Happy birthday to The Outside music video and happy birthday to the implication in the prop and costume design that the Neds are taking past Clancys that wash up dead or die on the island from exposure/starvation/strain of learning to seize and salvage their clothes and bones to make supplies for the next Clancy
(credit to@grabmy-bat for pointing out the significance of 3/18)
I discovered Rawfear three days ago and then I read all the Twenty One Pilots lore and I've been nonstop listening to their albums (really loving Vessel today). I'm obsessed and they're my new favorite band and it feels like I've been sleepwalking through my life and they woke me up, its like I've blocked my feelings off from myself and they were the breach (is that too corny lol )
I wonder if in the x-amount of time that they were on Voldsoy, Clancy and Hallucination-Torch shared moments. Intimate moments. Moments where Clancy bore his soul to and confided in who he thought to be Torch. Moments that past versions of Clancy could never even dream of having the bravery to commit to. Moments where their lips touched and their hands lingered.
But none of it was real. That wasn’t the real Torchbearer.
And that’s why he is so pained in the end of Navigating;
@vaelitesi aight here goes. this is part one, joshler honestly might take me a few days to compile. also i'm doing this no references no mv rewatches no tour clips just pure memory of what i've learned in my 1.5 years in this fandom, so if anyone (especially older clikkies that were here for blurryface and trench) have anything to add/correct, just lmk
extremely long loredump below the cut
first, let's talk storyline itself, as well as the worldbuilding (at least, as much worldbuilding as i can reasonably fit in here. you can get a lot just by interacting with the fandom and watching the music videos). i'd give a description of the lore's meaning and history but honestly? it's been two hours and i'm not done with the story itself. so if you want to know that, um. you can figure that out basically just by participating in the fandom
the story is set in the fictional continent of Trench, and the only city on the entire continent: Dema. the Municipality of Dema is a walled-off, gray city in the west side of the continent; no one is ever allowed to leave it. Dema is run by a council of nine Bishops. they all have names which are, in order of most important to the lore: Nicholas Bourbaki, more commonly referred to as Nico or Blurryface; Keons; Sacarver; Lisden; Listo; Reisdro; Andre; Nills; and Vetomo. the Bishops lead the cult of Vialism. we don't know much about the god(s) in Vialism but we do know that it glorifies suicide and self-destructive behaviors, stating that suicide is the only way to be truly saved. the Bishops use this cult to remain in power; they are all necromancers and use the bodies of those who have committed Vialism (suicide) as a police force of sorts. the Bishops channel their powers of necromancy through the antlers of a species called Neuro-Expansion Devices, more commonly referred to as Neds. it's worth noting that "Neuro-Expansion Device" likely isn't the actual species name, since Neds were believed to be extinct until the events of the lore. it's more likely that "Neuro-Expansion Device" was a name given to Neds by the Bishops. also, Bishops are unable to see the color yellow and are drawn to the color red; they dress in red robes.
outside of the city is a rebel group known as the Banditos. the Banditos are lead by the Torchbearer, who doesn't have a name beyond that (i'll be referring to him as Torch throughout this). Torch has the ability to project himself into different locations to communicate with others. the Banditos themselves live in temporary/permanent camps and are generally the anti-Bishops. we don't know what they worship, if anything, but we do know that they celebrate freedom, creativity, expression, and rebellion. they wear forest green with yellow duct tape as a symbol of rebellion and a way to camouflage themselves against the bishops. they also draw all maps rotated so that east is up (where north would be) to confuse bishops, so all maps that we have for Trench need to be rotated 90 degrees to be accurately read.
the story's main character is called Clancy. Clancy lived in Dema in Keons' district for the majority of his life before the start of the lore, when he tricks Nico into taking him outside the city for the first time. He runs from Nico immediately and makes it deep into Trench before growing tired. Nico finds him around the same time as the Banditos do, which forces the Banditos to be unable to help Clancy. He gets taken back to Dema, but is now known of by the Banditos. they communicate with him somehow (we don't really know how) and eventually help him escape again. Clancy spends time in the Bandito camp, growing close with Torch, before he is found and taken back to Dema again.
this time, in Dema, Clancy is not allowed to live a "normal" life. he is forced to perform propaganda for Vialism and is tortured and drugged throughout his entire time there (approximately six years). Torch uses his projection powers to help and watch Clancy, but Clancy never learns of those powers until after his time in Dema.
eventually, Keons grows tired of treating Clancy so poorly and defects. when Clancy is performing on a submarine, Keons uses the corpse of a sea dragon (we never get any elaboration on this) to cause the submarine to sink. Keons dies because of this, but Clancy uses the opportunity to escape to the island of Voldsoy. Volsoy is a small island off of Trench, separated by the Paladin Strait, that serves as the home of the Neds. Clancy spends some time on Voldsoy recovering until a Ned offers him its antlers. Clancy then discovers that he has the same abilities of necromancy as the Bishops.
not long after, the Banditos find Clancy and bring him back to their camp. they spend some time planning a final confrontation with the Bishops. the general plan was for the Banditos to fight the Glorious Gone (the names of the reanimated corpses used by the Bishops) while Clancy went to fight the Bishops while they were vulnerable.
this mostly went to plan. the Banditos succeeded in winning against the Glorious Gone, and Clancy was able to defeat seven of the eight remaining Bishops without issue. unfortunately Nico was not as easy. Clancy was seriously injured in the fight and, though he did survive and kill Nico, he succumbed to Bishophood in the process, becoming Nova Bishop. eight Banditos and Torch found Nova in the Bishop tower and the eight unnamed Banditos also became Bishops. Torch did not and left the tower alone, and the lore technically ends there.
it is important to note that the lore is a cycle. we don't know if this means that there is another Clancy in Dema somewhere, or if the lore is a timeloop. it's heavily implied that Torch is the only person that is aware of the cycle and is actively trying to break it.
and uh yeah, that's about it!! if you have questions lmk and i'll answer :3
