#(but since we're looking from topdown it's way less eldritch to us. ect ect.)

[tvlandofficiall]

revisiting ch1 for the anniversary and one thing that's always stuck out to me is the couple of times darkness is associated with being able to "see the way". i don't know if it means anything or if it's just me reading a bit too much into some flavor text but if it does mean anything i definitely think it has something to do with how, like how venturing further into the darkness reveals the truth of what's hidden there (the switch in the ringaround puzzle room or the path to a key, for example), entering the dark worlds themselves reveals the hidden truth of the objects of the light world to us and the lightners — that they're not just ordinary objects, but living beings. the darker it gets, the more the whole of these worlds and how they are connected is revealed to us.

[tvlandofficiall]

i really like what you're cooking up here. i always assumed that this line was more of queen's mistaken assumption that she and her world act as mere a distraction from the lightners' problems. but this works really well too, as a doylistic reading of the line rather than a watsonian one. the weird route is already the epitome of treating the dark worlds like they're disposable – speedrunning to the light world and cutting out tons of cutscenes that demonstrate the darkners' struggles with their fates. (not to mention the amount of cutscenes in general that get cut!) the darkners are treated as mindless enemies – not too different from how in the light world one can only see them as mindless objects. we don't get to see spamton's arc delve into what being an object means for him as a living being (unlike the classic neo fight he never notices his strings), we don't see ralsei begin to recognize how his own "strings" have limited his sense of self, swatch is absent entirely and we only barely get to know queen at the start and end of the route. and it's fitting that noelle, the one we manipulate into being at the center of all this;

has eyes that do not just open in the crux of what's happened, but eyes that are washed out in light. and since only eyes blinded by darkness can see the way;

of course the bright-white snow made it hard to see.

revisiting ch1 for the anniversary and one thing that's always stuck out to me is the couple of times darkness is associated with being able to "see the way". i don't know if it means anything or if it's just me reading a bit too much into some flavor text but if it does mean anything i definitely think it has something to do with how, like how venturing further into the darkness reveals the truth of what's hidden there (the switch in the ringaround puzzle room or the path to a key, for example), entering the dark worlds themselves reveals the hidden truth of the objects of the light world to us and the lightners — that they're not just ordinary objects, but living beings. the darker it gets, the more the whole of these worlds and how they are connected is revealed to us.