More rereading adventures with Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine, y'all.
In chapter 5, Prinz says that pre-transmigrator!Ailette stopped calling him by his name 6 years ago, when she was 4 years old.
That's around the same time their mother went missing.
To me, this almost certainly means that pre-transmigrator!Ailette either blamed Prinz for their mother's disappearance or took out her anger on him. That's no excuse for her poor treatment of him, especially as they got older, but it's understandable that a 4-year-old would lash out and have an unreasonable reaction to such a traumatic event.
However, I can't help but wonder if Prinz confided in her that he saw their mother before she disappeared. He says later on that the reason he didn't say anything because he thought it was a dream.
But since pre-transmigration!Ailette specifically called him "dull" and "slow on the uptake," did she actually realize that it wasn't a dream, and thought that if he saw her, why didn't he stop her from leaving? Or did she not understand the "dream" part of his explanation? Real life and fantasy is blurred a lot for kids that young, so she might have thought that "even if it's a dream, if he stopped her there, Mom wouldn't have left in real life!"
It's also possible that he didn't think it was a dream initially, but convinced himself that it was through a mix of trauma/seeing Ailette's reaction.
It would also explain why he never mentioned anything to his father during those 6 years - maybe there was a part of him that wondered if it was his fault, or worried that his dad would get angry too and disown him. Or perhaps he was so shocked both by his mother's disappearance and by Ailette swearing that she'll never call him "Prinz" again that he completely forgot about the incident until years later.
It also makes me wonder about what happened to pre-transmigration!Ailette's soul after our transmigrator displaced it. Since this world was dimensionalized specifically for a transmigrator, it's possible that there was no soul to begin with and that everyone's memories prior to Ailette's transmigration are fabricated. I.e., the world literally started when Ailette opened her eyes as a pink-haired 10-year-old.
However, it also seems like the worlds were made and souls were placed before any transmigration happened, and a transmigrator's placement isn't decided until they've had their assessment after death.
So, there are three possibilities:
(1) It IS basically the above; i.e., that the world doesn't properly start until transmigration is complete. The gods dimensionalize the world, put souls into background characters and characters who can't be replaced by a transmigrator because they have a special role (like Tesilid Argente). Some characters are created without any souls at all, and these are the only characters "available" for transmigration. The world is then put on pause until someone transmigrates into it. Afterwards, the gods stuff souls into any characters that are currently soulless.
(2) After a world is dimensionalized, some characters are given "placeholder" souls instead of real souls (kind of like a very advanced AI, maybe?), and as above, these are the only characters that can be transmigrated into. After transmigration is complete, all placeholder souls are replaced with real ones (or maybe just left as-is, who knows). This creates a whole bunch of other questions about "what actually makes a soul" and "is there a difference between an AI soul and a real one," to which I will not write an essay discussing qualia because I am tired.
(3) After a transmigrator's assessment is complete, the character's soul is plucked out and reincarnated somewhere nicer. After all, the soul deserves some compensation for being kicked out of its physical body early, and the Transmigration Bureau seems like it's mostly trying to be fair to humans.
Huh. I had a very different conceptualisation of the in-universe worlds.
I always thought that the TM gods created a bunch of worlds, not necessarily for transmigration only. Points for this:
When the Strict Order was still around, he already created Tesilid's world. Based on the OG story that Ailette read (ie. the 99 timelines), the Strict Order never intended for a transmigrator to enter. Muriel clearly sees herself as a native being of that world.
The transmigrator in Tesilid's world was only added when Voice took over the project and ported all the souls over to his new, original save file.
(Source: Ch 128, after Ailette wakes up following her first fight with Reed)
3. In the first chapter, the doggo god said that this was a new project by the gods in charge of the afterlife. In other words, transmigration was their new shiny marketing ploy/innovation and their ability and practice of dimensionalising new worlds preceded that.
The novelty of the transmigration phenomenon is supported by the fact that Ailette got a human PSA on her phone about a sudden surge in disappearances (implied to due to the sudden implementation of transmigration).
Okay, so the gods were already creating worlds before the whole transmigration development. What was that like? Chs 295 onwards (Ailette vs Muriel) tell us a lot about it.
The gods would expend their divinity to create worlds
Within these worlds of their creation, the gods would have the means to gain more power.
Based off the powerscaling Ailette benefits from, the power probably comes from belief in the god. It does make sense to create a world where YOU are the native god that every soul believes in.
Side story 9 (chitchat with Voice):
i'm too tired to read and summarise the snippets above so i'm just gonna plonk it here and call it a night 🫡
but yeah tldr the gods were creating worlds to gain power and sustain themselves long before transmigration; transmigration was just their industrial revolution or something
Holy crap your memory is incredible! Thank you for pointing this out! The idea that the gods had been making new worlds for a while hadn’t even occurred to me because of how wonky time is in the Divine Realm (like Ailette being able to visit the Pit of Atonement during the tutorial period). But now that you lay it out, it makes a lot of sense.
In that case, it's very unlikely to be the first two ideas that I came up with, which leaves the simplest explanation: that a transmigrator bumps out the soul of the existing character, who is in turn reincarnated elsewhere. (Hopefully to somewhere nicer than their previous life.)
More rereading adventures with Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine, y'all.
In chapter 5, Prinz says that pre-transmigrator!Ailette stopped calling him by his name 6 years ago, when she was 4 years old.
That's around the same time their mother went missing.
To me, this almost certainly means that pre-transmigrator!Ailette either blamed Prinz for their mother's disappearance or took out her anger on him. That's no excuse for her poor treatment of him, especially as they got older, but it's understandable that a 4-year-old would lash out and have an unreasonable reaction to such a traumatic event.
However, I can't help but wonder if Prinz confided in her that he saw their mother before she disappeared. He says later on that the reason he didn't say anything because he thought it was a dream.
But since pre-transmigration!Ailette specifically called him "dull" and "slow on the uptake," did she actually realize that it wasn't a dream, and thought that if he saw her, why didn't he stop her from leaving? Or did she not understand the "dream" part of his explanation? Real life and fantasy is blurred a lot for kids that young, so she might have thought that "even if it's a dream, if he stopped her there, Mom wouldn't have left in real life!"
It's also possible that he didn't think it was a dream initially, but convinced himself that it was through a mix of trauma/seeing Ailette's reaction.
It would also explain why he never mentioned anything to his father during those 6 years - maybe there was a part of him that wondered if it was his fault, or worried that his dad would get angry too and disown him. Or perhaps he was so shocked both by his mother's disappearance and by Ailette swearing that she'll never call him "Prinz" again that he completely forgot about the incident until years later.
It also makes me wonder about what happened to pre-transmigration!Ailette's soul after our transmigrator displaced it. Since this world was dimensionalized specifically for a transmigrator, it's possible that there was no soul to begin with and that everyone's memories prior to Ailette's transmigration are fabricated. I.e., the world literally started when Ailette opened her eyes as a pink-haired 10-year-old.
However, it also seems like the worlds were made and souls were placed before any transmigration happened, and a transmigrator's placement isn't decided until they've had their assessment after death.
So, there are three possibilities:
(1) It IS basically the above; i.e., that the world doesn't properly start until transmigration is complete. The gods dimensionalize the world, put souls into background characters and characters who can't be replaced by a transmigrator because they have a special role (like Tesilid Argente). Some characters are created without any souls at all, and these are the only characters "available" for transmigration. The world is then put on pause until someone transmigrates into it. Afterwards, the gods stuff souls into any characters that are currently soulless.
(2) After a world is dimensionalized, some characters are given "placeholder" souls instead of real souls (kind of like a very advanced AI, maybe?), and as above, these are the only characters that can be transmigrated into. After transmigration is complete, all placeholder souls are replaced with real ones (or maybe just left as-is, who knows). This creates a whole bunch of other questions about "what actually makes a soul" and "is there a difference between an AI soul and a real one," to which I will not write an essay discussing qualia because I am tired.
(3) After a transmigrator's assessment is complete, the character's soul is plucked out and reincarnated somewhere nicer. After all, the soul deserves some compensation for being kicked out of its physical body early, and the Transmigration Bureau seems like it's mostly trying to be fair to humans.
OH CRAP I didn't even think of that. I know Korea's a conservative country, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had a no-alone-time-with-bf rule of thumb. But I think you're right about nobody caring enough about her to teach her.
Thing is, I'm sure she's aware of it on some level (if only because she's a prolific reader, so she would've run across situations in novels where there's romantic tension because a boy and a girl are alone together), but she clearly doesn't see herself as a potential target of romantic attention. I wonder if she's just always subconsciously thought of romance as for "other" people and not something for her. 😢
If in the original story, Muriel was an alter-ego of Myu Elinas, and Strict Order and Goodness was living inside Myu Elinas, was OG!Tesilid having a smoking hot romance with SO&G?
You know what. I think you're right. Once again another reason to wish that we got to see more of OG!Tes x Muriel, that irony is crazy.
Holy moly, you're both right. Especially because it's flat-out stated that Strict Order & Goodness's physical appearance is basically a male version of Muriel. Meaning he made a guy who's supposed to be the most handsome in the world and then a girl version of himself to make out with said guy. Like, he could've made it BL, or could've made Tez a woman, but nope!
Strict Order, is there a reason you haven't come out of the closet yet? The TM Bureau doesn't seem to be anti-gay/trans (Lord Eye seems to be nonbinary or at least androgynous, and no one seems to care they're pro-GL), so is it daddy issues (being the director's son and all) or is he just in denial...?
Dang it, I love it when Grrr draws Tesilid all cute and squishy. Look at that poor little guy, trying to patch things up! Give him a break! Or at least bigger bandaids!!
I got another spam comment today on AO3, and I want to share it as a PSA. But before I do, I want you to understand that you SHOULD NOT DO what this comment is asking. Ok? Ok.
See that bit at the bottom? Don't do that. Insert ParamedicGuy.gif going "Don't."
Other malicious spam comments I've gotten seemed designed to make an author question their writing, or outright encourage them to delete their stories from AO3. This one is different, in that it tries to get you to destroy the work on your own computer.
If you ran that command, it basically locates your Documents folder, then deletes everything in it, including all subfolders. It also does it without any prompt, so you have no chance to second guess your actions.
This is just fucking trolling.
Coincidentally, we just did training on a cyberattack similar to this, called a ClickFix attack. You can read about how that works here.
As a general rule, if ANYONE or ANY WEBSITE tells you unsolicited* to do anything in Powershell, CMD RUN, command prompt, shell command, or something similar, DON'T.
*There are legit reasons for running commands in PowerShell or the command prompt, but in those cases you are likely seeking out a solution to a problem you are already experiencing. Don't just run random commands on your computer as recommended by some unlogged-in guest on a fan fiction site.
Always think and consider before taking action, and get a second opinion from a trusted source. When I got this comment I was pretty sure what the command would do, and it took me about three seconds of googling to confirm it.
as an IT guy I can confirm that this command WILL delete all your shit. DO NOT DO IT.
Here's a bit of a further breakdown for the ones curious about what the hell this command does.
What you're basically telling your PC if you ran this is "go into this folder (Documents) and then Recursively (for all sub-folders) Remove (delete) all files therein Forcefully (without any user input and also if a file was locked)."
The little "Exclude *.archiveofourown" they tack in there is just honestly absolutely diabolical if you don't know what you're looking at.
As an inexperienced user, you'll think "oh of course, exclude ao3, that's what I want!"
*.archiveofourown is a file ending, including any file title.
There are not archiveofourown files.
This is telling your PC to ignore files that don't exist.
Honestly, the gall of these trolls is astounding.
DO NOT DO THIS.
And as a further alarm bell, even if a well-meaning anon came to your comments to warn you:
why has ao3 not put out this warning officially?
this command is for Windows users. WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE WHO USE MAC OR LINUX?
Hope my humble knowledge was informative to someone. Stay safe, everyone.
I am also very curious! I think he’d be angry, at the very least. Even Reed realizes Ailette is stressed out, but then is just like lol whatever and keeps trucking with a plan designed to put her through the ringer. I mean, I guess he doesn't realize he's the reason... but he should, considering how much he's constantly provoking her.
But I think that there would be a part of 117 that would be insanely jealous because Reed is able to be a lot more forward with Ailette (at least physically) a lot sooner than he was. Because despite Reed being a villain, he is a billion times more honest than Tesilid, who is half-dying from repression throughout most of the novel.
Debating whether to post a deranged semi-Reed/Ai AU fic where they tour the Demon Realm's landfill after the Helkaion battle. But also worried that it is not deranged enough to work. It has its moments but I fear that overall I took the idea too seriously.
Note: spoilers for the end of Part 1 of the Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine webnovel.
After reading some comments in Tapas, I got inspired to talk about the religious themes in the Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine. Specifically, I noticed some people were accusing the story of dissing monotheism - and while polytheism is certainly "the truth" in the story's universe, the overarching themes are not really monotheism vs. polytheism, but rather, religious tolerance vs. intolerance. In this essay, I will
start off by noting that Irinbi's Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine has a very nuanced take on religion. It's typical in the historical fantasy genre to present religion as either a villainous, corrupt entity that drives the story's conflict or something neutral/benevolent that helps the protagonist out.
However, S-Class Heroine does something a little different: it does not try to assert that organized religion is inherently good or bad, but rather that it is a tool that can be used for either end. It does this by presenting two religions: that of Strict Order and Goodness, and the heroine's religion, Voiceism.
Strict Order and Goodness is a monotheistic religion with, as the name implies, some very strict rules. Tesilid, the male lead, points out that it seems to be less about "goodness" and more about following those rules, whether they have any goodness in them or not. It has some hallmarks of other strict belief systems, such as asceticism and fasting, some of which are cast in a negative light, but others of which are seen as perfectly acceptable in moderation. After all, Ailette, the female lead, embodies diligence, kindness, and selflessness, but tempers those traits by taking breaks, setting up personal boundaries, and (usually) having back-up plans in place so she doesn't completely sacrifice herself. These are all contrasts to Tesilid, who takes all of Strict Order's doctrines to an extreme: never taking any breaks or even having a hobby, being a complete doormat, and constantly sacrificing himself.
One could argue that such things are a matter of personal choice. Whether Tesilid is resigned to the harsher demands the religion makes of him or doesn't mind because he's a very self-sacrificing person at heart, he accepts them. What he struggles with the most is not the asceticism, but the religion's view that non-believers of the faith are not considered to have human rights, and that those who refuse to convert should be killed. While growing up in the Vatican, Tesilid refuses on numerous occasions to kill heretics because he doesn't feel it's right, and is consequently punished by the church for not doing his duty. It also becomes Tesilid's biggest point of shame later on when he's forced to kill a group of heretics to stop a demonic ritual from taking place. The church's religious intolerance is also an important factor for Ailette, as it is the reason why she has to hide her true affiliation from everyone, even her closest allies and friends. And rightly so; once the church finds out that Ailette does not worship Strict Order and Goodness, they deem her a heretic and send several orders of knights to kill her.
Even when the Gate of the Pantheon appears and proves the existence of other gods, the Vatican insists that it doesn't matter - Strict Order and Goodness is the only way, and worshipping anyone else is heresy.
By contrast, Voiceism acknowledges the existence of other gods/religions. This is further emphasized by Ailette's approach to other belief systems. While she is very forward about spreading Voiceism, she respects the rights of others to believe or not believe in whichever god/religion they choose.
It should also be noted that while polytheism is the in-universe reality, Voiceism itself is not technically polytheistic, but henotheistic. That is, it worships a single god (the Voice that Shapes the World) above all others, but doesn't deny the existence of other gods. Ailette never even appears to mention the names of other gods except to Tesilid and Agnes. In this way, it's not so different from a monotheistic religion that is tolerant/accepting of other religions and ways of life.
For this reason, it's not accurate to frame Strict Order vs. Voiceism as monotheism vs. polytheism. It's not even monotheism vs. henotheism because not enough information is given about Voiceism's doctrine to draw any kind of comparison between these two systems of belief.
To determine what theme is being discussed, one must look at what is actually being compared between Strict Order and Voiceism: (1) Voiceism provides a solution to the main problem the male lead is facing - that of ending the Loops, whereas if Strict Order had his way, the Loops would never end and neither would Tesilid's suffering; (2) the god of Voiceism is kind and genuinely cares for his followers, and seems to feel a sense of responsibility as Creator, whereas Strict Order is often depicted as unfeeling or even sadistic, reveling in the pain/hardships of his followers, yet has so little feelings of duty that he ran away from his job of being the world's god, effectively dooming the entire world and all the people in it; (3) as mentioned, Voiceism is tolerant of other religious beliefs/non-beliefs, whereas Strict Order is so intolerant, its followers actively kill non-believers.
The 1st point is the most important from a plot perspective, as it helps resolve the main conflict of the story. In terms of themes, however, the 2nd and 3rd points are the more important ones, addressing both the connection between a god's behavior/treatment of their followers and a religion's overall attitude, and religious tolerance vs. intolerance. While the former theme deserves its own essay, the latter best embodies the most significant difference between Strict Order and Voiceism. It boils down to the decision to either join hands with your neighbors and accept one another's differences, or to insist on your own sense of superiority, thereby making yourself an enemy to everyone else.
While polytheism is an important aspect of the novel's setting, the fact that each religion focuses on a singular god suggests that the narrative isn't trying to pose any arguments for polytheism or monotheism. Instead, there's a much stronger argument that polytheism vs. monotheism is a metaphor for the belief in the legitimacy of other religions, and the struggle between religious tolerance vs. intolerance.
Edit: cleaned up a couple parts to hopefully make my ideas clearer.
stormborns
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
janainaart
theartofmadeline
