Unbreak me, unchain me, I need another chance to live!

---

Find Me On:
FurAffinity ◈ Weasyl ◈ Ko-Fi ◈ Inkbunny

---

A lot of the music I've liked for a long time really hit different thanks to Nico Reynard and it's been instrumental (pun totally intended) in figuring out his story, I could make a fucking rock opera for this guy. For such an unstable, angry asshole that most others only tolerate because he's Dominika's brother, his redemption arc intersects with and anchors a lot of other characters and their own journeys.

---

I had a long-winded but incoherent ramble here about Nico's hypothetical rock opera here but deleted it. Let's just say that listening to Afterlife by Avenged Sevenfold after the art of Dominika's suicide attempt (warning for blood and self-harm/suicide imagery) (and deciding that event is canon) really made the song click with me in a way it never has before, and had me in tears.

The tl;dr of it is, after hearing the news about Dominika, Nico is just so fucking distraught and lost without her that he runs off into the woods to kill himself since he really has no one else left, but on the other side he meets Dominika in the forest, understands what's happened, and realizes perhaps too late that he needs to let go and carry on his own life.

At least he comes back to the news that Dominika survived as well. Maybe her meeting with Nico on the other side also convinced her she had to escape from this afterlife.

Immediately after the Afterlife segment would be the first time Call Me Little Sunshine appears in the soundtrack, where we're immediately back in Hell with Dominic Mephitto after he saves Nico from his noose, setting up for the payoff I think a few people know is coming since I've sorta portrayed fragments of this whole story out of order the past few months as the pieces have come to me.

I originally thought that the catalyst for all of this would simply be Dominika and Topher dating, and Nico having to grow up after realizing she's an independent person who needs to live her life, and he needs to do the same, they can't be the only one in each others' world.
This is far more powerful, and far more complicated, as the twins have to navigate finding themselves and their own paths while still needing each other very much. Nico is still going to have difficult feelings to work through over Dominika and Topher needing time alone as a couple, but Topher has his own dopey free-spirited sister that he cares about deeply, and he and Nico have bonded over this. It's just up to Nico to sort through his feelings of no longer being the center of Dominika's universe, of feeling replaced even if deep down he knows that's not the case.
(He's also still adorably envious of Dominika dating Topher, I still 100% want the scene of an awkward and pouty Nico blushing and confessing to Dominika that he too thinks Topher is cute. Jealousy and envy seem to be two of Nico's recurring character flaws.)

The overall timeline gets a bit fuzzy, some of the details haven't yet fallen into place, like who found Dominika out in the woods. For the sake of those parallels I like so much, I'm leaning towards Nick Domnall being the one that got to her first, while Dominic Mephitto was the one that found Nico, leaning into that "twin" symbolism and the parallels between the Critter Boys (whose friendship is so strong they may as well be twin brothers at this point) and the Reynard Twins, but for now I think I just need to focus on Nico's story and use it as an anchor for the others it intersects with.

And, of course, I haven't missed the unintentional symbolism of so many of my descriptions of art of Nico being filled with thoughts about Dominika.

Or the parallels between separating the Reynards by death, even so briefly, and ordering a plush of Nico and not Dominika.

Posted using PostyBirb