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niyafics · 2 months ago

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ᯓᡣ𐭩better every time˖ ݁𖥔

paige x reader (18+)

𐙚 part 1🐈‍⬛

˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖ wc : 2.5k

𖥔 ݁˖ cw : SMUT, first person p.o.v, petplay ahhh, the word sl*t, swearing, all that great stuff

˖ ݁𖥔 summary : a package arrives from paige, what could it be?

˖ ݁ a/n : hii srry if this sucks i haven’t written smut in years. not rlly edited.

p.b

did you get my gift,kitten?

yes, but i haven’t opened it

this kitten thing is just forever now huh :/

p.b

lol open the box and you tell me

We hadn’t seen each other in a week now, and even our last time was brief. Practice, games, school preoccupied all Paiges’ time, and I was getting swamped with work and my demanding minimum wage job. Still managing to slip a suggestive message or picture in between.

We had responsibilities. It was best for it to stay that way. For me to stay busy. That time apart would help me ground myself from getting completely enthralled in the tall girls icey eyes.

I felt embarrassingly moody last month when we didn’t meet up for a week opposed to our normal 2-4 times throughout it. Which in truthfulness, was too often. A few times us not having the sex our relationship was supposed to be exclusive to.

Like when she invited me over her place to watch the worst movies we could find on Netflix, intertwined lazily on her couch until I had to go to work.

Staring sleepily at the ceiling in the dark talking to each other about anything. Everything. Until one of our tired states doesn’t let us respond anymore.

Or when she’d pleaded to come over after a long practice, showering and plopping into my bed like it was hers. I had been the big spoon, combing my hands through her hair that was still damp, until she fell asleep. This one happened more than once.

I sat up on my elbow and watched her breathe slowly, my arm wrapped around her waist from behind, thinking how she was so effortlessly cute, and sexy.How she smelled good. How she blurted out my name without me giving it to her, our first night together.

I still haven’t gathered the courage to ask how she knew it.

“God, (y/n), you’re even prettier up close...”

It rolled out like she moaned it a million times.

By now, she probably has.

I wondered, if our meeting was such a coincidence after all.

My theory made me feel full of myself. How could have Paige known me? No mutual friends, and mine sure as hell wouldn’t have forgotten to tell me Paige Bueckers asked about me. We had no classes. Paige was a year ahead of me. Sure, I seen her on campus. She never seen me. Had she? I’d have to ask if I wanted to know.

Regardless of why we saw each other, we were getting dangerously closer than usual fuck-buddies. Pushing past the boundaries of friends with benefits. The special time together, the vulnerability.

Especially now, with her sending me stuff. First, it was [your fav flower] which I offhandedly mentioned I liked. We hadn’t talked in days and then, there was a delivery guy holding them in a vase of my favorite color outside my door.

She was thinking of me. couldn’t she just text it? No, this was way more sentimental than a text. It was meant to leave me thinking about her even more than I was. To show me she was thinking of me. It wasn’t just store bought, she had to have gotten it from a florist.

I almost knocked her over the next time i saw her, saying it was the sweetest thing anyone had done for me, because it was. Paige held me while I gushed, swaying me slightly, with a smirk that read I successfully stroked her ego.

“A good way to say ‘thank you’ is for you to let me between those pretty thighs, kitty.” A chuckle escaped as she said it, though she was serious, she lets me know this with a firm grip behind me. That damn nickname. Whenever I wasn’t completely under her spell, I felt almost embarrassed hearing her say it. Responding to it. Then wasn’t one of those times. I was on my back with her perfect mouth wet from me in minutes.

p.b

omg y/n

p.b

open it alreadyyy

My phone snapped me out of my thoughts. I shuffled to my kitchen counter to open the package waiting for me. I took a picture of me from above so the box was also in frame. Smiling to myself before I hit send, knowing the sight of me in her hoodie with nothing but panties she couldn’t see underneath would drive her crazy.

[image]

patienceee, i’m about to rn

p.b

[hearted an attachment]

oh yea? i’ll teach u alllll abt patience ;p

Blush crept to my cheeks with a grin I couldn’t help, while I wondered what she meant.

I tore the tape down the middle and the box opened slightly on its own before I peeled both tabs back all the way. My mouth slowly falling and flustered giggles erupting from me.

It was a pink collar with a silver bell hanging from it. Next to it was a shiny chain leash, with a handle to match waiting to be attached.

ohmygoodness

p.b

:) yeahhhh???

p.b

you like it or you luv it ??

you’re insane

p.b

insanely attracted to you. yes.

p.b

now be a goodgirl & put the collar on, i’ll be there to hook the leash to it later <3

She was coming tonight? I felt nervous as if I hadn’t been on my knees for her a few nights ago, congratulating her on a win. I looked closely at what I was getting myself into.

That tingling feeling came while I went lifted it near my neck.

This girl was awakening things in me.

I’m up to the door in seconds when I hear a knock against it. It’s in a goofy rhythm, so I know exactly who it is. My hands go to fix my hair even though whatever condition it’s in is going to be gone in a minute anyway. I open it a little, then step away, and Paige happily invites herself the rest of the way in.

“My kitty.” Her pink lips give me a smile that’s so warm I feel it. That could be something else. She’s in sweatpants, air forces that always seemed to look new, and another graphic hoodie I’m eager to collect. I’m in the skimpiest nightgown I could find, with the collar snug around my neck.

She opens her arms beckoning me to hug her, it’s tight and I melt in, getting a whiff of her shampoo, her laundry detergent. Paige pulls me back and runs her hands to my butt while she takes my appearance in.

I know she’s pleased from the way she licks her top lip slightly, while her slim fingers slip underneath the fabric that stopped at the beginning of my thighs.

“Look at you, such an obedient sweetheart for me, aren’t you, mamas?” Her voice hums in my ear. “So gorgeous. I knew it’d be perfect on you.” I’m pulled into a deep kiss that makes a thick smack when we pull away, I can’t help but whimper. She goes at the crook of my neck, which is her favorite place when we see each other. Well, one of them.

Paige leaves hickies on me that I stopped bothering to cover up since the second time she proved she couldn’t help herself. I remember her telling me how it turns her on knowing I walked around with her love bites all over me. The way she knows my friends will ask, and I’ll just blush in response.

Pulling away like it pains her to, she admires her work. Her muscular body pressed against me still.

“Missed you so bad..” She says in an innocent tone, flicking the bell on my neck and mouth curling into a mischievous expression when it rings back in response. “Where’s the leash, hm?”

“Bedroom.” I tilt my head towards its direction. Blood starting to rush thinking of which scenario in my head was about to happen next. I knew she’d surprise me anyway. She grabs my hand and gently guides me there, and I follow, unapologetically looking at her with needy eyes.

As soon as we walk in it’s like a switch flips in Paige. Pushing me onto the bed, her lashes low, and her ponytail falling over her shoulder as she stares down at me, eyes full of lust, and ideas. Both her hands hold my face then they move down my neck to my shoulders, so she can push the straps to the gown away. Her mouth is on mine again as she slides it down, beyond ready to feel what’s underneath.

Traveling down my neck again with her lips that seem to get softer every-time I feel them, but this time she stops and pays special attention to my nipples that are already hard from her touch and the air. When she’s not sucking, running her tongue over, and slightly biting one, she’s fondling the other gently. Moaning even as she’s doing that, and my body is practically calling for her knowing she’s just as wet as I am right now. I can’t take the teasing anymore. I need her.

“Paige..” I drag her name out with a soft whine. “I..” Stopping because she knows what it is. Her clothed body is pressing against my heat, I roll my hips so she feels it. That’s the only way she snaps out of her trance with my breasts, she gives me a mocking pout.

“Aw, what, kitty?” Her full bottom lip pokes out, but the smile she fights back still curls in the corner. “hmm? tell me, ma..”

“Fuck me,” I breathe. Her smile is full fledged now. But she waits for more. “Ugh, please, baby..I need you..” my body loved the way she forced words out of me. If she opened my legs right now the teasing wouldn’t stop, it’d just move to how wet I am.

She doesn’t open them. Paige gets up and grabs the leash from my dresser, before returning back to standing over me, legs pressed tightly together on the bed, dress down my chest nearly off.

“Turn around.” Paige says. Not asking. More than happily, I sit up. Before I can turn over she flips me herself by my hips. I let out a gasp, it turns grows into a giggle that doesn’t hide how much that turned me on. Turning to look at her, my hands and knees on the mattress, batting my lashes, my back arching. From how she mumbled profanities, as she crawled near me, my taunting did what it was supposed to.

Her fingers go in my hair to pull it to the side, and the other hand loops the collar to the leash with a satisfying click. I start to squirm.

“Too cute...” She slides the dress further down my legs, I’m basically naked, getting unreasonably flustered at her staring at my wet slit. I hear an amused grin in her voice. “Don’t you dare move.” Paige mumbles. I feel a tug on the collar, the bell chimes, a moan hums in my mouth. My eyes closing, immersing into her taking care of me.

I hear her start to slide her clothes off, them dropping to the floor. Then she’s back hovering over me, and her ifinger slides down me slowly. I can’t help but let my head lower down, Paige grabs the leash up.

“Noo, I wanna hear you kitty…” She coos, leaning down near my ear. The leash making me arch until I see her face, upside down, eyes still visible against the darkness. She slides her index inside of me, I sharply inhale, and breathe out a low moan.

More are pounded out of me as she adds another digit into where I’m now practically drooling from, twisting and curling them, trying to coax my orgasm out of me. Paige stares down at me, entertained, her mouth slightly open while she works inside me. Fingers so close to her lap she’s moving her hips and hand, bouncing me up and down off them, with the help of the leash.

My eyes are hitting the back of my head, I have to concentrate to focus back in on her gaze. Her expression making my sounds of pleasure louder, closer together. I hear her grunts in her throat each time my ass hits her hips, coming down on her hand.

A knot ties tight inside me. It’s about to snap. Paige doesn’t lighten up on the leash or her strokes. The collar chokes me, and instead of complaining, I wish she’d pull tighter.

“You’re such a slut..gripping me like this…” She huffs. Her fingers rub profusely on my G spot. “About to cum, hm kitten?” Paige breathes out with a small chuckle, leaning down to kiss my back, sweat on her upper lip.

I yelp in response, barley able to grip the covers anymore, reaching back to put my hand on her hip, it makes her add another.

“P-paige, I love-“ I force myself to stop and squeal instead.

“I know, baby. Me too.” She grunts lowly back. My head is spinning, even though we probably thought the sentence ended in different ways.

My legs start trembling as a wave relief and instant exhaustion ripple through me. I feel myself go limp, the third finger sending me over the edge.

Paige lets me face plant into the duvet, letting go of the leash, cold metal hitting my sweaty back. We’re both panting, I hear Paige’s stop in between while she’s licking herself clean of me. She rubs my back with her free hand, an exhausted satisfied laugh comes from behind me. I can’t see but, I just know a smug look is plastered.

Rolling over to look at her, and she’s undoing her hair tie with the expression I predicted, blonde strands falling down her back, studying my flushed face. She was still naked, which makes me giddy for some reason, knowing she used to rush to throw her clothes back on.

“Come here..” I lazily wave her over. This time she does what I say. I think about saying it to tease her, but she looks so cute when she crawls on top of my chest and looks up to me, doe eyed, I kiss her forehead instead.

“It was good?” Paige asks soft, seeking reassurance, like I’m not still feeling the after effects of her hands on me. I stroke her hair tenderly, getting turned on by her warm body pressed against mine, her face on my chest.

“Great. Amazing.” I chirp back with confidence. “It gets better every time.”

“Really? I dunno if I believe that…” A toothy grin stretches on her face instead. “I guess we’ll have to go again to test it out..” she shrugs, watching me as she glided her palm up my stomach to my chest again.

I nod eagerly in agreement. I had something to ask her. I can’t remember what.

niyafics©️

#paige bueckers fanfiction #paige bueckers smut #wlw smut #paige bueckers x reader #paige bueckers x y/n

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leonawriter · 10 days ago

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Ayin, Carmen, and the Circles of Hell Project Moon's Works

First off, what I wanted to go over here is the assumption that at least someone must have started playing through these games without a full picture of who these important people are and what, exactly, is going on.

Part of what makes the games so special to me is the way that they're all narrated, in that... each and every single one so far (three games, but also the webcomics and webnovels so far) has been told by an unreliable narrator - either of the events they're telling, or of their own inner world.

In this post, I'm hoping to tie the games together in as objective way as possible, using as much game/official-backed fact as I can, but I can't promise to be an "unbiased narrator" myself, since there are certain stances I take and theories I back.

That said: expect spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina, Leviathan (Vergilius' backstory), and all currently released Cantos and Intervallos (so far, up to 7.5).

Okay.

To start off, I'm going to have to go right back to the beginning.

No, not the backstory of Lobotomy Corporation.

More like "What even is the City" - because unless we can understand that, we can't really say we can understand who these characters are, and why they're doing these things. The setting informs characterisation and cultural norms, after all.

The City is, basically, as those who've played or otherwise experienced Library of Ruina and Limbus Company will know, comprised of the Wings (districts) and then further divided into the Nests (where everyone wants to live, where it's safer), and the Backstreets (where no one really wants to live, but many have to). The main driving motivation for most peoples' lives is that they have to become employable to either a good organisation (legal or not) that will provide for them, as the moment they are not of use they will be fired and/or disposed of.

In other words, your life does not belong to "you." Your life belongs to "the City."

All of that stuff we hear all the time about "find work that you enjoy!"? Yeah, no, the most important thing is to a) stay alive at all, and b) find work that will enable you to stay alive. Being able to keep morals? That's a luxury.

The world (which as far as anyone is concerned here, IS the City) is run by people who do not care about the well-being of others, and "good" people get ground up by it, eventually learning to harden their hearts.

Now that we've got that out of the way...

I can actually go into who the characters are.

First off, and most importantly (and obviously, going by the title) we have Ayin, Benjamin, and Carmen. Later on in Lobotomy Corporation known as "A, B, and C."

We don't know much about them before a certain point. We can, however, easily see that all three of them were from a Nest, rather than the Backstreets; of the original Outskirts lab, only Kali (Gebura) was Backstreets, and both Enoch and Lisa were from the Outskirts. This means that all three must have scored highly in certain exams in order to stay inside their Nest (which ones, though, we don't know yet) as was brought up in an early chapter of Distortion Detective.

For all of Lobotomy Corporation, we see things through Ayin's eyes, and we really only see the events that lead up to the founding of the Facility that "X" (AKA, Ayin's future looped self) is running. Since we only see the worst moments, we aren't really allowed to see the good times. We're allowed to see some very relevant quiet moments, but other than that it's few and far between.

What we DO know, and that we can in fact take on board that is highly important, is that Carmen had a big dream of wanting to improve things for people, on an individual basis, and she was very good at pulling people around to her way of thinking. This is not an exaggeration, or a matter of bias; this woman would go on to recruit people from all sorts of backgrounds, from both the Nests and the Backstreets. She would walk more or less alone in the Backstreets, and as far as we know did not have a bodyguard (or adjacent) until she recruited Kali, a Grade 2 Fixer. Carmen's ability to recruit all sorts of people would later be compared to that of a cult leader in Library of Ruina, and by someone who knew a lot about the City.

(This isn't the only time Roland says something like that; he also brings it up with Netzach.)

Ayin, who would be Carmen's junior, followed after her, listened to her, paid her a lot of attention, did as he was asked, and as we see Angela later state, he would look at Carmen "warmly."

Ayin would also be the one who would end up being blamed for, or the cause of, the worst of what happened, for one reason or another. Much of this was, I would say, either 50/50 fault of the future Sephirot making bad decisions, and Ayin himself having no idea how to communicate with them in a way that would prevent such incidents, or outright being unable to.

Simply looking at him and the way that A describes things, as well as the way that Manager X would later respond to things, tells the story of someone who quite literally had trouble communicating and connecting with other people. After Malkuth's meltdown, when A is talking about and recalling Elijah, we see the line "It was only after a very long time that I realised giving praise every once in a while may have been a good idea." When introduced to Kali, it's pointed out that he seems to be "glaring" at her, and Carmen says that he "always has a serious look on his face."

There are other lines and aspects from other scenes, but going into how and why I see Ayin as autistic is for another post, really. The important part is that the game shows us that he is perceived as cold and distant by others, yet most often only figures out how to interact in a way that grants the social benefits he and others require once it is already too late.

There is also the fact that a lot of his reactions (both in the past, and in the present) are... very human. No one can give the perfect response of a hero while in a traumatic moment. Chesed actually outright states this during one of the flashbacks about himself.

So we have Carmen, whose dream was to have a "beautiful voice" that "everyone would listen to," and we have Ayin, whose dream we aren't privy to - he tells her, and she laughs it off.

I'm not making that up, by the way:

[Source: TeeQueue's LP.]

What we do know, however, is that... for most of his life really, he - as said - follows after Carmen. To the point that, in one particular flashback (during Day 48), she asks him, in advance, that "No matter what I may become, please finish what I started."

However, we can see from both Adam (the third of Ayin's fractured selves) stating point blank that the consequences of Carmen's Light would cause people to become abnormalities, and then in Library of Ruina seeing the direct result in reality... that the Distortion phenomena would begin because of her. Starting with one as big and destructive as the Pianist which destroyed most of an entire district, then the Reverberation Ensemble through the course of the game, and finally firsthand appearances in both Leviathan and Limbus Company.

Carmen truly does become the "beautiful voice" that everyone listens to; Leviathan goes as far as to have an entire conversation between her and a distorting Vergilius, in which we get to see what her perspective is, and... strap in, because this is why I explained what kind of place the City is in the first place.

Carmen, at her heart, wants the Children of the City to live for themselves. To be selfish, rather than living only for the sake of a City that does not care for them. To have their outside appearance resembles the self they keep inside. You can see, in the few times the reader/player is allowed to see what she's saying during a distortion, that she doesn't push people into distorting so much as she plays into their own pre-existing feelings and desires. Enabling them to feel that they are justified in everything that they feel.

The important thing to remember is that the root (ha) of Carmen's argument is not wrong. Remember: those born to the City are subject to the City, and exist only for the City. The City doesn't exist for the sake of the people, but only for itself. Therefore, the idea of someone suggesting "I want to make it so that you can be selfish, and live for yourselves" IS going to be incredibly tempting, and to many people. It's a subversive, inherently rebellious idea!

Even in the real world, we have countries that put a lot of stock into how well a country can function as a uniform system; Japan and China I know for certain put far more emphasis on the group than the individual, even now. Anyone coming from somewhere that doesn't may see this as a strange idea, but it IS a cultural mindset that exists in the present day, and it took certain movements ("egoism" for one, and Ango Sakaguchi's essay that is referenced in Bungo Stray Dogs is "Discourse on Decadence" for another) to get to the point we're at now.

The problem lies in the fact that the moment you start to only think of yourself, when you ignore everyone else you become a force of destruction, harming others, either on a small scale (only hurting those immediately around you) or a large scale (hurting many people as a result of your actions) without regret. You no longer care about the people you used to care about. The "self" is all that remains.

Carmen was/is a well-intentioned (by the City's standards) person, but who took her one good idea too far.

Judging by his reaction to Adam's revelations about the as-yet-unnamed Distortion Phenomena - and he DOES have a negative reaction to it, considering he answers Adam's religious fervour with Hokma's ability to "Face the past, build the future" and Binah's "Facing the fear, breaking the cycle," meaning that he saw Adam as wrong. I'd say it's a foregone conclusion that Ayin did not know that Carmen's idea meant what it did. Nor that it's likely that Carmen's idea was to distort people from the start.

This, then, leads to the fact that although we don't know Ayin's own wishes from way back at the start when they first met so clearly... we can at least say that he wanted at least some of the same as what she did; for people to lead happier, more fulfilling lives, which were not controlled fully by the City. He must have agreed with her on the fact that the City, in her terms, suffered from a "disease of the mind."

Their differences are where things get interesting, because in Leviathan it is stated that simply due to Ayin "joining [her] in the light" at all, the concept of also being able to form EGO instead of Distortion became a possibility. In fact, in that same chapter, Vergilius is shown to be suspicious of her brushing her "junior's" involvement off, in spite of Ayin being "involved in every cause and effect" (Vergilius' words, from the translation).

There is a certain irony, even, to Carmen causing rifts between the future Sephirot and Ayin when they first meet - saying things that could otherwise be playful teasing, yet in later context is, as stated above, rather dismissive-

Her telling Ayin "He's a bit pompous, so don't believe everything he says" about Daniel, and to Kali who, as stated above, asked why Ayin was glaring and was told "He just always has a serious look on his face." In another flashback, she wore him down until he could see no other option than what she gave him (about progressing the Cogito experiment); "What made me, us, so upset... was how much it hurt to listen to her put it so calmly, as if it were none of our business." As I pointed out earlier, she laughs at his dream, before carrying on.

And yet, because she entrusted the project to him, it's Ayin's fingerprints that are over all of Lobotomy Corporation, as well as how to activate EGO at all. "Face the Fear, Build the Future"? That's all Ayin. And yeah, he's hardly a saint; he still did everything that all of the flashbacks show us (and his present day self who is remembering/being shown). But the important thing is that people can be multifaceted, and half the point of Lobotomy Corporation, as I see it, is that people are capable of some truly horrendous things... but you are still capable of building from them and moving into the future if you want to try and be a better person.

That's literally the message that Ayin leaves people through the Light.

Which in turn, pushes us forward in to the later games, because the thing is, everything really does come back to those two.

In Ruina, the Sephirot - now the Patron Librarians - have to tiptoe around Angela, who only has negative feelings about Ayin due to him being the world's worst father by creating her and then refusing to look at her, and then sending her into an unending torture device. I can't fault her for being furious here. She has been given absolutely no reason to see him in a better light up to here, when she was created with the memories of someone who had fond memories of him.

However, that does mean that the Patron Librarians can't truly be said to be speaking their minds amongst themselves, and especially not with Roland. These are the people who came out of Lobotomy Corporation's loops changed for the better, and although you can still see their (metaphorical, psychological) scars, we can see through the things they say that "X" must have been talking back to them at various points, and specifically during and after their meltdowns.

I brought this up in another post, but here's Gebura in Ruina, stating "It's hard to take a step forward if there's no one around to give you honest advice," and that goes for both the Sephirot and also Angela. As they do point out, Angela never had that. Angela herself is very upset about it (which is an understatement).

I've theorised as well that the Patron Librarians would have talked more about Ayin at length, but they held off after Angela interrupted Malkuth.

After she says this, she's cut off, and Angela berates her. Given Angela is basically hearing what to her is her abuser being praised to high heavens by someone who was also harmed by him... it's no wonder she reacts like this, and given the way the Librarians are I wouldn't be surprised if they understood that - but it does mean that we don't see their true thoughts.

They'll talk around him, but rarely directly about him - and when they do, like Gebura above, she snaps at them. So we, the viewer, also do not get to see their full thoughts and feelings.

This isn't the end, however, since the endgame of Ruina throws a lot into perspective that is made rather blatantly clear in later materials such as Leviathan and Limbus Company: that is, the stances of Ayin versus Carmen, and expanding on how they're in opposition in a far clearer way than we had during Lobotomy Corporation.

Because Lobotomy Corporation's final days are full of unreliable narration and Ayin's other selves telling him how he felt (which... yeah, wasn't him saying how he felt), that wasn't as clear as it could have been.

Not anymore!

First of all, in order to get the full, true ending in Ruina, you have to have both Roland and Angela forgive each other and not keep that need for revenge. In other words, they have to face the past, and break the cycle. They've both gone through Realisations, with them venting out their feelings to the Librarians each time... much like how the Librarians themselves had to vent out their feelings to Ayin in order to cool off.

Once you've got that, Angela decides to sort out the Light, and gets one more Realisation/fight - this time something that Hokma had been warning her about. Interestingly, he's the only one who made her question where the ability to create Invitations and use the Library at all came from. He, while having faith in Ayin, makes her question her blind faith in Carmen. Because as it turns out, she has been leaning on the part of her that was built from Carmen quite a bit up to now.

This... doesn't last, now that she herself has The Knowing I.

Angela: As long as I'm part of this light, I'll do everything in my power to stop you.

Given how we know that Ayin's very presence in the light caused awakening EGO to be possible, it's not a stretch to assume that this is the same stance that Ayin has taken now that he knows what Carmen was actually after.

I'd like to add something that is implied by that statement that some might see as treading into headcanon territory here: that Ayin, after having dedicated his entire life, literally ten thousand years of loops, to following Carmen's goal, which entailed committing atrocity after atrocity both personal (putting his deceased friends into metal bodies and bringing them back time after time) and impersonal (the many, many canon deaths of the employees, and no matter how "S rank no death" run you try and make yours, a few Clerks will get themselves killed by something) - would feel horrendously betrayed by Carmen.

I do not see Ayin, when he sees her again after realising what she had been aiming for the entire time, greeting her as a friend.

There's an art I've seen someone do, of them meeting in the light, Carmen reaching out her hand, and Ayin refusing her for perhaps the first time, because he finally has the Will to Stand Up Straight, and the understanding that they're actually on opposing sides now. I strongly feel like that - or the vibe of it - is at least somewhat the intent with their characters.

This is backed up by how, when Angela has accomplished this, fought Carmen, finished what Ayin had been working toward herself (and most importantly, her own personal growth to get there), Ayin tells her "I'm sorry. And... good job."

So. That's Library of Ruina.

On to Limbus Company, and the Circles of Hell.

Because if anyone thinks that Ayin's influence stopped with Angela and the Library, they are dead wrong.

To start with, we have some purely meta things. The titles have the same initials, which makes them easy to confuse if you're used to just going "oh play LC-" because which one? Lobotomy, or Limbus? In the Project Moon interviews before the game was released, they would often refer to future games as "the sequel." First Ruina, and then Limbus. Limbus especially, given its initials, got called "LC2" at least once or twice.

So, Limbus Company is a direct sequel to Lobotomy Corporation, which deals with the aftermath of all the branches having shut down. Simple enough, right?

The next thing is the characters we meet.

So far, both Dante and each of the Sinners has something in common with Ayin. And almost every one of their respective enemies so far has something in common with Carmen.

Dante themself is the Manager. Instead of managing Abnormalities, they manage the Sinners, a group of twelve people who are brought down to the strength of the weakest among them because of Dante's ability to chain them all together- wait, that sounds... familiar?

"The person who learns to think about himself as Ayin will ascend to a spiritual world, where everything is the same and everything is equal."

[Source: Ayin and Yesh, in Hasidism, from Wikipedia.]

Oh, look who it is. Hello, Ayin. Or rather, the spiritual concept of Ayin.

Honestly, a LOT of things about Dante scream out to me as references to Ayin. As a person. If you wanna go look at all of them, my friend Kitty/ @strangefellows has a whole gdoc on it.

My own thoughts on it go from "If you change Dante's red uniform coat to a white lab coat and ignore their head, that is literally the same person and body language" to "Dante's inability to know what they're doing at first echoes how Ayin had no idea at the start of the loops, both of them suffering from memory loss," to "Dante, during the SEA event, sinks into the same sort of uncertainty that anything they say will make any difference that is so characteristic of Ayin's own silences," to "when exposed to a monolith, which induces distortion, Dante is said to remember more than they are capable of at the time and knows exactly what Peccatula are, which is something that Ayin would know intimately given his involvement," to "during the the time when Heathcliff is distorting, the screen flashes with a very specific image of Carmen lying in a field" - which should be familiar to anyone who's gone through Lobotomy Corporation since it's something that only Ayin remembers.

In short: there is a very high probability that we're going to see it confirmed at some point that Dante's past self (with memories) is actually Ayin himself. I personally do not see this contradicting any of the canon Limbus has given us, and it does in fact only build on it. You'll notice that when I talk about Ayin I use he/him, and Dante gets they/them - I personally love the idea that Dante's just gonna go "ooh, I get to play with more pronouns? Cool!" Collect 'em all, you funky tick-tock genderless dude.

(If you don't believe that, it's fine. I've only been listing off canon moments, however!)

Going back to "more than just Dante echoes Ayin, just as Ayin was similar to more than just the Keter," however, and... let's build on that.

Starting with Yi Sang.

Yi Sang is someone who was a researcher working alongside a small group of people, who created a technology that was meant to be a bright spot for pure enjoyment. However, a chain of events happened that had T-Corp's law enforcement coming down on them, forcing them to work for the Wings or scatter. He regains his ability to see that he still has a future, and that he can still attain "flight" (that is, his own ideal self) by working through his past and being proactive rather than simply letting it happen. A large part of his trauma lies in the League of Nine breaking up and him recognising his own loneliness, too, and as a result he can be later seen trying more than anyone else in the bus to stop the others from fighting and causing the irreparable rifts that torn his original friend group apart.

Yi Sang mirrors Ayin in that they are both researchers who were set apart from their friend groups, yet they both had a desire for friendship and to be closer to those people that they could not fulfil due to their own temperament.

Yi Sang also has the EGO "4th Match Flame" which...

If it weren't for the colour of his eyes, I'd outright call that Ayin.

Note that the Matchgirl's story is that of someone who burns themself out in order to gain a little more warmth, which fits both Yi Sang and Ayin.

Next we have Faust, who hasn't had her Canto yet, but we do know some things about her. She is very similar to Angela, in that she fills the role of "walking assistant and encyclopaedia" however as we see in MOTWE, she's also part of a collective, the Gesselschaft, and we do know that when she is disconnected from it she becomes a person who is keen on learning and investigating for herself, and Dante's attitude to her is very encouraging, even while they're having their own private panic/anxiety attacks over potentially being stuck in a 20k+ year dimension with (based on what we know from Canto 4) no certainty that they'll be able to forget. That isn't so much a direct Faust-Ayin comparison as it is a Faust-Angela and Dante-Ayin comparison, but it's still worth bringing up. I look forward to her Canto.

Next we have Don Quixote, whose entire Canto was about breaking free of her dreams and delusions to see how things truly were, but also - more importantly - it's about how one person with good intentions can try to push them onto other people, regardless of how much it hurts those around them. Of how, even if those dreams of a better world were good ones, because Sancho was never fully able to say "hey, maybe this is gonna not work?" they weren't held in check, so they do untold damage. How Dad Quixote sees what the other bloodfiends do to him as a form of "penance," with the sheer amount of time he is kept pinned to the wheel causing him to lose faith in his original hopes and dreams, not fighting back because he recognises that he is the one who caused them to lash out at him in the first place. Sancho-Don being the one to regain her dreams that had previously just been delusions, this time with her eyes open.

This one... barely even needs me to point out, really, but both Sancho and Dad Quixote are echoes of how Ayin and Carmen's best intentions could and did hurt many people, trapping them in Lobotomy Corporation headquarters/La Manchaland, and torturing themselves for their own inability to see the problems they'd cause. Sancho also ends up having locked her now amnesiac self in a very small room for roughly two hundred years, much like Ayin locking his amnesiac self in a small office for ten thousand years, with neither of them fully aware of the length of time that's actually passed. Both of them also are traumatised by witnessing a horrendous massacre of their home; Ayin by the Outskirts Lab, and Sancho/DQ by the sight of what La Manchaland became, and then by having to kill her remaining family.

Next on the list is Ryoshu, and... we honestly don't know much about her past or motivations since her Canto hasn't released yet and we haven't had as much focus on her yet. She so far (given my recent re-watch and read through of an LP) reminds me of Binah, since they both enjoy bloodshed and violence - and Binah herself tells A that she sees them as similar kinds of people, able to perform atrocities by looking the other way.

If we look at Ryoshu's source material, going into headcanon territory, we can see that the character she's base don had a child, who died horribly. One has to wonder how that's going to play out in Limbus. The idea of a parent and child storyline does make me think of Ayin's relationships with both Enoch and Lisa (both of whom died), and also with Angela, however.

Meursault currently doesn't have his Canto yet, but the similarities are plain and easy to see; they are both taciturn people who may seem blunt and/or harsh, and don't really... know how to people. Meursault is pointed at by many as being autistic, just as I've stated way up back in my description of Ayin that he seems to me. At the start of the story, Meursault doesn't seem attached to anyone, and merely does as he is told and not a thing more, yet by Canto 6, he is willing to activate his own EGO without having been told to, for the sake of the people he has grown to care about. Meursault is a lesson in "just because someone seems cold and aloof, does not mean they do not or are not capable of care."

Hong Lu's Canto is coming up in just a short while (it's in sight!) but he's honestly currently closer to having comparisons to Daniel, or rather, Chesed. Both of them are rich Nest boys. Chesed states that as Daniel he could have made it into even A Corp - that is, the Head - and he chose not to. They both have the same breezy yet confident way of talking (which, funnily enough, Dante and Ayin's ways of talking about Chesed and Hong Lu are very similar), too, and a similar trauma-based "I am past the point of caring" mindset, which others have talked about on Hong Lu's side at length on better than I could.

Heathcliff is someone who follows one woman, believes in her, and is the one who inherits her will after she dies. He also finds out that the one who he's been following and placing his faith in has turned her home into a laboratory, her body (dead or alive) is the power source, and she has looked into a mirror showing her countless alternate worlds full of might-have-beens that drove her mad from the revelation. He distorts from the grief and despair, is called back, and fights his evil alternate self at least three times before finally ending it all, with her deleting herself. He then re-engraves his weapon to state "REMEMBER" and in a later Intervallo is seen having taken on the role of assistant researcher.

....More than half of that could have been talking about Ayin. It is also within Heathcliff's "area" (T-Corp, more than just his canto) that we have the monolith introduced (which induces Dante to half-distort), as well as Heathcliff's own distortion (which causes distorted Lobotomy Corporation logos and Carmen's face to flash on the screen). This feels... relevant!

[Image: flickering, slightly distorted image of Carmen lying on the grassy field from after having played through 6-34. Her eyes are open and bright red. It is - other than the flickering - exactly the same as we see on LC1 Day 48.]

Also relevant is that so much of Heathcliff's entire Canto is about the consequences of miscommunication (much like many parts of the original Wuthering Heights). Because in Lobotomy Corporation, a lot of the Sephirot's problems were caused by the same thing. Either Ayin or them refusing or being unable to communicate effectively.

Ishmael's references are beautiful, in that hers is the second Canto where Dante is really getting into their stride as the Manager. I find hers to be so freaking important, because during SEA Dante is faced with Ishmael's mood regarding them heading into the Great Lake tearing the group apart, and when she snaps and tells them that she'll obey their orders but no more and no less from here on, Dante is... well.

The entire situation surrounding Ishmael's Canto goes deep into, first: how easy it must have been for someone like Ayin to fall into the rut of not wanting to say anything for fear of saying the wrong thing, because Dante almost falls into that, starting from SEA and even leading right up into Canto 5.

[Thanks to Kitty for the doc letting me just find stuff rather than go through the cutscenes through theatre!]

This is something that Dante is having to struggle with and overcome through the duration of the Canto - what does it mean when you want to fit in, but you feel that no one around you feels the same way? What to do when your best efforts to try and help only make things worse? Do you give up and stay silent, out of fear, or do you keep pushing forward while following your heart, hoping that this next time, you can help even at least somewhat?

And then there's how Ishmael during the entire Canto, but especially during the dungeon, has to overcome how she has been following in her Captain's footsteps to the point that she can't even see her own path anymore. It's only by listening to Dante (who refuses to sacrifice themself, and who also refuses to ever give up on her) that she's able to change her target at the last moment.

Canto 5 ends with Ishmael having recognised that she had become the mermaid to Ahab's Pallid Whale, following forever in her footsteps... until Dante reminded her of how she could choose her own path. Much like how Ayin and the crew of the Outskirts Lab followed Carmen's wishes and dreams no matter how awful her ideas to follow through on it were, with Ayin only able to break out at the very last moments, the last few days, where he recognised where she was going wrong.

Rodya is one of the two who didn't really get a full deep dive, and yet (especially with TKT) we do get a lot to read into of her. She wanted to be the cause of change, and yet in spite of joining a group that advocated for people having better lives, they... mostly sat in their chairs and talked about stuff rather than doing it, and seeing Sonya's people seeming to be doing things when she left a long time ago is part of why she's not doing so hot right now.

From my notes: Just like Rodion, Ayin tried to do something to change the world around him, only to (effectively) make things worse in the short term. Rodion killed the landlady, who had ties to the Middle; Ayin took over a wing, but that led to the collapse of both L Corps, the stigma of all L Corp citizens, and many people suffering.

Sinclair was originally just a normal Nest kid with well-to-do parents, who was led astray by a female classmate. He would be led further into the palm of her hand until she causes tragedy to strike, with the people Kromer had led into his home with his key having slaughtered his family. When he goes back to his home with the Sinners, he is finally able to face his past and his trauma, and become a more courageous person. Sinclair also has a male friend who tries to get him to follow the correct path back in school.

Personally, I find this easy to see as being the Carmen-Ayin-Benjamin effect, and we'll get back to that later.

Outis.... has not yet got her Canto, and given her military history it is almost certain that she was a participant in the Smoke War. In which case she would have known Ayin and/or Benjamin, no matter whether it's over the battlefield or in person. Given that she looks very similar to a character who should have known them, the latter seems more likely. She's also said some sus things on that.

I'm sure we'll get to know more about her as we go, but there was a moment during Canto 7 recently, where she's having a knee-jerk reaction to finding out that Don Quixote (read: Sancho) is actually a bloodfiend, and a lot of her objections are due to how many people Don Quixote must have killed. Partway through, it becomes clear that We Aren't Talking About Don Quixote Anymore, and Dante makes it clear that their support isn't just for one of them:

Outis "You don't know how many people she's killed by existing. will you embrace her still?" Dante <I will.>

Like, we don't know much about her for fact other than this so far (and she's started changing because of it since) but I feel like that assurance is going to come up for more than just Don Quixote and Outis. If nothing else, it's an extension of how in both Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina, countless people are sacrificed in the name of the "greater good" - or one person's quest for revenge, or their own desire - and each one of the people who spearheaded those projects (Ayin, Hokma, Roland, Angela) could have this same question turned on them only too easily.

Gregor is an outcast, created by G-Corp, who has Sephirot symbols on the fabric covering his arm, and who participated in the Smoke War (on the side of the old L-Corp, against Ayin and Hokma). While serving in the war, he was the figurehead of his group; however, he was just as much a pawn of the military as any of them... much like how Ayin sure seems to be the one in charge and someone for those he's in charge of to look up to... only for it to turn out that he's just as trapped as the other Sephirot, and he had just as many issues as those in the Outskirts lab.

So. The Sinners as a group are cohesively tied to extrapolating on plot points and the characterisation of either Ayin or someone Ayin knew on a very personal level. The other point being "they may even have known him during the Smoke War, give or take."

The Ayin Narrative continues. It isn't about "his story is over," it's about "how do we further explain who he was, and why he did the things that he did." Even if you don't believe that Dante themself is simply amnesiac clock-headed Ayin, these are immutable facts.

Which then takes us on to the other side of the Cantos: the Bad Guys. The Villains. Sometimes even just The Opposition, as there isn't always a clear Good vs. Evil here, and this time I'll be going more in chronological order.

Hermann is Gregor's mother, and she was the one who was the head scientist of the old G Corp, and the head of the current antagonist group in Limbus to the Sinners. She's the one who "trained" Gregor -and when he encounters her in his Fathoms of Ego, it's by way of the manicured hands coming down to crush them, which they cannot escape, to the point that Gregor realises that the only way out is to let her catch them. It's more metaphorical than we'd usually get, but - he truly does exist in the palm of her hand, wouldn't you say?

Rodya's enemy is, really, the Syndicates of the Backstreets, and the system itself - she tries to fight against it, only for it to come back and crush everything around her, leaving her alive. Which is much like the way the Head came down on the Outskirts lab, isn't it? That said,

Sonya, who she had fallen in with, also wanted to change the world... although unlike Carmen, he never (at least, while she knew him) was able to move forward with any of his plans, meaning that people continued to get crushed under the system while he waited for the right time. What is like Carmen, is that he wanted all of the good effects of activism without dirtying his hands himself (Sonya can't argue that he simply let Rodya do her thing, and Carmen outright left the hard work to Ayin when she knew she wouldn't have the heart to go through with it).

Kromer is a religious fanatic who sees humanity as at its purest form when there is only flesh, no prosthetics whatsoever, and will use absolute violence against "heretics." She also isolated Sinclair from the one who would have been a good influence on him, and she used whistling to call to him. She was very attached to Sinclair, and wanted to make him into her own image - as seen in the mirror Identity "The One Who Shall Grip - Sinclair."

Kromer is basically an entire reference to how in Library of Ruina, Roland calls Carmen a "cult leader." Both Kromer and Carmen wanted something that is an unrealistic standard (humans into monsters/humans without any accommodations for disabilities etc) and both have a younger male character under their proverbial wing, in the palm of her hand.

The "bad guys" in Canto IV are not so much a single person or "evil organisation" as they are the Wing and the System of T-Corp, the breaking down of the League of Nine Litterateurs, and then the former members of his friend group coming back, yet this time in opposition to him... just as the Outskirts lab would fold in on itself, before being sold out to the Head, and the Sephirot holding everything against Ayin while he was managing the abnormalities from his office in a time loop.

Ahab of Canto VI is, like with many others, the woman who is so charismatic that she pulls an entire group of people along with her, and although she tells herself that she's doing this for them, and that they're dying in "glory" they... really aren't, and she's driving them off the edge, pulling them along in fanaticism. Ishmael refers to Ahab as her own personal Pallid Whale, recreating Ishmael in her image of endless hatred and violence.

Although Carmen isn't as outright violent as Ahab, she's more... indirectly violent. She knows that the experiments are going to cause deaths, and she sets them up regardless. She draws people in, and stops Ayin from being able to discourage them if they aren't ready. She is the pallid whale to Ayin's mermaid, following after her and becoming just like her. It's only due to the Seed of Light project having his fingerprints at the end that saves him from basically becoming "Adam."

Cathy... is someone who has Carmen's "weak heart," who "dies" because she gains the notion that something has gone wrong (Enoch's death/Heathcliff's absence and misery), who orchestrates events behind the scenes by being the emotion-powered generator of the lab and entire building that she'd altered. Sound familiar? We even have similar imagery there, given we have "Cathy in the coffin" and "Carmen [as] the Bucket."

Canto VII has Don Quixote (no, not that one) and Bari, who aren't even villains, and the bloodfiends, who... okay, kinda are, but the bloodfiends are acting on instinct, having been starved for far too long. Bari is someone who encourages a person who suffers from ennui to have something to look forward to, day after day. She tells him that he suffers from a "sickness of loneliness." He then takes what she's said, and creates an unrealistic dream from it, without thinking of the consequences and without thinking of how to make it a realistic reality.

In other words, Don Quixote (no, still not that one) has a grand dream that causes far more pain than he ever intended, to the point that in both the main world we play in and the mirror universes, the bloodfiends of La Manchaland rise up against him, having been suffering because of good intentions. Just like how Carmen had a grand dream, and because of it caused both her immediate team and then after them untold numbers of people to suffer, and to die for it.

Don Quixote sent Sancho (yes, that one) out on a journey to prove to him that his hypothesis (that bloodfiends and humans can coexist, that Sancho can have a grand adventure and come back better for it) only for Sancho to utterly break as a result, since she couldn't hold all of that on her shoulders on her own... much like after Carmen told Ayin to carry on her work after she was gone, Ayin also utterly broke.

So - not only do we get to see all of these different refractions of Ayin, but we also get to see each one of them faced with a refraction of Carmen. A possibility, a different circumstance,

The end result is that Ayin and Carmen are the threads that keep the Project Moon stories tied together. It is outright impossible to remove either of them from the narrative in any way that matters.

And going back to the title of the entire post:

This from Walpurgisnacht. The dev team and scenario/scriptwriters are well aware of what they're doing. Telling the stories of people who are fucked up human beings who are capable of falling face-flat on the mud and then getting up no matter how long it takes, and breaking their cycles no matter if it's even at the very last moment they could.

And the story of a Manager who keeps on refusing to let their people walk the wrong path.

In the really short:

"So, it's all Ayin and Carmen?" "Always has been."

#project moon #lobotomy corporation #library of ruina #limbus company #prjmn stuff #ayin lobcorp #carmen lobcorp #this took me... way too long

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mumms-the-word · 10 months ago

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Illithid Souls - Part 3

The Case Studies: Karlach and Gale

Welcome to the third and final part of this wild deep dive rabbit hole monstrosity that is the three-part series about illithid souls and whether mind flayers, or specifically you as a mind flayer, have a soul.

If you read Part 1 and Part 2, then you know that yes, illithids have souls, they're just different souls that the gods don't recognize as souls because they're non-apostolic, or incapable of divine worship (as opposed to being apostolic like most humanoid souls). You now also know that you turning into a mind flayer is a bit of a special case because of the Netherese magic in the tadpoles, and this might be why you retain more of your soul than normal mind flayers would.

Also, a quick reminder of the two theories we're working with here: Theory 1 is that when someone becomes a mind flayer they essentially just die and their (apostolic) soul moves on to the Fugue Plane and the mind flayer body just gets a new illithid soul from somewhere. Theory 2 is that when someone becomes a mind flayer their soul is transformed and altered into an illithid soul, which remains tethered to the mind flayer body. BG3 seems to operate more on the Theory 2 side of things, but as we'll see with Karlach and Gale, it's more complicated than you think.

So let's deep dive, shall we?

The Case of Karlach

I'm going to be candid here and say that the mind flayer ending for Karlach makes me really sad, even knowing that there's a very high chance that her soul is mostly intact and she is mostly still Karlach. But there's no denying she's at least a little different, though the game tries to comfort us otherwise after she transforms.

Narrator: *She is transformed. Her body is no longer hers, but her eyes, her heart - she is still Karlach, for now. Only - there's a hunger in her eyes that wasn't there before.*

That "for now" is rather ominous, isn't it? But we have enough evidence from Tav/Durge/other Origins and Orpheus to suggest that the likelihood of her retaining her memories and her personality is very high. In fact, when you talk to her during the epilogue, she does seem mostly the same, though her language has mellowed out to a more formal tone and she speaks less colloquially (and swears less and less).

If you talk to her immediately after she transforms, she marvels that she's still "herself" but also "more," which again reinforces that we all get to be special mind flayers who don't completely lose our souls. But I think there are some interesting lines in this dialogue:

Karlach: This is wild. I'm myself but... but more. Player: I don't like the sound of that. Karlach: Don't worry, soldier. It's still your old pal under all this purple. But suddenly 'I' am different than I ever knew. And my engine, it's... it's... silent. No heat. No gears. Still there, but no longer threatening to explode. Soldier... Player: I guess turning into an illithid has its perks. Karlach: Here I thought I was making a sacrifice. Thank the gods I'm a noble fuck! Shit. I'm gonna be all right. I get to be alive. I get to stay. As a hideous monster, sure. But one that can feel. Think. Live. But I'm still myself. And I know what our mission is. I'm glad I get to the do the honours.

Karlach reiterates over and over that she's still herself, but you can literally hear the change in her voice. Where normally her tone and volume would be boisterous, loud, and energetic, she's now calm and mellow, even when she's swearing. Her tone here is more one of wonder. It isn't just the internal and external fires that have calmed down, her overall demeanor seems "cooler" too.

Also, in her romance ending just before the epilogue, where you're both in the Elfsong Tavern room, you can mention that she does seem a little altered.

Player: I still love you, Karlach. I still want to be with you. Karlach: I love you too. Before, that love was an irrepressible inferno. Now it is a calm, cool object of beauty. Player: I can see you're still yourself, but there's something else in there too. An illithid calm. Karlach: Maybe you're right. I feel less... changeable. Less afraid. I feel ready for whatever is to come.

It doesn't tell us much, but it does reinforce that when we or any of our companions turn into a mind flayer, we likely retain a lot of our former personality, but in a much more calm, even-keeled kind of way. Again going back to the idea that our soul is still there, still mostly the same, but has been made a bit more illithid.

What is more interesting for Karlach, specifically, is her discussion of her diet as a mind flayer. Remember what souls are allegedly made up of? Intelligence, personality, and what else?

Memories.

Karlach: For example, my favourite food used to be mutton chops. Do you know what it is now? Brains, soldier. Brains. Player: Comes with the illithid territory, I suppose. Karlach: True. But I've found ways to maintain my values while respecting that which I am - that which made it possible for me to live. I've made arrangements with a healer in the city. When a patient is beyond saving, but still able to speak for themselves, they're offered a choice. They can go as nature intends to take them. Or, when they're ready - when their goodbyes have been said, their affairs settled, and all that awaits them is pain - I relieve them. When I consume their brains, I am nourished by much more than the physical nutrition. Their memories - from birth to death - become part of me. I've lived hundreds of childhoods, first loves, marriages, feuds and friendships. I remember them all. And in this way, we all live on. Together.

There's so much to unpack here. One, she still remembers her values, even six months later, but is trying to negotiate her former humanoid values (and personality, I imagine) with her needs as a mind flayer. That seems very Karlach, through and through.

But then, when she consumes these dying patients' brains, she absorbs and retains their memories. I imagine their souls still go on to the Fugue Plane, because I highly doubt that mind flayers also consume souls when they eat brains, but it still leaves me with questions. Karlach isn't part of a hivemind, which normally circulates memories between each other, but she's becoming a similar kind of receptacle for memories, and only she is the one that contains them, rather than an entire hivemind.

I have to wonder how much something like constantly consuming and remembering memories that are not your own affects you as a person/creature. Does that eventually lead to a loss of self, as you begin to "live" multiple different lives? Or does it all count as mere knowledge?

In some ways this would put her in competition with any elder brains still out there, but she's also not collecting knowledge for the sake of knowledge. She's collecting memories and living them out in her mind, which is a certain kind of tragedy. She's literally living vicariously through these people because her mind flayer body is too scary to go out and about in, and she's making up for a decade of life she didn't get to live. She's alive, but she's not...living if that makes sense. And again...how long before all these memories start to change who she is?

(An aside. I really don’t think her eating brains and collecting memories keeps someone’s soul from moving on. If you use the spell Speak with Dead, you don’t call back an entire soul, but the corpse still has access to its memories. I think in this case, even though memories make up part of a soul, Karlach consuming brains and collecting memories is more like her downloading a copy of the memories for herself. The dead person likely still takes their own memories with them to the Fugue Plane, where they will be judged by Kelemvor or collected by their favorite deity. She’s just copy/pasting data, not transferring everything from one hard drive to another, if that analogy makes sense.)

This arrangement where Karlach consumes the brains of dying patients is expanded or clarified a bit if you're romancing her during the epilogue, and also includes a reference to souls as well.

Karlach: I can’t wait to say hello, but to be honest, I’m keen to visit the doctor before it gets too late. He said there’s a potential in his infirmary. A very old woman recently diagnosed with a wasting sickness. She seemed interested in what I have to offer. I’ll want to have a good long talk with her before we make an arrangement. Though if I’m being very selfish, I hope she’ll say yes. I’m absolutely famished - and think of all those memories. Player: Glad to hear. I was worried you were getting hungry. Karlach: I don’t hide it well, do I? Some things don’t change, even when everything else does. It’s funny. I’m hungry in my body, but in my soul too. That woman has lived a long life - births, deaths, love, misfortune. And if she agrees, I’ll be able to give her a dignified end, and remember it all in her honour.

Or if you go with a different option:

Player: I'm still not sure how I feel about this arrangement. Are you sure it's ethical to feed on the dying? Karlach: I'm sure of very little these days. But at least this way, I can live. And those who offer themselves to me can live on too. Births, first loves, marriages, losses - I remember them all and always will. Each memory I've consumed is of value.

It's just so interesting to me. One, her remark that she's eager to say hello but slightly more interested in chatting to a doctor about her next meal suggests that some elements of becoming a mind flayer are much harder to ignore. I imagine if she's hungry, she feels less like Karlach. (And I have thoughts, for another post, about whether she becomes "too fixated" on living when she's a mind flayer, given the cost of what it means to stay alive as a mind flayer.)

But she also says she's hungry in her soul. Her soul seems deeply interested in these memories, and I wonder if that's because memories are (or could be) part of souls themselves. Maybe the remark isn't really that deep, but she specifically connects the hunger of her soul to all the memories a long-lived woman will have. It's almost as if these memories nurture her soul, but it's unclear whether that is because it's somehow healing to see and "experience" life in ways she can't now that she's a mind flayer, or if it's because the memories have some kind of tangible effect on her soul/souls in general.

I suppose we won't know for sure. What we do know from Karlach's case, however, is that a great deal of the original soul (personality, memories, etc) seems to stick around even six months later, though there are noticeable changes in personality, such as an overall calm demeanor. There are also hints that consuming brains could lead to further changes down the road, but there's nothing really concrete. Just hints.

In the end, Karlach is still Karlach, and her soul still has plenty of elements of the original Karlach, even six months later. This is a good sign, but we can't completely ignore that her new body/mind as a mind flayer will necessarily mean some things have permanently changed. Whether you judge those changes as good or bad is up to you.

With that said, let's move on to the final and most mind-boggling case.

The Case of Gale

If you play a companion as an Origin run, the mind flayer decision typically works out the same way as Tav...unless you're playing as Gale. Gale gets some extra options at the end of the game.

This is mostly because Gale has perhaps the most apostolic soul that hangs in the balance, second only to Shadowheart, and her soul pendulum swings between Selûne and Shar. Gale, however, seems to be walking on a knife's edge trying to retain or earn back entry into Elysium, Mystra's domain in the Outer Planes. He's allegedly already been there, though not as a dead soul, so he knows what's at stake if his soul suddenly becomes non-apostolic or disappears.

In other words, Gale has a formerly Faithful apostolic soul, but he spends much of the game probably worried his soul will be judged as False when he dies (since he lost Mystra's favor) until Mystra offers her brand of forgiveness, which is essentially "if you sacrifice your own life, I'll let you into Elyisum again." It's a guarantee that he ends up in the afterlife he wants to be in. That's what Mystra's forgiveness really boils down to.

Now, this is a man who does not want to sacrifice his soul, and also (Netherese orb aside) does not want to die if his soul is going to be judged as False by Kelemvor rather than welcomed into Elysium as a Faithful soul. We know that Gale finds the Fugue Plane exceedingly depressing, so I can't imagine he has any desire to wander around it for any stretch of time, even if Mystra does eventually deign to invite him into Elysium. I'm sure the thought of becoming part of the Wall of the Faithless might as well be hell to him.

Gale: It’s a relief to be back in beautiful Faerûn. The dreariness of the Fugue Plane oppresses one’s soul so very quickly.

[mumm's note: yes my man died in service of a Tactician battle against Grym, but he got better]

It's a little surprising to see how adamantly Gale would prefer to choose the Netherese orb over letting himself or anyone he cares for become illithid. Look at some of what he says when he tries to offer the orb as an option for the final battle:

Gale: An easy proposition for the Emperor to make - 'become a mind flayer' - it has no soul to sacrifice. If it did - perhaps it would understand the weight of what it's asking of us. And why we might seek an alternative.

I couldn't get this next dialogue to trigger in my game, but in the same conversation as above you might potentially get the option to remind him about Mystra's offer to cure his orb condition, and even then he reminds you of the stakes that come with becoming a mind flayer.

Player: Mystra will cure you if we bring her the Crown of Karsus. You don't need to do this. Gale: To cure me of the orb, yes. But what of the guilt of allowing one of my friends to sacrifice their very soul and become illithid?

Now keep in mind, up to this point no one has shown any evidence that turning into a mind flayer won't actually mean the total destruction of one's soul. Up until now, the only evidence anyone has of an original soul remaining intact inside a mind flayer body is the Emperor (we have no frame of reference for who Omeluum was before he was a mind flayer), and most of the companions do not trust the Emperor one bit. So Gale genuinely thinks that becoming a mind flayer means your soul is either destroyed or changed so much that it's no longer you.

I mean, think about it. He's half expecting you to take the tadpole the Emperor offers and literally cease to exist. He's expecting to fight alongside a mind flayer who has, at best, your name and a few scraps of your memory, and at worst, no shred of you at all. Because again, up until this point in the game, none of them realize that they could become a special mind flayer who does actually retain most (if not all) of their soul, including their personality and memories.

Gale literally thinks that blowing up and going to the Fugue Plane is better than you or any companion becoming a mind flayer.

But that's in a companion run. Obviously, if you play him as an Origin, you can have him turn into a mind flayer as a different kind of ultimate sacrifice. The decision plays out the same as a Tav/Durge run or any other Origin run. But after the game ends, Gale gets unique dialogue if he (1) sacrifices himself or (2) does not sacrifice himself and goes to meet Mystra with the Crown in hand.

Any run of his sacrifice (aka, using the orb, regardless of whether or not he is illithid) results in Withers finding him in the Fugue Plane for a brief conversation. This conversation isn't much different if Gale is a mind flayer when he uses the orb, since all it does is add an extra option to their conversation that references being illithid ("One illithid for the whole of Faerûn seems like a fair trade to me," which replaces the option "One wizard for the whole of Faerûn...etc").

(An aside, I don't have an Origin Gale run so I can't test this, but I think if he ends his life on the docks as a mind flayer, the way Tav/Durge can with a knife got the stomach, then he just gets the usual Tav/Durge conversation with Withers about how his form has "something of the spirit" about him. See Part 2 if you're curious about that conversation.)

What this conversation with Withers reveals is how much control Mystra seems to have over his soul, especially if/when he's a mind flayer. If Gale decides to sacrifice himself using the Netherese Orb, Withers remarks about how surprising it is that Mystra hasn’t picked him up yet.

Withers: Who flickers there ‘twixt the shadows? Gale, who didst surrender his very self for the salvation of Faerûn. I feared I might not find thee here - that Mystra would have already plucked thy thread from the tapestry of fate. But she may wait a while yet.

It’s a little unclear if Withers uses “plucked thy thread from the tapestry of fate” to mean Gale gets to go to Elysium or something else, and it’s equally unclear whether Mystra waiting is a sign of displeasure or a sign that she is interested in sending Gale back to the Material Plane. She is capable of doing that, after all, and has frequently resurrected her Chosens, like Elminster, if it suits her.

But I highlight this conversation to show that you can get it as a mind flayer, and (if you are a mind flayer during this scene) that Mystra waiting isn't because he's a mind flayer and she can't find his soul. She waits for a minute regardless of whether he's illithid or not. But Withers is certain Mystra will be able to find Gale's soul, because he was able to find Gale's soul and recognize it as Gale.

So, not to harp on this again and again, but it's proof that turning into a mind flayer didn't destroy Gale's soul. It's still Gale's soul, even in the Fugue Plane, even if he's mind-flayer-shaped, and that soul is still capable of journeying to Elysium, should Mystra bother to find it wandering the Fugue Plane (or wherever he is).

But things are a little different if Gale decides to become a mind flayer and then goes to visit Mystra with the Crown of Karsus in hand. Keep in mind, Origin!Gale always has the option to face off against Mystra after the defeat of the Netherbrain, and this face-off is where he decides to hand over the Crown, become the god of ambition, or straight up try to fight Mystra.

However! If Gale is a mind flayer, he gets a secret fourth option.

If Gale goes to meet Mystra as an illithid with the Crown of Karsus and then gives up the Crown to her, Mystra offers to take Gale to Elysium with her. More than that, she offers to literally restore his humanity and cure him of illithidness.

Sort of.

Mystra: So, Gale of Waterdeep, you have become the inheritor of Karsus’ powers at last. What do you intend to do with them? Gale: I came to surrender them. The Crown, the Karsite Weave - take it all. Mystra: This offering cost you greatly. There is no hope in life as an illithid, devoid of soul and conscience. It is within my power to restore your soul, and your humanity, if you are willing to leave the mortal realms behind. Return with me, to Elysium.

No one else is offering this kind of deal to an Origin-turned-mind-flayer. Selûne and Shar don’t care if Shadowheart turns illithid, and Withers isn’t exactly offering to restore souls and humanity (or…mortalness?) to everyone else. This is a signifier of the sheer amount of power Mystra has, yes, but this also hints at some other things.

One, despite evidence of the contrary, Mystra is adamant that Gale-as-illithid is or would be “devoid of soul and conscience,” even though we know that that likely isn’t true (just see Karlach, Tav/Durge, etc). Perhaps Mystra is unaware that Gale is a Special Mind Flayer (seems unlikely), or perhaps she’s simply trying to convince Gale to come with her. After all, what she’s offering is still a kind of reward.

Then again, maybe Gale and/or Mystra fear the long-term effects of illithidness. Maybe over time he would become less and less like Gale, perhaps due to consuming memories, or other factors that come with being a mind flayer. Still, though, saying that his life would be "devoid of soul and conscience" seems like a massive stretch on Mystra's part.

But anyway, the reward for him turning into a mind flayer and giving her the Crown is a restoration of his humanity...but only in death.

Mystra: Return with me, to Elysium. Devnote: respectful - Gale sacrificed his humanity to achieve what she asked. If he’s willing to die on the mortal planes, she will restore his soul and body but in the heavens.

Now before I get to what happens if Gale agrees to this reward, I want to point out that Mystra herself sort of acknowledges that Gale isn't exactly devoid of soul and conscience if he refuses her offer. Here are some of the ways Gale can turn her down, with her answer to each option being the same:

Gale: [Option 1] Thank you, but no. I have someone waiting for me. Gale: [Option 2] Perhaps one day, but for now there is more I need to accomplish. Gale: [Option 3] Being an illithid has its advantages. I'm content as I am. Mystra: Then you are free to go with both my thanks and my promise - henceforth, your prayers will always be answered.

The whole idea of an apostolic soul is that it means the person is capable of worshipping a divine being, and this worship ncludes prayers. She might have said that him being illithid would mean he would be devoid of soul and conscience, but in nearly the same breath she promises to answer all his prayers. So she recognizes something of a soul within him. So why say he would be devoid of soul?

Of course, things get weird if Gale accepts her offer to be restored and go to Elyisum. If Gale agrees, then she fulfills her promise and even restores his place as one of her Chosen.

Gale: I crave nothing more. Take me to Elysium. Mystra: So be it. Gale of Waterdeep, Chosen of Mystra. Cinematic Tag: Mystra transforms Mindflayer Gale back to his human form (hollow) and grabs Gale’s hand. They return to Elysium.

This is wild to me. You see, originally when I started this project I thought I was going to be writing posts about how interesting it is that when you become a mind flayer, your soul is probably hanging out in the Fugue Plane or something, and eventually I’d suggest that Mystra is able to restore Gale’s soul to him because it’s already gone to her domain or she knows how to find it because he used to be so faithful to her. But none of that works now.

Because now I’m convinced that the Netherese tadpole changes everyone into a Special Mind Flayer whose soul is still present in their mind flayer bodies, just altered or transformed. So what’s up with this stuff from Mystra? She recognizes Gale as Gale even when he's a mind flayer and promises to answer his prayers, so clearly there's some kind of apostolic soul thing going on here. So why does she offer to "restore his soul," and also, why only in death?

She does say that she will restore Gale’s humanity, so now I assume that somehow her powers allow her to un-alter Gale’s soul so that it isn’t so illithid anymore. My idea is that she’s essentially restoring his soul to its former state and not, as we might otherwise infer, literally giving him his soul back, as if it were separate from his body. Gale’s soul is still in his mind flayer body, if all the rest of the evidence holds any water, so Mystra must have merely changed it back to the way it was.

quick picture break, this is from Northalix's video, linked below

Which makes me wonder, can a completely original, apostolic-type soul exist in an illithid body? Or does the body dictate that the soul must be somewhat illithid in order to be compatible?

Because the thing is, this deal comes with an ultimatum. She’s not going to let him go back to the mortal realms after she’s restored his soul. She probably could—she’s probably capable of doing that, if only by giving him a completely new body (she's done that before with Elminster). But she doesn’t. The cure comes with a cost. He only gets to be human again if he agrees to die completely and join her in Elysium. There is no undoing the illithid sacrifice, which seems more like a game limitation than a Mystra limitation (although we can certainly brainstorm reasons why Mystra would be so petty as to basically say "I can make you human again but only if you die completely.")

I want to point out that Mystra doesn't offer to let Gale come back to Elysium as a dead guy if he's not a mind flayer. Like, we don't get the sparkly ascension scene if he blows up with the Netherese orb, we get the Withers visit in the Fugue Plane. This Elysium offer is an illithid-only option. If he's not a mind flayer and he returns the Crown, she cures him of the Netherese Orb and sends him back. There's no option to join her in Elysium. Why is this an illithid-only option?

Also, just...I need you to watch the scene.

youtube

There's a lot that bothers me about this. One, the gestures she makes are the exact gestures God!Gale makes when he ascends Tav/Durge if they romanced him and agreed to become a god with him. Do with that what you will. But two...it just gives me the ick. This is a different kind of ascension for Gale. It's a restoration of his place in Elysium, but it ultimately means his premature death. If this is the route you take as him...it's hardly better than him sacrificing himself using the Netherese Orb without becoming a mind flayer. Only this time, we get to see the scene where he goes to Elysium, I guess.

It also massively complicates the whole idea that everyone gets to be a special mind flayer with a mostly-intact, mostly-apostolic soul. If the soul didn't change, why does Mystra need to "restore" it? And if it did change, why is Mystra the only one capable of un-changing it back to its original form (is it because he’s her Chosen and is/was so faithful)?And if such a thing is possible, why offer it and then say "but you're dead now"?

It seems as though her "fixing" Gale's soul was really just her...I don't know, separating it from his physical mind flayer body so the illithid anatomy wouldn't mess with it as much, and then dusting off his soul, which is now bodyless, and taking it with her to Elysium. I'm not saying that's what she did, but that's the weird vibes I get from this interaction. Like, there seems to be some kind of implication that you can't have a fully humanoid, apostolic soul housed within an illithid body. The soul has to be altered somehow to work with the illithid body.

So why not just give him a new body, Mystra??? Fix is soul and give him a new body! You’re absolutely capable of that!

I have so many questions.

Of course, keep in mind that Gale can reject her, obviously, and return to the mortal realms as a mind flayer. She does acknowledge that he has at least something of a soul that can pray to her so...I mean, there's that.

Anyways, what have we learned?

The Summary

With Karlach, we see that being a mind flayer does necessarily change parts of a person's personality (which, again, is part of their soul). Usually this results in a person seeming calmer, more mellow, less emotional than they normally would have been, but it does seem that for Tav/Durge, the companions, and Orpheus that turning into a mind flayer doesn't completely destroy their soul. It just seems to alter it a bit. In my opinion, the soul just becomes a tiny bit more illithid. Karlach’s case does leave us with questions about how “good” consuming and retaining so many memories might be in the long run, but as of six months post-ceremorphosis, she seems fine.

From Gale, we learn that apparently it's possible to restore or un-alter a partly-illithid soul so that it goes back to normal, but this power is extremely rare and likely relegated to the gods alone (or a particularly powerful Wish spell). We're also reminded that keeping recognizable parts of one's soul, like the personality and memories, is a huge surprise, because that's not how normal mind flayers work. We know this from Orpheus, but Gale just kinda reinforced it.

I guess we also learned that Mystra is a massive—but I should keep this civil. We all know what Mystra is.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that she's unwilling to accept Gale into her domain while he is still a mind flayer, even though his soul obviously would fit the bill based on what a soul is/does for the gods. He has a viable apostolic soul, it’s just mind-flayer-shaped!I'm sure Mystra thinks she's being magnanimous by offering him eternity as a human in Elysium, but I think it ultimately just shows how shallow she can be. Gale only gets to come back if he’s not mind flayer shaped.

And I think, deep down, Gale has always suspected that would be the case.

And on that familiar note, my friends, thank you for joining me on this excessively long deep dive into mind flayer souls and things we can learn from the game and the lore.

~*~*~

If you made it to the end, congrats! More gold stars for you!

✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨

If you read through all three parts and also made it to the end of this one, you are the real MVP and I wish I had stickers or achievements to give you so you can be like "I survived another three-part deep dive from mumm." But I don't even have a lousy T-Shirt to offer you.

You can have this random picture instead though :> it's my Tav Dani looking very unimpressed by the Emperor's offer of sexy times (sorry not sorry Empy, she's got a man and his name is Gale and she prefers him and all her friends to be tentacle-free)

Enjoy the lore and remember that it's all up to you to decide what you want to keep or reject! I'm just showing you what's out there!

Tags for those who wanted an update! @galesdevoteewife @stuffforthestash

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 meta #bg3 lore #bg3 deep dive #bg3 discourse #gale #gale dekarios #karlach #mind flayer #IT'S DONE #this is the wildest one I think and the one I wanted to write the most so #yay #why do I DO THIS to myself omg

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qwimblenorrisstan · 2 months ago

Text

Oh my god I just finished the Black Ops 6 campaign and whaaaat this game is a masterpiece

(spoilers under the cut, as well as a big rant about my favorite stuff+ theories and parallels between characters I noticed)

You’re telling me that this entire time the mole that probably got Alex Mason, Hudson, and almost Woods killed was (or implied to be) JANE?? And the reason Adler got framed for it was because Jane had convinced herself that Adler had been the one to murder her parents (even though he hadn’t been…)

I never liked Adler much because he just seemed cocky and overconfident to me, but he also wasn’t stupid judging by the billion little cassettes he left around, and the connections he had.

I also love the mentions of Alex Mason, mainly because the Black Ops 1 & 2 campaigns were the first I ever played, so that silly schizophrenic man and his kid hold a special place in my heart.

There were also sooo many hidden details. Like the puzzles in the house, where first you have to get to the boiler room and fix that, then use the black light, find hidden messages on the WALLS, play the piano in that order, go down the secret stairs, do a keypad version of wordle, hack into a computer, then solve some riddle just for 1000 bucks?? Insane.

I loved the level of detail in this game because it really felt more authentic to me. Like did you know that Adler played football in highschool (I think as a linebacker), or that he got his face scars from jumping out of a second story window face first? All just random dialogue. Or the NPC dialogue, where it’ll range from talking about “turning in for the night” to someone’s wife having a torrid affair with her husbands knowing consent?? (yes I did actually hear this dialogue in game)

Something I’m still wondering about is if the person who was talking to Case (in his head) was the devious version of Jane, because we see the voice telling Case to kill Jane in the very end, and seeming angry at Pantheon, which makes me think it might be the version of Jane that Case knew before she went evil. Another reason why I think this is because while Case is under the effect of the mystery gas and therefore the voices, we see Adler being the monster in most cases, with the dialogue even being “I knew we couldn’t trust him,” once, which I think further shows Jane’s delusion even while not fully being evil yet.

Also, the whole schizophrenic “voices in his head” seemed a whole lot like Alex Mason, too. I’m surprised Woods didn’t bring it up, especially because he even noticed Case being out of it a few times and asking if he was still with him. In Black Ops 2 we hear Woods telling David Mason (Alex’s son) that he would “notice him get that look in his eye again, like he wasn’t really there with me” and I think that’s an interesting parallel.

But, if Case survived the whole being infected by the Cradle (even though the voice told him he wasn’t affected by it earlier on in the game?) and being underneath the sea in a crashed helicopter, I wonder if Woods and the rest of his little crew would’ve figured out about it.

If you go through the house right before one of the last missions before it becomes inaccessible, you see almost every character having their own folder in their room, with Felix having one that mentions his worries about Case’s “growing instability”. Felix mentions Case’s nightmares and how he says “Pantheon” in his sleep and whatnot, even saying he might not be stable on missions after his earlier interaction with the mystery gas that made him spaz out.

I think Case even wanted to tell them, with the first dialogue option after the hallucination mission you can have with Woods is you trying to tell him, but being stopped by the voice. In the end, I think they would’ve found out anyway, probably due to something like Felix getting into old footage from Pantheon’s experiments or Case finally being able to talk about it with Jane dead.

Something I also liked was the pacing of the game. It wasn’t all just blazing guns and glory, there were moments where you had to take things slow, had to sneak around, blend in, hide bodies, and I loved the puzzle aspect. One thing I also liked was the mission where you could roam the dessert and choose your objectives.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good action mission, but something about watching Felix stir random vegetable stew while talking to me about the value of human life was nice too. There were also a few mission where I was super tense and it felt more like a horror game, and some where I was giggling.

Honestly, I just need Case to be alive, and then to fix the old house up and live happily ever after while Woods helps raise Alex Mason’s kid. I just need them to all work out their trauma together, for Felix and Sevati to either get together or become best friends, and for them to be a big happy family.

Sorry for the rant, I got a little bit excited.

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neverpathia · 1 month ago

Note

I know you love them but I still wanna hear more of your thoughts on them,so Paranoid for the send me a character ask,please!

I think I know who you are. The one with the Gengar profile picture, aren't you? But WAHOOOOO I was quite frankly waiting for this.

really love how Oppy calls him Jitters in your tongues and teeth fic like that's so cute?? love how you write him in general i'm gonna be ngl

Now, I was gonna doodle a little Para for this ask, but the art block hit and then I just kinda moped around for a little. So instead, I guess I'll just answer this straight away because god do I have stuff to say about this little guy.

favourite thing about them

Ummm. This is a tough one. His sass. His snark. His competence. His whispery little tone. His characterization. His insanity. The way he resonates with the construct as a whole. His iconic mantra. His laugh. Him. Okay, how the fuck am I supposed to choose—

Special mention goes to his laugh in Apotheosis, though, because that made me fall head over heels in love with this little guy.

But I do also love how much of a breath of fresh air he is. He's not just scared. Paranoia is an insane thing, and it's made very clear just how far he'd go to survive and exist in spite of it all. Or perhaps because of it.

I also REALLY love his capacity for spite and resentment as I've talked about in this post here lol. He's not just a cowering little thing; he's sniping the entire way through. But at the same time, he also has so much potential for hope and recovery. There's a lot you can do with someone so batshit insane, after all.

least favourite thing about them

Now I obviously don't really have any gripes about him as a character at all, but I am a little miffed about how he's in Happily Ever After. The chapter doesn't bring much to him, and he doesn't bring much to the chapter either.

They really should've put him in PatD instead, he would've been so hot in there and it'd have been pretty interesting to see it play out. We didn't really see enough of his bad side in the game, and although I do love how much he helps us as the Long Quiet, we do have to remember that he's as vengeful as he's desperate. I wish we'd seen that used against us.

favourite line

You're expecting me to choose????? Once more????? Are you fucking kidding me?????

But I'll just settle for his iconic heart-lungs-liver-nerves mantra, because who doesn't love it. It's the most Paranoid thing in the game. It's also really hot.

Honorary mention goes to "Oh, that's right! Yeah, no. Fuck this guy." Forgot how it actually went but god. Hilarious.

brOTP

I don't know if this is surprising, but ParaCheated, or High Stakes as I like to call it.

I like to think they're akin to a very exasperated doctor and a very irresponsible patient. Like a bodyguard desperately trying to rein in a reckless ward. Cheated throws stuff at the wall. Paranoid catches it, then chucks it back at Cheated's forehead while giving him the stink eye. They're best friends. They're both unhinged.

And they have the best complain fests ever. Both of them teaching each other new swears as they bond over conspiracy theories. On the other hand, when they get into debates, you bet there's dirty looks and savage comebacks thrown everywhere. Cheated, inexplicably, loses every time.

But they do end up caring about each other a lot. Paranoid's always there for Cheated's chronic pain. Cheated's always there for Paranoid's panic attacks and anxiety. They're not perfect, but they help each other the best they can. And if you ever hurt one, the other's always waiting with a nice little quarterstaff (Paranoid's) or bayonet (Cheated's) brandished for you.

OTP

ParaHero. Just, Paranoid and Hero.

On the surface, Hero's so dependable and so trustworthy, and yet he shoulders his own burdens. The guilt of never doing the right thing; the indecision that comes with being the voice of reason. Hesitation and apprehension.

And Paranoid would know. Hero would obviously comfort his anxieties away, but Paranoid's the only one who can truly get to Hero. The only one who knows how it feels to be teetering on such a fragile string, with each decision leading to a wrong outcome. And they're the only ones they can let each other be truly vulnerable with.

They argue a lot (lighthearted and cosy) and there's so much gay tension going on. A crap ton of bickering and sarcastic banter and will-they-won't-they. Paranoid is very prickly about it, but he hides his face and blushes into his hands. Hero rolls his eyes and smiles and retorts.

But at the same time they snuggle together and they're both trying their best. Hero gives Paranoid space when he needs it but I do see them being quite touchy, with Hero being a bit of a grounding presence for Para. Hero learns his habits and his tics and shines a little light through the cracks between all his barriers.

As for Paranoid, he's always there for Hero too. He actually lets him be himself. No expectations, just a nagging little presence to bandage his wounds and prepare his supplies for the next quest. Someone who's always there no matter what. Someone who genuinely cares for the scared little voice behind the armour. The warrior and the healer. Gay.

And in the end it's not something that needs to be said. They're close. They love and want each other. One learns to trust and one learns to exist. And they won't even think about letting go.

nOTP

Paranoid x Nightmare. I know there are ways that this could work, but personally, it gets a 'nah bro' from me.

I do like the idea of Paranoid and Clarity making amends and moving on, but I just don't see them romantically in any way. I do headcanon that Paranoid feels very guilty for what Nightmare/Clarity has become, especially when he thinks about it post-construct, but I really don't think he'd actively seek her out. He's very conflicted about her in my AU.

random headcanon

Total nerd. His range of knowledge is a little strange, and he has the answers for the most random questions out there. For trusty, dependable facts, you go to Skeptic. For random tidbits of information that you're probably never gonna need anytime in your life, you go to Paranoid.

On an unrelated note, medic Paranoid my beloved...except he's also overworked, stressed about it 24/7, and frustratedly scribbling down potential ailments in a tattered notebook as two thousand different medicines and concoctions boil beside his workbenches. He multitasks too much. Also worries a lot about fucking it up, not that he'd let anyone else close to the job either way.

Also, he's grown to despise his little heart-lungs-liver-nerves chant. He still uses it when overly anxious, but it's become a symbol of what he is and what he doesn't want to be anymore.

unpopular opinion

In a post-construct AU he'd probably be doing kinda shit in the long run, assuming the other voices don't intervene enough. Oh, at first he's very helpful indeed, and then he descends into his own paranoia.

He's not just another rational fellow here to help you survive. He can genuinely get pretty insane. And his fears are quite justified in the base game because it's Slay the Princess, but take him out of a high-stakes situation and I don't think he's going to fare well.

song I associate with them

Panic Room by AuRa is kind of a given lol.

For how blorbo he is, you'd be surprised how little songs I actually think about in relation to him, but there are a few lines from Cotard's Solution that do remind me of him too. If it's a little bit off later on.

favourite image

uhhhh.

from the canon. he's a disembodied voice so

Oh but if we're talking about my favourite image in fanon I would probably settle for him.

[DIES]

PARANOIDDDD COME ON NOW, NIGHTMARE AIN'T TREATING YOU RIGHT, YOU COULD GIVE ME A CHANCE

#slay the princess #stp #stp voices #voice of the paranoid #sorry this took so long oof

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crimsonhydrangeavn · 6 months ago

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Hey there! I'm here to simp for Garret, as usual, but I have another reason to gush today—I absolutely adore your drawing style! Whether it's the colors, the character designs, or the scenes, I just love it all. One of my favorite things, though, has to be the characters' facial expressions—they are all just beautiful!

Marcelo's surprised face? Perfect. Rita's blushing cheeks? Adorable. Camilla's entire design? Has a special place in my heart. And don't even get me started on Teagan's smile—it's so cute, it's almost unfair. But, of course, my ultimate favorite is Garret. I can't handle it when he furrows his eyebrows, whether he's pissed off or has that smug look like he's just hit the jackpot. It's all just so perfect!

Anyway, I do have a question for you—do you have any tips for creating character designs? I feel like the way your characters look perfectly matches the vibe they give off, and I'm starting to work on my own visual novel, but I'm having a hard time nailing down the character designs and I felt I could find good advice from you.

Additionally, I apologize in advance for all the fangirling and for my poor English. I hope nothing I said came across as rude or inconvenient, truly 🙏.

Thanks so much, and I hope you have a fantastic day! ❤🌻

Thank you so much for your incredibly sweet ask! Please, please, please NEVER apologize for gushing about characters for fangirling over them! It always brings a massive smile to my face and I really appreciate hearing how much you enjoy them! <3 I'm incredibly flattered that you reached out to me for advice on character creation and I'll do my best to share my process with you! Granted there are a million different ways to do things so these are just a few things that I've found that helps me in the creation process.

I'll give you a little background about me and my character/story creation journey so you can get a better understanding of my background in writing/character development.

You see I've been a huge fan of text roleplay for the majority of my life. I actually started roleplaying on gaiaonline when I was 12 and I've been doing it ever since. ( Almost 20 years at this point! damn am I old lol) As a result I've had a lot of practice creating and interacting with different kinds of characters in different settings. I've also been playing DnD on and off since high school. That being said, I've had time to refine my craft and create characters that I personally really enjoy and align with to some degree. ( And hopefully you do too!)

That being said, I'll list a few tips and tricks I've picked up over the years below!

Anatomy is key! Yes, my characters are stylized, however I spent a long time studying anatomy and getting a solid sense of proportions, ratios, and musculature. Am I perfect? Absolutely not, but I'm at the point that I can usually notice if there's a glaring error/ something looks really off.

Make sure to put all of the characters in a line up once they're designed! Are their heads the same size? What about their hands and feet? Some slight variations are natural, but if one character's head is noticeably larger than the others, then I'd take the time to adjust. The same could be said for colors. Is one character SUPER saturated while the others are more muted? Unless they're supposed to stand out, consider reworking the colors to make them feel a bit more cohesive.

A basic understanding of color theory is always a bonus in my book! I'd also consider making a general color palette for your game. That way it'll help you make sure everything looks and feels as though it's in the same world.

When I first create a character, I try to think of a general concept of what I want them to be. What's their general vibe? What do they look like? What's their personality like? Ect. Once I have a general vibe down, I try and do a bit of visual research on tiktok, pinterest, tumblr, google, ect. For example, I might have a general idea of what a typical frat bro or sorority girl looks like, but until I actually do the research and look into the kinds of things they wear, how they speak, and their general lifestyle, and real life examples of these kinds of people they'll feel like a flat caricatures of what they actually are.

Then, once I have the general vibe nailed down I start doodling them and playing around with different hairstyles, outfits, body types, ect. I actually have a few different different versions of all of the characters for Crimson Hydrangea! I rarely end up going with my first sketch/ concept when it comes to most of my characters. I also like exploring with different skin tones, colors, and textures/designs.

It takes a lot of thought and trail and error, but once I finally create a character that I'm visually happy with, I really start delving into their personality, backstories, and general psyche. What are their likes, dislikes, positive traits, and flaws? What are their motivations, fears, and traumas? How self aware are they? Then I start asking myself slightly more introspective questions to help me relate to the characters a bit more. What about this character resonates with me? How can I make this character feel more real? What are some traits that we share? For example, Garret inherited my unhealthy perfectionism, Marcelo inherited my love of food and desire to make sure those around me are happy and comfortable, Camilla inherited my sarcastic sense of humor, Rita inherited my unyielding sense of responsibility and unhealthy work-a-holic tendencies, and Teagan inherited my deep rooted insecurities. Granted most of these characters take it to a completely new level than I do in my real life, but at least on a basic level I can relate to them and understand their motivations. That being said, I don't think all of your characters need to inherit a specific trait of yours, it's just something I recently realized I tend to do on a subconscious level to help me write them with a bit more depth.

Let your characters develop a life of their own within your story. It's okay if they end up changing from your initial concept. People in real life are complex and don't always fit into a specific mold no matter how hard they try. They grow and change over time, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. Do what feels right for the story you're trying to tell. For example, Garret was originally supposed to be more calculated and methodical. Marcelo was originally supposed to be a lot more laid back and go with the flow. However when I actually started writing them in specific scenarios I realized that they're far more complex than a simplified list of traits. Flaws and weaknesses make them feel so much more real than a "perfect" gary/mary stu.

When it comes to facial expressions, I usually have a small mirror on my desk to observe and reference specific expressions I'm trying to convey. In addition to using the mirror as a reference point, I also tend to make whatever face I'm drawing as I'm drawing it. It's a little silly, but I find it really helpful feeling my facial muscles recreate the same expression. It helps me figure out what the brows, eyes, and mouth are doing at the same time. It's gotten to the point of doing it subconsciously whenever I work/animate/draw. (Fortunately I usually work from home so no one has to see my weird expressions lol)

I think the final and most important tip you should take to heart is to create characters you genuinely enjoy. It'll also help you stay motivated to keep writing them and developing the story, especially early on in the creation process.

Hopefully you found my rambling helpful! It ended up being a bit more of a brain dump than I originally intended haha. That being said, I'd love to see what kind of characters and game you end up creating in the future! <3

#yanderes #yandere #original character #yandere visual novel #crimson hydrangea #yandere vn #ask #crimson hydrangea vn #visual novel #male yandere

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poppitron360 · 3 months ago

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saw your post abt epic & music theory! Are there any interesting time signatures (non-4/4), key signatures, or tempo changes in epic?

and/or something similar?

Yes!! Charybdis is actually in 5/4!!

For the normies out there, the “4” on the bottom refers to the fact that the bar is counted in Crotchets (or quarter notes if you’re American). The number on the top refers to the amount of them that there are- i.e 5/4 being five quarter notes. Most music you hear is gonna be in 4/4, but another song you might know that have 5/4 time is “tolerate it” by Taylor Swift.

Now Jorge has said many times that one of his main influences in writing Epic is videogame music. I recently watched a video about time sigs in music for nintendo games- linking that vid here (part 1, part 2)- and one thing I noticed is that the “weirder” (translation: more awesome) the time sig got, the more often it was used in a boss battle. Charybdis DEFINITELY feels like a boss battle.

“I told myself I’d never write a song in 5/4 […] And the one idea that kept coming into my head was this idea that Charybdis throws Odysseus’ balance off. The same way 5/4 initially threw my balance off.” - Jorge, in one of his videos explaining how he made Charybdis’ music. Now what’s special about 5/4 specifically, is that it’s SO CLOSE to 4/4. SO CLOSE to what our brains are accustomed to hearing, to what sounds “right” and “natural”, but it’s just that one extra note that throws us off.

At this point in the story, Ody has lost everything. He’s back after 7 years on Calypso’s island, and he’s changed. I love how with each progressing Saga the music gets darker and wilder (re: my post about Scylla being my all-time fav in Epic in terms of music production and composition). The fact that this is the only song in non-4/4 makes it stand out. It throws us off.

Also, the little intro bit to the song (before the electric guitar kicks in)- it’s hard to tell but I believe it’s in 4/4. This is showing that it’s before we meet Charybdis.

What’s interesting to me is that after Ody survives Charybdis and sees Ithica again after 20 years, his instrument switches back to his gentle nylon-string guitar, but the music doesn’t switch back to 4/4. It stays with that extra beat. Odysseus is still shaken.

Even though he’s home, he will always be looking over his shoulder at what’s behind him. He will always be flinching at every noise. He will always see the faces of the men he was responsible for in his nightmares.

It could just be that Jay didn’t wanna have to write the melody in mixed meter, but I prefer this interpretation.

In music, we often count odd time signatures in smaller chunks, which can differ depending on the way that it’s phrased (e.g 10/8 could be counted as “one two three, one two, one two, one two three” OR “one two, one two three, one two three, one two”). What’s interesting about this specific use of 5/4 is that it’s counted as “one two three, one two”. In the video I referenced earlier, Jorge explains his struggles to get a song in 5/4 to be “catchy”. The way he tackled this was to have each instrument + the vocals highlight this rhythm. So even though Ody is being thrown off by Charybdis, he is still in control.

Let’s look at how the melody in the verse reinforces this:

The first four beats of the bar are completely conjunct (moving in steps)- staying within three notes of the root note (1st note in the scale). Then on the 5th beat (the one that throws you off) goes lower than the root:

1 2 3 1 2

You be Her men

must who mes

tioned-

This solidifies the feeling of being thrown off, showing not only how Charybdis but this whole voyage has shaken Odysseus, which makes Poseidon’s appearance afterwards even more terrifying, because we as listeners are completely disorientated by this effect.

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deerseye · 5 months ago

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Blind Man Cassidy — The greatest NPC ever created.

Blind Man Cassidy has got to be the smartest and most thought out NPC in RDR2, and I have several arguments as to why that is.

Yes, I am slightly biased given my already extreme obsession with symbolism & foreshadowing.. But honestly how can you not like Old Man Cassidy. I recently just watched a full analysis on his “fortune tellings” ( which i will link here ) & when I tell you how perfectly his readings fit.. I was pretty stunned.

There’s one quote in particular that stands out to me, and this is one I’ve already analyzed and picked apart myself — and it’s “Your whole life, sir, you have followed the wrong star.” Obviously what he’s hinting at is Dutch, given the fact Arthur was with him practically from the very beginning, but this quote can go so much deeper than that. (or I might just be going crazy bc i have an addiction to over-analyzing things). The use of the word star, though. There are plenty of other ways & words he could have used. Something to do with paths, or destiny — but he used something specific. A star.

Made out to be these beautiful things, and in poetry they’re used to represent hope & inspiration. But in reality, they’re just clumps of burning gasses. So while they may look pretty, the fact of the matter is that up close they’re nothing too special or sophisticated — rather a mess and a bunch of heat forming together to be made out as something they’re not. You see what I’m getting at here..

I might be stretching the idea out here, but the way that Old Man Cassidy phrases and constructs his words and tellings is obviously no coincidence. The writers & devs lowkey outdid themselves with this single NPC that you dont even see all that much (unless you’re really lookin for him.)

anyways. yap party. i love symbolism and game theories, i have so many ideas & opinions on rdr2 its insane. i love hearing abt other ppls theories so.. please🙏 send them my way

#rdr2 micah #rdr 2 #rdr2 arthur #rdr2 scenery #red dead redemption community #rdr2 art #red dead redemption 2 #jovier #red dead fandom #red dead 2 #red dead redemption #red dead #red dead theories

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brightstarblogs · 1 year ago

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RainCode Honorifics!

First let me preface this by saying I'm not Japanese so there may be a few mistakes in this post.

I haven't seen anyone else make a post on this so I figured I'd do it myself. I've always found honorifics interesting in Japanese media and often include them in my fics. RainCode is a little different however because all characters go by their first names instead of surnames which most Japanese media typically use (since most surnames are westernized/wacky). This interested me so I wanted to do a little research!

But yeah, if you want to use honorifics in your own fics or just find Japanese linguistics interesting, I hope you enjoy this post! It has taken me 3-4 months to compile this list.

Spoilers ahead!

Yuma: Typically Yuma uses -san when referring to other characters. However there are a few exceptions to this. Yuma uses -chan to refer to Shinigami (because she asked him too) and with Kurumi. He also changes to using -kun for Desuhiko after they arrive at Aetheria Academy in chapter 2/Gum shoe gab 2 to show they're friends (but this could be to reciprocate the fact Desuhiko changed from using Rookie to My man). He does not use any honorifics for the peacekeepers (Yomi, Martina, etc) to show he doesn't respect them and Makoto (Although he will use -san when talking to Makoto). He also doesn't use honorifics on Aiko, Karen, Waruna, Yoshiko and Kurane, although he does use -san when speaking to other students in the investigation.

Shinigami: She tends to not use any honorifics and instead uses nicknames. Most notably Akuma-chan for Halara (Hellara in the dub). When she does use a character's name it is with no honorific. I did notice she uses -dono in the gum shoe gabs when saying Yuma's bond with a character has deepened. -dono is often used in writing letters/emails, but also is used in a lot of fantasy media/JRPGs. Shinigami does reference Dragon Quest in the dub so perhaps this is just her being a nerd (Special thanks too @/rararazaquato for pointing this out). If you want to know more about the nicknames she gives the NDA in Japanese, please look at this post!

Halara: They use no honorifics for any character. The only time I heard them use one was in their DLC when they use -san for their client (They do not use Tetra's name though. They say Ojo-san).

Desuhiko: He also doesn't tend use honorifics. Unlike Halara though he uses nicknames. He refers to Fubuki as Ojou, which translates as Young lady/princess. He uses -chan for Shinigami and Kurumi but also when referring to female characters like Guillaume and NPCs where he'll say neko-chan. He also calls Yuma Rookie until they arrive at Aetheria Academy, where he changes to My man for the rest of the game.

Fubuki: Uses -san for every character.

Vivia: Uses -kun for most characters. He doesn't use honorifics for Yomi or Makoto, and uses -chan for Kurumi

Yakou: Like Halara and Desuhiko, Yakou tends not to use honorifics but there are a few exceptions. He uses -chan for Fubuki and Kurumi. He also calls Seth -sensei when he was trying to deescalate the situation in chapter 1. He uses -san for Tetra, so I think he uses honorifics with clients. I don't know for certain but that's my theory.

Kurumi: Now, Kurumi tends to use -san for most characters. She used -san with Yuma when they first meet, but switches to -chan when he is in disguise in the school to help blend in. She then uses -kun from chapter 3 onwards (and once in chapter 2 when she's held by a peacekeeper, but Yuma doesn't hear her). She doesn't use honorifics with Akio, Karen, Waruna, Yoshiko, Kurane and Shachi.

Makoto: He uses a variety of honorifics. He tends not to use any for Yuma, but also does say -kun. He also uses -kun for both Yomi and Martina/Suwaro. He also uses -chan for Kurumi.

Now onto minor characters where it gets a little difficult due to screen time.

Pucci: Uses -san for Zange so maybe uses -san for other cast members.

Melami: I didn't hear her use any honorifics as she doesn't refer to others by name and tends to use nicknames.

Zange: He didn't call any character by their name so I have no idea unfortunately.

Aphex: Used nicknames so again, I am not sure.

Zilch(?)/Hitman: In chapter 1 he uses -kun for both Yuma and Aphex. He did not address the rest of the cast by name so I have no idea if he'd use -san or -kun for Pucci or Melami. Even then I don't know if that was an act as he is an imposter. He uses -sama however for Yomi in chapter 5 when you find him as a zombie.

Martina: Fun fact, she is actually called Suwaro/Swallow in the Japanese sub! I don't know why her name is changed but this was a fun surprise. She uses -sama for both Yomi and Makoto. She doesn't use names for the NDA.

Swank: He didn't use any names, but I included him because like Martina, his name was changed. Originally he was called Spank in the Japanese sub.

Yomi: Only ever called Martina by her name with no honorific.

Seth: Like most peacekeepers he calls Yomi by -sama.

Guillaume: She tends to refer to Dominic by just his name, along with Shachi. She however does use -sama for Yomi like the other peacekeepers.

Priest: Uses -san for the clock-maker

Teacher: Although this is Desuhiko, in disguise he calls Kurumi by -san.

Yoshiko: No honorifics

Kurane: No honorifics

Waruna: No honorifics

Shachi: No honorifics

Iruka: Uses -san for Yuma but no honorifics for Shachi.

Servan: Doesn't use honorifics for other resistant members, but uses -kun for Yuma

Icardi: No honorifics

Margulaw: No honorifics

Ramen man: Uses -chan for Kurumi. Not sure what he'd use for other characters.

Enyne: Before she reveals her identity she uses -san for Desuhiko

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rotcreature · 1 month ago

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Wilderose: The Canceled DLC

This is my fan theory post, so be warned I will be going over spoilers of Little Goody Two Shoes and Pocket Mirror!!!

As a lot of fans know, last year was Little Goody Two Shoes' first-year anniversary! Well, as a celebration the Astralshift team posted a retrospective of the game on Steam. They had planned for a LGTS DLC called Wilderose-- yet it was canceled, for whatever reason!

This is the official statement from the team on the LGTS Steam page! They only shared these pieces of information and that is it.

I was so sad to hear this, as am sure many more people were. LGTS is a special game, and personally, it's one of my favorite games ever. ♡

Recently, I set a personal goal for myself to try to get all the achievements on Steam for the game, and on my fresh playthrough, guess who I recognized amongst the golden girls!

Alpenrose

That's right, during the living hallowed coppice dungeon one of the golden girl's silhouette is identical to Alpenrose's from the scrapped DLC image the team shared with us! I saved the dialogue to share here, as it may unravel a piece of lore we might've gotten in the Wilderose DLC.

Golden Girl(Alpenrose) Take heed! She’s taking advantage of you.

Elise Who is?

Golden Girl(Alpenrose) That creature…She goes hungry…. It’s you she wants… Your flesh…

Elise The witch…

Golden Girl(Alpenrose) Don’t allow her to interfere with your wish…

Elise How would she interfere, exactly? Wait!

Based on the dialogue, Alpenrose seems to have once been offered the ruby shoes or she was someone's good company for Him. It is not clear which of the two, as both options will have a golden girl wearing the ruby shoes. We can also contextualize that she must've known something of St. Walpurga! That is about all I could deduce since it is a scrapped idea! I did look up what her name meant though(lol I am looking for scraps here(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ ) and an alpenrose is a flower that grows in the Alps!

After this, of course I had to find the rest of the silhouettes of the DLC girls!

Sanni

This one I found before I received Elise's hairlocks and blackened wheat. Checks out identically to Sanni from the concept image the team shared with us. Here is the dialogue I saved to share with you guys!

Golden Girl(Sanni) Another one, I see…

Elise Huh?

Golden Girl(Sanni) Say, what is it you’re meeting Him for?

Elise I don’t think that’s any of your business.

Golden Girl(Sanni) Let me tell you something, then… Forsake all you think you know about yourself.

Elise What do you mean?

Golden Girl(Sanni) There’s no amount of determination that can save you from Him. Once you’re in those woods…. Once you go through that door….

Elise What…?

Golden Girl(Sanni) You’ll be left with nothing but harrowing regret.

Elise Why are you telling me all this?

This one left me with much less to deduce, which is no fun!! At least am glad to have found her silhouette in the game and think about what could've been. I do believe, however, that Sanni was offered the ruby shoes and gave up her good company just like Elise's canon ending. It would make sense as she mentions she is left with harrowing regret.

Valerie

Golden Girl(Valerie) Ignorance is bliss! Has nobody ever told you that?

Elise Plenty of times, I suppose.

Golden Girl(Valerie) To be unable to grasp how fortunate we are until it’s too late… Charmingly tragic, isn’t it?

Elise I don’t see what’s so charming about it.

Golden Girl(Valerie) You’ll come face to face with it, too. The ruinous grief of your biggest, heaviest regret…

Elise What’s yours, then?

Golden Girl(Valerie) The same as yours— we all share the same penintence.

Valerie seems to have just as much regret as Sanni! Whether she was sacrificed or the one sacrificing is enshrouded in mystery. She also gifts you a pearl rosary. Not sure if that is relevant, but it sure says she maybe was a follower of St. Walpurga.

I am not really sure whether any of the girls knew each other, but it could be as the only info the team shared with us was that all 3 girls disappeared in Kieferberg about 60 yrs before Elise's story.

Let's not forget Enjel would've also somehow been part of their story!! Anyways, I hope this speculation makes for fun discussion! Most of the silhouettes are identical to the girls, feel free to zoom in the pictures and compare. :3

#astralshift #little goody two shoes #pocket mirror game #elise liedl #indie games

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the-blind-geisha · 8 months ago

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Luigi's Mansion 1 - 2 headcanon / Theory

I know the King Boo crown design is different for a reason comparing it through the series. They really didn't expect LM1 to do well for one thing or for King Boo to really stick around as far as him being a main antagonist for Luigi.

But I like making up headcanons anyways for things that have no explanation, so here I go!

I like to think that King Boo knew about the mine in Evershade Valley for some time. The red gem in his first crown could have easily come from there given the properties it seems to hold in general and how he knew exactly where to go in seemingly no time at all when he was set free from his portrait. I know we don't know exactly how long he's been freed, but I'd like to think the king isn't going to wait too long to get revenge on Luigi, let alone the kingdom he helps protect and comes from.

But as much as I do like to joke he has anger issues, the guy can wait to act out a plan so. Again. who knows. Lol

All and all, he needs a gem of some sort to empower his magic. To me, it feels like that gem is meant to act like a wizard's wand or something. He can still use powers without it, but with it, they are amplified. As for his replacement gem, could be his boos located a purple gem first or maybe King Boo stole some magic gem item from the person who foolishly freed him from his portrait in LM2.

Could also be how the person even managed to free King Boo to begin with as that gem and the tactics Gadd has can undo painting prison (if I am going to pull this whole theory away from my own Gijinka version). Maybe the person who freed him once worked at the mine and had a special souvenir. Who knows. The moment he finds a replacement gem, he decides to get to work on the thought of empowering his boo army with the power these gems seem to house.

The only problem he seems to have though is he cares too much for his boos to put them at risk, so he decides then to break the Dark Moon and get the Evershade Valley ghosts on his side. Using mind controlling tactics, he is able to have them work for him in stopping anybody who would oppose him but also experimenting on them with the gems found in the mine.

Better to put a bunch of ghosts you don't care about at risk than your own kind feels very on par with him. It also sounded and looked like those ghosts were in agony, so I doubt he'd want his boos to be forever crippled in pain just for the sake of revenge and building the strength of his army. Thus, he no doubt sees these Evershade ghosts as fodder for the most part. Very indifferent what becomes of them and far more upset when his own falls.

Because I don't care what anybody says. Him saying 'all those ghosts—useless!' in LM3 sounded more like he was referring to Hellen and her employees. Not his boos haunting the mansion (even if they felt like they were a last minute add-on to remind you they're in the game helping their ruler). Rarely do I ever hear him calling his boos as ghosts anyways. He calls them boos more often than not.

#i was gonna write this quick b/c it was storming #and i was tired #but then i got called for soup and it stopped storming so...#i don't have an excuse anymore if it reads wonk PEFT #anyways. i am just rambling #king boo #luigi's mansion #luigi's mansion 2 #luigi's mansion 3 #headcanons #smb #mario #nintendo #mod headcanons #king boo headcanons

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scarletardor · 1 month ago

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interpreting tarot for the possible future for l&ds and its story...

My baddie hunters unite… how are we all feeling after the Caleb update? (Me personally, unsettled.)

I felt the itch to do another tarot reading after doing one for Caleb [ one / two ] months ago and I am both shocked and thrilled to hear that my predictions had ended up becoming true, especially with Zayne being a guiding light to the conflict at the center of it all. Knowing that this story is taking a darker and mature tone (as it should be), I felt my third eye twitching with some possible theory as to what might happen next. Considering the heaviness of the cliffhanger left, and the fact that this is the first time MC has failed a mission… the next course is unpredictable and anything could happen to move the story forward. And—I wanted some insight on who the sixth love interest could be (even the slightest hint would help.)

This time it felt a bit more complicated, however, because I ended up actually doing two different card spreads—one for MC and one for our sixth leading man. And just like Caleb’s return, the reading ended up feeling heavier than I had expected it to be. Please be prepared for a long read ahead. Also, SPOILERS below the cut and in tags.

*Notes before proceeding: As per my previous tarot post: please take all of this with a grain of salt. I am not a professional tarot reader, and still consider myself a beginner (I started my tarot journey in 2023). I invest in tarot for my own personal means and spiritual benefit/practice, and I’m doing this for fun. I just like merging my special interests together, especially since Love & Deepspace has various themes surrounding spirituality, astrology, etc. tysm :3

MC’s Cards:

Three of Wands (Reversed) / King of Wands (Reversed) / Ace of Swords (Upright) / The World (Upright)

The 6th L/I’s Cards:

Temperance (Reversed) / Strength (Reversed) / The Devil (Reversed)

This is the first time I’ve felt that music has been a personal communicator in what aligns with these characters and their stories. I’ve had the Season 2 Arcane soundtrack on repeat for weeks on end ever since I finished watching it, and I have to admit that it takes a more solemn tone compared to what the first season brought. Despite Love & Deepspace being a game that centers on romance and creating an intimate relationship with the love interests offered, the deeper end of its lore and character myths are devastating and unfortunately continues to get more dire for its cast. The same can be said with any other franchise that does sci-fi fantasy, questioning who truly has power over catastrophes and defying godhood for any means.

I reference the Arcane soundtrack because a couple of songs from Season 2 stand out to me that are all too familiar to Caleb’s predicament. The Line by Twenty-One Pilots, Remember Me (incl. the intro) by d4vd, and What Have They Done To Us by Mako, Grey.

Caleb’s return to the forefront of everything has revealed to us, the audience, and MC that he is integral to what is the center conflict especially as it grows more powerful. It’s a heavy burden he bears, along with other distressing occurrences that have caused his PTSD. Though, this doesn’t excuse that he has done morally reprehensible things especially under the feat of wanting to protect somebody (MC) from all danger possible. Even if there is no real danger. Yet, Caleb is in a position that makes himself dangerous and most susceptible to hurting everyone around him.

So, what comes next?

MC’s card spread was initially the reading I did with the intention of finding some hints or insight into the sixth leading man. (For the sake of writing cohesively, I’ll be calling him ‘Six’ rather than constantly writing ‘the sixth love interest’ etc.)

But when we think about every single major event that MC has been through up to this point in the modern timeline—it’s genuinely too much. Our girl’s been running around in circles over and over again only to get very little information every time she gets to the point she needs to. Yet, she continues to operate the same as a Hunter. She’s confident, bold, and self-assured in everything she does, even in her interactions with our leading men.

Until it comes down to the tragedy of her childhood home and everything that was taken from her.

Skyhaven is the first time we’ve seen MC falter by a considerable amount because, of course, Caleb is alive? How? What? Why? And of course she feels inclined to embrace him, as he did her. To try and accept this reality despite the obvious ominous air surrounding him. (He’s not even giving her clear answers to very important questions she has surrounding his fate.)

MC’s first two cards, the 3 of Wands and the King of Wands—both reversed—call to the consequences of her failed mission. Due to her empathy for the young siblings, it pushed her to investigate their case, having said so herself she didn’t want what happened to her to happen to anyone else. It was risky, and undoubtedly, personal feelings were involved in her reasons for wanting to go to Skyhaven.

The Wands-suit cards in reverse share similar themes in highlighting her haste and recklessness in wanting to resolve a conflict as quickly and efficiently as she can. Even before she dives headfirst into this situation, she is asked (by Captain Jenna) if she is capable of handling whatever’s about to come her way.

Girl, she was not.

Her plans of efficiency and wanting to move forward even with the risks at hand were interrupted in every way possible due to the emotional heavyweight surrounding Caleb and learning of his true fate. This includes how Caleb is an important hand in the operations of Skyhaven’s darkness. MC’s internal strife regarding him interrupted her focus on the mission, even if she attempted to prioritize it again.

Now… this is where Ace of Swords and the World.

Ace of Swords is an interesting card that traditionally symbolizes hope and power in a breakthrough. It still holds that same meaning in this particular reading, but doesn’t stand out strongly. There is a lot that was thrown onto MC that’s left her temporarily blindsided. Swords suited cards center around intellect that often needs to be heightened, revisited, etc, and each card is unique in its own call to action.

I take this as a sign that moving forward, MC can no longer operate as a Hunter the way she normally does. The central conflict continues to grow with all these moving pieces she learns about—but due to this, she is acting brashly. The brashness comes as a result of feeling the need to solve everything right away. This mindset will no longer benefit MC, now knowing that Caleb is heavy-handed in this situation that is no longer a simple procedure of seek and destroy. Applying the meaning of the Ace of Swords to this—she needs to take greater responsibility with her power and come to a more leveled head before making her next move.

It wasn’t necessary for me to shuffle for a fourth card but it felt necessary to find something more conclusive. I’m literally worried for MC. (LMAO) So the World serves as reassurance, that there is a proper conclusion to the bumps in the road she’ll run into. But it is more important than anything that she shouldn’t underestimate the additional hurdles that are bound to come.

Alright, so our sixth love interest.

Instantly we are dealing with an entire spread of major arcana—all in reverse.

This is the part where it gets unpredictable because for a long time coming we had been anticipating Caleb to return. Now that he’s home… this new guy could be literally anyone. I won’t go into the details of theories or attempt to piece things together in this post, since I’m going off speculation and interpreting what I know.

To keep it simple, this collective of Major Arcana is overwhelming and heavy. Temperance and Strength are similar in their messages where they are asking for reevaluation after a heavy pushback. Yes, this does call back to the 3 of Wands and Ace of Swords for the MC. Remember how she was acting out after the house explosion and acted abrasively with Sylus?

We’re about to witness that again with Six. (A literal crash out, if you will.)

Even though it’s necessary for MC to take a breather before she does something, there’s a cloud of impatience for when she does end up running into Six. I imagine he’s going to be an overwhelming surprise—but he’s going to be the most helpful asset she’ll need to move forward. His entrance into her life won’t be accepted or given a warm welcome—and he’ll be met with the most hostility we’re about to see from MC.

The Devil in reverse… Whether she likes it or not though, she needs Six. More importantly, Six wants to help her. They’re both working towards similar goals, it’s just that he’s in a position that allows him more room to be more shameless about his approaches. But even he knows she can’t be shameless because with the mind she’ll have when they meet, it won’t work and she’ll attempt to once again do things on her own.

MC can actually learn a lot from Six. Despite the differences they’ll have, despite his complicated reputation, he is literally the last piece of the puzzle to start finding real answers that will help her. We can say he’s a Devilish figure, and it’s known well that making an agreement with the Devil means giving something in return.

(Sensing that godhood and worship are going to be important concepts at the center of the next major story update.)

It’s unsure of what Six wants from MC. (Maybe just her. Lololol.) But no matter what, he is genuine about his intentions to help her get what she wants.

#this took me 2 days to fully write and i couldn't shake off any of these thoughts at all #i am aware that for Final Farewell in Abyssal Chaos the topic of tarot cards does actually come up in Sylus' section #which brings me to believe the 6th l/i will be some kind of godlike figure (not Astra) in his myth #please if anyone else is versed in tarot or some kind of spirituality i would love to know your thoughts too #idk idk there's just so much in the air to think about and ponder #love and deepspace #love & deepspace #lads #lnds #l&ds

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