🌹💘

To continue answer security question: “Where and how will you die?”

types in “alone in a ditch wearing a clown costume”

Where Simon challenges The Father. Because!!! It shows he is smart, he’s always been smart. He challenges authority when it he doubts what they are saying.

Do you know how dangerous a doubting child in a cult is??

The Father laughs like he likes the question and that’s the trick because Cults hate questions and doubts and independent thinkers- but they pretend to love questions.

Especially from new members. Simon is a new member (came from Mars- that one conversation with his mother “I don’t want to go- Simon don’t be like that.”) They love to answer questions from new members because it offers them a chance to nip any doubt in the bud, answer with absolutes and half-answers and usually end in humiliating or tearing down the person who asked the question. Not to get personal on main but trust me. You just see their teeth sharpen when you admit to a doubt or ask a question as a kid. They’ll make you feel stupid for asking and if you keep not understanding their half answers (asking more questions) they will get angry at you for persisting.

That’s why I headcanon that Simon has always been a doubter- especially with his monologue later about “what’s more likely? The stars disappeared or a few space stations?” (Paraphrasing) but it’s a very difficult and painful life for a doubting child growing up in a quite literally inescapable cult. But doubting doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t listen. Doubting doesn’t mean he didn’t fall for the dogma. He can still doubt and be their Butcher. They made him a solider, they made him loyal, and just because he privately thought it was all horse shit doesn’t mean he didn’t learn to not to challenge authority (that he still struggles with). That the belief sank into him like thorns, that he can’t help but feel a religious reverence for the seed despite hating what they did in the name of the Last Tree.

also olruggio:

teaching qifrey:

teaching coco:

teaching tetia:

teaching agott:

teaching richeh:

teaching hiehart and jujy:

loves teaching, won't admit it.

“Won’t admit it.”

This is from the end of ch 95 btw.

In this frame, he states that he’s taking the girls on a field trip. (In the English translation), he even calls himself their master! To me, this is not the vibe of a man who would not admit that he loves teaching.

Of course, the argument can be made that this is later in the manga, and recent events have shifted his perspective on the matter. However, there’s a panel from the same chapter at the top (39) that, in my eyes, reveals the real reason.

Here, Jujy has asked him why he wouldn’t take on an apprentice, and he says this:

Now, it’s important to note here that Olly is a Watchful Eye. And for all the skirting his job that he does do, there are instances where he puts his foot down. His debut wasn’t Like That ™ for nothing.

For several reasons (his childhood and being a prodigy, Qifrey’s shitfuckery against the Brims), he is quite pro-Pact. (Not to the levels of someone in the KM, say, but I’d say he’s one of the most conservative members of Qifrey’s Atelier). And I believe that’s what’s being referenced here.

And here comes the theory segment:

I believe that this is about to change in the coming arc. He’s facing dragons, he’s without Qifrey, tensions are rising, and people, including the atelier fam, are beginning to have doubts in the current PH system. I think something is going to happen in this arc that disproves what he said in 39.

And I don’t think he’ll be the only one.

I theorise as well that Agott is also going to slowly start to question and doubt the current system, but I think that for her, this will take longer.

Anyway, this was quite fun!