It’s always surprising to me that the default Thelyss family interpretation in fandom is “everyone (especially Deirta) is cold and abusive” because… I don’t think that would fly at all.
Leylas is starting to act rash and more violent in temperament because she’s exhibiting signs of typhros, and that’s clearly worrying the court, and if it were anyone but the literal queen, I think that kind of behavior would have already been either corrected or eliminated, because, well, they’re all stuck with each other, and they have to get along, even if that is very superficial.
In that scenario, you end up with family units that stick very closely together and are probably actually overly pleasant (if there are closed family units, which seems unlikely to me, making it even harder to hide particularly abusive behavior). These are people who have spent lifetimes in the same groups, who live incredibly long lives, and who want people to join their groups. They both have to put on a nice face and then keep the peace once they’ve won people over, even if that peace is tenuous and shallow.
That’s also exactly how Essek asks—he’s described as having a “perpetual soft smile” and at surface-level, he’s very accommodating. He is such a pleasant person, at all times, even when he’s under enormous amounts of stress. He had, essentially, one “outburst” toward the Nein that he was narratively pretty justified in, and the next time he saw them he apologized without prompting and took on most of the blame for the issue, which would probably be how I’d characterize conflict within the Dens.
And that’s absolutely still a toxic environment. It’s the type of environment that makes it nearly impossible to release any frustrations, where everyone is emotionally repressed because they haven’t yelled in six hundred years and internalizes any sort of problems as their own personal guilt. But it ensures that the Dens survive, at the expense of any sort of lasting conflict resolution. To be clear, I’m sure there is some amount of conflict resolution, because at the point where you have people together or breaking up after multiple lifetimes, I imagine you need it, but in terms of, say, ideological differences? Especially since this is a religiously-based family bond? I’d guess that that’s the kind of thing where the answer is “grin and bear it and don’t bring it up at the dinner table.”
And with that, Deirta as the matriarch has to not only be pleasant enough to get along with everyone, she is also probably the one mediating any conflicts that do arise, which means she is a probably maddeningly pleasant person. This is primarily important because, as the leader of the household and his mother, and given how he speaks about his father, Essek likely took most of how he presents himself from her.
A.K.A Orbit spends many hours of her precious fleeting life reading way too into the sings in Travis’s playlist because someone had to do it!!
Love to @captainofthetidesbreathetidesbreath for hyping this playlist enough to light a fire under my ass; please if you read this reblog and give me your thoughts!
My analysis will be structured thus:
1), a disclaimer about wolf imagery in popular media and in this playlist
2), everything we know about Chetney, and about Ch(U)tney, who I’m treating as a separate, but still important for context, character.
3), a breakdown of each song, pointing out any lyrics that I find particularly significant
4), Wild speculation about the conclusions that can be drawn by combining parts 2 and 3
5), in which I summarize all of the above and, to the best of my ability, predict the sad life’s story of Chetney Pock O’Pea.
1) A Disclaimer About Werewolves.
These songs all have to do with werewolves; that’s the gimmick of the playlist, that’s the distraction tactic Travis is using to gaslight you into ignoring his own narrative genius. But Chetney’s only beena werewolf for a few months out of his very long life! This means that many of the songs that still involve wolf theming/lyrics probably don’t actually have much to do with that part of him. Wolves are also very popular animals that’ve been used as metaphors in many songs for many purposes over the years. This means it is very possible to pick and choose which wolf-y songs you use to construct a specific narrative.
2) Ch(E)tney Facts, Ch(U)tney Facts, and the Venn Diagram Between Them
Ch(U)tney was the oldest Elf still working in Santa’s workshop. He’s famous for his actions at the very end of the One-Shot, but he was actually making his anti-santa stance pretty clear from the jump! Remember that whole bit where he tries to convince the crew to abandon Santa, then roles a nat 20 strength check to lift the gift sack and declares a “new world order?” Note that Chutney isn’t just expressing displeasure, but actively trying to convince others to side with him.
Now what do we know about Ch(E)tney? He was also a toymaker, originally from Uthodurn. He, like Ch(U)tney, prefers the old-fashioned way of toy making with wood. He worked for someone named Oltgar, and had to flee the city after a disagreement in which he messed up his boss “something fierce”, as he puts it. Stabbed with a wooden chisel, mayhaps? Those are the biographical details. In terms of personality, Chetney is intelligent, experienced, and considers himself the leadership type (“respect the alpha” and all that). He’s jumpy and blunt, but also observant, emotionally intelligent, and very capable of expressing real sympathy and concern for his teammates. For skillset, besides the obvious wolf stuff, he’s very stealthy and good at using that chisel to do crime.
So with all that set up, let’s look at the songs!
3) Songs About Fighting (and wolves)
As the title of this section hints, the throughline of most of these songs ishow so many of them concern battles; ones in progress, ones lost, and ones about to begin. Speaking of beginning:
Werewolfby The Frantics
No lyrics on this bad boy, only music and howling! Perhaps the only one of these songs that is exactly as simple as Travis sells it.
Lifeline by Bad Wolves
This one is for sure a cry for help, with lines like “Reaching out, I need a lifeline/I don’t know if I can carry this on my own” reflecting a singer with a burden that’s becoming too much for them. Also important are the lines “It’s a dwelling, call it deep insight/When the best no longer tries to fight/The sweetest sugar swoon/The darkest side of moons”
We Will Rock You (feat. Maria Brink, Lzzy Hale and Taylor Momsen) by In this Moment
Chetney’s attitude and life are written all over this song! The verses follow someone from a boy playing on the street, to a young man with big plans, to a poor old man. The middle verse is the most important here, with lines like “fighting in the street, gonna take on the world someday” and “waving your banner all over the place”
Wolf Totem (feat. Jacoby Shaddix) by The Hu
This is definitely about some kind of fight, either one in progress or one that the singer is asserting their willingness to have. Note the lines “We got your back, we all been low, lets all rise to the brethren code.”
Wolves by Selena Gomez & Marshmello
I agree with @Captainofthetidesbreath that this is about a character we haven’t met yet; almost definitely a lost love of some sort, most likely pre-werewolf but sticking with the theme for the sake of the bit.
Fire Inside by Pop Evil
This one’s about staying determined in a fight that you’ve been preparing for. It’s very much in thematic conversation with Wolf TotemandRock You, with lyrics like “Time to write my story, make history”, and “After all these battles, yeah, I’m ready for war”.
Kidnap The Sandy Claws by The Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack
As surface-level obvious as this one’s meaning is, I think it’s actually one of the songs that has the biggest hints towards Chetney’s story! This is more fight/battle theming, but more specific than in any song so far. It’s about an organized and collaborated effort to kidnap and harm a specific powerful person. (Yes it is, stop laughing!!)
Seven Nation Army by SKÁLD
Never looked at all the lyrics to this song before! They’re actually a lot more cynical and defeated sounding than you’d think, with lines like “And I’m talking to myself at night/Because I can’t forget”, and “I’m going to Wichita/Far from this opera forevermore”. Googling around, the song is about leaving a town where your community has become toxic and turned against you.
Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf) by AWOLNATION
This song is the first one that I think truly is about being a werewolf. The line “Imma make a deal with the bad wolf, so the bad wolf don’t bite no more” just screams “accepting lycanthropy”. There’s these lines that also read as important to me: “My enemy is a friend of mine in a friendly place to be seen/You know I’ll run away for a couple years just to prove I’ve never been free.”
Animals by Architects
If there’s like a low point/darkest hour to this story, it’s in this song. The lyrics are desperate and defeatist. The most interesting lyrics for our purposes are: “I dug my heels, I thought that I could stop the rot/The ground gave way, now I’ve lost the plot”.
Howlin’ for You by The Black Keys
I think this song lives in the same house as the Silena Gomez song does; very romantic, directed towards a character we don’t know about yet.
Thriller by Michael Jackson
Everyone knows whats up with this song. It’s spooky scary! It’s about a person getting attacked and corrupted by monsters late at night, which is exactly what happened to Our Boy Cheyney.
Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon
A song about a more refined and controlled, but still very dangerous, monster. Maybe a sexy flirty werewolf instead of a terrifying out of control one.
Christmas With The Devil by Spinal Tap
Ok this is the other one that’s pretty surface-level still. Santa but he’s bad and evil and associated with cool badass demon stuff (like werewolves??)
4) Wild (or not so wild) Speculation
If you’ve been paying attention, there are a few recurring things to tease out. One is fighting; many songs (lifeline, animals, fire inside, wolf totem, and we will rock you) are centered around battles won, lost, and anticipated. Two is organization and teamwork! References to “The Brethren code”, “waving your banner”, and generally battles which are fought with many people. Third is Lycanthropy and how it’s used and related to. Thriller, Werewolves of London, animals, and hollow moon all fall into this category.
Now let’s put everything together. Ch(E)tney has a long past with a company that (assuming from Chutney) does not appreciate his work appropriately. Ch(U)tney had a history of convincing people to give up on Santa, and Chetney’s playlist contains many songs about organized groups and violence. We know Chetney is the leadership type. He has strong convictions, violence in his soul, and the ability to be both smart and extremely empathetic and charming when need be. “But Orbit”, you say, “Chetney is a toymaker, which is a traditionally peaceful profession! Who would he be fighting?” The answer to that of course, is Santa Clause! Or Otgar in this case. For a while it was vague speculation, but now I am fully convinced that Chetney was the leader of some kind of violent worker’s uprising in Uthodurn. He’s got all the perfect qualities needed in a union rep, especially a rep who’s maybe willing to start an entire revolt for the cause. A revolt that cumulates in the kidnap and mutilation of his boss, Otgar.
5) Putting It Together: The Ballad(s) of Chetney Pock O’Pea.
I’m going to organize this part by rearranging the songs into what I’d consider “chronological” order, and the story as I’m predicting it will form around the songs. This is very speculative obviously, and I’m painting in very broad strokes because I don’t want to go very far beyond what I can glean from the information we already have.
We Will Rock You goes first because it describes a boy, the youngest Chetney we see, and goes all the way up until Chetney is already an old man. This is the point at which the story Travis is telling seems to start. The song fast forwards through childhood and most of adulthood, into Chetney’s old age. Any sort of worker’s rebellion he started didn’t occur until this point. One day there’s a breaking point, when he realizes that his job will never appreciate him despite years of service, and he decides to do something about it in Seven Nation Army. This choice leads to Wolf Totem, a song with lyrics that call people who’ve been laid low to fight, to answer the call of a code. That sure sounds like a worker’s union rallying cry to me! So Chetney’s been calling unhappy workers to action against Otgar, and then we have a song about whatever riots actually occur in Fire Inside. This is also where I’m going to place the two sings that (credit to @captainofthetidesbreath for this idea) I am convinced relate to an important player in Chetney’s story that we haven’t met yet, probably a romantic figure of some kind. Howlin’ For You andWolves both fit here, in that order.
So we have this worker’s revolt, and maybe its not going well orhas reached a stalemate. How do you escalate things and ensure someone hears your demands? Simple! You Kidnap The Sandy Clause! Chetney’s rouge skills have gotta come in handy somewherein this backstory! After the kidnapping comes Christmas With The Devil, and presumably whatever kind of negotiation/torture Chetney puts his boss through. However that plays out, we know it doesn’t end well. The revolution fails, and Chetney is kicked out of the city by the glass blades with his boss injured badly but alive.
So here’s where things get wolfy! We’ve been told this part, at least loosely. In Thriller, Cheyney is alone at night, attacked by something horrific. He fights for his life, but he can’t resist the thriller (i.e the lycanthropy curse) once it hits him. The next morning he has to sit an take stock of what’s happened to him, in Hollow Moon. He decides in that moment that this is a power he can “make a deal” with, that can be a friend in helping him get tey revenge he wants in a few years. So Chetney spends a few months with the wolf, which proves to be a bigger struggle then he imagined. He’s drowning, he’s lost the plot, he’s got the attitude in Animals. This leads to admitting to himself that he needs help, and Lifeline sees him finally seeking out The Bells in what becomes the sweetest song in the playlist with that context. Finally, Werewolves of London is a fun song that’s caught up with Chetney as he is now. Dangerous, fun, getting used to his powers and living it up flirting with big women in the city.
Wowthat was a lot! Please argue with me in the reblogs, I want to talk to people about this small angry man so badly that I wrote 2,000 words about it.
Imogen not really knowing what’s happening as she casts Fly and her just doing it to save a friend without knowing what’s going on is so fucking cool
mechanically, all she did was cast Fly. It’s a 3rd level spell, she has access to 3rd level slots, that’s all she did. but the Aberrant Mind sorcerer gets an ability at 14th level that essentially allows them to fly at will (as long as they have enough sorcery points left).
so Laura flavoring Imogen’s casting of Fly this way effectively implies that Imogen really doesn’tknow what’s going on, because she’s tapping into a power she doesn’t yet know how to use out of desperation and panic because a friend is falling to his death. Laura used the expenditure of a 3rd-level spell to represent Imogen’s power extending beyond her current means, to represent that Imogen’s impulse to save her friend was powerful enough to reach into some unknown space to pull through abilities she won’t learn to control for months.
The interesting thing is that Imogen is perfectly able to find out for herself when someone is lying, at times whether she wants to or not, but made no attempt to listen for Laudna’s real intentions.
So the question is whether she’s more afraid of proving herself right, or proving herself wrong. Because if she believes Laudna lied to her she doesn’t have to think about the consequences for herself or for Laudna. She can be as angry as she wants. It was Laudna who played a trick on her, not her who stood by and did nothing while her closest friend begged for help.
I think my favorite thing about the conflict between Imogen and Laudna is that it relies so heavily on their previous dynamic. They spent the entirety of early episodes overlooking each other’s flaws and doing everything they could to fully support the other. They were their lifeline to human connection after a long time completely isolated from everyone else. And so this absolute shattering of Imogen’s picture of Laudna is going to be completely heartbreaking for her imo, because until now she didn’t really acknowledge the fact that Laudna was, like everyone, flawed. Well, I think the better way of phrasing it is that even if she did see Laudna was flawed, she was unable to see how those flaws could affect her. She might be flawed to everyone else, but for her she would never be. She refused to see that Laudna had the potential to hurt her, even unintentionally. And so this inability to see anything wrong beforehand led this one large, but genuine mistake, to be world shattering for her. Because as a greatly impactful, greatly harmful action directly towards Imogen, it is impossible to ignore, and so feels like an ultimate betrayal. At least, that’s the vibes I’m getting. We’ll wait for next episode to see more.
can we talk about matt last night during That Whole Thing. the way he plays delilah is downright scary. in both the literal sense of her being an evil witch but also the way he keeps track of everything so flawlessly. it’s so so clear that he’s been having delilah bide her time, patiently waiting for the perfect moment to get her hands on that rock. maybe she was building power, maybe she needed imogen to hand it over willingly, but the way matt describes the feeling at the back of laudna’s neck in the way he knows will get laudna/marisha to act on it is amazing. the manipulation from delilah. making it seem like laudna’s own worries for her friend. increasing as she’s taking too long to ask for the rock but not pushing too hard to spook her away. in one moment, she gets herself all this power, isolates her host from the group, shatters laudna’s sense of autonomy, establishes a terrifying power over laudna, and lives to fight another day.
One minute you’re on a skyship, enjoying the view and the calm weather, and the next you’re being attacked by strange creatures you’ve never seen before. Before you can do much about it, Orym is overboard, and you barely manage to hold on, to give him a chance, and then Imogen, your Imogen, is flying (since when can she fly?!) and rescuing him from certain death. A few hours later and she’s confessing to feeling different ever since Orym found that crystal, and being more angry, irrational, and you can feel the weird energy from the rock. You take it, because it feels dangerous, but maybe if you figure out what it is you can protect Imogen, and you’re being careful, so careful, but then it’s burning your hand and next thing you know the rock is broken and “you lied” and then Imogen is just gone and Delilah is laughing and oh god what have you done how did it go so bad so quickly and suddenly you’re thinking that maybe there are worst things than dying
Can’t wait for Laudna to do something extremely dangerous and/or self-sacrificial to try to win back Imogen’s trust. Either she’ll do something needlessly destructive that causes collateral damage in an “I would break the world for you” moment of being truly scary-scary, or she’ll put herself in harm’s way in order to protect Imogen in a fight because she values Imogen’s safety more than she does her own. Alternatively, if Laudna hasbeen sparing Imogen the details of her death, she might decide to tell her the full story of what Delilah did in order to prove to her that no, Laudna would never do what that bitch wanted, not after everything she did she did to her. Reliving her trauma is a small price to pay for Imogen’s trust. She hasto believe that Laudna didn’t mean to break the crystal if she shares those painful memories that she doesn’t want to think about. Right?
Anyway, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but Laudna is definitely going to hurt herself somehowfor Imogen’s sake, and it’s gonna hurt real bad (:
imogen’s “you lied” is so damn heartbreaking on so many levels. laudna who showed her that people can be good and they can say what they mean. laudna who she can depend on and listen to and trust. laudna who was the only person for the longest time to prove over and over again that goodness still exists. only to break that trust in an instant.
meanwhile laudna is going “i’ll fix it. i’ll fit it.” because it’s imogen, and she would do anything for imogen, even when her killer is taking over her body. it matters more to her that it’s imogen, and she would never ever hurt her. and then she adds a cautious “we’ll fix it.” on the end like a question, instead of a promise. because for years it’s been just them against the whole world. but in one instant she wasn’t even in control for, she managed to make imogen lose faith in her.
there was just… so much love and care and devotion and protectiveness and trust in this conversation but all it took was the influence of a crystal and the voice of a killer to fray their bond.
Lack of communication as a source of tension between two people who would readily accept an explanation and assume the best if given the chance: bad. boring. cheap.
Explicit communication provided, needs laid bare, vulnerability given freely but all insufficient to surmount the well-established personal fears and worldviews of a character primed by forces beyond anyone’s control to fall prey to that precise moment of weakness: beautiful. Absolutely delicious. Heartbreaking.
Holy shit it’s so much more than an accidental stone smash. It’s FCG starting their conversation with Imogen with “you really seem to trust Laudna” and Imogen’s ready agreement. It’s the subsequent reiteration of her trust in Laudna, the comfort at the thought of having her there in her nightmares. It’s the conversation with Imogen, the note Laudna has taken of her growth. It’s the trust it takes Imogen to admit that safety, from this rock, might not be quite right. It’s the camaraderie Laudna offers before she asks to see it.
Everything that led up to that moment was primed to make it terrible - to make Imogen reconsider the entire foundation of their relationship and maybe even wonder (probably not for the first time) whether she’s been being used. Whether Laudna has a reason to take away any comfort and safety that does not come from her. That’s a more terrible prospect to her - that Laudna could be looking to control her - than the possibility that Laudna herself is being controlled. The way she reacts for that long and terrible moment tells me on some level that the vague anxiety around being used has never been much further away than the fear of being rejected.
Imogen wondered if her emotional outbursts had been so extreme because of the stone’s influence. I guess we’re all about to find out.
In the midst of the party’s shock and Imogen and FCG wanting to recast calm emotions, Fearne is the only one to really see what Ashton needs. That they don’t need coddling or anyone else trying to fuck with their brain more. She steps in and says no, there’s space for this. Not everything needs to be subdued and quieted and contained. She sees his pain and his anger and all she says “let him.” Just let him do it. That quiet validation says so much.
as someone who’s graduating soon and going into clinical psych, taliesin calling fcg a “first year psych major who is clearly the problem” has me on the FLOOR like. that’s it that’s fcg’s whole deal i love it so much
like aside from asking all the stereotypical shrink questions, fcg is clearly coming at things from the angle of “i have an idea of what’s Healthy and i want to FIX people” instead of meeting people where they are and working with them to get to know themselves better and it! makes so much sense!! because they’re a robit who has been programmed to help others and they clearly have some very black-and-white thinking going on and ofc that would apply to their programmed purpose
and wrt to the moment fcg had with imogen last episode, it fits so well that they crossed a boundary without hesitation in the pursuit of that programmed purpose and honestly it didn’t seem like they were all that sorry when imogen confronted them?? and i’m so excited to see where that goes (and don’t get me started on the implications of imogen’s (understandable!) reaction to it or we’ll be here all day lol)
i’m also really excited about their existing relationship with ashton, who has also now been confirmed by taliesin to 1) not like telling anyone anything about themself and 2) like to think they know themself and really don’t. that’s just another confrontation/point of conflict waiting to happen on both their end and fcg’s end and i can’t wait aaa
Okay, so after that FCG/Imogen moment I am extremely hyped for this Imogen’s rock plotline. It’s definitely giving slight allusions to Craven Edge/Veth’s Dagger and you fucking KNOW I love a cursed magical item.
Also the complexity of that moment… whew. Like obviously there are parallels to Craven Edge and the Dagger, with different levels of obviousness. Grog acted extremely weird and because he’s Grog, could barely disguise it, leading to his friends stepping in. Veth acted slightly weird, but truthfully not that weird for Veth at all, but her friends also stepped in. Imogen, I’d say, has acted the least weird, maybe just a little bit of a tell here or there with her rock.
All three who had the items had something they didn’t want to give away and their friends stepping in for their “best interests.” But in Imogen’s case, it’s the most questionable because Imogen has barely been giving any tells and because of the method FCG chooses to do it.
This leads to some veryinteresting FCG development, or rather, FCG revelations about their thought process. It really shows how much FCG appears to be driven by their core programming: to help others. FCG dives into Imogen’s thoughts without asking, which would be bad with any fellow party member, but is particularly bad considering Imogen’s mind powers and sensitivity of the mind.
But to FCG, this is just a pursual of his programming- they want to help Imogen, and they can’t help if they don’t understand the problem. What does it matter if Imogen doesn’t want FCG to know? Surely, Imogen will be happier once FCG can help her. It’s an extremely utilitarianism point of view, FCG does not care about the means so long as their actions aid the goal of helping the soul-touched. And while FCG agrees to Imogen’s request not to do it again without consent, I’m very curious as to if they will keep that promise. They, in my opinion, didn’t look that apologetic that they had done it, only sad they’d gotten caught without getting to the root of Imogen’s problem. That they couldn’t fulfill their goal of “help.” Because if FCG isn’t helping… what are they good for? That’s what they were built for.
And then on Imogen’s end, having her mind attempted to be pierced by a trusted companion. She seems to understand that FCG doesn’t understand the questionable morality of the action, but it’s sopersonal to her. How many people has she probed into their thoughts, whether she meant to or not? How much information has she grabbed throughout her lifetime that she was never meant to know? And the way this power, a blessing and a curse, has isolated her.
A thing I noticed watching lovm again, Percy is left handed. But Orthax is right handed. Percy does basically everything with his left hand, he writes with his left, his gun is on his left hip, and he usually shoots left handed. Unless Orthax is in control. When he kills Anders, he shoots right handed. When he fights VM, he does so right handed. When he fights Cassandra, he switches hands, because Orthax wants him to kill her but he really would rather not.
Okay photo gallery
Percy is in control here, so he’s using his left hand
But here Orthax is in control, so Percy uses his right hand
What I say: I’m done writing Veth meta no one wants to hear now.
What I mean: until recently, Veth has always asserted herself as a protector of TM9, especially Caleb - but in ep128, she saw the thing which frightened him the most and which before now, she would have done anything to protect him from, and used him as her shield from that threat. She’s moving away from Caleb and the nein, and I’m not okay with that.
It’s somehow always the players and never Matt who ratchet the emotional tension up to 9 (thousand) towards the end of the campaign. Like I feel as emotionally drained after the last 3 episodes as I did going into the endgame of campaign 1 knowing about Vax’s pact with the Raven Queen. And they don’t even know what they’re supposed to do yet.
so i have something to contribute to the discussion on the caleb frumpkin scene eventually, i’ve just had very little time to properly collate my thoughts, and overall i agree with both takes i’ve seen around and i think it’s a very grey situation with a lot of nuance
but my favourite thing has been watching precisely three reactions come out of that:
1) this is good for caleb because he’s finally moving on from the past that haunts him
2) this is bad for caleb because he’s trying to detatch himself from everything that matters to him because he doesn’t expect to survive and in is very trauma filled headspace is lowkey giving up
3) you DITCH frumpkin?? you ditch his body like the football? oh! oh! jail for caleb! jail for caleb for One Thousand Years!!!!
Veth has kind of come full circle in her emotional arc, from spouse and parent to adventurer and back. And if you follow it through, it makes perfect sense, but it’s still very bittersweet.
She was once anxious about having to choose between a future with the Nein, and one with her family, but over the last dozen episodes, the Nein have become so scared that it seems the choice is whether to die with the Nein protecting her family, or stay with her family and hope someone else somehow steps in.
Nott had accepted her old life and her love for Yeza and Luc as part of a past life - they were no longer current to her after she’d spent her time falling in love with the Nein and going on adventures. She was emotionally distant from her old family, because she’d accepted the loss of that closeness and consoled herself to watch from afar with a new family, for whom her love and life was current and vibrant. Even after she got her body back, she seemed to mostly interact with Yeza for sex, probably over-compensating for emotional distance, or to talk about their son and little else. Sure, the massive degree of emotional infidelity, both romantically but also just sort of generally, made her feel awful - but it didn’t make her in love with Yeza.
But as time has passed and she’s seen her son grow up, the danger has become more and more overwhelming, and Veth has been second guessing herself again. She’s gotten used to being able to occasionally see him. She’s resigned herself to the idea that either Caleb doesn’t return her romantic feelings, or he is so averse to disrupting a child’s family that he’d never act on them if he did. The excitement of adventure have been yielding less and less reward for their mounting risks, and the tasks they’re doing are becoming less and less optional and the results of failure more terrible. She’s stopped promising to always be with Caleb, and begun thinking about going back to Yeza and Luc - and has begun to see them not as distant people she loved in the past, and may see in the future, but part of her imminent future and present.
When Veth went to talk to Yeza before what happened in 129, it wasn’t clear to me if she actually wanted to go back to him, or had actually been considering calling for a “break” to whatever their relationship was, to make doing what she’s about to do feel easier. But nothing will hammer home how close and present your child is when he’s blown up and killed right in front of you. That relationship is now linked to his life and wellbeing and is suddenly the most important, urgent thing in Veth’s life.
She’s completed the journey from loving the Nein and wanting to be with them but feeling obligated to go back to her us and and son, to desperately wanting to be with her son and husband and feeling obligated to continue a dangerous mission with the M9. The adventure is now an obstacle to her being with her child. Caleb might be fried and unconscious on the ground but she’d step over him a thousand times to reach Luc. She didn’t spend a day talking about parenting, or guiltily spoiling Luc or fucking Yeza - she spent a day doing chemistry with her husband like she used to and spending precious time with her child - she even denied him excessive gifts in a world first for her.
I have a lot of feelings about it. I want the best for her but I also still want her to be curled up inside of Caleb’s grubby coat on the side of the road stealing trinkets and cracking cases with Jester and having little adventures with the M9 which didn’t threaten the world.
