I think what's truly sad for me is that Ray will never forgive Isabella for hurting and manipulating his siblings (and maybe deep down unconsciously for the way she treated him + constantly kept him on the edge and off kilter, but this aspect of their relationship is probably the one he is the most blase about as he sees this agony as self inflicted)
On the other hand Norman....should we go with the hc that he knows that Isabella is Ray's mom...would never forgive Isabella for deceiving them and hurting them yes, but also because he could never forgive her for how she treated Ray (Norman also would have by then revisited the way Ray and Isabella behaved around each other and connected the dots and the blank spaces, hating the picture and feeling more and more sick as he got a glimpse of Ray's headspace on that terrible night before his birthday)
It's been years and I still haven't gotten over this either klfjs
He can understand the circumstances she found herself in and acknowledge all the good she's done in ending the farm system, but as discussed in this ask it doesn't translate into him emotionally registering it, or at the very least not fully nor in a linear fashion.
…but this aspect of their relationship is probably the one he is the most blase about as he sees this agony as self inflicted.
OMFG YESSSS I've talked about this before on this post, but Ray absolutely loathes pity.
(S1 Episode 9)
You can feel the profound weight of a lifetime of suffering and loss on his face as he grapples with trying to keep his emotions out of what he’ll say next, because he never brings up how what happened in all the years prior made him feel, not even when Emma provides him with an opportunity where she prompts him with speculation about what it must have been like seeing dozens of their siblings off and being powerless to do anything about it in chapter 15/episode 5.
(Chapter 181.1)
He never explicitly colors his recollections with emotions when discussing them with Emma and Norman, how what was happening around him and what he and Isabella did made him feel, and only displays the full anguish of what that did to him when he's speaking with Emma on the night of January 14th. While the two knew Ray intended to kill himself to serve as a distraction for them to escape, Emma never knew how deeply he internalized his self-loathing and the belief that he deserved to die for his actions and inaction until that eventful night, otherwise she would have asked one of the other kids to go talk to him, if not just have said “fuck it” and did it herself, Isabella's watchful eye be damned. She would not have let him suffer to that degree so long on his own; it goes against every fiber of her being.
Ray keeps all of that inside though, because he doesn't want their pity. He doesn't believe he deserves any when he actively chose to become Isabella's informant and which children would be shipped out early due to his experimentation with the trackers, least of all from the two people who are firmly categorized as genuinely good and worth saving in his mind. He loves them enough to squash down his humanity and die for them.
On the other hand Norman….should we go with the hc that he knows that Isabella is Ray's mom…would never forgive Isabella for deceiving them and hurting them yes, but also because he could never forgive her for how she treated Ray
Not sure if you were the anon who sent this ask last year but REALEST SHIT he would be internally livid about how she treated Ray, even without that additional layer of their relationship.
Love overthinking this panel from chapter 174 and how Norman appears in it. It could easily just be due to knowing Ray had a unique relationship with Isabella from being her spy for years, but why not throw more angst in given his knowing and somber expression? Out of all the kids, he seems the most likely to piece things together on his own, especially with all the time he had to pore over things in Lambda. All the oddities he noticed between Isabella and Ray but chalked up to other things at the time, and isn't that so incredibly like Ray to keep that kind of conflict and pain to himself, either to spare others or because he loathes pity. There's a sad fondness tinging the thought.
(Norman also would have by then revisited the way Ray and Isabella behaved around each other and connected the dots and the blank spaces, hating the picture and feeling more and more sick as he got a glimpse of Ray's headspace on that terrible night before his birthday)
Again I think he would feel this way regardless, but presumably they read stories at Grace Field featuring biological parent-child relationships and probably pondered what those kind of ties could entail and feel like. It's knowing both were aware of those ties and that Ray hoped it would mean something to Isabella only to have that hope crushed in such a cruel manner that evokes additional ire from Norman, centering how Ray was feeling over the general expectation that sharing blood somehow elevated their relationship/made it more special with how at odds that feels with the themes of the series.
But yes, somehow them arriving at the topic (a number of ways it could come up, ranging from the more pointed to the more subdued), and Norman revealing he put the pieces together because he had a lot of time to think at Lambda, citing a few instances that made more sense to him because of it, and in an echo of their exchange in chapter 13/S1 episode 5, Ray responds with something along the lines of "I really can't get anything past you, huh."
Norman's intelligence is one of the many reasons he's fond of and cares for him, how capable and attentive it can make him, but there's bittersweetness and grief tinging those words due to the situation in general and at the thought of having been obvious about things back at the house that all circle back around to him loathing the idea of pity directed at him when roughly sixty of his siblings at Grace Field plant #3 suffered a worse fate under Isabella's care, a few of them as a direct result of his choices.
It's the self-loathing that makes his mind interpret his friends looking at him with pity when what they're offering him is understanding, compassion, and love.
Y'know what? At this rate Emma might become a prophet.
She's brave, she has tenacity like no others, she can be a bit naive but she's optimistic, she'll stick with her dream until the end. No matter what others say about her, she will prove them otherwise. She's extremely forgiving, she melts anybody's heart, including her enemies. Her optimistic behavior infects others, the children love her dearly. Even when she feel down, she has friends and families who got her back.
But Peter Ratri is right. Humans are nasty. No matter how good she is, she has absolutely NO idea what awaits her on the human side. Depending on the promise with Asdfghjkl, humans over there might not welcome them at all. Especially if they come in horde, with thousands of people suddenly emerging out of nowhere. Except if they get a completely deserted place, all for themselves, as a part of the promise. Which I think... 50/50 chance, who knows what the author is thinking.
If they ended up in a place where they need to fight other humans, without a real place to belong, well...
Emma might ended up becoming a prophet for her people. The first human who was able to forge a promise with God after 1,000 years. The person who would continue to fight to find a new homeland, until she meets her end.
How do you imagine the evolution of the relation between Isabella and Ray in the humans world if she wasn't killed by the demon (but just severely hurt)?
I don't have a firm outline for them beyond a certain point since there's a number of other factors that could influence their interactions, but I'm open to a variety of outcomes from authors as long as Ray's allowed to ride out the turbulent storm of emotions he has over this rather than glancing over them for some schmaltzy sitcom scenario where he forgives her at the drop of a hat and is acting chummy with her (outside of short-form lighthearted comics).
Here's what I imagine happening in the immediate aftermath of them traveling to the human world (borrowing a bit from this ask of yours for this)
Even with a No Reward AU and not having to handle Emma's disappearance on top of everything else, I imagine he would initially be pretty numb to interacting with her for himself.
Above all else, he would be there to reassure his younger siblings that she'd be all right. She survived the attack from the head of the Grace Field farms, but it would take her a long time to recover and they would have to let her rest when she needed it.
But seeing the children she was willing to die for and being part of their family again would be healing for nearly everyone. He wouldn't want to rob her of the opportunity to reconcile with his siblings and walk further along the path of redemption because he wouldn't be there right now if his family hadn't given him the chance to do the same. Likewise, he wouldn't want to deny his siblings the opportunity to know their mother in a world that's kinder to all of them.
So he'd be supportive of them visiting her one on one or in small groups, even when they'd ask him if they were sure he was okay with it. They knew he was her spy for years and had a unique relationship with her, that he was familiar with an Isabella they had comparatively known only briefly. It might hurt seeing them interacting with her casually like nothing had happened.
For Emma and Norman, they might have an inkling of there being another layer to their relationship, but they wouldn't push him until he was ready to tell them himself.
[From this ask:] I'm also someone who likes to overthink about this panel from chapter 174 and Norman's incorporation in it. It could easily be due to knowing Ray had a unique relationship with Isabella by virtue of being her spy for years…but why not throw more angst in with him being aware of the extra layer of gravity between the two as another reason for his knowing and somber expression here? (You could also extend this to Emma, but I focus on Norman just because we can see he's looking back at Ray whereas Emma's still looking in the general direction of Isabella). He had over a year in Lambda to reflect on his time at Grace Field and pore over all the oddities he noticed between Isabella and Ray but chalked up to other things at the time…and isn't that so incredibly like Ray to keep that kind of conflict and pain to himself, either to spare others or because he loathes pity. There's a sad fondness tinging the thought.
But he reaffirms that it's fine, brushes the sentiments off and states his relationship with her shouldn't dictate theirs.
Jessica, Matilda, Scarlet, and Sienna wouldn't push him on this either. If for some reason they were in possession of his note, they'd return it to him to let him know they were aware of its contents, but if not, they'd still let him know that they knew about their relationship and that Isabella kept his note all that time. A balance of wanting to advocate for her after everything she had done post-escape by presenting him with facts that he could interpret for himself while knowing it wouldn't magically mend everything (in the same way they couldn't seamlessly integrate into the lives of their biological children with a snap of their fingers).
This is how Ray ends up visiting Isabella at least once by himself while she's in a coma, watching her breathe with the help of machines. Up until the day of their reunion, he didn't hesitate to call her a monster after nearly two years of thinking she was dead because of the note he wrote as bait to get her in trouble with headquarters, a wry smile playing on his lips at the thought of her being considered a "good parent."
(Chapter 169 Bonus Comic)
But now there she was, willing to die for them, to keep them safe. She lead the covert uprising against Peter Ratri among the sisters for over a year. That amounted to something.
(Chapter 174)
Yet despite what he said about holding no grudges in the immediate aftermath of Peter's suicide, he can't just let go of years of hypervigilance, of being constantly on edge to not show a hint of vulnerability lest it foil his meticulous, multiyear plan, and knowing what he represented to her after he shattered the blissful delusion she'd fallen into at Grace Field for five years. That fear and feeling of being small in her presence was etched into his memory, carved into his bones.
Now that he finally has a say in how their relationship should progress instead of being at her mercy, can rage at her until he's out of breath and be just as petty as she'd been, make her work and beg for his forgiveness to try to amend every cruelty she inflicted upon him, there's just…an emptiness he keeps coming back to. No matter what they did, he would never have an untainted childhood with her, and now that she's back in his life he's left to grieve that again.
I imagine he'd circle through that numbness, grief, anger, frustration, and envy (as stupid and pathetic as that last one in particular makes him feel, seeing his siblings being able to interact with her so easily, her carrying no extra baggage with them, the kind of relationship he was ashamed he ached for when he was at Grace Field) for some time as Isabella recovers and integrates back into their family, and if their biological connection hasn't been revealed already through some external force this is probably where he reaches out to someone (defaulting to Emma, Norman, Don, and/or Gilda) to talk about it, though whomever he speaks with they make it clear he's not obligated to forgive or interact with her.
For Isabella's part, she accepts whatever his feelings may be after having two years to reflect on how she treated him.
(Chapter 177)
"I couldn't dote on you." Not because I was forbidden from favoring you beyond somehow sparing you from eventually being shipped out—as long as I produced the desired results, I could do as I wished—but because I couldn't separate the violence you were born out of from you as a person.
Her not making excuses for that could go a long way.
Eventually they do start speaking to each other regarding topics that are easier to broach, like the other children, gardening, cooking (I don't know if she started cooking once she became Grandma or if it would something entirely new to her in the human world since the farm system purposely stratified labor as another measure to prevent the sisters from revolting), before tackling their deeper rooted issues or discussing matters like the origins of the lullaby.
Wait wait. You said 9 PPL are aware that Isabella is Ray's bio mom. Who are these 9?
And do you think Emma and Norman would figure out this fact all by themselves later?
[Related posts]
This is something that Shirai recently confirmed in the 8th anniversary Q&A on the Yakuneba community website, specifically here in the second batch of answers released.
I love how exact he is with this answer without elaborating at all lmao
With the way it's translated, I'm unsure if "know" means everyone who ever knew this information or characters who are alive at the end of the story and are aware of it.
These ones are for sure:
1. Ray
2. Jessica
3. Matilda
4. Scarlet
5. Sienna
So that leaves four others.
If it's characters who are alive and people can mean anyone, then the Grace Field Demon Boss might count since his fate is unknown after chapter 177. The last we hear about him is that the royal demon guard arrested him after his head was lobbed off.
I also default to Mike Ratri knowing as the head of the Ratri clan with access to the database containing all the information related to the cattle children:
(Chapter 7 | Chapter 22)
I talk about this here, too, but it seems like Krone brought a dossier with information about the plant #3 children with her in order to confirm the veracity of Ray's bait note implicating Isabella's assistance in their upcoming escape due to knowing Ray was her biological son. If Krone had access to information like that, I don't think it's out of bounds for Mike to have it as well. Even if he isn't aware of it at the time the children arrive in the human world, if he's a point of contact with the cast to help them settle into the human world initially, I wouldn't be surprised if he delved deeper into information regarding children of note like the full score trio.
If we're including characters who have died, then the list looks like this:
1. Ray
2. Isabella
3. Grandma Sarah
4. Krone
5. Jessica
6. Matilda
7. Scarlet
8. Sienna
With the ninth person being up in the air, though as of right now I settle on Mike for angst in my own silly little headcanons and AUs.
Interestingly, there's also this line from the second chapter of the mystic code book:
"The farm authorities didn't want Isabella to suspect that Ray is her biological son" makes it sound like this was common knowledge among the upper ranks of headquarters (and something I like angsting about in posts like this one. If Isabella is off limits from being eaten due to being the youngest and most capable Mom the farms have ever seen, then eating her son is theoretically the next best thing).
(Mystic Code Book Chapter 1 and Chapter 7 Q&As)
But again, I'm not sure how much of this is tied up in the translation and how much of this is Shirai being potentially contradictory after a decade of being involved with this story.
Do you think Emma and Norman would figure out this fact all by themselves later?
I appreciate how you word this because I'm of the mind there is absolutely no way in hell Ray would ever willingly reveal this information to anyone without prompting from outside forces until his very late teens/early twenties at the earliest (see here for an extremely indulgent AU of mine that incorporates a throughline they discarded in S2 where Isabella goes after the kids as an extreme version of an outside force).
(Mystic Code Book Chapter 6 Q&A)
If he has any say in the matter, he's taking this information to the grave.
However, that doesn't mean Emma and Norman can't discern things on their own. After the events of the escape arc, if a fanfic author runs with the idea that Emma and/or Norman picked up on this but remain quiet on the subject because that's Ray's secret to keep or reveal (something I've seen before), I think it's reasonable, though I think it's less likely for Emma to rediscover after losing her memories and assuming she never regains them.
I'm also someone who likes to overthink about this panel from chapter 174 and Norman's incorporation in it. It could easily just be due to knowing Ray had a unique relationship with Isabella due to being her spy for years…but why not throw more angst in with him knowing the extra layer of gravity in this exchange between the two as another reason for his knowing and somber expression? (You could also extend this to Emma, but I focus on Norman just because we can see he's looking back at Ray whereas Emma's still looking in the general direction of Isabella). He had over a year in Lambda to reflect on his time at Grace Field and pore over all the oddities he noticed between Isabella and Ray but chalked up to other things at the time…and isn't that so incredibly like Ray to keep that kind of conflict and pain to himself, either to spare others or because he loathes pity. There's a sad fondness tinging the thought.
I also like to entertain the idea of Peter and Norman interacting more because it's one of the least explored protagonist and antagonist dynamics in the series. Even if it isn't prompted by having a familial connection with Norman that I touch upon here:
This is already long but a tangentially related conversation to this eventually comes up with Peter asking about Emma and Ray. On the surface, it's to connect with Norman and learn more about his life at Grace Field, but the ulterior motive is to see if there's any information he can glean about these kids to find and capture them quicker. Norman will give it to him for having the tact not to slip and refer to them by their numbers like he's sure he wants to do, but he's still incensed at their names in his mouth. There's also the chance that Peter might reveal a crumb of information himself about their status (because Norman can't see why he would be asking unless he had something to gain from it, so that has to mean their escape was a success and they were all alive. The alternative would kill him), so he entertains the conversation.
---
#also it might seem counterintuitive to kill Emma and Ray if he wants to engender love for him in Norman #but the sentiments are Norman would have eventually outgrown them anyway so it's fine and he'll get over it lol
The full score trio are kind of like celebrities among demon nobility and humans at headquarters.
So I could see Peter asking Norman about them to gain information, and maybe one of the things he brings up is Isabella's connection with Ray, possibly bringing up the note if he somehow managed to be privy to that information (maybe Sarah told him, maybe he stumbled across the note in Sarah's office during the transfer of power from her to Isabella as Grandma since Isabella most likely came across it among the treasures Sarah collected over the years, like the embroidered map of headquarters in the second light novel/Krone's bonus chapter, lots of contrivances to work with) to both see how Norman reacts to it and as a means to evaluate how trustworthy Isabella is in her new role.
Something I imagine for that earlier mentioned Isabella Raids the Bunker AU, but I think it's transferable to other scenarios as well, is Ray divulging that secret to Norman in light of the circumstances, and Norman revealing he put the pieces together because he had a lot of time to think at Lambda, citing a few instances that made more sense to him because of it, and in an echo to their exchange in chapter 13/S1 episode 5, Ray responds with something along the lines of "I really can't get anything past you, huh."
Norman's intelligence is one of the many reasons he's fond of and cares for him, how capable and attentive it can make him, but there's bittersweetness and grief tinging those words due to the situation in general and at the thought of him having been obvious about things back at the house that all circle back around to him loathing the idea of pity directed at him when roughly sixty of his siblings at Grace Field plant #3 suffered a worse fate under Isabella's care, a few of them as a direct result of his choices.
It's the self-loathing that makes his mind interpret his friends looking at him with pity when what they're offering him is understanding, compassion, and love.
Imagine a AU where everything would have been the same except that, when the demon attack the children at the end, it's Jemima who fall while trying to run and Ray who jumps to protect her and Isabella is fatally wounded by protecting them (him).
Yeah it's "how mess even more with Ray's emotions about her"
I think it's great that she do that for Emma, but if she did that for Ray it would have been more intense.
But it would be a interesing callback to their discussion when he was 6 and that he realized that she would sacrify him for live longer, that she would ship him, that she sees her life as more important than him, her son (and realizing that had broke his little heart). And now, 7 years later, she decides that his life is more important than her life. She sacrify herself so he would live longer.
The reverse of the situation of the day of their deal.
Ray would be destroyed, even more than in canon. Because that's a thing that she want to apologize on her "deadbed", it's another that she did it atfer have saved his life, have have showed him that she changed and sees him as important for her.
(And if she had survived, he would have been the little ball of stress about her because she wouldn't want to rest and would want ot help to find Emma. "mum you have been stabbed" "it was 3 days ago Ray" "MUM")
I'm of two minds on this because there is the poetic beauty of adding more to their tumultuous relationship than what we got after all that was left unsaid about their interactions during their time together pre-escape, but I'm opposed to it on the grounds of ceding any focus from Emma in such a crucial moment with how centered her relationship with her mother was in the escape arc, in addition to the ending of generational female trauma after Isabella was so deadset in her belief that perpetuating it was the best future she could offer her beloved daughter.
It also feels poignant given how this is the first narrative train of thought we hear from Emma in the manga:
It's so important that even though the anime did away with internal monologues, they made sure to have Don emphatically express the sentiment in her place in episode 1.
She abused and wronged Ray in a unique way due to their biological relationship, but it shouldn't take precedence in a moment where she's meant to act as a true guardian to all her children after walking dozens of them off to slaughter.
(And if she had survived, he would have been the little ball of stress about her because she wouldn't want to rest and would want to help to find Emma. "mum you have been stabbed" "it was 3 days ago Ray" "MUM")
While I'm all about Ray lowkey fretting over his younger family members in ways he might have inherited from her:
This scenario is a bit too sitcom-ish for me after all the suffering he went through under her care. I can't imagine him expressing anything beyond neutrality or flares of irritation toward her when they would interact for some time.
He would not act cruelly toward her because one of his earliest defining character moments shows that isn't how he operates after seeing dozens of his siblings shipped out over the years.
(Chapter 11; while harm is unavoidable in his escape plan with the children he would sacrifice so Emma and Norman could live, he is adamant about not adding an iota more of cruelty than he has to. There's been enough pain in his short life already.)
And he would not want to rob her of the opportunity to reconcile with her other children and walk further along the path of redemption because he wouldn't be there right now if his family hadn't given him the chance to do the same. Likewise, he wouldn't want to deny his siblings the opportunity to know their mother in a world that's kinder to all of them.
(Chapter 174)
But for himself, it's hard to let go of years of hypervigilance, constantly on edge to not show a hint of vulnerability lest it foil his plan, and knowing what he represented to her after he shattered the blissful delusion she'd fallen into at Grace Field for five years. That would stay with him to some degree forever and always color their relationship, even if they were both working toward reconciliation.
Up until the day of their reunion, he didn't hesitate to call her a monster after nearly two years of probably assuming she was dead because of the note he wrote as bait to get her in trouble with headquarters, a wry smile playing on his lips at the thought of her being considered a "good parent."
(Chapter 169)
She had a two-year headstart on actively working to better herself and help aid the children in dismantling the farm system. He had less than twenty-four hours to attempt to sort through his cavalcade of emotions after helping overthrow a corrupt governing body and rushing off to save his kidnapped friends and family from slaughter, and now they're dealing with Emma's disappearance. I don't think he'd be ready to work toward reconciling with her for some time, even though he could acknowledge being willing to risk her life after sacrificing lives for so long is a large shift in her perspective and he encouraged her to take care of her regrets in the human world so she could build a life she would be proud of.
