YES BUT WHAT ABOUT VIRTUAL, TRACKED POSSESSIONS

could the apple in Rose Hunter's MD art be Golden Apple, without it's lying sheen, as well? Or perhaps, Golden Apple is the one that couldn't/wouldn't actually grow a full body and move, instead of just rotting away (with gluttony from being too busy lying for survival) Also, sort of hash collisions with Eris' Apple of Discord - Faust/runaway being a point of contention. Golden/False Apple is weak to sloth, Greg's Legerdemain is weak to wrath and sloth. Also, from wikipedia: "Recurring themes depict a hero retrieving the golden apples hidden or stolen by a monstrous antagonist." - So Gesellschaft/Jia familiy OR Limbus Company. At the same time. Plus, is Rose Hunter in this context the 'hero' or 'abductor'?

the other EGO that are both victims and victimizers are all Hex Nails

Verg's flow might link to Heraclitus' "Panta rhei", that everything flows like a river, and their combined flows make up the flow of events, and one cannot step into the same one twice. That is to say, not a River itself but still sharing some of it's traits for purposes of explaining Rivers further (can you drink Verg's driving assistant? no)

Regarding Hong Lu's Lasso EGO. The abno of Rose Hunter in its MD event actually has two 'parts', of the apple and the hunter. Given how he shares this one with Faust of all people, I do think it may be referencing how they are both the one forcing the story to go on and the one being forced to go along with it. This is about Hong Lu I swear its just the more you dig the more he somewhat parallels her. One vs two blue eyes I guess.

For Faust this is via the Gesellschaft. Her as the apple in the way she must bend to the will of the collective Faust as one with a defined role to play. And as the hunter with how she - for the sake of someone else just the abno has its 'client' (there's a few who could fit this description, like Limbus Company as a whole, whomever is financing the whole operation, the Gesellschaft again) - ensures via various methods like keeping certain things from the sinners that things go according to plan.

Her passive is 'sprawling lasso' is possibly a reference to just how many she has, must, encircle for things to keep going. Plus this EGO is Fatal to Wrath and Gloom. This Wrath as her weakness ties into how this is the first time her voiceline, for corrosion, has expressed proper anger and desperation in her voice as far as I remeber. And Gloom I don't quite have a real reason for, perhaps her lament at not doing things of her own will? At being ensared as all others were?

But to loop lasso it back to Hong Lu, for one his awakening voiceline says to 'run along the flow' which has been causing me normal reactions for several weeks now. Regardless, this does tie into a mini theory of mine that the 'flow' followed by Vergillius is in fact one of the subterranean rivers, though I don't have the mythological knowledge to try and pinpoint which one.

And if we do take the stretch of a river = the flow then it connects to what Xichun was doing in Canto 7 and is yet another reference to water, just like in his base ego and in his promo image. This EGO is also weak to Gloom, funnily enough. Sloth too, though I have never had solid thoughts on that sin past it representing acceptance of sorts, typically to a status quo that hurts them. The corrosion line is presumably a reference to him probably just running away from his family the first chance he got, which was probably Faust.

Onto my thoughts on the illustrations, which was meant to be a minor note but we all know how these go. The thorns in Faust’s EGO illust are thinner and look more like rose branches, with one notably going over her leg as she looks up, seemingly about to get on the horse.

Whilst Hong Lu's has much thicker brambles around the edges - though the rose branches do appear near the bottom - striking me as similar to barbed wire, though thicker than in the base EGO illusts (speaking of, in his the wire seems much fuzzier than say, Yi Sang's). He's already saddled the horse and is looking down(?) At something that has already been entangled in thorns, the abno looking over him and who/what has been ensnared in a way that reminds me of judgement.

Ensnared itself, mind, seemingly lacking an arm, having another mangled and literally no legs to speak of, and no rose on its scarf. A drastic departure to how it was in Faust’s EGO, laying traps on the ground with all its limbs freed and intact, with a sunray to its side and a rose placed neatly upon itself, much more alike its MD self. Hong Lu's awakening is not lacking in the scarf rose, though.

Other rapid-fire thoughts: (corrosion) the rose petals on the horses look like it's bleeding as if being slashed from the stomach. (corrosion) Faust still has the reigns and very much uses them which provides her a degree of separation and control over this. Hong Lu does not. Most notable in both of their hurt sprites, Faust’s horse stands on its hind legs on her (or the Gesellschaft's, depending on how you think on it) command, Hong Lu's horse wants to run away and it turning to do so. (corrosion) Hong Lu's noose/lasso arms both have 2 loops each, unlike the one round his neck that has 3. Faust has red laces.

To close this off: I have been switching between their lasso sprites on the wiki and have one question: is Hong Lu smaller on his horse or had my brain made that up, thank you.

Hilarious thing to see before scrolling down and seeing all of this. Anyway. Let's pick this apart a little.

First things - the apple might not actually be a part of the Abnormality itself.

We know from Ebony Queen's Apple's Observation Log that Abnormalities that are conceptually connected through what they represent are in some way able to be aware of each other's existence - Ebony Queen being aware of 'Snow White', aka LobCorp's Snow White's Apple.

Considering that Rose Hunter is seemingly likely connected to the same fable of Snow White as Ebony Queen's Apple and Snow White's Apple are, specifically in that he represents the huntsman sent to kill Snow White on the Queen's orders, and that the way Rose Hunter describes the apple perfectly matches Snow White's Apple ("an apple that will become a princess, not knowing its rightful place"), it's possible that the apple in question *is* just straight up Snow White's Apple, or a representation of it.

I do agree that it's important to keep it in mind when interpreting Lasso, but I believe it's pretty clear that the apple itself might not inherently be a part of Rose Hunter itself.

After all, Lasso isn't the first E.G.O we've seen where the Sinner is shown to be both the victim and the perpetrator. See AEDD and Capote as the major stars of this trend.

I don't have much to comment on regarding your interpretation of Lasso for Faust - I think that works pretty well with what we know. Faust has to follow what the Gesselschaft and Limbus Company tell her to do, and she herself is responsible for keeping the Sinners on track - keeping them ensnared and following the predetermined path of their stories.

I'll touch upon the points you bring up with regards to Sin Weaknesses (and also bring up Sin Resource Costs, which I believe are a bit more important to E.G.O) a bit later.

Because, here's the thing about the Flow Vergilius talks about - we already kinda know what it is. We see it in Leviathan Book 16.

Vergilius's narration describes the Flow as a "shadow hovering over his back". A sort of insight, or pressure that drives him to make specific choices or move in a specific direction.

He also explains how the Flow isn't one singular force - in fact, he explicitly mentions seeing at least two Flows during this chapter. One brightly colored but slow moving Flow that he could see ahead (which he feels would lead him to actually changing the City), and one darker but faster moving Flow that clung to his back. Every time he tries to avoid following the bright Flow, the shadowy Flow always leads him to ruin, to a point where he's inevitably forced to come back to the bright Flow, as all shadows naturally come from light.

It reminds me a lot of "Gravity" from JJBA, in a way. A supernatural force that drives extraordinary people towards each other and towards their inevitable fates, and every attempt to counteract it ends up making things worse for them when it finally catches up to them.

It's also, like, Heavily implied that Carmen is in some way directly involved with what direction the bright Flow takes, as there's an implication that it's trying to direct Vergilius to his inevitable meeting with Carmen that happens in Book 18, considering how much her trying to get Vergilius to distort is telling him how it would give him the ability to change the world to how he sees fit, matching what he believed the bright Flow was leading him towards.

So like. Flow isn't exactly directly related to the Rivers. But it's also not not related, considering the Carmen -> Light -> Cogito -> Rivers chain.

I don't think the "flow" Hong Lu is referring to is the exact same Flow that Vergilius can see and talks about, at least not entirely. I believe it's also meant to be a reflection of the reason why he's initially willing to follow his story, similarly to how Faust's awakening line does for her.

While Faust wholeheartedly believes that following the story laid out before her and the Sinners is the "correct" thing to do, Hong Lu simply follows along because he just Goes Along With Whatever He's Told. He figuratively goes with the flow, just agrees and follows until things turn out okay in the end. To quote one of his Base Identity's voice lines: "When you’re distraught, simply remember that life goes on even if what you’re doing now doesn’t work out. Then, you’ll be free of worries." As long as he just keeps moving forward, things will be fine in the end.

So, if the Awakening lines are a reflection of why Faust and Hong Lu would feel like they should follow along the path their story is taking, then I believe the Corrosion is a reflection of the "punishment" that awaits them if they are to stray from it. To quote Rose Hunter's MD event, "Ah... If, however, the course was derailed by your actions, you will be held accountable."

Hong Lu's Corrosion line here is the easier one to read - it's meant to be a reflection of his Family's reaction when they catch up to him after he runs away. Outright calling out that he ran away, calling him a fugitive, and the very clear threat of punishment.

For Faust it's actually a lot more interesting, because she clearly brings up the apple and the idea that whoever she caught is hiding it, rather than implying that whoever she caught is the one she was looking for. Perhaps because that's a reflection of how Faust will disobey the Gesselschaft. While Hong Lu disobeys his fate by running away from his Family, Faust would disobey her fate by hiding something from the Gesselschaft. A Golden Bough, perhaps? Instead of bringing one back to the Company, she could keep it hidden for herself, effectively disobeying her orders and the path she was put on. And an act like that would Anger Them Severely.

The thing you point out about the differences in how the Rose Hunter itself is depicted is fascinating. The one depicted in Faust's illustration seems like a direct parallel to how Faust has acted towards Sinners - she's been trapping them with Limbus Company, using their own wishes as bait and the contracts they sign as the snares.

But then there's Hong Lu's Rose Hunter, itself trapped by the snares and mangled to the point it seems there's only half of it clearly there. Half destroyed... I don't have an exact thought in my head regarding that, but you could definitely interpret it with a Two in One angle. How whoever is resonating with Rose Hunter is only Half There, and how that half is inherently trapped within themself, as the vines ensnaring it are also its own snares. Hong Lu is, in part, trapping himself, specifically Baoyu and Daiyu are unwillingly keeping each other trapped by the circumstance of their current situation.

Now. Let's talk Sin Resistances. I'm going to be using the names for the Floor Theme Packs based around the relevant Sin Weaknesses as a base here, since that's the closest thing we have to a canon confirmation of what the Resistances could mean.

The Gloom-weak floor is called Emotional Flood, the Sloth-weak floor is called Emotional Indolence, and the Wrath-weak floor is called Emotional Repression.

Both Lassos being Gloom weak could imply that whatever experiences Hong Lu and Faust have to recall to use it are heavily emotionally charged, making them susceptible to "Flooding" with negative feelings. It could be a reflection of the anxiety it causes both of them to think about - after all a major part of Rose Hunter is the punishment for not following one's path. Having to actively keep those consequences in mind to use the E.G.O would likely leave them shaken up and weak to such negative reminders.

Indolence means the avoidance of exertion or activity, and it's a close synonym to laziness. Hong Lu's Lasso being Sloth weak could reflect how emotionally numb recalling the relevant experiences leaves him. For him, following the path of the story is all about simply letting things happen and not reacting, just trying to reach the end. He's forced to become avoidant of emotional reactions through being too "lazy" to react. It's not like trying to say anything would change things for him, so why even bother trying? He'll reach the end one way or another. And so, being given even more reasons to not care and become more numb hurts all the more, ridding him of whatever little resolve he might have been holding onto.

As such, Faust's Lasso being weak to Wrath is made all the more interesting - it implies there's a level of intense emotion that the experiences bring out within her that she feels the need to repress and hide. This is different to Hong Lu's Sloth weakness, in that while Hong Lu is just straight up numb and passively avoiding feeling anything, Faust is very much feeling some sort of strong frustration that she has to actively silence. Thus it makes it far more painful to her when she's given more reasons to be annoyed - she's already struggling to keep it contained. Something about having to follow her path leaves her deeply frustrated in a way she feels she cannot let herself express, likely due to the consequences of complaining about it.

I also want to make a quick note on the Sin Resources needed to use the E.G.O, specifically the ones that differ between the two.

While both Lassos require Gluttony and Lust, Faust's Lasso requires Envy, while Hong Lu's requires Pride. This, I think, is actually reflected in their Awakening lines and thus the attitudes they have.

Faust sees following the path as something "correct", as something "right". Her own feelings and thoughts don't matter because the opinion of the story she's following is more important than hers. She's expressing Inferiority - aka, Envy.

On the other hand Hong Lu follows the path because it's something he himself believes to be the best option. He doesn't think there are better options, so he just ignores all the shit he has to go through along the way because in the end, he'll be fine. A very Pride thing to believe.

And yes, Hong Lu for whatever reason is notably smaller on the horse in the awakening sprite. No I don't know why either. It honestly might have been an oversight LMAO.

Are you ok with being tagged in posts? I'm working on a fan ID of sorts and wanted to credit your contribution to lu-is-not-ok's sin analysis for the reasoning behind the resistances. If not, should I just mention the handle without tagging (like with a /)?

sure, go right ahead

I wonder if Teruko stays in her younger form so often to avoid the intensity of her own emotions.

Her devotion to Fukuchi despite his faults -> A childish crush

Her intense pride + rage that she must endure horrors for the sake of national peace -> Constant tantrums that seem disproportionate to the situation

Her sadism going unfulfillled during an interrogation and the storm of emotion that arises from that -> Cluthing Jouno's hand and wailing like the child she is embodying

yess so much space for Deep Ideas. how about… Akutagawa is fine, because he was ordered to prep himself for combat - but Tachihara being kept away from it, didn't have that order and thus just idled, so when (assuming Fuku didn't want the plan capstone to be as in anime; too much wiggling in the manga) Dracula stops working Tachihara is stuck like that. This would have Implications about Jouno's situation - let's say Asagiri's impenetrable plot armor kicks in, Tecchou + Kenji just contrivance his location out before Aya jumps off the tower. Here, we got options:

Tecchou moves him to Yosano at Hunting Dog speeds

due to Fukuchi quite liking Hunting Dogs, he's already in a location that's just good enough to stabilize him, so back to your boi Tachihara

Given the context, what about status of HG as an unit? wouldn't Fukuchi throw a lot of suspicion on the group? Obv they're not getting decommissioned, but either (or both, lel) on thin ice, or just… most of their bodymods removed (in preparation of), breaking the unit apart. The former could be used to create tension with Mori's requests, the latter via 'well now you're full-time mafia! It's a good thing you like it here, yes?'

Tachihara Meta below the cut-- heh, cut. Get it?

So I think his eyes were healed up when he was turned and he'll be fine.

But oh my god, the angst of the blinding not going away is so interesting to me. As much as i think a blindness arc would be so interesting, would there be any reason for magic vampiric healing to not fix his eyes? Idk, maybe a loophole or something.

I think Fukuchi blinds him so callously, not even turning around, because he knows that it will be healed. I think Fukuchi actually cared for the hunting dogs. They were under his command and he was responsible for them. Even if Tachi did turn on him, it was because Fukuchi was being evil on purpose to push humanity to his goal.

Anyway, back to Tachihara. I want to find a way to facilitate this cuz I want him to talk to Jouno and learn how to cope with this loss. Maybe find a way to use his metal ability to sense metal in the environment and "see" through his ability.

And imagine if he decides to go to Yosano for help, cuz he can't stand never being able to see the world again. Never being able to see the people be cares about. And she helps of course. And they talk and he learns more about how his brother died and how Yosano tried to stop that madness but was forced into a corner by none other than Mori. I think Tachihara would feel differently about staying in the mafia if he knew that Mori was the true culprit.

Maybe his injury was healed and his body is healthy but his mind is shutting down his vision out of mental trauma. He has to go to therapy to process his fucked up life and regain his eyesight. What a journey.

Ah fuck I'm writing this, ill call it an AU if I need to, if canon doesn't follow this thread.

Once in awhile, you can get one over on The Man. Finally, after all these years of toiling under his rule, doing his dirty work, begging for his praise, he has well and truly fucked up. And, it turns out, your entire life has been building up to the moment that you can milk him for all he's worth.

Have you ever seen a Dodge Caliber? They're getting sort of uncommon now, but when they were new, they were pretty hateful cars. Cheap, buzzy, surprisingly uneconomical, steering that felt like telling a funeral home operator how to sign a birthday card over the phone by long distance. And they fell apart all the time. Most cars get repaired, but these things got gleefully shovelled into the junkyard at the first chance the owners got.

Not all of them, though. This is a story about one very special Dodge Caliber. You see, my aunt needed a car. And my aunt is very nervous about owning a car. The skills of shitbox repair never made it into her genes, you see, possibly because she is not related to me by blood. So, in order to get that car, she went to the Dodge dealership, and she asked them: can you do a lifetime warranty, unlimited mileage, no questions asked, cover everything? And they said: for you, ma'am, we absolutely can charge you an obscene, eye-watering amount of money.

Once I found out about this, I was mad. And then I figured it out. You see, what my aunt did have was being insanely cheap. That's why she was a part of my degenerate family. She still is, even though my Uncle Larry exploded that one night at Arecibo. Unlimited mileage. There has never been a sweeter phrase uttered in the English language.

Now, whenever anyone we know needs to go for a long trip, we tell them: take the Caliber. Rack those miles up. Punish those stupid motherfuckers for writing such a terrible, open-ended contract. My aunt runs a taxi service consisting entirely of this vehicle, a fleet of drivers constantly rotating in and out, the thing rolling virtually 24/7. I love driving this car, because every single mile that ticks up on the odometer is more salty tears from the low-wattage pig who thought he was a big-time wheeler and dealer down at Old Time Country Dodge.

To their credit, they figured out the enormous error that they had made fairly quickly. When Aunt Hilda rolled in the thing, smoking and wheezing, for its sixth transmission replacement at eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand kilometers, they offered to buy it from her and give her a brand new luxury SUV, just for being such a great customer. She laughed, and told them to get started overhauling the Caliber, and don't forget to take a look at the squeaking sound it started making in the back.

When things got real bad during the recession, they tried to go bankrupt, thinking that might get them out from having to maintain this economy car until the sun burns out. Ha! Death won't save you, my friend. My attorney Max picked that one up pro bono, despite hating warranty law, just for the pleasure of watching their attorney read the purchase contract. Her eyes got so big that they stuck that way. The paramedics had to use the jaws of life on her eyelids so she could blink again.

If you see me in the Caliber, make sure to honk. I probably won't stop to say hi, because we gotta keep this odometer rollin'. Rest assured, however, that I will honk back, maybe ten or fifteen times. Really get my money's worth out of that horn.

not what you hoped for OP but it made me realise having a PoV switch right now would be 200% psych and could happen. As in: 'in the narrow room' subpart ends, as we hop to elsewhere and do plot there (Lucy team? Kenji & Tecchou? Mori movement? Atsushi getting to Fukuchi & co, even tho i keep making that call and it keeps proving wrong?) and another subpart, then in 3rd subpart resolve Meursault decisively. Thanks, i hate it.

re: topic (but still not quite): it's been grinding my gears that noone is calling this, but: regardless of DoA resolution, the optics/situation for ability users is terrible. Globally. For the average person this is a broken masquerade scenario - vampires EVERYWHERE in a way that cannot be covered up or handwaved away. If they get to know the details, it would be caused by an ability user (1) being wielded by another ability user (2) using an anomalous object created by another ability user (3!!!). Given that previously ability users weren't public knowledge, populace's 1st contact would be of "they are an existential threat". This makes them convinient scapegoats for both the actual chaos and other assorted problems, real or imagined. At this point 'removing nations'(yes i know it's a coverup, but let's be real: if it worked you could bootstrap any objective with it.) would be merely an assurance that an aggregate database of ability users would be created - which with sufficently bad PR is a very scary proposition, indeed.

as a sidenote, i've once thought myself into an interesting spot: let's take the "What is the opposite of crime?" bit from No Longer Human seriously for a moment; a 'crime' is whatever either law or society deems undesirable action. Because society is made out of smaller societies, and each will have norms that differ slightly (or even conflict with the law/norms of other societies), any given action could be declared a 'crime' by any of the above. Therefore, crime = action. Therefore, the opposite to crime would be inaction. Every living being acts (commits actions?) by the virtue of being alive (breathing, eating, sleeping). Therefore, only inanimate objects do not commit crimes. Now that we have logic'd ourselves to "The sin crime is breathing", the question remains: Do corpses count on the grounds of being alive at some point? Within these parameters, it's actually another question: Are crimes forgivable? Since multiple things can all be called 'crime', despite different severity, the answer would be a binary yes/no.

At which point, the thread splits into two:

1) From a character backstory perspective: assuming he learnt of his ability by killing family memeber(s) accidentally, who exactly could give him forgiveness for it? assuming he does not regret a kill (both in the sense of "can't logic your way out of lack of fucks to give, chief" and "doesn't go into hysterics as seen in other people"), dogma would not give him forgiveness either. Therefore, the answer is: no.

2) From what i vaguely remember of C&P, the entire thing is a setup to do a redemption arc. For a redemption to happen (as opposed to what TvT poetically calls Heel-Face Door Slam), there has to be an underlying assumption - on both the repenter's and the judge's ends - that a crime can be forgiven, with enough work. For Dostoyevsky - you know, the terrorist? - to line up with both C&P and Dostoyevsky - you know, the writer? - or rather, what hazy picture i have of his body of work. For a change to happen, the implicit assumption has to, as well. Therefore, the answer is: no. (as of right now, circa ch107)

…i recall randomly going "wouldn't it be really lulzy if the endgame was NGE's Instrumentality?" but between writing out the above step-by-step, and DoA's objective having to be something to shook Atsushi outside of black-and-white thinking backed by DoA being a treat to ADA… and it's infuriatingly self-defending against that quote you have provided; "define: death"

If we hinge on ability user != ability, and 'ability as an analogy for having thoughts deep/insistent enough to write them down and publish', it circles back to the above, tho without an in-universe explanation. …when is an ability not tied to a user? When it's a singularity. This is the part where once again i suddenly remember i haven't read a single LN and just absorb spoilers like a sea sponge, but: is there some mention (in Stormbringer?) that singularities do not change? In the sense of 'do not adapt to stimuli'? If yes, it would not be a complete sweep as elaborated above, but would still line up with "not acting" in a way. If we tie this to the whole 'god likes order' we breach straight into an entire memeplex of "perfect order = no change" (see also: Shin Megami Tensei's law - aka christian god and angels - factions)

Everyone is in full conspiracy mode since (a little before) the last chapter with the Fyodor ability theories and I'm loving that. That got me thinking:

What was Fyodor's objective again?

Disclaimer, I fully rely on translations, but I cross-checked with two of them so...

special thanks to @ticklinglady for finding these pages!

"... a world free of sin and skill users."

1. A world free of sin

He says he wants to spill the blood of the sinners like 3 times but doesn't really give an explanation of who, what or why.

His definition of "sin" is quite vague, but could be the usual catholic/christian stuff. The one time he identified a specific behaviour as a sin was when the Agency and Port Mafia were killing each other "even though they knew they were being set up to do so" (though he also said Ace breathing and thinking was a crime and said killing Karma was freeing him).

In the Dead Apple novelization (not written, but edited by Asagiri, who came up with the original idea for the movie and gave a whole speech on Fyodor to the writing team), Fyodor does make a speech about the post-dragon red fog surrounding the Earth, transforming it into a "dead apple" by essentially killing everyone and "washing away the original sin of man". The apple motif was a sort of poetic irony.

According to the novelization, this was his true objective at the time and he never mentions the Book, not even in the epilogue, as opposed to doing so in the movie.

This scenario is kind of a contradiction, since the fog would have erased everyone except ability users, though most would have suffered at the hands of their abilities before dying. Said abilities would have then been kept in a collection maintained by Shibusawa, an ability singularity himself, which brings us to...

2. A world free of ability users

I went through the manga and never did find an instance of Fyodor speaking ill of abilities, only ability users. That doesn't mean there is a difference to him in the first place, but it's interesting.

The Dead Apple scenario is to be taken with a grain of salt, but killing everyone doesn't seem to be a problem for him (he kills nearly everyone he interacts with anyway), and this implies that to him every single human is sinful beyond redemption and can only be saved through death. Why he is singling out ability users in that case? seems redundant.

Other instances of him talking about his objective included talking about "the will of the hand of God and Demon", doing this "for the sake of a better world", and saying the death he gives is a form of salvation by severing the influence of sins from the soul. He also talks a big game about God and his intentions (order and stuff), and Dazai likes to point and laugh at him when he does so.

As a bonus, in Dead Apple, Fyodor answered Dazai's question of why he accepted to join forces with him by saying it was "simply to see the world as it ought to be" (and because he wanted entertainment, with Dazai turning out to be that entertainment, as Fyodor was in fact using him the whole time for his own agenda).

now go and apply that knowledge to your theories

in light of the trailer for the new captain america movie dropping, a reminder that bds has asked people to boycott this film specifically due to marvel's refusal to remove the character of sabra.

i remember someone mentioning that a Sonia-like character would work to set up Dostoy for a redemption arc, but it couldn't be Sigma b/c they're wrapped around his finger. BUT NOW, their self-esteem should be improved via Dazai + they're being given all intel in a way that would prevent lying + apparently they're held in high esteem by Dostoy + being 3yo gives relatively biasless outlook.

bonus rephrasing: now Sigma has taken the offer to have their knowledge be equal to someone they percieve as having absolute control over everything.

or, you know, just flip them over and step on their trachea.

friendly reminder that the first nonary game took place in 2018 :)

this is happening, everyone. zero escape is real

Was Chuuya chosen for Project Arahabaki because of N’s personal grudge? A Stormbringer theory

One thing I find very interesting about Stormbringer is that there are a lot of elements in the novel that are left ambiguous, or that are only mentioned briefly, but if you start putting them together you can draw a possibly really interesting picture.

And my favourite interpretation for that picture has to do with the reason why Chuuya, specifically, was chosen for that experiment, and how it is very plausible it wasn’t a random pick.

For this theory, I am going to work on the assumption that Chuuya is the original and not the clone (this is after all heavily implied in the epilogue), but even if he wasn’t, the existence of the original human child that was cloned was also confirmed in the epilogue, so this would be applicable to him instead.

Let’s start with this thought:

Why, in a country where the War has left countless orphans, would the military pick one of the only characters confirmed to have parents in all of BSD?

They could have grabbed any random kid from the streets or an orphanage, after all. We know for a fact that the Director of Atsushi’s orphanage was quite happy to lend kids to random guys who wanted to experiment on them. It would have been easy.

Instead, they picked Chuuya. Wasn’t that risky, especially since we know that both of his parents were quite powerful and influential?

It’s an odd choice.

Let’s look at some possible clues that are explicitly stated in the text:

The picture that the Flags give to Chuuya in the first chapter, the one with him as a child next to N, was found when they were investigating Chuuya’s pre-experiment life. The photo is taken at a beach, near an old farming village that is now abandoned, and in a town nearby Doc found the medical records proving Chuuya’s human existence before he was taken by the government.

In the epilogue, we learn that Chuuya’s father is a now a simple doctor, but he was once in the military, and “not someone who could be taken lightly”.

The first fact is interesting enough on its own. If the photo was taken in the village where Chuuya was born, why is N there? Did he stop to take it on his way out from the kidnapping, as a fun memento? That doesn’t seem very likely.

And if we then consider the fact that Chuuya’s father was a military officer with medical background, just like N, a natural conclusion would be that N and Chuuya’s father were colleagues.

No, more than colleagues.

Would you invite a random colleague to your home and let your 5 years old kid take a picture with him?

They were probably friends.

But how do you end up performing horrible experiments on your friend’s child?

The novel tells us nothing about the circumstances of that kidnapping; we only know that as far as the world knows, the child has passed away. Maybe Chuuya got sick or injured, had to be taken to a hospital where it would be easy for a government agent to snatch him. Maybe he got lost near the sea, and believed to have drowned. Maybe there was an airstrike from a foreign country, there was a war going on…

We will never know the details. But N was not quite sane after all, he claims to be solely dedicated to his science, so it is possible that he just saw the opportunity and took it, no logical reasoning needed.

However, I don’t believe N to be as emotionally detached as he wants to appear.

Insane, sure, you have to be to do the things he did, but he’s also extremely prideful. He lied about his own work to make it look so he created Chuuya’s body and mind, and then he gave Chuuya his own last name, signing his “scientific masterpiece”.

He also waited for the perfect opportunity to take revenge on Verlaine for killing his brother, even though that resulted in his own death.

And this is why my theory is that he chose Chuuya as his lab rat out of some grudge against his friend.

What that grudge would be, we can only speculate. Maybe it was envy for his colleague’s achievements, maybe something else entirely, there’s a lot of room to make up our own headcanons and interpretation.

(There is another possible hypothesis, which is that Chuuya’s parents were equally insane and they willingly gave their own kid to the government to be used as a weapon for the War. There’s however no hint of this madness in the brief scene that we see them, so it’s up to each of us to imagine if this is a plausible interpretation or not)

Anyways, that’s my thoughts on this subject, let me know what you think if you want!

I believe that many things in Stormbringer were left vague on purpose, but that’s why it is fun to try and look at it and come up with our own theories.