at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you
at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95Ā°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.
at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly
at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.
at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.
At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.
Zandikās base of operations lies at the outskirts of Snezhnograd. It is impressively exhaustive, taking them over half a day just for an introductory walkthrough. Each level is dedicated to a broad area of research then further subdivided to more specific topics. Basement Three is where Feofan had initially ended up and he isnāt too eager to revisit the place so soon, if heās being honest.
The old school lack of transparency on tumblr is amazing because you assume the people you follow must all be equivalent to you and then you see someone write āI brought my youngest to college todayā and someone else write āmy mom wouldnāt let me listen to Ariana Grande when I was a kidā and then your head explodes
honestly one of the best things we can do for ourselves is realize that people of different ages than us can still be the same kind of person as us. it's humbling and it gives everyone involved a sense of continuity, and it busts those stupid generational stereotypes media is so fond of.
In my ravenous search for some unheinous thing with which to play my vast and ancient music library, I've discovered beautiful FOSS creatures feasting upon the corpse of WinAmp
And what this means is I can now play music with an interface made up of pixel art old enough to rent a car
Also i highly recommend getting a gaggle of friends together and scrolling through the piles and piles of archived winamp skins together. Peak experience.
On Pantalone, Dottore, and their Longing for Different Parts of Each Other
Still thinking too hard about the 6.6 Archon Quest and Anomalous Tree Marrows, so hereās an unhinged essay on the breathtaking tragedy of Pantalone and Dottore.
TLDR version
Pantalone insists that Dottore is Zandik because any alternative would be viscerally intolerable. He has to believe that some part of Zandik still persists within Dottore or else he has spent the better part of three centuries with his partnerās murderer
35 is the most selfish version of Dottore because he is Zandik immediately after he met Feofan, the manifestation of the moment he experiences what it means to be known, seen, and valued for his worldviews. In other words, he is Zandik once he knows what itās like to have something to lose
Their final scene in front of Irminsul is an acknowledgement that they are out of timeāliterally and symbolically. Dottore will die and Pantalone will eventually follow, yes. But they are also out of each otherās time, each longing for different versions of the other
(No, Iām not okay, but letās do this)
Let me preface this by acknowledging that my reading is informed by the fact that I ship them. Iāve been writing them as lovers since A Winter Nightās Lazzo came out, based solely on a familiarity with the Commedia dellāarte, a degree in identifying queer subtext, and a dream that Hoyo most definitely fulfilled. But the game is not being subtle here. Even if you donāt see their partnership as romantic, it is, at the very least, queerplatonic.
Regardless of how you interpret their relationship, the game makes it clear that Pantalone is the most significant person in Dottoreās life, more significant to Dottore than Dottore himself. Dottoreās primary recordāhis first memory in a game where memory is tantamount to life and identityāis a meticulously kept catalogue of every time his many selves saved and extended Pantaloneās life. It is Anomalous Tree Marrow I on purpose because Pantaloneās survival is written into every part of Zandikās soul, down to the 8 year old who scolds Pantalone for misplacing his glasses. Forget the bickering Segments, forget the god-making, world-changing experimentsāPantaloneās safety, survival, and even comfort (looking at you, Alpaca wool) comes first.
I hardly have words for how incomprehensibly tragic they are.
Feofan spent 50 years with Zandik, the notoriously unsympathetic scientist who had already cauterized his compassion by the time of their first meeting. This is the heretic who preferred to view humans as test subjects and machines rather than leave himself open to more rejection than what he had already experienced.
This guy sets his eyes on Pantalone and immediately wants to keep him forever. Zandik fell hard enough for Test Subject 3 after a single meeting that he not only decided to refrain from experimenting on him, but went and learned his name, put in a good word with Pierro, and spent the rest of his life (and death!!!) guaranteeing Feofan's continued existence. This is U-hauling to the nth degree.
Now for some quick math: Pantalone is 72 years old when Zandik dies on his 85th birthday, meaning it was a 33-year-old Zandik who first met a 20-year-old Pantalone.
I donāt think itās a coincidence that the 35-year-old Segment is the one who sees himself as the most selfish. Heās the closest to the 33-year-old Zandik who only needed one encounter with this nameless, injured, smooth-talking test subject before saying: āthis one is mine. Iām keeping him. Not just until I get bored. Not just until I need a new test subject. Forever.ā And this means that 35 is the first version of Zandik who sees himself as having something to lose. This is the Zandik who experienced a desire to keep Pantalone at his side for the rest of time. And also the Dottore who is still in the throes of NRE lol.
Prior to their in-game appearance, I headcannoned Pantalone as avaricious and possessive based on the Moment of Cessation artifact description. I still think he is in some respects, but Dottore definitely has him beat when it comes to sheer obsessive devotion.
If Dottore is the Segment who is closestātemporally speakingāto the moment in which he found a genuine partner whose views and values align with his own, then it doesnāt seem surprising that he would be the one most threatened by Zandikās existence. Again, his selfishness is the same selfishness that made Zandik want to keep Pantalone in the first place. His envy is that of knowing what it is like for someone to look at him and not see a monster for the first time, and it makes him monstrous. Dottore might not have actively killed Zandik, but the Anomalous Tree Marrow III certainly makes it seem as though he, at the very least, persuaded the other Segments to agree to a DNR should Zandik end up in critical condition:
The fact that he often refers to his fellow Segments as āmeā and āmyselfā makes me think heās talking about getting the other Segments onto his side here rather than to Zandik, who he often describes as being somewhat apart from himselves.
I think itās important to note that Dottore recognizes how Pantaloneās immortality cannot be guaranteed until Zandik dies. Zandik is the missing ingredient and Dottore understands this much. His willingness to let Zandik die can be partly attributed to his own selfishness and desire to supplant the original in all ways (including as Pantaloneās partner). But, regardless of intent, it also succeeds in ensuring Pantaloneās immortality, which has to be a fairly bitter pill for the latter to swallow.
Although Pantalone plays off the fact that he was unsettled by Zandikās death and dissection (interjecting with āI never said thatā when Dottore calls him on his past reaction during story time), it is abundantly clear that Pantalone experiences a potent emotional response every time one or more Zandik dies.
In the medical logs, for instance, Dottore makes a ājokeā about developing antidepressants for Pantalone. But, given the timing and the fact that there had been no prior indication that Pantalone suffered from depression, one can easily assume that Pantalone is grieving and Dottore is being an envious asshole about it. (āUnsettledā also feels like a very Dottore way to describe someone suffering the grief of losing their partner of 50 years).
Similarly, when Dottore eradicates the rest of the Segments, he pithily describes Pantalone as behaving like ālittle more than a decorative vaseā at the Harbinger meeting, which again comes across as a rather cold way of telling us that Pantalone is dissociating to cope with the grief of losing five more versions of Zandikāaspects he had, by then, lived with for four centuries. Ouch.
(At least Dottore thinks heās pretty.)
Pantalone never shares his emotions with us players directlyāhis feelings are always focalized through Dottoreās mocking asides about Pantaloneās behaviorsābut that honestly makes me think that Pantalone was even more distraught than what the text tells us. If even Dottore is making flippant comments that speak to him picking up on Pantaloneās distress, then it has to be pretty bad.
Partners, at the End, Even Still
And so Pantaloneās ongoing decision to maintain his partnership with Dottore is utterly excruciating on multiple levels. There is, of course, the fact that it dooms them both to deathāDottore immediately (big asterisk here because I donāt think heās dead for good but thatās another essay) and Pantalone once the Elixir runs out and old age finally catches up to him. But the emotional registers beneath all this are, in my mind, even more devastating.
Dottore is all Pantalone has left of Zandik. And yet Dottore is also the reason that heās all Pantalone has left of Zandik.
When Pantalone follows Dottore and stands at his side, he is standing beside his partner and his partnerās murderer at the same time. The only way Pantalone can reckon with the abject tragedy of this fact is by holding onto the belief that Dottore is Zandik and Zandik is Dottore and that he will always be part of him.
Feofan and Zandik had 50 years where they (presumably) continued to learn, grow, and evolve together. Dottore is fixed in time at 35, but Pantalone is mentally fixed in time at 72, the year Zandik died, after which 35 perfected the Elixir so that it would pause physical and mental aging.
When Dottore explains that the other Segments had erased his āuniqueness,ā he talks about how āa soul living forever in the past inevitably holds different views than he did in his later years,ā acknowledging that heās imprisoned by the moment of his own creation. The fact that he immediately pivots to then focus on Pantaloneās preservation is important because it reminds us that Pantalone is also frozen in time. He says:
There are a lot of ways we can read these lines. On the surface, we can simply read it as expository information to give the player some background on Pantaloneāit definitely is that for sure. We can also read it as an example of Dottoreās callousness, how he casually brings up Pantalone being trafficked.
But I think thereās another layer, too. Itās an example of how Dottore still latches onto the Pantalone that Zandik met at 33. And this isnāt the first time in the conversation that Dottore demonstrates how fixed his perspective is. Nearly four centuries have gone by and yet he still thinks the reason Pantalone is helping him is because he spared him as a test subject. Pantalone has already had to remind Dottore that he ascended to the rank of Harbinger on his own merit and that he isnāt there because of some quid pro quo from centuries ago. Rather, he sees their values and goals as fundamentally aligned. Pantalone is there for Zandik because he still sees Dottore as Zandik.
And so, when given the opportunity to say his final farewell, Pantalone says goodbye to Zandik. Despite the literal words he speaks, I donāt think heās actually asking what 35 prefers to be called. He already knows that 35 sees himself as Dottore from their prior conversation. What Pantalone is really asking is who he can say goodbye to in this moment, at the end, when they are finally free from fate itself. After the enormous personal sacrifices Pantalone has made, Dottore gives Pantalone the choice to see him as Zandik. And how heartbreaking is it that Pantalone does even though, by this point, it is Dottore who has spent some 330 years with Pantaloneācenturies more than Pantalone had ever experienced with Zandik.
It is, as far as final acts go, surprisingly selfless of Dottore to recognize what it means for Pantalone to see him that way, even though he himself despises being forever tied to Zandik. It is especially surprising coming from the Segment who wholeheartedly embraces his own greed and repeatedly proclaims himself to be the most selfish of them all. So much for not being able to change!
For me, their greatest tragedy is the fact that they are out of time from one another, asynchronous, yearning for each other in different forms and ages. Dottore is forever looking for the Feofan he met at 33; he sees their present relationship as contractually predicated on saving Feofan in the past. Pantalone, frozen at 72, looks for the remnants of the man who shared his worldviews in the most selfish version of Dottore.
The beautifully doomed romance of it all is that Pantalone isnāt in love with Dottore; heās in love with the idea that Dottore is still Zandik. The mercy of their final scene is the acknowledgement that theyāre yearning for different pieces of the whole and, to me, the recognition that takes place in this exchange feels like a final act of forgiveness.
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