sharp fjord
This only clicked watching the reaction of softestbandito on instagram who said the moment Clancy started handing out the robes: “the black doesn’t go up to his nose…” or along those lines.
What if with each iteration of the cycle, acknowledging the pain, getting the support of those close to Clancy, and fighting back, the character of Clancy/Nico is getting better. Not to say that after enough cycles he will be completely healed, because there may be cycles which further increase the black spreading, but this was a good cycle (the last 10 years) in which that black was slightly reduced. In the beginning of the city walls mv the black is spreading up Clancy’s face (possibility to match that of Nico or go further), but then it starts receding just before the fight starts.
We know that the whole process is cyclic, so maybe Nico started out completely black, like a shadow, but with each Clancy (or Clancy like character in the iterations before), the Clancy part of Nico is slowly emerging again.
night fog