#canto four spoilers

[manager-dante]

i need to flesh this out once i’ve mulled it over more but i adore how limbus company expands on the incredible world-building of project moon, because it is so goddamn realistic.

from the outset the player is presented with this incredibly bleak world in which corporations have become the state. the poor and the desperate bow their heads and toil at the altar of the free market. worth is measured by talent in exploitation. it’s a social darwinist’s wet dream. i also think the choice to base the cast off of literary figures was amazing, because it highlights very important connections to the past. i haven’t read all the books referenced, but the ones i have (the metamorphosis, don quixote de la mancha, & the odyssey so far) draw an unmistakable through-line from the suffering and exploitation depicted in those books to that which occurs in the city. the most horrifying parts of this game in my opinion aren’t the monsters or the machines — it’s the sheer enormity of human suffering which exists in the economic and political system the city operates under. and that’s the worst part, because in so many ways, the suffering and exploitation portrayed in the city is not a hypothetical fantasy — this is just capitalism working as intended. it’s not confined to the historical context of those books, nor the gritty sci-fi horror of the game.

but not only do we have this incredible setting that’s somehow both brutally realistic and fantastical at the same time, we also get to see how our main cast attempts to survive in that world — and ultimately how none of their attempts to change it succeeded at all.

in my mind, canto i portrays how neither kindness nor cold-heartedness will help you survive — especially through the dynamic between aya and hopkins. gregor has been both. he was a war hero in a meaningless war. after it ended, he was discarded as any tool which had outlived its usefulness would be. he can’t even control his arm from becoming a killing machine. and yet, gregor is still exceptionally personable, even going out of his way to be kind at times. but no matter whether he’s a tool for violence in the hands of war profiteers or simply a man doing his best to protect others, he still couldn’t save yuri — just as he couldn’t save his comrades — and this clearly haunts him. neither the war nor its end changed anything.

canto ii shows between rodya and sonya how both direct action and an “inevitable” revolution fail to quell the suffering of the vulnerable. sonya’s revolution is all bluster and no action. he does nothing to help the people in his community in favor of this grandiose revolution that must happen at the “right moment” — even if it means leaving his neighbors to starve in the meantime. rodya’s inspired yet short-sighted action to remove what she saw as the source of her community’s suffering only led to its destruction: the tax collector was a branch, not the root, of the problem, and killing one person did nothing to stop the system which upheld them.

canto iii is even more clear-cut in the ties between sinclair and kromer: neither violent zealotry nor blissful ignorance will save you in the city. kromer’s cult does not “purify” anything, but sinclair’s courage to stand up to her isn’t enough to beat her either. canto iii still doesn’t end in a victory. dante and the sinners barely survive. it’s only through demian (and k-corp’s) divine intervention that the sinners and kromer don’t destroy each other in the corpse pit.

in the most recent addition, canto iv appears to do the same thing. on one hand, you have the devotion to a principle shown through shrenne, samjo, and donbaek. their causes are different, but their devotion is the same. on the other, there is the cynicism, indifference, and escapism of yi sang and dongrang, both willingly complicit in the machine in different ways. and yet — none of them make any positive difference. whether they resisted or submitted, the machine grinds on around them — the only choices are to become a cog in it or be ground to bits by its gears.

to be clear, i do not think the game is arguing that none of these individual actions matter. even if gregor couldn’t rescue yuri, even if rodya couldn’t protect her neighbors, even if sinclair couldn’t defeat kromer and all that she stood for, even if the league of nine members each failed to realize their ideals — limbus argues that it matters they tried. it matters that they’re still trying. it may never be possible to oust the corporate overlords and make the city a better place, but the love still matters.

[layla-lynx]

I love this horrible old woman she’s so happy that she manipulated a defenseless civilian into giving her information 

[dearlystars]

all the people saying limbus canto iv got delayed bc shranne had to be there for pride month is funny bc like. happy pride month gays! we made one sapphic explode and then cut the other one in half!

[tibtew]

this image was always painful but now that we have more context on it, it's straight up just driving me insane

the fact that dongbaek and yi sang are at the front, but dongbaek is hiding her hands.... the fact that gubo is off to the side and looks anxious almost.... the fact that dongrang stands at the back (fully at the back, to me it looks like he's standing behind even the guy he's shoulder-to-shoulder to) and is the only one not looking at the camera, his heart not truly in it...

[gottagetgogottagetattahere]

I feel like a good litmus test about limbus company is that part in Canto IV where you see the infinite chicken hack and your first reaction was:

A) horrified about the animal cruelty (u are sinclair)

B) morbidly amused by the horrific logical conclusion k-corp came up with the healing ampules

C) disgust/depressed about how this could feed so many people but is instead used for profit

D) ...But does it taste good?

[elizkras]

he's not :(

[tictoxic]

CANTO 4 SPOILERS

Is this anything

[endergirldragon]

reposting some old stuff

[smolselfshippingaxcycat]

iM NOT FUCKIGN OKAY AFTER CANTO 4 SOBBIGn

tHE THE THING THIGN ADN THE DISTORTY HGNRHGgh

OSbbs

[circuit3301]

Canto 4 Spoilers

hey bro... you feeling ok? all seriousness this is a fun fight, not to hard but good, its so nice to hear a new mili song hitting it out of the park yet again. 

also Dante proving once again they are the best character ever written. and i love how faust is quite literally their filter

and AHHHHHHHHHHHH

MY BOY MAKES AN EMOTION!!!

loved this chapter, a mili song, holy shit the last fights ending, HE SMILED, and the implications of Dante remembering what they saw makes this an amazing chapter, well done PM

bonus: my favorite section of the ED: Dante being Dante, and Charon probably running over a family of 5

nevermind, that's not the end of this post

you little shit what are you doing here. actual child jumpscare

hi Dante what's up? just gonna tick huh? that's fine, no underlining meaning here

[korronotsoshiny]

If there’s one thing I miss about listening to Hero, it’s the fact that-

I can’t listen to the second part without La Don’s laughter as he staggers and wipes out half my sinners. It really compliments the mutual mental breakdown we have together. /hj

I kid you not, I was crying when he landed his unbreakable coins non-stop until I reached his third phase. Then I cried more at the cutscene.

[myreputatioooon]

the way carmen cgs flashed....has healthcliff been going through a years long distortion process this entire time...???

[melonisopod]

Lifetime Stew is so much darker in hindsight.

Sinclair and Don Quixote both get it, and it’s specifically *Lust*, not *Gluttony*, despite being food-themed. (Although Gluttony in Limbus terms is basically Greed, and Lust very broadly refers to “desire” for things that aren’t material).

So, Lifetime Stew is based on the fable of Stone Soup, wherein a man managed to feed his whole village by bringing each together with a different ingredient, to make a soup that would last forever. He just kept telling each person in the town square, “All it needs is one more ingredient,” and everyone just kept adding to it. Is the gist of it.

Sinclair and Don have voice lines that more or less imply the same thing - the Abnormality (Basilisoup) just wants everyone to try its delicious soup! Cute, silly concept, right?

So what do Sinclair and Don Quixote have in common?

(SPOILERS beyond this point! You’ve been warned)

In Canto 3, Sinclair recalls that once his mother, father, and sister all received full-body prosthetics, they no longer had a need to eat. The table was set and food was placed only for him. It’s one of the things he found so especially heartbreaking, that he was the only one left in his family who could still eat food. It’s such a core memory that it’s plastered on the window-wall of his cell for his base E.G.O., four roboticized humans sitting at the table, with no food present.

He desperately misses getting to share meals with his family.

And in La ManchaLand, the Bloodfiends have been starved of blood for the past 200 years, barely sustaining themselves on hemobars that don’t satisfy them. They can *live* without subsisting on human blood, but they’re utterly miserable doing so. The only one of the First Kindred’s clan who escaped such a fate was of course, Sancho, though she’d long forgotten she is a Bloodfiend, Faust says she still craves blood. She’d been in effect, the only Bloodfiend allowed to sate her cravings, while the rest of her kin starved. Being the only Bloodfiend able to escape their fate was so traumatic for Sancho that she wanted to forget everything about herself.

In other words, Basilisoup/Lifetime Stew is about “the joy of sharing a meal with family,” something both Sinclair and Don Quixote desperately wish for.

KIM JIHOON WHEN I FUCKING GET YOU

[tibtew]

disjointed yi sang ramble (canto iv spoilers kind of):

okay I know chapter 4 isn't over yet BUT I can't stop thinking about how the big 000 ids for gregor and sinclair in their chapters (and tbh I think this can be applied to rime shank rodya as well) have them conforming to what people expect of/want from them while yi sang just. Becomes Dongbaek because he no longer has a place in her world and she has no place in his... all they have is the sweet-smelling sense of nostalgia...

it reminds me a lot of this passage from the wings:

additionally, while I think the entire league embodies the wife character to some extent, the direct moments of conflict where she lashes out feel the most. dongbaek to me. also interesting to note that she's the only league member he's been able to properly Fight so far.

also, since this rant was inspired by his new id: "once all these flowers have been stained red only then will "I" bloom as well" to me reads as him trying to destroy his past in an effort to regain his sense of self. hm.

also also I find the fragrance aspect of the bloom ego so interesting when you consider that the protag in the wings sniffs his wife's perfume to remember her....

[slagharpoon]

CANTO 7 PART 1 SPOILERS | La Manchaland Origin Theory

what it says in the title. spoilers + long post under the cut

part 1: don quixote is potentially involved in the creation of la manchaland.

we know that la manchaland is ~200 years old. given cassetti (who's a 6th kindred) has mentioned living for hundreds of years, it can be assumed that don quixote (2nd kindred) is older than that and thus would've been around at that time.

the park has 3 overseers. i'm going to assume that sancho and dulcinea are overseers 2 and 3 given how the barber seemed to be interacting with them behind the scenes.

the barber's colour scheme is obviously red. if we assume that the unannounced gregor bloodfiend id mirrors sancho, we could say that his colour scheme is blue.

additionally, we see glimpses of a purple bloodfiend in outis' barber id cg. we could assume that this is dulcinea.

as described in the bloodfiend kindred lineage that moses was discussing, there are four second kindreds. three overseers + don quixote makes four second kindreds

take a look at the map of la manchaland. there are three zones (red, purple, and blue) corresponding with each overseer. and in the center?

A YELLOW WINDMILL FOR DON QUIXOTE.

this line from the barber upon hearing don quixote's name also suggests some kind of history between them.

part 2: why would don quixote be involved?

hana association describes the park as a trap to lure in humans for bloodfiends to eat. given this, it's hard to imagine don quixote taking part in its organization. maybe la manchaland wasn't always how it now appears to be.

judging from the bit from the area 1 attraction, the park was supposedly once a place where bloodfiends and humans could coexist. clearly this is no longer the case. this line from yi sang also suggests that la manchaland was once a happy place.

what if la manchaland really was created for that reason? in part of don quixote's memories, we see a glimpse of this very thing being discussed.

as of right now, it's unclear what might have caused la manchaland to become corrupted. however, its downfall could potentially be what caused don quixote to leave. for now we'll have to wait until the next update to know for sure.

as always i take feedback. let me know if u have any thoughts!!

[player-1]

Apart from vibrating anxiously for the finale to Canto 7, I figured I could do a lightning round to all the new lore bits that were revealed so far. Of course there's a lot to take in, especially with a good bit of book comparisons too, so that's fun (not that I watched the musical yet, but go figure) :) (Obvious spoilers for Canto 7.1-7.2 and possible prediction for part 3)

-Surprised that no one mentioned that PCorp/District 24 is very likely to be the headquarters for the Dieci Association, especially with their archival department being the largest and most refined in the City so far. PCorp's Singularity isn't explicitly explained yet (for obvious City taboo reasons), but they can make a building material that can bend to insane degrees but never breaks (even with LaMancha Land literally appearing in one of the more populated residential districts and bending skyscrapers from the force, the only bodycount was from people wandering into the park to get turned into Bloodbags). And apparently in all the screw-ups the Sinners have been in, they're strong enough to fight a Urban Nightmare now (second strongest threat to Star of the City and the LoR fans cheering in the background for Vergil mentioning it outright).

-Cesaros (head manager of the archival dept.) mentions that Limbus Company is considered a "medium-sized enterprise" from her research (maybe something close to a Association or a Office with members in the double-digits), but they are extremely tight-lipped on what their company even does or why they need the Golden Boughs in the first place...Which Dante gets 100% since he's already kept in the dark of the place he's working in.

-And speaking of LaMancha Land, anyone getting 8 o' Clock Circus vibes anyone? :) Also it's been around for 200 years so that was a good timeframe for how long they've been active before popping up in PCorp about 4-5 months ago. LaMancha did have a noble goal at first, letting Bloodfiends and humans create a symbiotic relationship with the vamps entertaining their guests (+ free therapy sessions) and the humans donating blood to satiate their hunger without going crazy. The Bloodfiends also get a supplement bar (hemobar/hemoglobin bar) on the down low, but both counterparts have very little blood and eventually drove the vamps mad from withdrawal.

+Book-wise, I actually like how the main Bloodfiend bunch fits their namesake with that wonderful PMoon twist; Bari/Knight of the White Moon being a mix between Sancho and/or Cardenio IMO, Sanson could fit the role of the fake magician Munaton/Friston/Friton who had the power to "take" rooms from a foundation and create illusions (obviously a lie to keep Don Quixote from freaking out about his book collection being destroyed and boarded up the room). -The Barber and Priest work a bit like side characters since their main jobs in the book was trick Don Quixote to coming back to his village and "cure" his delusions by disguising themselves as a damsel princess and a squire (the priest did want to do the princess role at first before letting the barber do it since it conflicted with his Christian morals (ie. he blanked on that fact multiple paragraphs ago before chickening out). So if you read that little bit in the book, then that's the reason why the Barber's a girl, so you're welcome! :) -Limbus Dulcinea also follows the role of "The Princess of the Parade" with Sancho as her Prince; then Sancho "abandoned" the park for some unknown reason (in her eyes) and the princely role was replaced by Cassetti...And then he ran away too with drastically disastrous results in the Warp Train side story. Book Dulcinea is described (by Don) as a fair maiden with pale gold hair and equally pale and fair skin, while the real Dulcinea (Aldonso Lorenzo) is a haughty and rude farm-women at the village who Don has only seen four times out of 12 years they have crossed paths; so having a interesting blend of both personality traits is a neat little easter egg if they can connect the two. +And last but not least, the main chivalric trio; Don Quixote/Alonso Quixano, Rocinante, and Sancho :D.

-While it is fair that Alonso isn't fully revealed until 7.3 (which I'm all for the real name drop for tall, blond and dumbass), Alonso is a Bloodfiend that's obsessed with certain hobbies to an extreme before dropping them completely in less than a week (like getting a bunch of expensive yarn for knitting until getting bored in three days). But he does follow his aspirations when he thinks there's a long-term reward for it; like being a Fixer to do good and spread his name and creating LaMancha Land for both human and Bloodfiends to work together in harmony (but not before forcing the vamps to believe that the only way to be happy is give happiness to others since he grew tired of living in comfort without any conflict or adversity...as if that isn't going to backfire one way or another :).

-And again, Rocinante wouldn't be fleshed out until 7.3, but we do know a good amount...They are either a horse, a pair of running shoes, or some poor schmuck that's forced to deal with a delusional vampire knight and their badass could-be-a-Color Fixer on their wild adventures. Like helping a village fight off a group of bandits with the few lines paraphrased from the book about facing any foe, no matter the size or strength, that had zero consequences whatsoever (*sweats nervously in Ch. 18*); then getting the helmet of the knight Mambrino from ch. 20-21 by...fighting a bear. The River of Oblivion is more of an Odyssey reference, but I think it could also connect to Don Quixote's "penance" in ch. 25-26 at a small oasis in the Sierra Morena; since the only time Don was able to speak the truth about Dulcinea is after dismounting Rocinante and removing his armor, stripping away everything that makes him a knight in appearance alone.

-And finally, with all the teasing in 7.1 to now (even the Yearning-Mircalla ego too), the biggest twist of the Canto is that our goofy vampire Limbus Don is actually Sancho, a "squire" playing the role of a valiant Fixer despite the odds of absolutely everything the City has to offer (and certainly against her will). From what little info we can get from her conversations with the real Don, she's pretty standoffish and crass to the one person that gave her a second chance in life besides dying alone and without a family, though she does like the Zwei Association from Bari’s stories despite claiming they’re boring and strange. And am I the only one who noticed so far that Don took inspiration from the Zwei for her armor and have Bari's hairstyle as a strong and confident Fixer? Other than that, there's still a lot of baggage she has to deal with now that Sancho's out of her endless dream and finally has her autonomy back for real this time. For better or worse, I'm all for Sancho being the new Sinner #3 so she can learn that the team is her new family that she can appreciate without sacrificing her own happiness.

Already crossing my fingers that they'll add another obscure reference from the book later on, but that's all on the 24th :)