So in LobCorp, there's a couple instances of Gebura bitching about Chesed completely unprompted to the manager
This is because Gebura is a hateful bitch (affectionate) and lets Chesed live rent-free in her brain and ragebait her even when he's not in the room.
However Chesed doesn't really complain about her to the manager, except right after she repeatedly threatens to shoot him in the face, implying the disdain is completely one-sided at best, and somewhat lukewarm from his side at worst.
...That is, until Limbus, which graced us with Chesed announcer, who *constantly* bitches about Gebura:
(this one's vague but referencing his dialogue in gebura 3 cutscene)
...Confirming that she, too, lives rent-free in his brain and pisses him off constantly. The petty bitch arrangement is completely mutual.
I've been saving for her ID since Rein dropped, how in the world hasn't she gotten her's yet 😭😭. Still debating on showing the other doodles, but this is all for now. They're from last month, but yk
Art's been slower than ever since i'm focusing on school. I did my first embalming last week, so that's exciting🫡
Just a bunch of guys being dudes down at the swamp. We got big dudes, little dudes, medium dudes, wonky dudes, dudes with one antler, great big dudes with little baby antlers, and more!
popular city content creator "Hcorpbomberguy" making a video called "Plagiarism and You(rodiviye)" where he flames gubo for stealing the name "league of nine litterateurs"
Honestly I think a lot could be said for how different some of the Patron Librarians are from their selves in Lobotomy Corporation as the Sephirot. Malkuth is definitely different, enough so that trying to use her lobcorp self as a basis when writing her can cause her to seem OOC in post-Ruina works, even!
Right now, though, I'm thinking of Binah. And, at some point, this kinda turned into a Binah-and-Chesed analysis.
Binah in lobcorp has gone through ten thousand years guarding the gates of hell - that is, she's the one in charge of Extraction, who cannot go mad from the revelations therein. She's in constant contact and proximity with cogito and its effects.
It's not unrealistic to say that she has both accepted her position on the Tree as Binah as given to her by Ayin who is someone she feels she understands, and she also at the same time resents it and hates him for this and wishes to tear everything down around them.
(That last point may be part of why she sides with Angela in the true ending; they both understand that sentiment of "that man put us here against our will and placed us in jobs that made us go mad, and I want nothing more than to destroy it all" - the difference is that by this point, Binah understands more than Angela does about herself, and can see past those feelings.)
In Ruina, the big difference that we see in Binah is that she is, in fact, incredibly social.
She'll encourage others to join her for tea on her floor, she'll go to others, and she'll literally drag people over to her floor - albeit via trickery. She's open about her desire for everyone to not only work together, but to come together and have casual conversation as friends.
We see this with Roland. But we also see it with various others; Hokma visits her in the third small story, and this is when she says this:
Binah: Ah, although the azure-maned noble boy insists around the clock that I partake of coffee.
Hokma: It is certainly true that there has been much change. I wouldn't have expected that he would approach you first to recommend coffee.
Binah: One day, perchance all of us will come together. Indeed... It will be quite different from the first time such a gathering took place.
Notable is that this is only the third of the "small stories," and it's the first time we see Binah in a casual setting (outside of the main episodes).
For context on Chesed asking her to have coffee... it certainly isn't just Binah he's asking, as the second small stories episode was actually Chesed having invited Gebura and Tiphereth to his floor, to have coffee. Importantly, however, are a few lines of his that add deeper meaning to why he was insistent about Gebura, and about himself in general.
"Well, you see~ I thought it’d be nice to make at least one friend who understands the savors of coffee, y’know?"
"Well… How should I put it? See, the thing about Gebura is that… Her reactions are fun to watch?"
To me, this suggests two things: one, that he wants to talk to someone who can understand him on some level, and two, that... he does enjoy baiting Gebura.
Now, personally I see this as a bad habit and something of a maladaptive coping mechanism, because his bad habit isn't just baiting people, it's specifically baiting people who are powerful enough to flatten him like a blueberry pancake.
In the case of Gebura, I strongly believe it's because of his sense of "shame" - that he still feels ashamed of his actions as Daniel making it easier for Garion to raid the lab, which led to Kali and everyone else (other than Ayin and Benjamin) dying.
But y'know what? I don't think he's just baiting Gebura.
I think he's also baiting Binah herself.
Binah says above that Chesed "insists around the clock that [she] partake of coffee."
Seems like a simple gesture at first, right? But... not so much when you add on the fact that he's also been seen doing this with Roland.
No, hear me out. Because the thing is, all of the Patron Librarians wake up knowing more or less everything that's happened up to that point.
There's no reason why Chesed shouldn't know that Roland is from the Backstreets. And yet...
Roland: Ick! Is this really coffee? You sure it's not spoiled?
Chesed: That's odd. I made sure to brew high-quality Kenya BB... Maybe I haven't quite mastered teh art of reconstructing materials within the library yet...
Roland: [Cough cough...] Why don't you try it yourself!
Of course, Chesed's fancy coffee is perfectly and exactly as it is supposed to be tasted - by Chesed. And he knew that Kali back in the lab gave him the exact same reaction to this very blend.
And... by this point, it's entirely plausible that Chesed, just like many others and unlike Angela, would have been able to see that Roland is no ordinary "Grade 9 Fixer" but has been hiding his true capabilities for a long time now.
Which, all told, means this - Chesed, as said, has a bad habit of baiting the people who are most capable of turning him into a blueberry pancake stain on his Floor.
This includes Gebura, it includes Binah, and it includes Roland. In the fight against the Reverberation Ensemble, he speaks casually then, too.
And... back on topic, but I think this DOES fit back to him baiting Binah with the idea of coffee.
Because in a sense Chesed and Binah are similar - they're both trying to reach out to the others in their own way. It's just the way they go about it that's different.
Chesed baits and needles at people, and to be honest, he... kind of isn't. He'll cover up his true intention - to have more real, actual friends - with what he thinks is an easier answer for them to take, and puts on a mask of being a sly, wily fox that's only interested in pulling others' tailfeathers.
Binah, however, draws people to her rather than going to them, even if she sometimes uses underhanded methods, and she is honest. To a fault, perhaps, and strangely enough almost in an idealistic way - or perhaps not so much, given that she's all too aware of how she started out as their enemy, and is now their ally and friend - she states openly what she wants, and what she wants is for everyone to gather around together.
So, in that sense, they're alike.
In a sense, the other end of it is that the things that they need to overcome are also alike - or rather, each other's opposite.
Chesed, as I stated before, is baiting those more powerful than him... which is interesting behaviour since as Daniel he had been scared literally witless by Garion, and then as Chesed the Sephirah in charge of the Welfare Team he was constantly under Angela's thumb and bullied/belittled by Gebura.
My theory/headcanon/what have you, based on this? Is that Chesed is effectively pushing himself past his own comfort zone and against his own boundaries each time he baits these people. He is doing this to tell himself that even if he's afraid, that doesn't mean he can just do nothing. Even if all he can do is this much.
Chesed is, effectively, facing his own fears and breaking his own cycle of buckling under said fear. So that next time, things won't happen the same.
Binah, meanwhile, is encouraging others to come to her. She meets with Hokma, but later she'll invite Gebura and Hod of her own volition and ask them what they think of her, trying to encourage them to not see her as the same person she used to be.
She'll trick Chesed up to Philosophy to drink tea (talk with her) and funnily enough, she uses some of the same tactics he had before; we know that what she wants is for them all to get together in a friendly way, but the way she starst out is by arguing over whether tea or coffee is better.
Sounds petty? Or perhaps like she's hiding? Maybe, but I think there's another reason for it. In other words, I think that she's making herself easier to approach.
Given that later on in that scene Chesed says that he was "dragged" there, and then later on he salso says this:
"Well, even though we’re here together, that doesn’t mean we’re all that comfortable with each other~"
I'd say it's not far-fetched that she felt that she had to ease him into the idea of interacting with her. He's outright stating that he isn't comfortable being there, after all. And who else could he be talking about? Hod? Gebura? Angela, perhaps, but Binah is the one he has a history with. He even offers Angela to come to his floor next time, with Roland if need be, which is an offer he doesn't give to Binah.
Even so, that just builds up my point that Binah is trying to show that she is someone who is no longer their enemy, and can, in fact, be a friend one day.
Binah is, effectively, just as Chesed is facing his fears- she is attempting to be someone who is faithful and trustworthy to those around her.
The thing is, neither of these things come easily to either of them.
Chesed is always going to be nervous around those who are that much stronger than him, and may also always attempt to cover that up by baiting them, or putting on a disaffected face. He's trying, though.
Binah is always going to have her past define her, to an extent, and it is entirely up to those who lived through that - or not - to decide if they want to try and let her be their friend, if they can see her as more than a sometime-ally.
Honestly, the more I look at and into Binah the more I feel like I can understand a little more about her, peel away one feather after another. Same goes for any of them.
I don't think that Chesed is going to easily become comfortable with Binah, or trust her in the same way he does with others. My personal headcanon for him is that he's still afraid of her, he still has nightmares of her standing over him and telling him to press the button (he's still ashamed of that even up to the WNDD, when Angela releases the abnormalities), and of dying in that hallway. She literally represents the start of everything he became that he sees as distasteful about himself. He may put on a mask of civility and be tactful, he may fight alongside her, but... it's always going to have a sense of discomfort.
And Binah herself is, I think, perhaps trying to figure out who she is now, and where she wants to go from here.
She's broken her own cycle of destruction, she is no longer an Arbiter of the Head but the Patron Librarian of Philosophy, and she chooses to be here, with this name, now.
She's made the choice to face her own fears, and she's made the decision to no longer be alone with only cogito and Carmen to talk to, but to reach out to all of the others - Patrons and Assistants alike.
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