#fucking yaldabaoth

[vashtijoy]

To add to my previous ask:

Yaldabaoth says "welcome to my Velvet Room" in the English version, as opposed to Igor's "welcome to the Velvet Room." Is that a thing that happens in the Japanese version, too?

Hi, thanks for your ask, which I am brushing the dust off! This is a very widely noticed detail, and you won't be surprised to hear there's a little more going on in Japanese.

In short: in the Japanese original, both Fake Igor and Igor say "welcome to my Velvet Room". However, the way they say it differs—as the whole way the two of them speak differs.

igors, what the heck

The place most people notice this is in this cinematic, where we first meet Fake Igor.

Igor [Yaldabaoth] ようこそ、私のベルベットルウムへ。 youkoso... watakushi no berubetto ruumu e Welcome to my Velvet Room.

First of all, in case you know kanji, yes, that's the more decrepit and more formal-sounding watakushi that Yaldygor is using, not the everyday watashi which is written the same way—the same pronoun Igor used in earlier games.

For comparison, in P3P:

Igor ようこそ、ベルベットルームへ。 youkoso, berubetto ruumu e Welcome to the Velvet Room.

... while P4G Igor welcomes you that first time simply with youkoso.

a comparison: yaldabaoth vs igor

greetings in cutscenes

Yaldy and Igor both have cutscenes where you walk in and they greet you. Yaldy's is at the start of Kamoshida's Palace; Igor's is when (if you aren't on NG+) Lavenza tells you that you can no longer summon Satanael. And these two lines are identical:

Igor [Yaldabaoth] ようこそ、ベルベットルームへ。 youkoso, berubetto ruumu e Welcome to the Velvet Room. Igor ようこそ、ベルベットルームへ。 youkoso, berubetto ruumu e Welcome to the Velvet Room.

Short and sweet: "welcome to the Velvet Room". No possessives. In fact, they're both identical to that initial greeting from P3P that we looked at.

igor's additional greeting

But True Igor has a second one of these, when you arrive to find your cell door open:

Igor ようこそ、我がベルベットルームへ。 youkoso, waga berubetto ruumu e Welcome to the Velvet Room. Welcome to my Velvet Room.

waga is a possessive. This is True Igor saying "my Velvet Room"! Per Wiktionary, waga is "a fossilized phrase... that carries old-fashioned connotations, and suggests a favorable view of the following noun". Wikipedia further calls it "faux-archaic" and points out that it retains its grammar from Old Japanese, with ga serving as a possessive in wa-ga. Let's keep looking.

when you walk in

Now, both Fake Igor and True Igor have a default line that they use when you walk in. And these lines are profoundly different:

Igor [Yaldabaoth] ようこそ…私のベルベットルームへ。今日は、何をして欲しいのだ? youkoso… watakushi no berubetto ruumu e. kyou wa, nani o shite hoshii no da? Welcome to my Velvet Room… What do you need today? [lit. welcome to my Velvet Room. what is it you want me to do today?] Igor ようこそ…我がベルベットルームへ。ご用件をお聞き致しましょう… youkoso… waga berubetto ruumu e. go-youken o o-kiki itashimashou… Welcome to the Velvet Room. Let me hear your business. [lit. welcome to my Velvet Room. I will humbly listen to your honourable business.]

In Japanese, the difference between them is screamingly obvious. True Igor is using humble language (kenjougo, a form of keigo) to talk about his own actions, with that o-kiki itashimasu ("I will humbly listen") and that beautified go-youken ("your honourable business"). Even his possessive, waga, honours its object to a degree—"my/our honoured Velvet Room". Again, P3 and P4 Igor spoke in just this way—humble and formalised.

But Fake Igor, the God of Control? Well... he's not using any form of keigo. In fact, he's not even using polite forms. He asks you what you want with no da!—which, on a question, is an interrogative construct that demands an answer! "Why are you even here?" "What do you want this time?"

True Igor sounds like an old retainer on a dusty estate somewhere: you are the guest, the customer, and he is the servant. Fake Igor addresses you as if he's your superior. In fact, the way he's addressing you is rude. Like he's the important one here. Like a guard with a prisoner.

And, if you were used to the ritualised humility P3 and P4 Igor spoke with, Fake Igor's blunt language style must have come as quite a shock.

pronouns generally

While Real Igor also uses watakushi as his pronoun, Fake Igor also sometimes uses that honorific, formalised waga possessive:

Igor [Yaldabaoth] 我が試みは水泡に帰し…全ては終わったのだ。 waga kokoromi wa suihou ni kishi... subete wa owatta no da My experiment has come to naught… Everything is over. [lit. know that my efforts have been in vain... that it has all ended.] Igor 私の名は、イゴール。 watakushi no na wa, igooru My name is Igor.

True Igor uses waga to honour the Velvet Room. But Yaldygor reserves waga for his own grand plan—"my efforts", or "my game", as he says in that same scene—and uses watakushi no as his possessive at all other times.

Note that the word for a scientific experiment is not kokoromi, but 実験 jikken—which makes Fake Igor's statement something more like "all my efforts have been in vain". That suihou ni kisuru is literally something like "ended in foam"—we might say "melted before my eyes", or "like foam on the ocean".

conclusion

So what can we learn from all this? Well, given that English lacks a formalised honorific system such as Japanese has, English Yaldygor's "my Velvet Room" is a good way of conveying something unsavoury about the character.

But it also means the characters are slightly different. English Yaldygor is marked by that possessiveness over the Velvet Room itself—the position and place that he stole from Igor. Japanese Yaldygor, on the other hand, is marked by how he treats you, the protagonist. He talks down to you, which True Igor never does. He disrespects you. He clearly believes that he is the centre of the Velvet Room, the important part of it—not its guest, as Igor does.

And sure, that leads to a feeling of ownership of the Room, but that's not all it is—or even the most important thing, because True Igor also expresses possession of the Room. Japanese Yaldygor talks, in every way, like someone who would lock you in a prison cell in chains and torture you. Like someone who thinks he's a bigshot, and you are dirt.

And that's the difference between them—which their language so clearly conveys.

revision history

click here for the latest version.

v1.2 (2024/05/21)—clarified true igor's use of waga.

v1.1 (2024/05/21)—clarified an unclear mention of fake igor.

v1.0 (2024/05/21)—first posted.

[katsona-the-katsequel]

I hate Salmael due to him just feeling like “Yaldabaoth Jr.” but also I think it’s hilarious that he basically went “Screw this one guy in particular.”

I know, right??? My headcanon is that he wanted to be the one in control of Japan the world to "protect" it, but wasn't as powerful as someone like Yaldabaoth to pull it off ("self-preservation" isn't nearly as domineering as "control"). He sulked while the big boys played their game, but when Yaldy fell, Salmael saw an opportunity. He could just insert himself in Yaldy's place and take all the assets and plans Yaldy had made for himself. But then Maruki happened and the momentum was gone. "It's fine," Salmael told himself, "I'll just take what remains and make it my own". And so, Salmael sealed an already weakened Igor off (wouldn't have been able to in normal circumstances) and looked for a "stand-in" for Shido. However, Salmael completely missed the years of behind-the-scenes scheming that Yaldy put into the plan and tried to take over Toshiro's mind to win before the next elections. When Toshiro resisted, Salmael saw this as the end of all his ambitions, threw a hissy fit, and took it all off on the poor sap whose mind he'd invaded.

[scrivenger-grimgar]

not enough people talking about how the phantom thieves killed god.

like, seriously.

no other persona team has ever accomplished that??

like, excuse me??

izanami was convinced to stop. nyx was sealed away at a steep cost.

even nyarlatothep wasn't killed, in either game!

they killed a god, one much larger than izanami, and on par with or just beneath nyx. thats insane!

[randomwriteronline]

It was so warm and tender that he thought he might have died.

It was a fleeting thought, bursting from his chest with the rustle of a small bird's wings as it left him only a heart beating fast and gentle, and a splendid unknown with curious eyes looking up as it laid beneath him.

Could he have described it? Oh, he didn't know; he wasn't enough of an artistic soul to do such a thing justice with his words. If he was forced to wrack his brain about it, he would have said it was incomplete: like a sketch left unfinished, the vague shape of an anatomical structure made of sand abandoned at the cruel mercy of the rising tide, some new flavor of sublime.

But he didn't want to think, and all he could describe it as was handsome.

He leaned down upon it, basking in the heat and light and barely completed physicality. His hand brushed the cheek, pressure causing its infinite pieces to crumble before they returned to their rightful place.

So handsome, he muttered as he settled between the ever shifting legs. So handsome.

The marvelous being looked at him with the gleaming eyes of a puzzled child beholding a strange rite for the first time.

"What is this?" it asked.

"Oh, we've got names for it," he replied: "Some crass or mean or downright silly."

He sunk into the body of multitudes like one sinks in a warm, dense liquid, with a pleasant mellow resistance enveloping him wholly; his gorgeous partner gasped without a mouth, and its arms melted briefly as it was taken by surprise. He kissed its forehead kindly, feeling its fluid chest lurch slowly forward for an overwhelmed second before deflating so sweetly.

"If you like it, we can call it making love," he said with a smile.

The body beneath him raised to surround him.

"I do," his wonderful lover replied breathlessly, wrapping him within itself slowly, limbs rising to consume him, swallow him, with such magnificent tenderness, and on its yet to be drawn face bloomed something akin to watercolor blush beneath its shining eyes: "I do like it - I do like it very much."

He moved forward, sliding without opposition deeper within the gentle mound covering him, embracing him slowly.

It felt sweet, and good, and just like he'd imagined it, or almost; the strange non-existence of the body he pierced at such a deliberate pace felt welcoming despite the peculiarity, the fleeting sensation as it barely clasped around him like a spectre's shadow upon a wall - but after all, he could not expect the taking of a formless minor god to feel too similar to that of a creature of flesh and blood.

A blissful sigh grazed his face through a cloud of mild golden embers.

"I like it so, my friend," the wondrous beast whispered, its voice propagating through him in long waves: "I do like it - I truly do like it so, my friend, truly, truly..."

He was slow, so slow, so gentle, as he kept going, going, going, sinking further and further down in that barely held together shape that kept enveloping him with relaxed coils as if trying to turn him into another part of itself - here he was, inching slowly along its stomach, digging in its faux entrails to fill it up completely, kind and warm and loving, moving into its chest where a quiet thrumming spasmed rhythmically through the sand-like form while it curled around him, covering every single inch of him, leaving a sensation so indescribably good across his skin.

He leaned down to kiss where its mouth should have been and felt a pair of lips kiss back.

"I love it - I love it, I do," it breathed through him, overwhelmed by something too delightful to explain: "I do, I do, I do."

In a moment, he was swallowed up completely.

The splendid creature exhaled through his lungs, long and quiet, as they both unwound.

"I do," they both repeated longingly, bodies and minds muddled together imperfectly like too much syrup in too little water, distinct but not for long: "I do. I do."

His hand reached out.

Something akin to another palm caught it.

He held onto his marvelous lover for a long while, feeling it pulse over him slowly.

"How wonderful," it sighed through him, smitten.

He laughed quietly, just as lovestruck.

"How wonderful indeed." he whispered through it.

The dream kept going - longer than it should have, really; the shapeless body enveloping him held him down, close to the unknowable core of the gorgeous chimera in his grasp, until their thoughts began clearing from the humid mist overtaking them again, until their forms began to divide enough to be pulled apart from each other again, until he could see those magnificent eyes clearly again (half-lid and heavy and gleaming with the soft sheen of velvet, taking all the time in the world to return from their bliss), until he could feel the hand gently resting on his nape as something outside himself again, until the invisible mouth that met him halfway to a kiss was one with his own in a manner different from the inexplicable unity that had bound them again.

He felt a quiet sigh curl upon his cheeks, just for a moment, warm and tired. Then his sublime partner closed its wonderful eyes, breathing deeply, fast asleep - and Ackar woke up still groggy, with his body half aching from moving in ways it hadn't enjoyed in a long while now, as Mata Nui slumbered deeper still in his own rest, exhausted from making love.

[soliusss]

finally finished the little comic I made based on that dream I had about them from like a month ago 🙏

[chai-en-kaadhale]

finishing the royal dlc and why is maruki so margoofy "AGAHAAGAH I HAVE SO MUCH PENT UP STRESS IM GONNA FUCKIGN,. PUNCH A TEENAGER ABOUT IT HKHFKHKEF"

akiren kurusamamiya is such a good person like my ass would have been the most insensitive little shit about it like bro already helllllllla dragged out the boss fight and now he wants to fistfight me about it

oh fuck and look at that hes trying to kill himself as i type

like please

[ajdrawshq]

bored n my back hurts. look at my notepad jokers

[tricksheart]

ur too young to be around izaya

If that's the case, then Akira shouldn't be around half the world's population. Or half of his confidants and people he knows. Your ask sounds a little ageist to be honest.

[darkhopping]

ohhh wait im schtewpid tyrant terminus constant of termination

[nebulaleaf]

[wakes up in a cold sweat]

time to make an overly complicated fe3h au for p5

[vashtijoy]

i have a translation question ive been wondering abt (sorry if you've answered this before, I tried looking but couldn't find if you've mentioned it).

So Sae's conversation with the SIU director on 6/5 after madarame's change of heart has her asking to investigate the psychotic breakdown/mental shutdown cases, specifically saying "we need to find a correlation among the incidents these past two, three years." This struck me as odd because as of 6/5 hasn't it only barely been about 2 years? I know Akechi has only been working for shido around two years at this point which is when he first induced psychotic breakdowns to prove his worth to shido, and then Wakaba is noted to have been around when the mental shutdowns started happening on 8/21, so it seems odd to me that sae who is usually pretty precise with her knowledge on the case would suddenly give a range that doesn't seem to be accurate, implying the cases have been going on longer than they have.

I'm wondering if something got lost in translation, or if perhaps I'm looking too deep into it and this line is alluding to metaverse incidents that happened before akechi met with shido (like the stuff that happened with maruki, or maybe even akechi figuring out his own powers himself before turning to shido, idk)

thank you, you usually give really great in-depth analysis on this stuff and I've loved reading your meta so this is just one thing I thought to ask haha

Hello, anon, and thank you! I have not answered this before and I'm delighted to look at it.

Here's Sae in the SIU Bastard's office on 6/5.

Sae ここ2、3年の間に起きた事件を関連付けて、調査すべきです。 koko ni, sannen no aida ni okita jiken o kanrenzukete, chousa subeki desu We need to dig deeper and find a correlation among the incidents these past two, three years.

Literally, "the cases that took place over the last two to three years".

But what's going on here? What's the context of this scene?

on sae's case and others

6/5 is the last "real" day of the Madarame arc, the day it all wraps up. Madarame confesses; Akechi pops up in Station Square to watch (and, coincidentally of course, Kichijoji unlocks); you have a flashforward to the interrogation room where your next target is named; and Sae visits her boss, to link the psychotic breakdown cases she's been working on with the Phantom Thieves case that she has, to date, not been working on.

He is not best pleased, put it like that. Niijima is getting far too close to the truth. This will play out in later months.

One of the first things that happens in the game is that subway crash cutscene on 4/10. That's when we first see these two talk; Sae has made the connection that the "incidents" that have been going on, the scary accidents where people suddenly lose their minds, are all connected—a single case. The likelihood is that she brings Akechi in that day because he's known to have solved several of those cases.

On 5/4, at the end of the Kamoshida arc, Sae visits Leblanc, and talks about the psychotic breakdowns and the Kamoshida case: "Can a person's mental state really change so easily?" So here on 6/5, when she insists on the similarity between the psychotic breakdowns and the changes of heart, she's following a trail she's been on all along.

But of course, this is an ongoing case. Sae is likely refining and eliminating her data as she goes. It's perfectly possible she says "two or three years" because she simply hasn't narrowed her timeframe... or is it?

the news report at the start

Something else I want to quickly highlight from this scene:

When we cut to the scene, Sae and the SIU Asshole are watching a news report:

Newscaster: ...The suspect has repeatedly testified that he does not have any recollection of his actions. Newscaster: A full psychiatric evaluation will be performed to further investigate the crime's details and motives.

Note that this unfortunate suspect is not Madarame. Madarame remembers his actions. He's just confessed to them all on camera. His news report, earlier in the day, stated that "initial psych evaluations state that he is mentally sound and likely responsible for his actions".

This is a totally unrelated psychotic breakdown. This is interesting, because at the start of June, background gossip is suggesting that "those weird incidents just stopped all of a sudden". But they haven't; there's one right here.

So are they just being reported on less? Has the Madarame incident made it necessary for there to be a publicised psychotic breakdown, to remind people of the scary incidents? Don't forget, the news we see is constantly manipulated in Shido's interests.

the timing of the incidents

Anon, you summed up the timing pretty well, but to quickly go over it again—Akechi starts working for Shido some time around 2014/05/21. We don't know when he awakens, or what he initially does, though he likely has a window after the conclusion of P4AU (is that in 2012?) when it can happen—Velvet Rooms may be unconnected, but I don't think there are multiple Igors, and I can't see Igor sitting on his ass with a brand new wild card running about. So IMO Akechi must awaken after Igor is imprisoned. Don't forget he gets the app from Yaldabaoth; he—and Joker—don't spontaneously awaken. And they both awaken into the Metaverse we know—a cognitive world centred on and controlled by Yaldabaoth.

On 11/21, Akechi states that the first thing he does for Shido, the act that proves his value and that he's not insane, is to give psychotic breakdowns to a group of Shido's critics in the Diet. So Akechi must a. have Call of Chaos, and b. have used it enough to know how it works, before he approaches Shido.

Again, we don't know what this looks like. But if, say, Akechi begins causing psychotic breakdowns on his own behalf, in the spring of 2013, when he'd be fourteen-turning-fifteen-in-June, then that would give us the three years Sae mentions.

The fact that the dating is uncertain, though, IMO, suggests that Akechi's personal use was rather sporadic and not easily traced back to him. It wasn't systematic, like Shido's use of him would later be; it wasn't the wave of terror it would become.

Essentially: just as you say, Akechi exists in canon and has a life long before he arrives on Shido's doorstep. He doesn't awaken two years before canon; he awakens before that point, and contacts Shido two years before canon. He has his powers before that point.

And we just don't know what he's like then, or what he chooses to do—except that there's presumably some conflict between the sides of him represented by Robin Hood and Loki, where his worse nature wins out.

sae on 8/22

Let's take a look at that other line of Sae's you mentioned:

Sae 若葉の死は2年前⋯『あれ』が起き始めた時期とも一致する⋯ wakaba no shi wa ninenmae... "are" ga okihajimeta jikan to mo icchi suru... Wakaba's death was two years ago... That also coincides with when the incidents started occurring...

Sae does not actually say "the incidents"—a phrase that, in P5 at this point, unquestionably describes the psychotic breakdowns. She says are—"all of that". It's quoted in the textbox, to emphasise its significance. We're supposed to understand what she means from context. And what's the context?

Well, Wakaba suffers a mental shutdown. We know, and Sae suspects, that the psychotic breakdowns, the mental shutdowns, and, yes, the changes of heart, are all one big, interconnected thing. Sae could be conflating all of it here.

But the thing is, she goes on to bring the psychotic breakdowns back into the conversation:

Sae 騒がれてる『精神暴走事件』のこと⋯少し話したわよね? sawagareteru "seishin bousou jiken" no koto... sukoshi hanashita wa yo ne? Earlier, I briefly mentioned about those psychotic breakdown incidents that have alarmed the public.

So Sae wasn't talking about the psychotic breakdowns before. She's only now raising the connection. She's reminding Joker (and us) that she talked about them in an earlier scene. Her are in the line about Wakaba's death can only have been the mental shutdowns. "all of those things that are like Wakaba's death".

What does that give us? "Wakaba's death was two years before that."—note, Sae is speaking in November, in flashforward—"That coincides with the start of the mental shutdowns."

what about maruki?

Going by his journal, Maruki's activity period seems to overlap with Akechi's—no years are given, but his journal describes an almost-three-year period, culminating in January 2017—the third semester.

He doesn't use his power until August 2014, at the same time as the mental shutdowns begin. But he's making small changes to the cognition of individuals—there's no sign he causes anything like a psychotic breakdown.

conclusions??

Let's sum up:

on 8/28, Sae's "two years before" likely refers only to the mental shutdowns;

on 6/5, Sae's "two to three years" likely refers only to the psychotic breakdowns;

we don't know when Akechi awakened, or what he did, but he did less of it than he did once he was working for Shido;

... but he almost certainly did do some of it—so there will have been psychotic breakdowns before ?May 2014, that might account for the "three year" period.

[changeling-droneco]

Me trying to explain some of my more niche and confusing interests to my friends be like

[themurderofcrowscollective]

Holy fucking shit guys

The funniest and most wildest thing just happened to us and I'm laughing with this image stuck in my head

(Credits to the OG artist, I couldn't find it-) ANYWAYS I was talking with a friend about joining a roleplay server and uh, I didn't last long in the server when I joined. Wanna know why? I GOT KICKED FOR BEING PART OF A SYSTEM. THEIR REASONING WAS THIS: 'We aren't prepared for systems.'

Excuse me,

WHAT??

Am I offended? Very, but this whole situation is also kind of funny to me because this was a first and I'm just... baffled. I've been bamboozled and I can't be mad about it, but I've got every right to be offended. And I am, I am very offended.

[senblades]

OKAY OKAY OKAY SO HEAR ME OUT

Akechi as a Velvet Room attendant au- but he effectively replaces Caroline and Justine in Ren's Velvet Room.

So basically: During one of Wakaba's questionable experiments, Akechi dies, and Yaldabaoth is like "Fuck, I can work with this" and scoops up Akechi's soul into the Velvet Room to act as Ren's attendants when the time comes. The whole 'splitting in half' thing was barely even Yaldy's doing in this au- Akechi's personas were already Robin Hood and Loki, so when he was dragged into the Velvet Room post-death, he manifested as two seperate entities.

Back in the real world, Wakaba's reaction essentially boils down to "shit", since she just murdered a child by mistake. Shido would normally be very upset by this, but he instead decides to make it work, and instead of having Wakaba killed, he blackmails her into complete compliance by holding her ethical malpractice over her head. Somewhat unsure as to the state of the mental shutdowns- definitely no psychotic breakdowns, though.

Meanwhile, in regard to other canon divergences- Futaba doesn't have a palace, but is quite upset with her mother due to how obsessed she is with her research, especially since all the stuff with Akechi. (Futaba is unaware of all this, for the most part)

Wakaba, on the other hand, does have a palace. Perhaps focused on guilt +deflecting blame?

Sae's role in the story is fairly similar, but rather than being on the mental shutdowns case (She might still be on the case, but it isn't her focus/leads into what she's actually interested in) She's obsessed with Akechi's missing person's case, since she noticed it two years ago and how suspicious it is, and is furious that no one seems to care, a concequence of Shido's influence and the general poor treatment of orphans.

So, yeah. Brainworms. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[taitavva]

yaldabaoth couldn't help but make his whole team overpowered huh ... how are the phantom thieves supposed to survive ?? "oh noo akechi ur so hot haha .. please don't kill me" brilliant strategy pego (entire ask under cut)

[ACTUALLY UR PUTFITS WERE SO ON POINT. I HAVE 2 OUTFIT IDEAS 4 HIFUMI & SHIHO (MINUS MASKS) & 1 mask idea for yuuki but idk what else. i was thinking for the leaders it would def be chaotic but goro has most metaverse experience so hes the leader. ken kinda acts like mona in giving useful tips abt personas etc and hifumi takes on the role of makoto where she gives out different strategies (her, ken, & goro debate over these tips & strategies but usually end up doing them anyway). I have an urge to show u these outfits omg. i can ramble abt these outfits & their personas for forever .. i chose jormungandr for yuuki, skadi for shiho hela for hifumi, and persephone for eiko. ik its not very in the literacy scene for them to all have deities as personas but... goro breaks it with loki anyway, so ..

explainations:: hela & jormungandr are 2/6 of loki's kids in norse mythology, aiding him in the ragnarok/end of the world, and hela is sentenced down to the underworld to be the goddess of that realm since she was born half alive half dead, and she's sentenced to it by odin (basically. kinda the zeus of norse mythology, like the "king" of all of them) because she's the daughter of loki & all this other stuff .. chose her for hifumi because hifumi's mom basically forces her to be a shoji star after hifumi's dad and yeah. jormungandr i chose because hes kinda just a sleepy little guy: in norse mythology he's known as "the World Serpent" and he wraps around the entire ocean with his tail in his mouth kind of in a constant sleep until the ragnarok (all of loki's kids --aside from 2, one being dead & the other being a gift to odin-- including loki himself, are kinda trapped somewhere before the ragnarok happens) and he's not talked about a lot but he aids in so much and he's important (like how yuuki is kind of ignored by the pts, the dialogue options being horrid, despite him aiding in them. also yuuki is the bm's navi in the au & he runs a "revenge site" like how Strega/takaya sakaki, jin shirato, & chidori yoshino do in p3-- strega also does death calling cards , mainly shown in the novels which is p cool.. first ppl to use mental shutdowns despite not beinf called that then either. i love strega sorry. they all agreed to it because shiho wanted to deal with more people like kamoshida, goro wanted to deal with more people like shido, hifumi wanted to deal w more people like her mom, etc).. i chose persephone for eiko because in greek mythology, persephone is (most commonly accepted form of the myth) kidnapped by hades and forced into marriage with him by eating a pomegranate out of the underworld .. point blank, persephone reminds me of eiko being trapped and persephone's shown to overcome it , ( honestly eventually making the underworld & hades her Bitch. she kills the goddess/nymph of mints and creates the mint plant because she got too handsy with hades).. also hifumi and eiko are a little gay for eachother so why not have their personas be, too? anyway. SHIHO!! i chose skadi for her because skadi , in norse mythology , is both jotunn (giant) and a god like how loki is, but she's an accepted form of it because she was given over to the gods as a peace treaty, and thats pretty important to norse mythology i'd say (like how rooftop scene is important to kamoshida arc), and skadi claws up the aesir (council of gods) thru both her marriage (ann? ann. hehe.) and her own sheer will (shiho's recovery and goro's ..... questionable aid.) and skadi just fits. the goddess of mountains and winter? sign me the FUCK UP.

Anyway . this was long I apologise]

[lime-bloods]

The theory used to be that Caliborn was his own dad. Thematic echoes ring around the story; his followers' obsession with "MOTHERFUCKING" evokes the Oedipal undertones of Yaldabaoth imprisoning and corrupting his creatress Sophia. And Aranea, often misinformed but rarely, if ever - in spite of the school of red herrings surrounding English - intentionally misleading, seems to hint at such a possibility: Caliborn and Calliope's home planet is the former home planet of their father, which is in her words "a loc8tion now conspicuously occupied 8y a truly massive 8lack hole". Now that the comic's over, and we have a more comprehensive idea of English's life and times - he was born, he fucked with the trolls, left to try to kill his sister, and then died - it seems pretty unlikely that he had the opportunity to go back to the era of his birth and spawn himself... in the incarnation we're most familiar with, at least. We've known from much earlier on that there were Englishes in "countless universes", and that the "mobster Hulk" menacing Homestuck itself would never be fully representative of all of Caliborn's crimes. And now that I've spent some more time looking over the mechanisms by which Caliborn is able to exist in so many countless universes, I'm not totally convinced that he isn't his own dad?

Cherub romance is chiefly two things; it's caliginous, and it's incestuous. One way in which it is widely understood to be incestuous is by way of being masturbatory: in its mate, a cherub looks for "qualities its other half once had", seeking to replace the aspect of itself it once referred to as brother or sister. But increasingly, I also think cherub mating is incestuous by way of being cyclical. Indeed, it's difficult to draw a line between 'cyclical' and 'masturbatory' for a race who couple by forming an ouroboros; but as touched upon already, the planet around which Caliborn's father intertwined with his mother was also the planet around which his father's father intertwined. Because cherubs always mate around black holes.

It's easy to fall back on the simplest, most surface-level observation of the black hole, that it's a symbol of Lord English. I have described the singularity in the past as English's mouth, the orifice that swallows suns in the same manner the god of time Cronus swallowed his own son. But once more, English is ouroboros; the mouth that swallows his prey is also the mouth that swallows itself. The number of times I've pointed out the significance of white and black holes in Homestuck could be aptly called ad nauseam: but for the comic's metanarrative purposes, being a gateway out of the story also makes the white hole a gateway forward into progress, and by contrast, the black hole is necessarily a pitfall into regression. Just as the black hole is where the god of cycles is swallowed by his own cycle, and is therefore a signpost of Lord English's resurrection, it is also where cherubs go to enact violence upon their sibling-spouses because that is where their parents, and their grandparents, and their grandparents' grandparents, enacted violence upon each other.

Bruce Banner was transformed into the monstrous green Hulk halfway by radiation, halfway by a brutal childhood at the hands of his own monstrous father. Cronus devoured his son, black hole-like, because he received prophecy that his children would overthrow him the same way he had overthrown his own tyrannical progenitor. Even Oedipus was an early victim of the time loop; had prophecy not deemed him at the moment of his birth to be responsible for his father's death, his infamous transgression upon his mother could never have taken place. Whether we choose to believe English literally stepped through that black hole in some winged incarnation to commit the Oedipal sin, or if the rift through space and time is simply a symbolic wound - the bleeding hole left by generations of fathers traumatising wives and sons - the end result is the same. By becoming the Lord of Time, that god of cycles, and embedding himself in the very story structure cherubs dedicate their lives to upholding, Caliborn must embody that cycle; and the Oedipal is in the cyclical just as much as it is in the incestuous. Whether or not Caliborn's dad is him is irrelevant to the simple fact that Caliborn is his own dad.