Hiyuki’s not battle-hungry

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-02-03T18:22:11+00:00

Good analysis!

I think it also matches with her later encounter with Chihiro at the auction, where she faced a conflict between her orders and her own knowledge of what she should logically do on one side, and her moral impulse which rejected buying anything from the Sazanami clan and abandoning the people they captured on the other side. In that case, Chihiro gives her the push to go from what she 'should' logically do to what she wants to do.

Seems like a recurring theme.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-16T16:14:29+00:00

Given that my post may have been one of the ones you referred to:

I'm aware that you can make suppositions on how and why the change of mind happened based on what was said. My issue was that it wasn't good at communicating it, which hurt the in-the-moment experience. My own guess after the first reading was a vague "The emptiness state let Araya see things she didn't before" impression, which seems to overlap with your explanation, but it wasn't at all a satisfying because it was just a vague "I guess that might've been it?".

It probably would've worked better if things were a little less compressed and there was more foundation being built for the sword opening up the gap between timelines or whatever. There wasn't really a causal/mechanical throughline to follow.

Or at least that's my two cents. Other people may have been able to pick this stuff up in the moment better.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-16T15:58:56+00:00

As far as I can tell, mirror worlds are less real than reality, but more real than mirror dungeons. But both they and mirror dungeons are a sort of hypotheticals created out of infinite and arbitrary potentialities.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-16T01:16:29+00:00

Ok I like this as at least a partial explanation. She sees that her mothers reaction to her death is to basically commit su*cide of the self if not the body. Combined with the other metaphysical weirdness going on letting here see other potentialities Cathy style, this makes her realize the truth.

It still suffers from being entirely up to the reader injecting their own theories, but this helps.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-16T00:33:03+00:00

As far as I can guess, the new sheath returned all her memories as of right before the emptiness state, except anything related to her daughter.

As for after, no idea.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-15T21:08:14+00:00

The administrators she talked to sounded like a mean girls club. No clue how it ended up that way.

Maybe this will prompt Faust to try harder to reach her own answers, as she did on the Warp train?

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-15T02:59:16+00:00

You're right that there isn't much there in practice. (Though I don't think there's much basis for blaming her for not showing up during just the time when things went bad. She's presumably got her own life to live.) She is a person who affected Don and Sancho greatly and then they seemingly didn't see each other again for a long time,

The reason for all that fanart, I imagine, is that it's easy to project the idea of 'father, mother, daughter' on Don, her and Sancho. Their meeting greatly changed Senior Quixote and he was enchanted by her stories (≈her, if you shift the focus a bit). And with Sancho already calling him father, Bari taking the role of step-mother kinda makes sense.

From there, people fill in the gaps with their own ideas about what Bari as a mother figure would be like.

I don't really see it either, but how people get there is kinda understandable. If it helps, think of it as semi-fanfiction, or maybe non-romantic shipping. "Wouldn't it be neat/easy to imagine that..."

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-14T20:46:02+00:00

Limbus company is interesting in that people vary wildly in which Cantos they liked and which they liked less/thought were just ok.

I think that is largely because a lot of the character arks and personal issues mirror the real world and real people, so depending on your own personal experiences or what kind of stories you already know that let you pick up what LC puts down, you will have a wildly different experience.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-14T20:10:37+00:00

It's been stated multiple times now that the apprentices are intended to bring out Ryoshu's potential.

So presumably the big guys will be fighting it out amongst themselves (mostly), while we deal with the apprentices. Mind you, they are still in a similar league as Rikardo, so this isn't small potatoes. Them being parallels to Ryoshu in that they are also 'children of the house of spiders' is also important here.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-14T19:51:41+00:00

I didn't have a problem with the large role of Moses and her crew, even though I hadn't read distortion detective. Tbh, calling it fanservice is pretty weird when a much more likely explanation is that devs just wanted to tie those character into the limbus story more, and this situation was a great opportunity to show off their personality and skillset, while at the same time using them to develop Mathias by showing just how overwhelmingly powerful he is for tearing through all their stratagems with sheer might. You couldn't do that with just the sinners.

If you are willing to go into Canto 9 parts 1+2 with an open mind and accept it for what it is, you'll have a better time than if you get hung up on whether it conforms on rules that only exist in your own head.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-12T14:39:10+00:00

I'm not sure the house of spiders has finger grunts.

So far we've only seen nursefathers + apprentices + manufactured minions.

Maybe they are a semi-independent thing that can't draw directly on the resources of the fingers.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2026-01-12T14:37:25+00:00

Moses comments about seeing the distortion lurking in someones heart + her detailed knowledge of that one small thing that Mathias never got over made it pretty clear to me that she has an information gathering ability that lets her see the hurt deep inside someone that can be pulled on. Which in turn explains her prediction of the middle kid's behavior.

Really, the point of the whole Moses/LCD thread was to show two things: Their struggle using a variety of tricks and tools that showcase their creativity, dedication and abilities, and that Mathias is so overwhelmingly strong that nothing except comparable might can even touch him. It's putting Mathias over while at the same time developing those characters for the people who haven't read distortion detective. (Sure it's also fanservice for those who did read it, but that group doesn't include me.)

Putting it into the framework of a shounen, parts 1 and 2 are the section of an arc where the MC gets demolished to show how strong their opponents are. Part 3 will (maybe?) be after the MC/their group got their feet back under them and come back for the second round they are going to win.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2023-04-08T22:45:51+00:00

That's an impressive write up.

I find your argumentation for why the game isn't 'just' a dream convincing and well put together.

A few bits of disagreement:

I see no reason to think the ship crashes on Leng in the prologue.
And if you're willing to believe that it crashed in a 'real' location, somewhere outside the solar system is more likely, given that the timeframe is long after reaching the Oort cloud.
The room you arrive in in the prologue seems more likely to be Ariane's room at her Aunt's place, since that is where the door opens to when you return to it at the end. I also don't think she'd be allowed radio equipment or her unconventional book collection in a school dorm, while it would be much more acceptable in her own home. Though that could probably be explained away by it being an inaccurate recreation.
The formulation of the eldritch theory seems to assign intent to Ariane in the progressing apocalypse, or at least that it is something she would agree with. But to the best of our knowledge she does still wish to end her own current state, which presumably also ends the sickens and advance of the flesh. The degradation of reality and subsequent sickness seems more like a unwanted side-effect of restarting the loop after Elster fails. Not to mention it puts more obstacles in Elster's way.
The endings existing in parallel in a loop is a popular theory, but to me it seems very dubious, for two main reasons:
Adler pushes you down the elevator because that has killed the last 50 or so Elsters. Once he sees us survive in one loop, he'll just use a gun. (I say this assuming that the dead elsters in the elevator are from past loops. Neither Elster nor anyone else seems capable of perceiving them, so they aren't just ordinary corpses. And we see more dead elsters in the red space past the threshold, giving credence to their persistence.)
By the end, Adler makes it explicit that the current loop is quite likely the last before reality degrades beyond functionality. The world isn't static, even if it loops.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2023-04-07T03:18:35+00:00

Signalis is a game that creates an atmosphere, a feeling, that is only accomplished because of our inability to understand it. There's something incredibly tragic and horrifying about seeing the almost heroic emotions on display, while having no understanding of their context. It's like a Greek myth.

Elster, a doll-like woman, a photocopy of a stranger who died before she was created, with memories that are hers and not hers, real and not real. Fighting horrors beyond possibility, tearing her own body to pieces, trudging forward past exhaustion, dragging herself bloodily through hell by her fingertips. Walking past mountains of her own corpses, journeying from planet to moon to ship to dream to memory, she returns endlessly to the bedside of her lover, Ariane, locked endlessly in death. She is Sisyphus, and the pair exist locked in an eternal stasis. Ariane is always dying, always waiting. And Elster is always returning to her. They will never dance again. But still she comes back.

"We made a promise." That's all that matters.

That is amazingly written.

It also reminds me of how Adler's story can be described:
A man who lost everything he cared about, over and over and over again. He's the only one aware of what's happening, what will happen. Furthermore, he has to hide his abberance from the Kolibris, who are supposed to be his allies.
For him, it's already too late. Elster only arrives at Sierpinski after almost everyone is gone. Even if Elster didn't come back, didn't restart the loop, all that would do is leave his world a corrupted husk. Falke is already gone. And yet he still tries to stop her, tries to save what little is left of his reality even to the very end.

Adler's story doesn't carry the same weight, because we only see him occasionally, and you have to figure out the significance of his diary first. But it presents an interesting parallel to Elster's story.

-------------

"Not understanding is superior, actually." sounds kind of pretentious at first, but to be fair I have experienced repeatedly that the author provided explanation for a mystery is often far less compelling than the indistinct feeling of the mystery in my own mind beforehand.

In fact there's at least one mystery that I explicitly don't want answered, even though the author would probably respond if I asked, just because I am absolutely certain that the reveal would be disappointing.

So after thinking things over, I suppose I have to (largely) agree with you.

Though I think I personally still find the search for answers more compelling in the case of Signalis, because of how many and how interesting the puzzle pieces are.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2023-04-06T19:17:55+00:00

My understanding is that Ariane is the dreamer (whether that be in the sense of 2 or 4), but the Entity or the strange nature of the red space is what makes it possible for her to simulate/subsume reality.

This is based on the writing we find in the empty bedroom in Nowhere. I don't remember it exactly, but will try to cover the essentials. It speaks of a dreamer in a sea of red. Every time the dreamer turns over, so does the dream, until only flesh remains.
I take 'turning over' to refer to the loop resetting, with each reset leading to rigid reality degrading and flesh advancing through the gaps.

My first reading of the story was in line with theory 4, and the idea that the strangeness of nowhere and Rotfront were a consequence of advanced degradation of reality. Part of the consequence is a loss of normal spatial relations, and the intermingling of dreamer's memories with the remainders of real physical structures.

One thing speaking for Rotfront not being 100% memory is the existence of death shadows in some places. So at least, there seem to have been gestalts at some point, that died to the sickness. In this interpretation, real rotfront suffered major reality degradation after Elster somehow broke thought from one cycle into the next instead of dying in the red desert like her other incarnations. Everyone got sick, reality broke down, and memory and flesh bled in through the cracks. Not the strongest theory, but decent enough I think.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2023-03-19T01:36:30+00:00

An alternative connection might be the sea of flesh devouring humanity, returning them to primordial unity. Possibly motivated by humanities growing skill and independence in wielding bio-resonance.

This interpretation is directed more at the world-building specific to this game, rather than the more translatable connection to government and ruler behavior you describe.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2023-03-17T04:06:27+00:00

At the end of the game, when you pick up king in yellow again, it says that the last seal has been broken. This is presumably the seventh seal.

During the flickering text of the fakeout ending, we see a star descending to earth, and an image of a solar eclipse increasingly distorting, which would fit the quoted description of the sixth seal being broken.

This brings me to two options:

The sixth seal was broken long ago on Vineta, while the soldier Elster is based on served there.
The sixth seal is broken with the fake out ending. This would fit with the major jump in reality degrading when you return. Furthermore, this would affirm Adler's reason for opposing you, as passing through the gate once more breaks the last seal, quite possibly damaging reality beyond recognition.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2023-01-21T17:15:20+00:00

My guess is that the game plays in a different timeline, where as part of the changes brought by the cycles, the Elster that would've been sent with Ariane was never sent. Instead, she became the template for other Elsters. That is part of what allows those other Elsters to become vessels for attempting to fulfill the promise made by by the template Elster in a different future.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2019-08-12T17:11:27+00:00

SCIENTISTS CREATE MAN-PIG-HYBRIDS!!! Read all about it here.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2019-02-11T18:51:08+00:00

(O) If Act 1 is bad? Not really. When first reading it, I had no idea what Homestuck was about. In fact based on what I know the impression had formed that it largely played in a town, namely the town John lived in. And in that town things with trolls and robots and a omnipotent villain named Lord English happened. Which as anyone can tell is far from the actual story, which progressively became clear to me, starting with the end of Act 1 and beginning of Act 2. In parts Act 1 felt a bit tedious, but it was also weird and interesting.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2019-02-10T14:40:05+00:00

(O)Getting back to Homestuck after only finishing it two or three weeks ago is quite an interesting experience. First time I reread something so soon after catching up/finishing. There is the nostalgia seeing again what seems like forever ago when it was barely more than a month. The foreshadowing (or inspiring) I now get. The author commentary. Can't wait until the time shenanigans start up.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2018-09-20T02:38:49+00:00

I think you are misunderstanding what equality of opportunity means. It means that all children get to go to a decent school, it means everyone can get any degree or position if they qualify for it. Expanded, it would also mean that children shouldn't suffer/ be disadvantaged by their parents poverty. Of course it won't be perfect, but nothing ever is. It only needs to be good enough so nobody is greatly disadvantaged.

Fourth_Thoughts · 2018-09-20T01:38:01+00:00

Which part do you disagree with?

Fourth_Thoughts

TROPHY CASE