#reading ishmael currently

[greenhorizonblog]

Instincts and awareness

I'm having one of those more and more frequent moments where it's just like:

We are weird hairless apes... on a floating rock... hurling through the infinite unknowable universe which no one even knows how it started

I see people wanting to be billionaires and I think, for what? you can have all the power, money and fame in the world and guess what?

You're still going to die...

Like everyone else

Money isn't real, private ownership isn't real. The only thing that is real about them is the violence that will be inflicted on you if you stop pretending they are.

We don't have to do all this meaningless and destructive work. Life is not supposed to be this hard

So often my instincts and intuition whisper to me, and they say

I want to eat good food with my friends, I want to rest, I want to play, I want to explore, I want to help, I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to sing, I want to dance, I want to marvel, I want to create, I want to love, I WANT TO LIVE!!!

[burningvelvet]

36 chapters into moby dick. some thoughts:

- take a shot every time he expresses his love for nantucket or whaling trivia

- i know everyone said it was queer and usually i've come to expect that as hyperbole but this time they weren't joking

- CHILDE HAROLD REFERENCE?!?!?!?!?! BYRON QUOTED?!?!?!?! not surprised bc it is the romantic genre which byron & chp helped inspire & he was the best selling writer in early 19c usa & is noted for his oceanic refs & he & esp childe harolds pilgrimage esp are both noted on wikipedia's "nautical fiction" page but like. i had no idea they were immortalized in moby dick

- "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

- does gay cannibal tumblr know about queequeg & ishmael?

- utterly obsessed with captain ahab for numerous reasons but does anyone else notice how similar he is to captain flint from black sails? like he's literally him but a bit older & combined with silver's leglessness.

- the part where ahab calls stubb a dog lmao

- ishmael getting worried for queequeg when he couldn't find him omg...

- "Where's that girl ? — there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with — 'no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;' — might as well kill both birds at once." MRS. HUSSEY!!!!

- i'm sure that all the focus on queequegs spirituality & his consultation with his god yojo wherein he was informed that ishmael had to pick their boat bc yojo demaded it TOTALLY won't prove to have any prophetic and symbolic consequences later on or anything

- love how the chapters are nice and short but on the flip side that means theyre tricking me into thinking i have less to go than i actually do... as long as i get more ahab i'm good i guess

-melville, at random: and now we take a break from our regularly schedule programming to give you . . . WHALE FACTS! [whips out multiple books on the history of whales and whaling, begins to recite]

[thatstudyblrontea]

[lu-is-not-ok]

So, Jia Xichun has Gloom for Skill 1, Gluttony for Skill 2 and Envy for Skill 3. What the hell does that mean.

So I wasn't initially going to make a full on analysis, as I don't want to burn myself out on Sin Analyses all over again... But then I thought about it. And thought about it some more... and oh, girl... Oh dear... Oh honey...

So yeah we're doing this

Gloom S1: Gloom as a Sin is associated with negative emotions, dwelling on the past, sinking into despair, and self-destruction. The two Sinners we have with a Gloom S1 - Yi Sang and Gregor - are both people who get easily thrown into reminiscing about their past by seemingly minor happenings, especially Gregor who's quite literally got PTSD.

The easiest way to read this is as a reflection of Xichun's trauma with the Jia Family, and the anxiety she's developed because of it. She's shown to be extremely concerned with building a faction, likely something required of her as one of the candidates for the Family Head, and for a brief moment she even suspects Hong Lu of potentially trying to kill her if she joins up with him, even though Wei points out that Hong Lu is different to the rest of her siblings.

There's also something else I've noticed in the few lines Xichun gets thus far in this Canto - the way she reminisces about her home and past. Unlike Hong Lu, who brings up anecdotes of his life seemingly to try and lighten the mood, unaware that they sound fucking insane to any normal listener, Xichun is very very aware of them being bad memories. And the moments she's pushed into reminiscing seem... very interesting.

The first time is when she manages to shut Hong Lu up and make him stop bothering her by telling him not to embarrass her (which is a line that makes me insane for a completely different reason unrelated to this post), causing her to reminisce and compare Hong Lu's current state to how he was the last time they met.

The second time is when she's failing to extract any useful info from the Priest, comparing the state he's in to the state people tortured by the Jia Family would be reduced to (one of those people likely being Hong Lu himself, judging by his completely silent reaction).

Compare this to the one time Hong Lu reminisces about something towards Xichun. He compares their current predicament, of only temporarily working together, to a truce made over some snacks. He understands what she's saying, he's just either refusing or straight up unable to comprehend the severity of what she's saying. You can tell if she were the one reminiscing here it would be a much darker memory than this.

So.

Xichun is a young woman who was left full of anxiety after having to live in the Jia Household, this anxiety only being made worse by the rivalry she's forced into against her siblings due to circumstances outside of her control.

This anxiety is likely the main cause for her hostility, which acts as her defense mechanism to push people who could harm her away from her, though in the process she ends up sabotaging herself by trying to push away the people who genuinely want to help her, like Hong Lu.

She's a deeply traumatized person, who gets reminded of her family's abuse whenever she sees people around her act in a similar way to the victims of the Jia Family.

That's what I believe her Gloom S1 is meant to reflect.

Gluttony S2: Gluttony as a Sin is associated with hunger, desire, inability to feel satisfied, and in certain cases survival. The two Sinners who have a Gluttony S2 - Gregor and Ishmael - are both heavily tied to survival, being the main focus of the "Survival is a Sin" scene in Canto 1 with Yuri. At the same time though, the object of their Gluttony differs - for Gregor, it's normalcy, a desire to escape the nightmare he lives in, one which he can't reach due to the scars left in him by the Smoke War; for Ishmael, it's finding Ahab, a desire that turns into an obsession with killing a survivor in an act of revenge, one if she were to fulfill would leave her empty and with no other reason to keep on living.

Xichun herself seems to continue the trend of Gluttony being tied to survival, as a lot of how she treats others can be very easily tied into her trying to avoid being picked off by her Family. The main object of desire in Xichun's case appears to be Power.

The first thing Xichun notices and mentions upon seeing Hong Lu is his lack of a well-built faction, and from the way her own posse is described, it seems she herself took the time and effort to build a group that is more than capable of both protecting her and dealing serious harm. She appears to care a lot about the Power numbers give her, especially with how she describes the methods her siblings would use to kill her.

It's not that Yuanchun or her other siblings would personally come after her, no, their Power, and by extention her own, come from the people who surround the siblings. The lackeys, the minions, the faction.

There is also... something else Xichun is searching for in La Manchaland, something that I believe ties back into this desire of hers. Xichun's sole reason for coming all this way is her search for a specific piece of information, and considering her reaction to the story being told by Sansón, it's not impossible for that info to be related to the Rivers of the deep.

...This is where I have to do a bit of speculation, as the Rivers are a part of PM's world we still don't know much about.

Here's what we know for sure about the Rivers:

At least some of them are analogous to the Rivers of Hades, as the River of Oblivion shares the name with one of them, Lethe.

2. The Rivers seem to primarily possess powers that directly influence one's consciousness, whether it be giving one visions of the future that drive them into madness, or completely oblivionize one's identity.

3. Considering the above use of 'well' as a synonym for the Rivers, it's very possible they're Heavily Connected to the Well LobCorp would draw from using Cogito.

So. We don't really know the reason for Xichun to be searching for info on the Rivers. However, from what little we know of what they might be able to do, it's not unlikely her goal is to try and use their Power in some way. It would fit with what we know of her so far, and while our own knowlege is limited, the fact that one of those Rivers was LobCorp's Well shows that when harnessed, they can be incredibly Powerful resources indeed.

So.

Xichun is a person who has been put in a situation where her primary concern is her own survival, as she's put in constant danger by her Family. This has likely led to her developing an unsatiable desire for some form of Power.

This desire primarily manifests itself through Xichun's concern with surrounding herself with powerful people and building her own faction, as it's clear the biggest threat her fellow siblings pose to her is through their own lackeys. Her experience would have clearly taught her that's what being Powerful is all about.

However, due to the nature of this desire as something that cannot be satisfied, a faction is not enough for Xichun. While this is my speculation, I believe this same desire for Power is exactly why Xichun is searching for information on the Rivers within La Manchaland, likely believing that the Power they have would be a highly valuable resource to her.

That's what I believe her Gluttony S2 is meant to reflect.

Envy S3: Envy as a Sin is associated with a sense of inferiority, lack of control and free will, jealousy, and attempts to copy others. The one Sinner with an Envy S3 - Sinclair - is shown to be deeply insecure and easily manipulated into acting a certain way by people who show him attention. He's implied to covet the aura and the kind of presence Demian carries with him, and his fears and feelings of inferiority are the flaw he struggles with the most visibly.

Xichun, at her core, is a deeply insecure person. One of the first things she says about herself is expressing the opinion that she's nowhere close to the level her older siblings are at. She's someone who tries to do what they do, coveting the Power and status they hold, but is unable to match them in her own eyes.

And then. There's this line.

Xichun considers herself to be So below her other siblings, that she sees herself as such a non-threatening figure that there's a chance her siblings would straight up ignore her in their rivalries. This line, I think, exemplifies just how deep and pervasive Xichun's Envy is.

There's also this moment, again further showing her lack of confidence, immediately putting herself down and claiming her prediction is probably wrong the moment she's asked to share it.

So.

Xichun feels a deep sense of inferiority, often comparing herself to her siblings and feeling jealous of their own Power and status. She feels self-conscious about her own lack of those things compared to her Family, to the point where she considers herself completely irrelevant at points of notable weakness.

It's very likely that everything Xichun does stems from that feeling of not being the one in control of the situation, of being so weak that her siblings would feel she's not worth the effort. She needs Power, she needs to be on the same level as her other siblings, because without it, she's considered nothing.

Perhaps it's part of what infuriates her about Hong Lu's behavior. We've seen he's extremely self-sacrificial, willing to just lay down and accept pain simply because he knows why other people would want to inflict that on him. He's someone who seems to put himself in a position of weakness willingly. Of course Xichun would hate seeing that, as someone who doesn't have the choice not to be in a similar position herself.

That's what I believe her Envy S3 is meant to reflect.

I love her. I'm so scared for her.

It makes me wonder if the choice to give her white bits in her hair is meant to invoke the idea of someone's hair turning white prematurely from stress. After all, if there's anyone in the Jia Family who would be stressed to the point of that happening, it would be the one who considers herself the weakest out of all of them...

[youthofpandas]

Call Her Ishmael (or: a trans reading of one of my favorite Limbus characters)

Hi, I have been thinking about writing something like this since Canto V first released and today I finally felt inspired to actually make this... A compilation of the parts of Ishmael's story that lead me to reading her as trans <3 and why I think that understanding her character though that lens works so well

We begin with a woman stuck in the mundane. No plans for the future, no dreams of a life beyond the one she is currently living in, and that life is one she has long grown tired of. And she decides she would rather quit living that life, even if it would kill her. Everyone told her not to do this, but she wanted (needed) to do something new with her life.

She finds Ahab here, when she is at this low where she is unsure of where to go from here now that she has cast her old life away. She looks at Ahab and sees a woman with goals, determination, serious plans for the future she is willing to commit to. And she wants to be just like that woman. She wants to be a woman who will choose what her destiny is, choose what life she has.

"I hoped to be like her one day. To be someone who will face the destiny of her own choosing. To have something I could give it my all with conviction and without a moment of hesitation."

And when she gets on that boat and starts this new chapter in her life, well. There she meets Queequeg, and is asked for her name...

Queequeg asking her name, something that surprises Ishmael, and complimenting her hair is a defining moment in Ishmael's life and in their relationship. And not only is it the first conversation they have, it is the also last thing Queequeg asks of her. To hear Ishmael's name one more time is something that will bring not only herself comfort, but she knows will stabilize Ishmael as well in this moment. That it will bring her back to when they had first met, to the fond memories of a good friend who had asked for her name. Ishmael's name, her identity, the one she forged on that boat even through great difficulty is what shaped her into being herself... That is how their relationship begins and ends...

There is also a recurring theme of being reborn, of happiness being found in another life that is kinder to them both. Ishmael dreams of a life where they can break out of their cocoons. She wants to bury her past and had no dreams of the future before joining the Pequod, before meeting Queequeg and finding someone she wants a future with. Through Queequeg, through the woman who thinks her hair is the brilliant color of sunset and asked for her name, Ishmael is capable of imagining a destiny of her own choosing just like she had wanted when she met Ahab. (She isn't able to chase after it, not yet, because of Ahab's influence over the Pequod, but she for the first time can at least dream of a future where she is happy)

When tragedy strikes, she is left as, in her mind, the sole survivor of the crew, she has lost Queequeg, lost Ahab, lost her chance at finding happiness and purpose. It's then that she takes Queequeg's rope (the thing that kept her alive! Queequeg throughout their time knowing each other is always there to save her and help her keep on living) and makes it into a headband, attaches cute bows to it, a bit of femininity that is intrinsically attached to the woman who helped save her. She grows out her hair, her beautiful sunset colored hair, and it is so heart warming. For a long time I assumed that her not cutting her hair was done out of mourning, out of an unwillingness to move on from the life she had on that ship, but instead it was because Queequeg had loved her and she had loved her friend in kind.

In conclusion I love Ishmael very much and I like to rotate her around. Everything from her metaphors of being stuck in a cocoon and wanting to break free, her envy of Ahab's ability to find purpose so easily, her relationship with Queequeg that helped inspire her to dream for more to dream of a future where she is happy,, it is all very good and to me reading her as trans strengthens the themes of her story. I've watched the final part of the Canto V dungeon several times over when my friends arrive at that part of the story, and the Call Me Ishmael line always makes me start tearing up.

Ishmael starts as an unhappy office worker with no future and it is a life she cannot continue living, she meets an older woman who has the drive and passion to chase after her goals and wants to be like her when she is older, she has a life defining moment where another woman asks for her name and wants to be good friends with her, that woman will save her in so many ways and she will love that woman so deeply for how she helped influence her life, she sees herself trapped in a cocoon and wants to break free, she dreams of her and that woman will persevere, how they will live out the rest of their days, countless mirror worlds of happiness spent at each other's side. She starts the game proper with her hair grown long, ribbons attached to a rope that helped save her that represents the woman who had saved her before. She ends her chapter finding a new adventure to go on, one will she get to explore the world she lives in, she has found a compass in Dante who will help her chart her path forward.

Also I know we all make jokes about how inconsistent the art is when it comes to her chest but like... Come on look at the difference here.... I'm correct about this. But I mostly wanted to make this post to point out that her narrative arc is also trans and it goes so much deeper than just art inconsistencies.

Okay that's all I can think of now, thank you for reading, I hope you all also love her <3

[elodieunderglass]

Hey there, I read your first chapter of Moby Dick in modern idiom and I’ve been thinking about it pushing it at people for days. IN THEORY, have you considered writing the whole thing? They said, knowing full well the awful project they were proposing.

In reference to the Moby Dick post: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/761181987124969473

You’re so kind to ask, and I couldn’t be more flattered by the question. I’ve answered the question recently here: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/761216179802161152/do-you-have-more-moby-dick-modern-translation

Boils down to:

After a banger of a first chapter that really sets Ishmael up as an energetic and unusual literary character, Moby Dick goes on to have some tricky pieces, involving things like unsavoury racial stereotypes from Ishmael POV, which don’t feel right to playfully translate into insufferable modern idiom, even for educational purposes; and I’d hate to put my name to it on the piss-on-the-poor website, because a) unsavoury and b) not an expert and wouldn’t want to be fighting on so many fronts of “well actually”.

I’m a moderately quick-witted biologist who is broken enough to want to be perceived as “funny,” so likes regularly being told they’re funny on Tumblr; I’m eminently not an experienced 1800s historical fiction academic who passionately wants to communicate nuanced racial and political analysis to a thoughtful public. And again, it would probably involve so many people going “well actually” at me, pointing out how I’m not an experienced 1800s historical fiction academic qualified to properly interpret a problematic work etc. And, knowing myself, I’d probably start biting people in the notes.

And there are two immediate chapters about an interminable church sermon that I think are stupid and would skip. I don’t feel I’d like to tackle this for fun. It’s homework-coded and I’m not being paid or graded or trained in any way so my brain goes “humph” and picks daisies instead.

So I’ve considered it and I’m grateful to be asked! and I will definitely tell you if I ever do it! But for now it’s low down on the list, after finishing some commissions, a big fanfic that currently makes me very sad, and apparently writing my own story about weasels.

And of course I don’t own the work, so if anyone else wants to tackle it I’d be delighted to signal-boost and so on.

[dionysusdecent]

I'm just gonna make this a full post because why not. As some of you may know, Project Moon has found itself in more drama. And surprise, it involves misinformation because people dont know how to read. Currently PM is in a legal battle against Monggeu, Mimi and the Game Consumer Association because Monggeu and Mimi are filing copyright on their respective works (Leviathan for Monggeu and Wonder Lab for Mimi).

I'm just gonna start with the GCS. If you've been a fan since before 4.5, you might remember the incredibly stupid Vellmori drama, where a bunch of incels hot mad at the CG artist because the ID artist drew Ishmael in a skin tight wet suit rather than a bikini. I bring this up because the GC went by a different name then, the PMUA, or the Project Moon User Association, a group with no official ties to Project Moon and who slandered the company relentlessly and wanted to bleed every penny from the company because....really just because they could. They are a group who will do anything to see Project Moon burn to the ground, and so in another brilliant idea, are backing Monggeu and Mimi in the lawsuit....except they arent because they themselves have stated that they do not have the money to do so and are asking for donations.

Getting to the copyright stuff, Monggeu and Mimi are filing copyright claims for Leviathan and Wonder Lab respectively, two comics/mangas that are set in the Project Moon universe. However they have an issue, they do not own anything within those comics. Nothing in either of them are by right theirs and are instead owned by PM in their entirety. The best they could hope for is owning the names. PM has already show proof that they worked with Monggeu when it came to Leviathan which completely destroys any claims they could make to owning Leviathan, as PM was working on it as well. Mimi......Mimi is in a weird case as her work would also technically not be hers as Wonder Lab is still set in the PM universe. But PM did take it down when she asked and also made Wonder Lab non-canon....but that just brings up the question of why even do this then? Her work is non-canon and can no longer be viewed officially so why would she even try and fight for the copyright? I dont have an awnser, I'm just asking the question.

This last segment will be used as a PSA for everyone. Please for the love of everything wait till both sides get their side of the story out and actually read what both sides say before making judgments. Regardless of your feelings and KJH (Kim Ji Hoon), that does not give you any right to not only go against everything PM says simply because you dont like the guy, and by every god, does not under any circumstances mean you get to spread misinformation. I have already seen a post showing the GCS/PMUA post about this and in that very post is misinformation. Specifically from GCS/PMUA, but since someone spread it here and others have reblogged it, they are also spreading misinformation. Vellmori WAS NOT FIRED. She left OF HER OWN ACCORD AND PM WAS FINE WITH IT. Not liking KJH because is isnt the sharpest tool in the shed does not mean you are allowed to spread any misinformation, and if you spread it unknowingly, then atleast they to correct it. And for the last gods damned time. VELLMORI LEFT OF HER OWN ACCORD, IT WAS HER OWN DECISION, PROJECT MOON DID NOT FIRE HER.

tldr: Project Moon is fully within their right to fight this false claim as these claims are coming from an outside source that does not own any of the IP and were simply contract work. And these false copyright claimers are also being backed by an organization who hates Project Moon and will do anything to see the company burn, and use misinformation to do it. Dont spread misinformation and if you do it accidentally, try to correct yourself. Misinformation is how innocent people get canceled, lose their jobs or possibly lose their lives. Dont. Spread. It.

I do wanna add something on here (so this is an edit fyi), but Project Moon isnt a perfect company. Perfect is an impossibility. Perfect cannot exist. PM has made mistakes and will keep making them, we all will. Does that mean they should be excused? Absolutely not, that's not how this works. PM isnt perfect, KJH isnt perfect, none of us are perfect, and no one can be perfect. PM has done some stupid things in the past, but they dont deserve this. They do not deserve to be continuously slandered against by a group who is out for their own gain when that same group said they were here to help people. PM is not perfect, but PMUA/GCS is far less perfect than PM could ever be. They are greedy and selfish and will continue to spread misinformation to make PM look bad. You do not need to support or even like PM, but please understand that the other side is far worse and do not care for anyone other than themselves. (This is not talking about Monggeu or Mimi, as far as I'm concerned, they are good people and nothing I'm adding here is against them. Just the PMUA/GC)

2nd edit: it has been confirmed with the official english translation that Mimi and Monggeu were both not just contract work, but effectively temporary PM employees during their contract. These means they were paid as much as any other employee. I did not mention this as I wasnt sure if this was accurate from the translations available. Along with this, according to PM, while Monggeu said it was PM's decision to cancel the manga for Leviathan, it was in fact Monggeu's choice and PM respected and accepted this. I would also like to mention that the letter from the PMUA/GCS stated that because PM didnt directly contribute to Leviathan or Wonder Lab, that PM owned nothing and only Monggeu and Mimi owned everything. One, this is false as PM has already said they worked with both during the creation of Wonder Lab and Leviathan (Wonder Lab had more freedom) and two, personally, that is incredibly insane. Just because I make a new comic in the DC or Marvel universe with some new characters does not mean I own everything in the comic.

link for anyone wishing to read PM's statement in English: https://x.com/LimbusCompany_B/status/1816630063154233644

[cakerybakery]

“Dad, you have to try.” Charlie scolded. It was embarrassing to be scolded by your daughter and Lucifer cringed.

He supposed he had been a little, umm, cold, towards Adam since the man revived.

Charlie wanted to make Adam feel welcome. She was more forgiving. And calculating.

She had told Lucifer when she first accepted Adam into the hotel that if she could redeem him, it was proof that the current system was broken.

“Fine.” He grumbled.

“Good.” She smiled triumphly. “Now take him out to dinner.”

He nearly dropped his cane. “What!? Why?!?”

“To show you’re trying to be his friend and to show him the good parts of hell too. Not just the murdery stab parts.”

Lucifer tried to keep his cool and through gritted teeth agreed before storming off to find Adam. Might as well get it over with.

Adam was in the small library. He was looking through the classic literature section, trying to tell if someone in hell just added all the steamy sex scenes to books like Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick or if heaven took them out, when Lucifer slammed his hands into the shelves on either side of Adam.

He was boxed in and Lucifer looked up at him.

Lucifer’s face was golden and his voice knee shakenly deep as he told Adam their plans for the evening.

It was just like that scene in Moby Dick he just read. When Ishmael shoved Queequeg against the mast, tied them together as a storm raged, and they made out before Ishmael fucked Queequeg’s brains out as the waves and rains washed over them.

Only without the storm, the mast, and Lucifer was telling him that he’d be at Adam’s door for six and to be dressed to eat out.

It was hot. Like weirdly hot.

He didn’t know what to wear for that though and went to Angel for help.

They only had a couple hours and Angel and him hit all of Angel’s favourite stores.

“This is the outfit.” Angel nodded approvingly.

Adam was bright red. He wasn’t sure. All he could see was how chubby he’d gotten over the years. It felt a little too tight and revealing even a dressing room with just Angel in it. It was really weird to have one of his thousands times grandsons helping him pick out what to wear that night.

“I’m not sure about the colours.”

“I’ve seen how the man dresses. He likes white and red.” Angel deadpanned. “So white with red accents. It even has a little apple with the bite taken out of it for a little. Oh what’s it called? It’s not a button but it’s like an accessory? No, umm.”

“I didn’t think it had a name at all.” Adam shrugged. He didn’t know fucking clothing. He generally just wore what people gave him. “You sure about it? I look fat.”

“You look gorgeous. And it’s hell, honey.” Angel gestured towards the closed door. “I saw a man out there wearing nothing but a trench-coat sitting on a bench with his weird looking dick on display. No one cares if you don’t have a six-pack anymore. I’m fucking spider and my pornos fly off the shelves.”

Adam couldn’t argue with that. There was a distinct lack of shame in hell. He should embrace that much of the culture anyway.

They made it back in time for Adam to shower, shave his face and trim his goatee so it looked neat, brush his teeth so he was minty fresh for making out, and to get dressed. He left the door open unlocked and waited nervously for his date to show up.

Lucifer really didn’t want to do this.

What would they talk about?

He gave it half an hour before their hands were on each other.

Knocking first he could hear Adam shuffling a bit and telling him to come in.

Ugh. The asshole wasn’t even ready yet.

Lucifer opened the door and dropped his cane and jaw.

Adam was blushing, sitting on the edge of the bed in lingerie. A white with red lace trim bra and matching panties set. His eye was drawn between the cups of the bra to a decorative apple button.

Clearing his throat Adam asked, “you still want to “eat out” right?”

Lucifer kicked the door shut behind him and started to strip. That hadn’t been what he meant but dinner was dinner.

[enkephallic]

LCB Sinner Analysis: The Original Sins

I think the original LCB sinners' sin affinities for their skills are definitely related to them as people. My current theory is that S1 represents a surface level read of their personality, and their S3 is the true sin embedded deeper into themselves.

Gregor: His S1 is gloom, which is how he initially appears to be. He's carrying a lot and it seeps put. But his S3 is sloth. In Limbus Company, sloth seems to be tied in with giving up on taking action and making things better.

Rodya: S1 gluttony, which makes sense considering her want for money and good food. Her S3 is wrath, which was what drove her to axe the old hag who had been exploiting people.

Sinclair: S1 is pride, I guess this is how he comes off rich and privileged to some others. S3 is jealousy which confuses me a little, but I think it's related to the behaviour he exhibited in class that ultimately led to the tragedy.

Yi Sang: S1 is gloom - he's quiet and reserved, but is hinted not to have been. S3 is sloth, which definitely is the sin that fits him the most pre-limbus. He admits himself he simply observed without taking control.

Ishmael: S1 is wrath. She seems annoyed at perceived stupidity and often shows exasperation. S3 is gloom. She's scared of losing people and is hurting, which makes her extremely unstable and difficult for Dante to work with.

Heathcliff: S1 is jealousy. He's jealous on the surface level and is written to have an inferiority complex on his file, but his S3 is lust. He wants to relentlessly pursue something/transform himself, which will most likely hurt him along the way. also maybe hes horny

Don Quixote: S1 is lust. She has lots of things she wants to become and accomplish. S3 is gluttony, which I'm assuming was her wanting too many things that potentially conflicted (maybe her idea of justice involved two things clashing - eg. is it justice to steal when you're desperate? is it justice to stop the thief?).

Hong Lu: S1 is pride, much like Sinclair. His innocent curiosity comes off as arrogant to others. His S3 is lust - I speculate that he really wanted to become something, or change his own self in some way.

Ryoshu: S1 is gluttony. This does confuse me a little, but I'm guessing it's her obvious desire to create/observe Art and beauty. S3 is pride. She perhaps overestimated herself and fucked over someone she cared for

Meursalt: S1 is sloth. Yeah. Sinclair having a panic attack? Well he wasn't told to report on it so. S3 is ... gloom? Oh he must be carrying a lot. I have not read his novel yet so I won't make rash assumptions, but I guess it's something to do with grief.

Outis: S1 is sloth. I'm guessing this is her paper thin veneer of sucking up to Dante and treating his word as absolute, though it's clear it's not sincere. More suprisingly her S3 is gloom. I think this makes a lot more sense after reading her Schutz ID story - she has someone she loves, even at her absolute lowest.

Faust: S1 is pride. Yea. Yeah. yeah. yea. S3 is also gluttony. It's difficult to know much about her, but I'm guessing she really wanted to accomplish something, which would involve a lot of resources and potentially cause a lot of danger due to it.

[hungriesttable]

if the Sinners got a dog

(below the cut because I actually have a decent amount of thoughts on this)

Outis: one of the only (and possibly THE only) sinners committed to disciplining the dog. She’s a bit perturbed that the dog won’t reliably sit/stay on command because it tends to jump at random intervals instead (Don Quixote’s influence).

Has some belief that if she speaks in a voice that’s authoritative enough, the dog will understand what she’s saying. Is displeased when that doesn’t happen. “Why are you trying to sit on me? No.” “It’s because the dog likes you” “If she likes me she will sit politely on the ground as she is supposed to”

Rodya: She was the one who named the dog, and probably rescued it off of the street, insisting that they should keep the dog at least for a little while. Feeds the dog a bit of whatever the Sinners are having. “That’s not good for dogs!” “A little won’t do her any harm~”

Sinclair: He wasn’t sure what to make of the dog at first (it’s probably not vaccinated, and he only became sure it didn’t have rabies after a couple of days), but he’s pretty fond of it. Whenever he’s in need of company, the dog appears without him needing to say anything. It’s warm, soft, and close, and he definitely thinks of it as a family member. That being said he personally has a steep learning curve of “how to take care of a dog” (if he had one in his previous years then there was probably a butler to take care of it)

Heathcliff: I recently read Wuthering Heights. This gives me reason to suspect that Heathcliff would not be a big fan of the dog, at least at first. He’s fine with it from a distance, but protests to having to touch it (and to having it touch him). I’d imagine that it gets on his good side eventually, though, and he’d probably be one of those people who wants the dog to love him the most out of everyone.

Ryōshū: They weren’t really sure how she would react to the dog at first. She’s currently trying to teach it how to sic. Given the opportunity, she’ll examine the dog’s body. Her efforts of questionable motivation led to the discovery that the dog is missing a tooth.

Gregor: After 5.5, I think it’s safe to say that he’s the “dad with the dog he didn’t want”. He notices that the dog is repulsed by the smell of cigarettes and doesn’t smoke as actively when he’s around it.

Don Quixote: She wants the dog to be her sidekick. She’s taught the dog how to hug (ie how to jump and put its paws on her chest/shoulder), and is hoping to teach the dog how to do some advanced stunts. “Move forth, my companion, and fetch mine lance!” (Dog does nothing)

Yi Sang: The dog is his buddy. He’s a bit concerned about the idea that the dog could be involved in Limbus Company’s business, but has no problem with the idea of teaching the dog some more simple stuff (eg how to track scents and find lost people/things).

Faust: If there’s a City equivalent to a Wikipedia page on dogs, she probably read it. Several times. She wouldn’t say it, but the dog’s capriciousness often confounds her. In lieu of a microchip, she made a tracking collar for the dog.

Meursault: He and the dog share a certain special bond due to his willingness to walk, clean up after, and generally take care of the dog when others don’t feel like it. He’s not necessarily a fan of the whole “spontaneous tackling” thing, but he’s big enough to avoid being pushed over and has few other complaints about the dog. With the lack of interest in training the dog on the bus, he doesn’t see the use of disclosing what he knows about training dogs.

Ishmael: She likes the dog. Walking the dog often brings her mixed feelings, since it reminds her of the other experiences she’s had with being on the end of a guiding rope. She’s figured out that she can derail Heathcliff’s train of thought by invoking the dog, either physically or in name, and she’s greatly enjoying this ability.

Vergilius: He was dubious about the whole “dog on the bus” thing. Since Charon seems to enjoy the dog’s presence, however, he sees no point in objecting to it. He doesn’t dislike dogs, but the fact that anything bad happening to the dog could have catastrophic consequences means he’s always a little on edge around it. If the Sinners weren’t planning on doing their best to take care of it before, they certainly are after receiving some Red Gaze-brand reminders to be responsible pet owners.

Dante: Rewinding dog scratches is a small burden, but please, can SOMEONE cut the dog’s nails? They like the dog, but their clock head doesn’t seem to win them any canine popularity points. They’re both disappointed and relieved that the dog doesn’t count as a thirteenth Sinner.

[texasthoughtsaboutnothing]

The Stranger and my thoughts on where each LCB Sinner is at (Long)

Hey, I actually sat down and read L'etranger, Meursault's source novel. I've got some fucking feelings about it, especially relating it to Limbus Company and what it might mean for his Canto in like 2 years.

Firstly, you should read or listen to this book. It's short, surprisingly punchy, and easy to follow. I (probably) don't have autism but I can absolutely see a read of this where the character does or is neurodivergent in some other way; beyond his relationship and evaluation of social queues and norms he also seems to deal with sensory issues. There are better people than me who should talk about this and I'm probably not adding a lot to the conversation but keeping this reading in my head for the climax added an extra layer of discomfort (intentional discomfort for the benefit of the story's message, I should say) to the whole book. But It's worth experiencing even if you disagree with that reading or have a different one.

Limbus Brainrot/Spoiler stuff from here on in.

There's always the question of where exactly each Sinner is in their story as they're on the bus. Their stories have been reinterpreted and/or jumbled in ways that make it fun to guess, so to go over each Sinner and where they are based on what we know or my theories:

Yi Sang - I'm not gonna front, I don't really get The WIngs, but this seems like a Good End AU for him. He already escaped his "Wife's" control and the sunless room and is now flying again (metaphorically, or maybe literally? i dont know help me).

Faust - Likely in the middle of the part where she's using Mephistopheles' power to do good in the world and prior to her being damned to hell. Side note, she's last to get a Canto and I bet it's not a coincidence that (afaik) she and Dante are the only two with Hell in their stories directly. My long shot call is that Faust is also Beatrice and there will be so much DantexFaust ship art in 2026.

Don Quixote - The biggest enigma. La Sangre de Sancho has gripped the imagination of the fandom and I am no exception. She's next after Heathcliff so we'll get her some time in August at the latest and I can't wait. My best guess is she's currently gallivanting and will be forced home in her Canto, assuming Don is Sancho theory isn't true. Praying her Canto is called The Impossible.

Ryoshu - In Hell Screen, the reason the painter is obsessed with torture is that he can only paint what he has seen and is trying to paint the Buddhist Hell. In his quest for his art he destroys his life and those around him, and ends up committing suicide over it. But there is a villain in the form of the Lord who beyond driving the story by requesting the screen in the first place is guilty of SA and murder. I'm expecting we're post story; the Lord is related to the five fingers, the daughter might be recast as a friend or something, and the sword Ryoshu carries is likely the screen. Nothing revolutionary in my guesses here, but it's either going to be that straight-forward or insanely abstract, where she's the lord and the painter and the daughter and the screen and the sword is the monkey or some shit.

Hong Lu - I have not yet read Dream of a Red Chamber, it's next on the list. Forgive me!

Heathcliff - Oh boy. Like many, I expect he is post-spurning by Catherine and is on his journey for his fortune on the LCB. So, his Canto will be about coming home to a beloved who is with someone else. Yes, the beloved blorbo will suffer for my amusement. Let's go 3 hours Heathmael sex scene!

Ishmael - We now know her story already kinda happened, as many expected, making this a bizarre sequel to Moby Dick. I think it gave PM a lot of room to do whatever they wanted to while still sticking to the themes of the story. Already wrote about what I loved about this and the recontextualizing of Ahab as a whale unto herself (which I don't actually know if it's in the original novel, but it wouldn't surprise me).

Rodion - A weird one. Her inciting incident happened, the murdering of the landlord/pawnbroker, but the unintentional death of the innocent sister was shifted to the entire damn block. So if I had to guess she's in the period after her crime trying to avoid being caught, but no police officer allegory has really been introduced yet. I read Crime and Punishment years ago so I can't say for certain but it feels the most loosely adapted and suffers a tad for being part of the intro. Rodya's story is in no way finished so it's up in the air. Praying for a Petrovich just so people can meet the OG Columbo.

Sinclair - Still need to read Demian, but I have a rough understanding of the plot. Also unfinished in his story, Sinclair has a long way to go to his self-realization. This feels more intentional however, I remember someone made an observation of Cinqlair as representative of his drunken college years where he's popular but unfulfilled, and I think we can extend that to all of his IDs. He seems to have the most potential of all the Sinners, so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if there's a mirror world where he's a Color unto himself. I digress, the point is he's pre Frau Eva (who if she turn's out to be the Purple Tear I will lose my mind) who is also called Beatrice at some point so what's up with that PM?

Outis - Another big mystery, especially as she isn't Odysseus but Outis, a name referencing a particular part of the Odyssey with the Cyclops. I have to imagine she's on the Odyssey, journeying home after the Smoke War (which might have some parallels with the Trojan War beyond the obvious). It's interesting all the Greek myth named Abnormalities are Hospital themed, might be something there but nothing I can parse from my limited knowledge of Greek society and folklore. While she' might be a traitor, I'm thinking she's joined Limbus Company to hide while on her journey; she might be wanted dead by something and is concealing her identity after what happened in the war.

Greg - Again, a character post-story. He was locked in a room, he metamorphized, and... well he's alive? So we've diverged from the source novel, as it's taken the allegorical meanings and made them more literal, but Hermann is still around and a major player so who knows where this will go?

Meursault - I have so many thoughts. Meursault could be anywhere in his story, but I'm going to guess it's one of two places. First guess, we're completely pre story. His Canto opens with him getting a message that Maman died today, or maybe yesterday, he doesn't know. So the whole story plays out over the course of the Canto. But more likely, and my prediction, is that he's currently in "jail" awaiting his execution or acquittal. He has already murdered a man (or done some other crime) and instead of being tried for that, he has been tried and sentenced for his peculiarities of character. Bound in the chains of others, the multitudes have tightened their hold (I'm very clever and not cringe at all).

So I have to wonder what light blinded him, overwhelmed him so much that it led to his crime? The Bright Nights and Dark Days are an obvious choice, and I'm not the first to suggest it. Perhaps he distorted? Anyway, his story ends with him having given up on acquittal and instead hoping for a crowd of people hating him as he approaches the guillotine. I'm super interested in how this will play out in Limbus, especially as he must survive for gameplay purposes.

Also, Meursault is so horny. Like, oh my god. Half of his thoughts are of Marie, specifically of wanting her and all the connotations that contains. He spurns God in the face of a Chaplain, saying that He is worth nothing compared to a single hair on a woman's head. Meursault is not a romantic but not just some horndog either, his desire for sex and women and their bodies feels like an extension of his worldview centered on the immediacy of life and not just debauchery or hedonism. It's a part of the idea life is lived as today, yesterday, and tomorrow, and there is joy and happiness in that simplicity. I feel like this will get cut for Limbus but I hope it isn't, I want Meursault to casually admit he desires every Sinner on the bus carnally (yes the men and NB too, probably just a HC but I do believe that the City is a binormative society based on its already loose relationship to gender identity).

So uh, that's the thoughts so far. Merry Christmas, I guess.

[insomnicbypasser]

Hiiiii speaking my thoughts on a certain thing about the newest limbus event make sure to avoid incase of spoilers! I am offically yapping about rodion in this one also so be warned.

You know im constantly thinking about rodion and how she just, doesnt have a yurodivy identity. Its always been a thought in my head how every identity that we get in the game is a possiblility a sinner could have gone down, not just an overlap with exsisting characters. They are afterall from mirror worlds.

Theres n corp sinclair, who gave into his inital disgust of prosthetics and went fully into that realm of dark. The pequod captain ishmael who found herself an almost exact mirror of ahab, fully taken by the madness to hunt what she deemed to be the root of all evil that we saw and the later portion of her canto. Literally most of dons identities share a similar theme of her going into an organization and having her beliefs tested as shown in her n corp, w corp, and her shi association ids.

So why didnt rodion get a yurodivy id instead of her t corp id? The opportunity was right there for the taking, however there was somethings stopping her from getting it. There was the fact that she felt like she did anything to help in actually catching the time ripper, so she didnt get a district 20 yurodivy id bescause hong lu and ryoshu were ACTUALLY like them with their detective work, however i dont think its like that as seen above several sinners have gotten ids that directly go against their current arcs ie: captain ishmael and n corp sinclair. I also think this is the same reason she got a TAX COLLECTOR id of all things, finding herself not only stagnating but also becoming the type of person she would havr MURDERD in cold blood previously.

To me there are two reasons project moon is holding back on a yurodivy id for rodion. Either A: theyre saving it for a theoretical redo of rpdions canto, this time where she actually stands her ground to fully face sonya and give him her true awnser on where she stands, most likely telling him she'll be following the path that dante is leading her down towards instead of the path sonya had laid out for her with the yurodivy. With this she could potentially get either a id where she instead had taken sonya up on his offer, or the most interesting option where rodion had taken up the role of saint for the yurodivy instead of sonya in a sort of captain ishmael or spicebrush yi sang type of id.

And then theres option B: where rodion has yet to get a yurodivy id because there arent any plans to give her a yurodivy id because in EVERY mirror world rodion is always destined to give up her life with the yurodivy. Maybe there will always be a reason for her to leave, a flaw she can never let slide, maybe even a feeling she wont ever address that she wasnt and wont ever be for the yurodivy because they were never ment to be, either they were never doing enough or she could never be enough.

I havent read the book rodion is from, i dont know the first thing about rodions journey through it. All i know is that rodion is a gambling addict, he kills someone, and that sonya helps(?) him get past his vices and sins and even then none of that might not be true i have no idea. What i do know is that in limbus company, rodion has had the constant need to be something. She tried to lead a life in the yurodivy to feel as though she was doing something larger then herself, and when she felt as though they didnt meet her expectations she decided to take things into her own hands and when she looked back on her decisions, she couldnt even tell who she had done them for or whether she was only acting apon her base selfish desires. Then she joined limbus company bus, supposedly to maybe have a wish granted, but also because maybe in this group of losers and vagabonds, she could finally take a large role then what she felt she had when she was in the yurodivy, maybe she could finally make use of her time instead of this rotting stagnation she had been suffering from since she left the yurodivy. But then they fail in their first two missions, she sees sonya for the first time in a while as she plays her first major role in a mission and he is the cause for her failure, even extending an olive branch to her and a place back inside the group she had so quickly left behind when things didnt go so well for her. Then they finally start seeing successes but they come at great losses, being forced to face your traumas, to kill your previous loved ones, to give up your entire motivations for the sake of moving forward and finding your place in the world.

And then we come to t corp itself, rodion finds herself being hand picked for a mission that surely other sinners are more capable of completing. Rodion has lost some of her previous confidence in her place in the bus. She didnt face her trauma like sinclair did, she didnt fight against sonya with all her might like yi sang had, she didnt push through her flaws and learn from her behavior like idhmael and heathcliff had done. Rodion ran, and she hadnt even gained anything from it.

As the event went on, we saw slowly as rodions compossure dropped, especially when the yurodivy got involved. We got to see rodion start to look back on her decision to leave the yurodivy when she interacts with them in district 20. She questions herself as soon as she sees that they actually managed to make something of themselves, that if she had actually been patient they would have been able to give her the kind of change that she had wanted in her life.

Her struggle to define what she wants and how she wants to get it is so interesting, it seems to me like rodion is constantly setting bars too high, either for others or herself, never wanting to settle her bet always wanting to push just a bit further and always crashing hard when she looses it all. The case of time killing time is showing the cracks in her resolve, and i think that eventually itll all come to a boiling point where shell get a rerun of her canto.

Anyways thanks for coming to my tedtalk every single one of the sinners make me mentally ill in ways i will never recover from, not just rodion. Trust me i WILL be making a 20 page essay on don once her canto is fully out i will NOT be normal about her. Sorry if i got a bit off track btw this was absolutely a full character study mostly on rodion rather then being me talking about the new event like i said and had quite a bit about me talking about how i think ids work inuniverse beside being things dante can use on sinners for combat. ALSO! If anyone can tell me how rodion and sonya are in the book it would be cery appreciated! Knowing about how moby dick, wuthering heights, and the metamorphsis play out really shaped my experiences of their cantos and id like to see how its themes played into canto 2.

[ranticore]

Forward by the Author [Qedivar's research, prologue]

My friends, this biography almost killed me. At the conclusion of my thesis work and the culmination of months of dangerous study, I write to you now from my bower at an undisclosed location, where I currently rest with three broken limbs and more than a few shattered nerves.

Effete shortwing academics such as myself are not particularly known for venturing across the water to West, where land is so rare as to be the continent’s most precious resource. But this continent was where our ancestors first arrived to this world—and yes, it is now unequivocal truth that we are not natives to our planet, as I was first to discover at the ruins of Atom on that wretched continent.

The coarse facts have been spread throughout Intun and East at large, ferried by news-mongers who have yet to finish my associated published paper. They will soon realise that they have missed the most fascinating details of our history. Naysayers have already decried me a heretic and I regret to agree with them, but it is true that my findings are heretical. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I say that a little bit of heresy might vastly improve the quality of our lives and understanding of the world at large.

A martyr, however, I am not. For this reason I do not attach my name to this record. Shortwings being as we are – all quite alike and common as muck – I am confident in my ability to remain anonymous to my readers while still revealing enough to prove myself a credible source. You will need to take rather a lot on faith, when you read this. You will need to suspend your disbelief that we are aliens on Siren. And you will need to accept that every one of us is a product of intentional design – not by some god, and not by so-called ‘evolutionary theory’, but by the ancient first settlers at Atom.

I will write a detailed account of my explorations another time, when I have healed from their rigours. I felt it more important to release the results of my study first, rather than let it become a vanity project with myself its hero. Instead I will preface each chapter with a description of the relevant source texts, including where and in what condition they were found.

On to the source texts themselves. I have created this biography to provide an introduction to the first Sirenian, Ishmael. The phocids of the Southern Spiral know Ishmael as offspring of the moon of the same name, and the ruler of the high tide. The inhabitants of Odr’s Sleep in the far North take a less literal interpretation of Ishmael’s moon and consider him a common ancestor. Harpies in my home Spire know him less, though–without revealing too much of my own bower–we have a mythological figure of the same name; Ishmael, who arrives to punish the crime of hubris.

It was a great surprise to me to find that Ishmael was a real person, and indeed that he was the first person born on this planet. Others arrived, yes, but he took his first breath here, before anyone else. My phocid companion was remarkably unsurprised by the discovery, and could even provide a little local Spiral folklore to illustrate the stories told of Ishmael’s life, which I will include as footnotes in the relevant chapters.

My source texts are extremely varied. Some describe Ishmael from the point of view of those who settled in Atom. Some are his own writings. Some are even a format which projects moving images onto walls, which I will also describe in a coming paper to be published. The technologies many visored longwings preserve sit in rot and ruin in Atom, proving, once and for all, that it was a society more advanced than our own. For the purpose of this introduction and my prefaces, I will refer to this as Precursor society, though in the source text they did not refer to themselves as anything but ‘settlers’ or ‘colonists’.

In those ruins, my party and I discovered things which we still have no words to describe. As a result, many of my interpretations are direct and untranslated, in the hopes that later, with greater understanding, we might return to the source and make more accurate interpretations. Many of these concepts were considered so commonplace to Precursor life that no one bothered making concrete definitions for the benefit of the scholars who might once hope to study them. Precursor society stems largely from a place called ‘Earth’ which we surmise to be the Precursors’ location of origin.

From this, we move on to the most puzzling concept of all. The concept of Humans. I took it to be a clan name at first, given the texts’ referral to Ishmael, a type of proto-phocid unique at Atom, as Human when the other people in the records did not very much resemble Ishmael at all. But Humans were in fact a species. Humans were bipedal and lacked feathers, though their faces will be familiar to any modern Sirenian, because they resemble our own. Once I succeeded in translating the scientific notes surrounding Ishmael, all became clear, and it was this shocking truth which forces me to write under a pen name.

Every modern Sirenian is a Human. We descend from the first-born Sirenians, who were designed – by techniques as purposeful as an artist’s brushstrokes – to occupy the particular range of morphologies which we now inhabit.

Precursor Humans arrived here, to this world, and knew their bodies were poorly adapted to survive here, lacking mechanisms of flight or aquatic mobility and being unable to breathe our air, or eat any of the foods we take for granted. So they engineered those mechanisms to develop in other Humans, which were birthed and raised at Atom in its prime in a series of successive generations, the last of which will likely be my most controversial uncovering. The engineered Humans – Sirenians like you and I – were not privileged members of Atom. In fact, we were a sort of labour underclass to them, who would brave the sea and sky of Siren outside Atom’s bubble where the Precursor Humans could not venture.

Ishmael was the first of this underclass, and was originally intended as merely a first concept, a rough draft of what phocids and selkies would become. He was a fascinating person who I believe is deserving of the great length of this biography and worthy of being the first introduction to the lives of Precursors that many modern Sirenians will experience. Where at all possible I have avoided editorialising Ishmael’s life, instead presenting it as it happened. We find not a revolutionary hero or an icon of tidal vengeance but a person born into a state of great confusion and neglect. He was a Human like his peers but was treated as inherently lesser, hardly a person at all, and he did not conform to expectations of graceful victimhood.

Welcome to the beginning of the world.

[thatstudyblrontea]

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

— Herman Melville, Moby Dick

[lu-is-not-ok]

Hello Limbus Gamers

Why did I title this post that.

Anyway, yeah, it's that time again. I'm gonna analyze the RR4 trailer. Some of you may be asking why, but. You'll see.

Oh boy you'll see.

Starting off, we get a very brief animation of the nodes of the new Railway. And by brief, I do mean, this shit speeds past you like instantly.

They even make sure to not show the whole thing all at once to make it harder to count. I did count though. There are thirteen of these nodes in this animation. This might be subject to change, but we shall see.

Then we get the title card. We're back to single word Railway names from before RR3, and in the background we get to see some silhouettes. We're gonna learn what they are during the trailer itself, but you can already tell they're the abnos from the Battle Pass E.G.O - Dreaming Electric Sheep, The King in Binds, and Portrait of a Certain Day.

We also see silhouettes of some Sinners, and while it's hard to make out with the text in the way, I'm pretty sure there's N Corp Don, N Corp Faust, and BL Yi Sang in there.

Now THIS is interesting - a new Railway gimmick! Not just one gimmick though, but after throwing the screenshot into Google Translate, it turns out we might be dealing with two!

First, the one that doesn't need translating to figure out - the Backup gimmick. I believe it's shown a bit clearer in the next scene, so I won't be speculating on it too much yet, but from my guess it's a replacement for a similar mechanic in RR3, where you could throw another team of Sinners at an Abnormality after your initial team of 6 died to finish the Abno off from where you left it at.

That's not the most interesting part though, this is.

Our Sinners are also going to be recieving individual buffs in this Railway, potentially based on selection order, considering PM has been pushing more and more for the selection order to matter with the recent addition to the E.G.O Gifts.

If I'm correct and the buffs are based on selection order instead of being completely random, we can see the buffs are as follows:

Selection 1 - Identity Level +2

Selection 2 - SP Gain Efficiency +3

Selection 3 - too blurry for google to translate

Selection 4 - Defense Level +2

Selection 5 - Max Speed +2 (the 5 came from the semi-transparent level 45 number lmao)

Selection 6 - too blurry for google to translate

Selection 7 - Final Power +1

Selection 8 - Damage taken -10%

Selection 9 - this one i'm not too sure on but it might be Aggro +5 (the 45 came from the semi-transparent level 45 number lmao)

Selection 10 - scene cuts away too quickly to read it

In addition to that, some IDs (primarily the Backup selections but also for some reason Faust) get a head start of +10 SP when they join the fight, which is a very nice way to help off-set the issue of having to gain sanity in harder fights to even attempt winning clashes.

Next scene shows us what seems to be the Backup mechanic. It's an admittedly very brief shot that barely shows us anything of how it works, but considering everyone's low sanity and Ishmael's stagger, I'm guessing what happened is two units died and the backup units were put in there in their stead.

An interesting gimmick that honestly feels more lore-accurate than the current system LMAO.

Next up, we get our excerpts from the new Abno Logs. This one, based on the background, is for Portrait of a Certain Day. It's a bit hard to tell who wrote this Log based on the English translation, but it does give an interesting insight onto the Abnormality and by extention its E.G.O, Bygone Days.

Something about taking advantage of deaths through parading mementos of the dead in connection to Yi Sang and Gregor, huh... Gregor is the one who gave Aya's mask to Yuri as a memento, and then proceeded to keep that mask as a memento of Yuri. On the other hand, while Yi Sang personally didn't keep mementos of the League around, both Dongbaek and Dongrang had a strong emotional attachment to the last remaining picture of the League all together. There's something there I think.

Then we get to see the excerpt from Dreaming Electric Sheep's Abno Log. Again, not very clear who's writing this from the English translation. And this is a very interesting excerpt too! This is the clearest connection we get between the Abno and the 'Dreaming' part of its name! I feel like I'd need to see the whole Log to get a better idea of what is being conveyed here, but it is good to see we're getting to see some new angles on the Abno.

BIG SHEEP! It's notable that it's attacking Faust.

And there's Portrait, in all its low bitrate glory! Note that it's attacking Yi Sang.

What follows is two more shots, one of each of the Abnos, and then...

It might hard to see in that glorious 240p low bitrate, but yes. That is, in fact, N Corp Don and N Corp Faust, covered in a purple glow, attacking the Sinners.

And then, the bombshell.

Guys.

Guys.

These are Envy Peccatula.

Envy Peccatula are doppelgangers.

DO YOU REALIZE HOW HUGE THIS IS FOR SIN ANALYSIS??? Envy is one of those sins we got barely anything on due to its lack of Peccatula, and yet here we are, RR4 gave us a fucking blessing.

Anyway, back to talking about the actual fights themselves, I believe we're going to be dealing with faction-themed Envy Peccatula stages. The one we see in the trailer is N Corp, complete with a relevant background, and in the in the title card we can see Blade Lineage Yi Sang, implying we could get a BL-themed node as well. Notably, these are both factions that have enough IDs to form a full team.

The only other full team ID factions we have are W Corp and Liu Association, so these are also contenders for Envy Peccatula nodes. Seven Association is also possible, as they are only missing one ID from being a full six ID team. We could also potentially get a fraud Pequod Trio that's made up of the Pequod IDs, which would be really funny, but I'm not sure how likely that is.

Back to the trailer itself.

We finally get the Abno Log excerpt for The King in Binds, and it's very evocative in my opinion. The poetic language makes me think that Yi Sang is the one writing this Log.

This seems like an excerpt that's being used to describe a game mechanic - The King in Binds might have a mechanic where he tears himself free from his throne if certain conditions are met. Very interesting considering what we know about the abno.

What follows is some extremely quick and hard to see snippits of The King in Binds attacking Yi Sang. Yes, this is the best frame I could get from it.

Aaaand that's about it!

All in all, extremely excited about the potential Envy lore and fighting against out own units, and I guess the abnos are there too.

[deermouth]

I knew I was going to enjoy the voice inthis novel, but I just keep being positively DELIGHTED by even the smallest things like "by dint of much wriggling"

Ah yes :')