#Oswald lor

[draganaesfrost]

project moon character requests from twitter!!!

[ratlesshonret]

Back to the Break Room Again: Who Let Philip and Oswald In Here?

Its been a while but I made another one of these, with the help of the people in my projmoon fandom groupchat I maintain.

[tangentrina]

Ahhh Oswald you sly Clown you done did it again and screwed Philip over haha hey wait wtf is that. Guys what's with thOh by Talos I must avert mine eyes from such scene unfolding before me...

[reverberation-ensemble]

i havent drawn them in like ages . Anyways nemoswald food

[cloverpatches]

He sees you!

[patchworkmirage]

doodle suggest: oswald backwards long jumping up the library stairs like mario 64

what yhe clown doinf

[owlmann]

Philipclair redraw + 8 o'clock circus don quixote

[skycrowtheodore]

This time around I made a Oswald cosplay and won the performance category for a contest (ง ื▿ ื)ว

Like always you can follow me on tiktok (above) and Instagram (tomorrow I will post a photoshoot of Oswald, the first profissional photoshoot I ever made aaaaa)

Cosplay Info

Character: Oswald, ringmaster of the 8'clock circus

Game: Library of Ruina

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

I remember thinking Oswald was kind of hot. Then I met him. I hate him. I hate him for all his lies and manipulation, and I especially hate him for what he did to Philip.

[unbinilium120]

I'm coming for you Oswald...

Kill that Stupid Clown.

[thelordofhats]

Dullahan as Heathcliff’s EGO

There’s two parts to this post, more or less: the first is the in-setting evidence that this could be the case. Honestly, this is the less interesting part of this to me, but I think it’s important to lay out why I think it’s possible. The second is about what this tells us about Heathcliff as a character.

There’s Canto 6 spoilers, obviously, but this is also just going to be long enough that it’s just polite to insert a cut, so here we go.

Supporting Evidence

First up, we have seen, both with Philip in LoR and Dongrang in Canto 4 of Limbus Company, that the EGO a person manifests and what they look like as a Distortion are connected—they’re going to use the same visual language. The Crying Children still has the fire and statue theming of Philips unnamed incomplete EGO, and when Dongrang manages to undistort, Farmwatch has the same hat, horns, and, well, farm imagery that his distorted form had, just not as a weird monster this time.

Wild Hunt Heathcliff is not the exact same as Erlking Heathcliff. Besides the obvious fact that he’s waging his war on Wuthering Heights instead of Himself as a Concept, you have visual differences like the eyepatch, Wild Hunt having an Iron Maiden instead of a coffin, and most importantly, a different mount. Where Erlking’s Dullahan is a straight-up headless horse (I say, as though that is a normal thing), Wild Hunt’s Dullahan is, as best as we can tell without the head, some sort of wolf creature—clawed feet, a different tail, that sort of thing. Which is, as you’ve probably already guessed, reminiscent of Distorted Heathcliff. And I don’t think that that’s a change that Project Moon made for no reason.

The other big piece of supporting evidence is in Wild Hunt Heathcliff’s UT3 story (well, stories), in which he reflects a bit on the whole “commanding the dead” thing he’s got going on now. Specifically, the fact that it just sort of happened. He didn’t schedule an appointment with Dead Corp to get hooked up with their sweet necromancy tech, it was just a thing that he became able to do. Now, we *could* say this is some wholly unexplained thing, but come on. This is Project Moon. They do not toss out massive no-reason plot holes at us. Of the framework we’ve been given, EGO is the most logical explanation for how this happened. Especially when you consider how it lives up for him ~*~thematically~*~

(Oh, but before I move on to that—Bodysack, like all of the Base EGOs, is manifested with the help of Mephistopheles. I don’t think we should necessarily think of it as being in the same progression, although it does fit with the coffin/iron maiden)

Character Themes

Or: What does this tell us about Heathcliff?

Well, first I have to talk a bit about EGO in general. Hitting the ignition point, where you get the Carmen Chat, requires Desire and a Will to see those desires out. Non-capitalized ego, if you will. Philip’s desire to stop feeling inadequate, Xiao grief (I know this is a bad summary of Xiao but this isn’t a Xiao essay), Dongrang’s need for More (please refer to Xiao parenthetical, substitute Dongrang for Xiao). Manifesting EGO instead of distorting is about Self-Acceptance and Self-Control—Philip was keeping it together (sort of) until he started denying his inner drives to Oswald and pretending that that wasn’t something he felt. Xiao went “yes, I am being selfish and have selfish desires, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a bad person”. Dongrang stopped being “Dongrang, Who Denies All” when he admitted “You know what, I’m a selfish piece of shit, and I’m going to embrace being a selfish piece of shit”. EGO does *not* require you to be a good person!

For Heathcliff, that desire is, as you saw on his bat, REVENGE. He’s spent a lifetime hurting, and there is a part of him that he’s been storing up all of that hurt, holding onto it, and nurturing it into a Grudge. He wants so very, very badly to be able to hurt those who have hurt him. But it’s not the only desire within him—his love for Cathy is also a powerful motivator.

In Canti 6, faced with truly losing Cathy with absolute heartbreak, we see REVENGE become his only pillar. He desperately needs to take out this pain in *somebody*, and it doesn’t really matter who. He’s ready to give in to it all, lose control, and blindly lash out at his surroundings until Wuthering Heights is reduced to rubble around him. Possibly on top of him—he does not care. And so, he Distorts.

Wild Hunt Heathcliff has taken the reins of these impulses, instead of letting them drive him blindly. He wants to make those who hurt him suffer, but he does so with his eyes fully open, ready to be patient to maximize the pain he inflicts—maiming Gregor, the mountain of corpses in his wake, letting the Heights organize one last stand against him, a grand banquet. And it is through this self-mastery that he gains the means to make this suffering he inflicts last beyond the grave—to bind their souls in his service, so that even as they despise him and curse him, they are nonetheless bent to his will. He has manifested Dullahan.

To Wild Hunt Heathcliff, suffering is the base state of the world. Any moment of comfort, respite, or tenderness is ephemeral, a momentary shelter against the rain that will inevitably be lost. He has rejected Cathy’s love entirely, not because he does not love her, but because he does not believe in love as being a solid, real thing. Not like hatred is. Hatred is forever. You can *rely* on hatred. And if you are able to find satisfaction in being hated, to drink deeply from that spiteful well, you’ll never go thirsty. No, you’ll live in a veritable land of plenty. A miserable, bitter land of plenty, and you’re going to be a miserable and bitter fuck, but at least you’ll have the satisfaction that the people who hate you died mad and continue to be mad. That’s the core of Dullahan,

The third act swerve of this essay is that I do not think that our Heathcliff is going to be able to manifest Dullahan, because he isn’t that person anymore—the path that leads there has been closed to him. Hindley and Linton are dead, and he has bigger concerns right now—the bat no longer says Revenge, it says Remember. The revenge pillar is the one that crumbled, so he is—unsteadily—driven more by his love for Cathy right now. If he continues in this path, his EGO (and come on, we *will* get to see the full EGO for everyone eventually) is going to be something else entirely. Some similar motifs, of course, but taken in a new direction. Hopefully a healthier one!

And I think that’s really neat!

[lithreeum]

WHATS UP FUCKERS I'M HERE TO SHARE WITH YOU MY LATEST CAFFEINE FUELED BRAINCHILD:

THE PROJECT MOON AU WHERE NOTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS EVER (and also some of them are college students (and none of this is well thought out at all please help me))™

You know how Fate has that one cooking spinoff where nobody kills anybody and they just hang around and have dinner?

This is that. For PM fans. Roland is canonically a good cook and a foodie. It could happen. PM please make it happen I just want my goobers to be happy and untraumatized.

Anyways, with that rambling done, let me ramble about these four fuckers and what they're up to.

So, the setting's a fancy college where rich people go to. Angelica is there on academic scholarship; Argalia has a music scholarship; Roland's there because his adopted mom Iori is a lecturer there so the tuition's cheaper; Angela's there because Ayin and Benjamin are fuck you rich and spoils her to high heavens.

Argalia's and Angela are both music majors, Angelica's in engineering, and Roland's in culinary. Roland and Angelica are 2nd years, Argalia and Angela are 3rd years.

Roland's known Angela since forever ago because they were in the same orphanage. Argalia and Angelica are siblings. Here's baby roland on adoption day I drew while writing this because I have no self control.

Where was I? Oh right. So, Roland gets adopted by Iori; Angela gets adopted by Ayin and Benji. Angela calls Ayin Dad and Benjamin Gramps because he has grey hair, the two got to some hijinks in their high school years, they remained friends to present day.

Back to the main four. So, first year, Angelica and Roland meet on campus one day on some meet cute shit. Then it turns out Iori is Angelica's Host family while she's studying here. Romcom shenanigans happen, Argalia's the overprotective brother, Angela's the resident wingman/shipmaker/popcorn eater/"just kiss already" yeller, Roland cooks/awkwardly flirts, Angelica gifts Roland a knife she made for his adoption day, it's great. Eventually A Fritter Called Jeon happens and they start dating and more romcom ensues.

That is everything my stupid little monkey brain can semi-coherently conjure up since the rest are just incoherent snippets of tangentially related information and cute funny things these goobers can get up to. Among which include:

The Asiyah and Briah Sephira are Angela's circle of friends that met in high school, they all go into their respective fields from LoR. Geb does sports. Maybe Yesod and Angelica know each other from engineering competitions or something.

Binah's a CIA agent that knows way too many people, because of course she does.

Yan and Gloria are taking Theology studies, Esther and Hubert are post-grads/professor assistants, they become friends somewhat, Moirai's a professor there.

Blue Reverbs are all music majors that hang out with Argalia and Angela, they take bets on which one snaps and kills the other first. Oswald bets on hate sex. Tanya bets that the two of them would kill someone together.

Charles' Office are Roland's group of friends back from back in High School, Olivier went on to become a civil servant, I do not know what the fuck the rest are up to, we'll see when they show up in Limbus.

Speaking of Limbus, the Limbus gang are all in...I don't know what you english speaking fuckers call "school clubs but in college", I know a word exists for it, but I'm blanking. They're all in one of those. Rodya started it and roped them all in. Vergilius and Dante are their advisors. They go around and survey the socioeconomic state of the country in various locales and write reports about it (read: Rodya found a way to get them all free vacation and they all took it)

Angelica' physically very strong, she does martial arts, and she gets Roland into martial arts, but whenever they "spar" they just end up a blushing pile of goo that's too embarrassed to grapple their crush. They have good fun though.

Argalia keeps trying to split Angelica and Roland apart but he doesn't actually try since he's seen how happy she gets when she talks about him.

[unma]

I Love Philip (LOR) And Feel so Painfully Bad for Him

Every time I think about Philip I cannot help but be reminded of how dirty he gets done in Library of Ruina. My little boy does not catch a break. He gets beat into submission at least 4 different times. He unwillingly gets saved from certain death in the library, and with the hindsight we get at the true ending of the game, that would have been a preferable fate.

But no, he gets thrown into Oswald's clutches. He doesn't get a chance to properly mull over his feelings and emotions like Xiao did, he doesn't get to actually work through it in a healthy manner, and much like Yan, gives in and becomes the Crying Children.

He still doesn't die. And then Argalia gets a hold of him and he loses all sense of who he once was, until now he's just Philip again. But he isn't Philip: everything that once made him up is gone, replaced by only the cinders, the ashes of what was once his burning flame.

And now he fights, burning once more. Much like Xiao, his fuel was those he cared about, but now that's all gone. Now he just fights for the Ensemble. And really, for what? He's truly and wholly apathetic now; any semblance of emotions is muted and grey, dulled to the point of returning to apathy.

It's a wonderful parallel that Malkuth continues to burn while all her efforts seem to have been hopeless, with the hope that it all, in time, will be worth it, while Philip burns in spite of said hope: he burns to destroy all, and reduce it all to sad, depressing soot.

In the end, it's a sad fate for him, and every time I return to the song "And There Is Heard No More" I feel horrible for him. He really didn't deserve all he'd gone through. Most members of the ensemble are horrible, or dislikeable in their own ways. You don't feel bad for their deaths, even if you do realize that some of them got here simply because of how twisted the city is. But we've spent a lot of time with Philip and got to see how he really was just trying his best for those he cared about, only for him to burn out until there was nothing left of him.

In the direct opposite manner of how Xiao goes out in a triumphant blaze of glory and will now get to see those she cares about once more, satisfied that she took action and never stopped burning till the end, Philip goes out the same way a small candle fire does. Silently and weak, the wisps of smoke that remained of him gone in the wind.

Xiao is the raging forest fire that scars the land irreparably for years, maybe even decades to come. Philip is the small candle flame that never got to spread before it slowly died off. And 'Philip', his remains, is that melted wax candle, being forcibly set aflame in an attempt to reduce everything to that same, sad puddle of apathy.

But this is just how I see it. Something I didn't point out here is the importance of isolation and the ability to define oneself to Philip's story, and how losing those close to him and being driven to Isolation was what got him here, and he was further not allowed the chance to grow or define himself like Xiao was, or how Angela could in the floor realization. Hod's Realization is all about Angela realizing that only she could truly define herself, and this floor's theme is an excellent parallel in that Philip wants the same: the ability to define oneself in isolation. The difference is, in part, in the extent.

Malkuth does not think that one is completely defined in the absence of others. While letting other's criticism and opinions define you is, frankly, a horrible idea, it does not mean it is all to be discarded. And while the clashing of opinions will inevitably lead to conflict and hard times, one can choose to take it all and use it yourself: to decide if and how to use one's experiences to define yourself. You define yourself, and you are not limited to your environment, but that does not make it a waste. You can grow and become better because of your enviornment.

'Philip' does not believe in this. He doesn't see the point, seeing where his hardships brought his previous self, which is why he wants complete isolation. In truth, he believes the same: You define yourself. But their beliefs are fundamentally incompatible as soon as the topic of oneself in relation to other people comes up, which is why they must disagree.

This final bit is a bit of a headcanon, more headcanon-y than my previous interpretation of events anyway.

I like to think that since Philip still has those little bits of what he once was, those come out in battle. When he's burning, when he's overheated, that previously dead flame is back, at least in part, and he can more vividly recall things and remember why and how he's gotten here. It would be a nice touch, but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, that's enough ranting about my poor boy. I have a fic to finish, and then maybe I'll go beat up Oswald and Argalia for doing this to Philip. And then I'll solo Roland with a different floor, probably.

[aurevoirmonty]

« Nous sommes nés en ce temps et nous devons parcourir le chemin jusqu'au bout. Il n'y a pas d'autre voie. C'est notre devoir de rester sans espoir de salut à notre poste déjà perdu. Rester comme ce soldat romain dont le squelette fut retrouvé devant une porte de Pompéi, mort parce que, lors de l'éruption du Vésuve, personne n'avait pensé à le relever. Voilà ce qu'est la grandeur. Voilà ce qu'est avoir de la race. Cette fin honorable est la seule chose que l'on ne peut pas enlever à l'homme. »

Oswald Spengler

[reverberation-ensemble]

[cloverpatches]

Open up your Eyes.