Im too DoubleSoul-pilled guys help—
so ever since the mimic/DoubleSoul made its first appearance I have NOT been able to stop thinking about it. My brain saw it and went “so that’s angst/fic material and now it will infect your brain :)” so infect my brain it has. Welcome to my mostly nonsensical rabble about the DoubleSoul and TF!Legundo/experiencing it in general because it will not leave me alone
I think primarily this interest and fascination I hold for it stems from my love of the Not!Them from TMA. For anyone curious, it is an entity that will basically erase their victim from existence, then become them, but wrong. Nobody notices this change, usually, aside from one or two people, or someone who has the context that it’s claimed another victim. Now this gets into a bit of spoilers as to bits of The Magnus Archives past season one. So like, after Episode 40. If you are a TMA fan and you’d like to remain spoiler-free, this is my warning to skip this bit :) I’ll try to keep the spoilers in just the following paragraph tho
so in the series, this Not!Them ends up attacking and becoming one of the protagonist’s friends, but they don’t realize this has happened, but the audience can HEAR the difference, as it’s incredibly distinct. The original character has been entirely erased from existence by thus point, save from small instances of their voice and then their final moments on a tape, as well as a couple polaroid photos. It completely rewrote them. When the protagonists find out, there is a deep horror and grief to that realization. The idea of something masquerading as your friend, something you no longer know, swearing a skin you call familiar, but it isn’t. Perhaps even grief for someone you have known for so long, but you can’t even remember their true face. You no longer know who it is you’re even mourning. That’s where I draw a connection to the DoubleSoul.
Throughout the times we see the DoubleSoul, it copies people. I believe primarily Legundo, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it’s learning to be like those it impersonates. We can’t see this well with the way it looks as a Minecraft skin, but if we take that away and put more realism into it, then in my mind, it’s plausible to imagine that it starts out looking mostly passable as Legundo.
Then it sees him, multiple times, and slowly, starts ‘perfecting’ the image of him. How he looks, the nervous creases around his eyes, any hints of blue or other colored splotches that aren’t entirely hidden by clothing, things like that.
Then it starts copying behaviour. Anxious, wide eyes darting around the room, the way he might fidget with the strap across his chest, how he ducks his head when shy or nervous.
And then it works on his voice. We heard it when it spoke to people. Obviously out of lore we know the CCs recorded voice lines so they could be played in lore, imagine how freaky it’d be to just see this thing that looks and walks and acts like you open its mouth and use your voice. Maybe it’s not perfect at the start, but it’s still enough to give you a shock, like waking up from having a bucket of ice water dumped on you. Maybe at first, you think maybe you said those words, but no, your mouth didn’t move. It sounds like you, but it is not you. It cannot be you. You as a person, you know that. But a part of your brain cannot let go of the fact that this thing looks and sounds like you do, and if even you can hardly tell the difference, how much harder would it be for someone else?
During one of the first times we get a good look at it, TF!Legs told it to stop copying him, and then it mimicked him. Imagine hearing that. It starts off slightly twisted and warped, but the more words it hears, the more accurate the response. The more real the lie of its portrayal becomes.
Imagine the CelestialMetals corner the mimic. It can speak clearly and coherently. It wears Legundo’s face. But Legundo’s beside Sausage, he’s been with them this whole time, and yet still the thing before them echoes his fear and bursts of bravery so well that it’s difficult not to wonder which is which. Did they lose the real one at some point? Is this one cowering before them their friend, or is it the one staring at their reflection, knife in hand and body tense?
Or (and I have talked about this before with some peeps in the Twitch Chat) imagine they confront it and it says that it could be better. That it has seen the imperfections in their friend and that it can fix them—fix him. It could eliminate what it considers to be Legundo’s faults. It could erase his constant anxiety and that fear of hurting others, make him speak up more, be braver and stronger. It thinks it knows all there is of him in the glimpses that it had caught during these chases and believes it can be a better Legundo than Legundo himself. It could keep whatever they’re fond of, and change what they’re not. Legundo—the real one—begins to develop this little thought in his head, try as he does to ignore and deny it, that maybe, just maybe, it could be right. He is almost always worried about something or someone, and especially about her them getting hurt. He isn’t the loudest voice in the room, and gets nervous when he has the attention of a crowd.
(This part came from another chatter that I really liked and I believe deserves recognition) Graecie cutting off the mimic as it lists what it considers to be Legundo’s flaws because she refuses to even entertain the possibility of replacing her friend or allowing this echo to continue to insult him. She tells it that she doesn’t want him to be any different because it would not be Legundo if he wasn’t himself. The others agreeing and standing up for Legs, immediately ripping out that doubt and replacing it with the confirmation that these people truly care about him, accept him for who he is, despite his faults.
idk it’s just really good angst and fluff material in my mind. Always love me the idea of “this is someone you know. This is your friend, perhaps even someone you love. It is not them. It will never be them. You both know this.” Or something along those lines 😌
anyway if you stuck with me through this whole rant then major Ws and I’m so sorry I have nothing worthwhile to give you as recompense for you sitting and reading all that 😔😔
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