Empress of Mars.” 

The 12th Doctor, himself, mentioned a wolf and likens it to the monster:

BAN: The Keeper of the Gate. My sister. DOCTOR: Well, let's hope she's the brains of the family, because there's a big bad wolf of a monster out there and you live in a house of sticks.

Also, Aberdeen showed up in “The Lie of the Land.”  The Doctor was on the prison boat off the coast of Aberdeen.  We know that episode was running backward.  The Doctor was possessed in the subtext.  The same thing is happening in this latest episode.

Aberdeen & the Assassination Theme

Queen Victoria would have traveled to Aberdeen by train, but the implication of the tree on the railway was that it was an assassination attempt.  Assassination has also become a theme with all the references we’ve been seeing.  “The Deadly Assassin” – the 4th Doctor story examined in the "Extremis" analysis – tells us there is also framing going on.

We know the Sun has to die.

Next Chapter

In the next chapter, we’ll examine the references to love and separation, which is a theme, and we’ll also examine the references that foreshadow the fall of the Doctor.

Read next chapter ->

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