lyrics taken from each song on ‘clancy’ by twenty one pilots // pictures taken from various music videos, promotional materials and concerts from the era
Thinking, once again (or still, as the case may be), about Breach/City Walls/the Lore.
I can’t stop thinking about how we spent so long asking ourselves the wrong question - is Tyler Clancy? When the reality is that Clancy is Tyler, just like Nico/Blurryface is also Tyler. Always there. Always in the fight for control. The battle to be the one in control and how the other is always there, always present in the background.
More under the cut because I started rambling.
Not to even get into City Walls’ music video that drives home the message that you might win a battle on your own but it’s not how to win the war. Clancy overcomes Nico but loses himself in the process because, without support, without help, it’s so much easier to feed yourself back into the cycle instead of moving on to something new and better. Clancy did his best with the best of intentions but it’s not enough.
It, to me, just demonstrates the power of community. When you think you’re doing the right thing by protecting those who love you from your internal struggles by not speaking up about them, you’re only making yourself vulnerable to repeating the cycle you’re desperate to break. Or worse.
Clancy going against Nico alone to keep his friends safe is ultimately what dooms him to restart the cycle, losing what made him Clancy and turning him into the thing he sought to destroy. Maybe to a lesser extent than in the past, but by the end of things, he’s lost himself. But at the same time, he’s out there again, Clancy reborn, ready to take up the fight.
And the incorruptible Torchbearer is waiting for him, watching for him, just as he has the many times before with the memories of what might have gone right and wrong, the lessons learned, ready to bolster, support, and guide. Torchbearer is not in the cycle. He exists outside of it with recollection of what has happened with every loop.
Letting light into your dark places and exposing them for what they are to others is hard, but it’s also the only way out of the dark.
tangentwithtanner
izzy806
dededos
gummygunk
areudirty
origamiaround
ellievsbear
baratheonpilled
