Speedster

going insane wip

«О, добро пожаловать… Похоже, вы пришли в спешке, значит, у вас что-то срочное, я права?»

*Repost: OC - 白日钟（LOFTER）

*IF: Women

I just wanted to make my version of the poster for this chapter (yes I am veeery normal about it despite it being a bonus chapter)

Fellas is it gay to name yourself after the thing that mirrors the core concept of your awakened colleague..? No?

Also I wondered why exactly enigma thought... It's kind of pointless as a challenge for Ulrich because it is already deciphered, it was once brilliant and supposedly unbreakable, but it has been already cracked open and defeated years ago and now considered obsolete... Oh, now I see why.

Full disclosure: I am not here to debate whether he is a bad written character or not, I just want to point out a few interesting things I noticed about him, particularly all that ramble about The Horse of Troy and...

...Sophia.

Hear me out: the "trying to end bloodshed with bloodshed" IS stupid and made more sence in Sophia's story, because she used the powers given to her by Arcana to stop the attack on Apeiron. Igor, at first glance, doesn't make any sense. If you are preaching your loyalty to Zeno, to your comrades in arms and how much you want to end conflict, Why betraying Zeno and killing your own men? Why treating your adopted children as disposable pawns? Why deflecting to the people you have been trying to stop all this time?

My answer: because he sees himself as incapable to stop Arcana, and thus, a disgrace to Zeno.

"Betrayal" and "Obedience": Igor saw Arcana survive a FREAKING VACUUM BOMB EXPLOSION and then went through an insurrection IN HIS OWN BASE. If he was already a control freak trying to live for Zeno's honor, that pushed him to a new limit. After that, he simply can't stand having anything less than 100% obedience if whatever plan he's cooking has any chance to succeed. But he doesn't just need full loyalty from his men, he also need absolute trust from the Manus. He needs to have as much control of the situation as possible which is hinted by adopting the children of fallen soldiers to indoctrinate them, refusing to make his men wear the masks, killing his human soldiers so the Manus trust him, forcing the more loyal soldiers on his unit to dispose those he deems as less loyal to prove that his most loyals soldiers ARE INDEED his most loyal soldiers, etc.

But again, WHY deflecting to the Manus? We are entering speculation territory but I do have some bases to substain my theory.

The Horse of Troy: one of the most known allegories for betrayal. However, the more you think about it, it seems... Odd, for this particular situation. If it's about betraying Zeno then... It makes no sense. The Horse of Troy is about a ruse in which the greek managed to get inside the city of Troy with a fake gift in order to destroy it from the inside. Does that mean Igor's plan is deflecting to Manus to betray them later?

Not necessarily? BUT it may lead to that.

Let's go back to Sophia.

Remember how she THINKS she is an obstacle for the righteous to defeat? How a lot of what she says implies that she follows Arcana because she is fine with being destroyed if it means for the integers to bring back the order that irrational numbers cause? And that if they can't, that's also fine because she, as an irrational number, SHOULD be causing chaos anyways? Like, she is so hung up with the ways of Apeiron that as long as her actions line up with that view she is willing to keep going all the way towards the bitter end, because she's too scared to face a reality she feels absolutely powerless against.

Igor's actions may indicate he also has that same mentality: a failure of an admiral who NEEDS to clean the stain his actions and self perceived inadequacy caused to Zeno, even at the cost of his own honor, life, legacy and whatever blood he has to spill along the way. And something the story uses to make us think about that possibility is Moldir's behavior: no matter how much she avoids trying to cover her own indecision and fears of "not being enough to protect everything she cherishes" with absolute loyalty in something above her, she still love and want to protect Lopera, even if it means hurting her. Just like Sophia did to 37. Igor tries to cut ties with anything that could prevent his path towards the abyss, but Moldir can't. No matter how much Igor tries to become a traitor so everything that happened under his command stops being Zeno's fault and becomes HIS fault, he can't 100% control people's action and emotions. Igor and his group aren't IN the Horse of Troy but ARE the Horse of Troy in the shape of an "insurrected army offering the remains of Arcana" to the Manus. If there's one greek soldier in that horse, albeit yet unknowingly, that could be Moldir.

Oh, and one more thing.

Remember all those hints about Sophia being turkish? Guess where the city of Troy used to be.

ulrich!!😊🌠...I wanted to draw the ult to celebrate.

Supposedly they have a suit for different work occasions. 🥹

my art for a local reverse 1999 zine 🐿️☕️

that's a lot of words for lab rivals to lovers but I'll take it thanks

🤗