#wh meta

[have-i-become-your-magician]

This is mainly me going over older scenes in the game to try to piece together what Noel's state is like in canon, including what his curse seems to entail, and whether he's even considered alive or not, and putting a few scenes like childhood dream on Claire falling off the cliff into context through that.

(I forgot to add this, so super quick note that my screenshots comes from my own playthroughs for ones I took while playing, Monochrome's playthrough up to end of Sirius' Conclusion for anything I missed for quick access, and Reiss Ryhas' stream of Wilardo's Conclusion.)

With how much earlier games lean on Noel is considered a hater, with having even designated low-levels to torment him textually daily, while never being explicitly stated to be dead (which is an odd thing when it's been 5 games so far, and with someone who is a constant presence in his life that would surely have brought it up in some way around for entirety of it), I have been pretty confused on whether Noel is alive at all, and how to read hater related experiences and powers he seems to have in light of that, especially when Wilardo's Conclusion essentially threw in an exchange and framing that seemed to imply he's alive.

So, going over exchanges I can remember being related to his state/taking that he has a different curse than regular haters who we do know for sure died into account + thinking more about if hater curse by nature requires you to be specifically dead/if there isn't parts of it that comes from just being human born and somehow cursed to be tied to a 'hell' (which Curse of Argus/Argos is stated to include multiple times by now)...

I think looking at everything, Noel is very much alive in canon, at least until conclusions, as he can survive or die at the end of those with 50/50 rate so far.

First main detail that really got me thinking was seeing this exchange with Zizel again, from Noel's scenario.

Which... in hindsight, also feels like a nudge at how if he was already dead, him being tormented by them and his death daily would be just regular occurence that getting used to is the norm, not something you would expect Zizel to point out as something to take note of.

(Charlotte also brings it up once again in Bonus Stage, when his mental and physical state has been deteriorating enough that he is not really able to fight off the low levels, and generally spiraling, that this is something that happens to him daily.)

He is tormented daily by those ball-face-shaped low levels, which follows with how rest of haters are taunted by reliving their deaths, but... his is simply throwing blame at him for things his dad did.

I went through scenes where we see him with those face balls, and they never once say anything on him being dead (though one does call him cursed and rub that to his face), with us even seeing that said torment is still inescapable, when Ashe ends up stumbling on him right when he was having his daily torment in Bonus Stage.

...Where, once again, as long as Ashe destroys the daily torment low levels (which Noel himself does in his scenario to 'pass time until his stargazing date with Claire'), they actually leave them be, while low levels that have the duty of making the person relive their deaths never that easily back down.

On that note, just visiting 'hell' itself doesn't actually kill you, as we see Claire and conclusion character in question be around in some fantasy spaces, including 'hell' itself for whether Claire will terminate her contract or not, so if Noel was dead, there aren't many potential causes to begin with, besides something to do with curse effecting his body/his initial death likely requiring something on him turning to his cursed flesh monster form.

This never happens when Ashe stumbles on him, he's just out cold (and noticably not bloody) on the ground until Ashe destroys the low levels.

...On that note, Rouge actually specifically phrases it as Noel's right eye no longer functioning, and that he will be meeting his end here, not that he already met it, as he ultimately can't leave the 1 square kilometers of land/the high magic density area mansion is built on (though he can leave the mansion itself pre timeloop, which we will get to a bit later too)

All of which seems to point to he is very much physically alive, or at least the state his curse puts him in still doesn't make him count as physically dead to a point where he is considered fully dead yet.

With also on the topic of his odd state with being able to show up around the mansion/mansion area worth being brought up for a certain dream-memory from Noel's scenario as well.

This recontextualized as Noel showing up around the mansion area at night (potentially through the magic circle?) a few days/a short time after his disappearance and curse, as him being taunted by low levels has been something that would be there since his first day (as we see Claire reliving her death twice in 'hell', shortly after she dies, both for original first night and Sirius' scenario), with both being children back then, so unable to fight them off physically (you take damage and can't damage back the low levels as child Claire for the forest section)...

Leading to this scene, where Noel was avoiding her to try to keep her safe from both low levels around him (who are allowed to kill people), and in general didn't want to say anything as he didn't want Claire dragged into this entire mess too, where Claire ends up falling of the cliff chasing after him.

(screenshot limit, continued part 2)

[have-i-become-your-magician]

I’m putting this under read more because it’ll have pictures but I was trying to piece together how a certain scene we see at the start of the game connects to what we learn about what we see happen right after they went inside the mansion

So, I think Noel genuinely had no idea Claire even died until he comes across her in “in-between life and death dimension people call hell” at the very start of the game for a few reasons.

1-) It is established that the place Claire ends up everytime she dies in her loops is actually just the “hell” demons reside. When you play as Noel, you can see the door leading to that space.

Which means her ending up in ‘hell’ wasn’t just a one time thing that happened in Sirius’ route- it was just a case where we saw more of what happened after she died and/or she just didn’t land on her usual spot we see her being at as a player.

2-) We also know Dorothy and Fiona are in the mansion as low level can’t keep their shape haters despite not having a hatred for humanity, as it’s established that rarely people who don’t hate humans end up in “hell” as well.

3-) We also do know haters get to re-experience their deaths daily, and it’s heavily implied that it’s not only demons who can keep full human forms/ones “higher level” enough to be able to leave high magic concentration areas that end up re-experiencing their deaths given Sheila’s initial appearance in the game being similar to Charlotte and Lime re-experiencing their deaths.

4-) We end up in exact space from the start of the game when Lime wants to fuck with Noel further and sends Sirius and Claire to him when she loses against Sirius on Sirius’ main route, with Claire even remembering that place. If the space itself didn’t matter, we would never see it as a space that exists and demon form Noel resides in again when he’s in “hell” after initial start of the game.

5-) Noel’s text there is asking Claire why she’s there with what seems more like confusion when she walks towards where he is at the very start of the game, as what he’s saying is “...Claire, why are you here?” (”...Kurea nande koko ni?” if you shift uppercase letters one letter back in Japanese as I’m using screenshots from an older build before VGPerson updated it to Caesar cipher -1 in English too) while you’d expect him to give a more emotionally charged reaction/appear in the mansion if he witnessed the original murder at all.

So what I think happened is

Ashe figures out what was going on and kills Claire as we know, with likely hitting her on the head like we see him try in Wilardo’s route as there is what seems like blood on her face

With the bloody spots we see in Dorothy’s room implying he killed Sirius before learning the info he needed to target Claire too.

Claire ends up in “hell” as that’s just where she ends up going when she dies, whether it’s because of the contract she is unwillingly part of or some other reason, she ends up in this specific place most likely thanks to Lime as she is the one who sends her and Sirius here so they come across monster form Noel in Sirius’ route too.

She feels her head hurt because she’s having her first experience of reliving her death as a new resident of “hell”.

Noel comes across her after that and asks with confusion and horror why Claire is here.

Noel turns back to his human form (as we see he leaves blood when he changes forms, be it his bloody clothing on Ashe’s route when he turned and got away when Ashe and Wilardo saw him escape from the broken window, and when his body no longer can maintain full human form we also see he has blood coming out around “eyes” that shows up on his skin) and asks Rouge to go back.

And cue the day 1 title card as Claire is confused and disoriented at the door, wondering what was that.

I think that would also make more sense with how clueless he is over what killed Claire and how, beyond memory tampering given the rules for the loop of course, though overtime he figures out that things like Claire’s diary make her a clear target given how Wilardo and Ashe are always asking around about the Witch’s Heart.

[have-i-become-your-magician]

Throwing my own hat into the ring for working out how long the loop has been going on, major spoilers for every WH entry so far.

A few things to clarify before starting off:

I do think overall events of loops, especially ones like Wilardo and Sirius' don't repeat as similarly as the one we have seen (as framing with Maria has been that she possessed Claire once, or at least not a significant amount of times, as she would not lose her memory of doing so if it was a recurring occurence; while for Sirius' I would believe Lime brought Sirius and Claire to where Noel is after they end up in 'hell', but I read what happens at the very end as directly leading to Noel's scenario and his increasingly worsening physical (and mental) state all of a sudden, as to me that reads as how badly he injured himself with the amulet + carrying an amount of them what is barely a few days after this even with reset that even Rouge would be dizzy to hold, even with his I'm not fully demon so it effects me less excuse must have had taken a toll enough on his body besides too many loops with a curse, as I think we would get something on his health sooner than Bonus Stage otherwise), while I do take the amount of days it takes for each route to reset + who is the culprit of the route for who's deaths as fixed parts/parts you can generally count on.

On that last part, 4 scenarios being split 2-2 for Wilardo and Ashe as the culprit who kills Claire, and in both's cases reset day is actually same regardless of route and slight difference in time for when Claire dies, I'm taking it as similarly intentional that 'this person killing leads to reset on this day', since when you do the math that is the case (Wilardo's murders are both day 4 resets, while Ashe's are day 5 resets), which will be especially helpful on it being unknown how many times Wilardo and Sirius' scenarios happen, as he's the culprit in both. (While with Ashe, thankfully we do have confirmation that Noel's scenario textually happens only once, as underlined a few times by Zizel and Rouge within the scenario itself.)

Related to that last point, I'll be keeping in mind when the reset happens than simply when Claire dies; there can be about a day of difference, as Noel only learns what happened when he arrives in the evening. (Hence the Wilardo's murders are day 4 resets point- Sirius's scenario he kills Claire on night of day 3, but Noel only gets to see what happened in the morning/daytime of day 4 while they are in 'hell' with him to reset; while in his own scenario, he kills Claire on the night of Day 4 and Noel arrives to this, making both functionally same reset points for same culprit. Similarly, CBE actually is a day 2 reset, as if you check Noel's room before checking Sirius', his room is already empty, so he would arrive at the evening of day 2 to see what happened and reset shortly after.)

Main uncertain element to me given above is the 'Other' category, as we have no way of knowing how many times of that is Claire dying to Charlotte (which is always day 1 deaths as she does not try that again once Claire meets Zizel for the loop, vs if it's other random minor demons, it can go up to theoretically day 5 morning), so that's the part I will mainly give a range for as lower and upper bounds.

In general, for the 9999 loops we know, it is an unstated rule when you look back that, assuming day 1 Charlotte death/random demon death/day 2 room swap CBE doesn't happen, Sirius always seems to die night of day 3 (though for Noel's scenario it is listed as morning of day 4, that's a bit of semantics since game seems to count anything past 12 AM-ish as day change, but it is ultimately still night time when Sirius dies/functionally he might as well died night of day 3 for when his body would be discovered) for all four scenarios, and Claire can die from same night (Sirius' scenario) to day 5 morning (Ashe's and Noel's scenarios). I believe this is also why conclusion and iirc Bonus Stage too has the rule of you can take pictures with characters until day 3 is over, since that's always the turning point for the story, and I'll have that as (again sans known day 1 and day 2 deaths) lower bound for main routes to help compare as well, since there obviously would be some freak accident/outlier routes somewhere, and 3 days is also generally a good middle of the road number for a situation where its established 5 days maximum time loop.

All that said...

4583- If following above logic, 4582 of them is most likely from his own scenarios, with last one being from Noel's. Claire dies on the morning of day 5 in both cases. 4583x5=22915 days, slightly above 62 and half years. 2749- Number of times it is his own scenario or Sirius' unknown, day 4 reset in both cases. 2749x4=10996 days, roughly 30 years. (For above two, if we try to get slightly a lower bound, if keeping day 3 rule in mind, 7331x3=21993 days, roughly 60 and a quarter years.) 137- Day 2 resets as I mentioned in one of the side notes above, as Noel arrives during evening of day 2 to what happened that morning that he would have missed. 137x2=274 days, around 3/4s of a year. 2530- Main tricky one that we can only get vague ranges for this one. If all day 1 deaths- 2530 days, roughly 7 years. If all day 5 deaths- 2530x5=12650 days, roughly 34 and half years. If taking the middle of the road with saying Charlotte is day 1 death half the time/going for 3 days- 2530x3=7590 days, roughly 20 and three quarters of a year.

If taking each scenario as indeed how many days each scenario's reset day is + take lower bound with 'Other' category with saying day 1 Charlotte deaths: 36715 days, or roughly 100 and half years.

If taking each scenario as indeed how many days each scenario's reset day is + take upper bound with 'Other' category with saying day 5 deaths each: 46835 days, or roughly 128 and quarter years.

If taking each scenario as indeed how many days each scenario's reset day is + take middle bound with 'Other' category with saying day 3 deaths: 41775 days, or roughly 114 and a half years.

If taking mean of Ashe and Wilardo's scenarios as day 3 deaths + keeping CBE as is + day 1 Charlotte deaths for 'Other': 24797 days, or roughly 68 years.

If taking mean of Ashe and Wilardo's scenarios as day 3 deaths + keeping CBE as is + day 5 deaths for 'Other': 34917 days, or roughly 95 and half years.

If taking mean of Ashe and Wilardo's scenarios as day 3 deaths + keeping CBE as is + take middle bound with 'Other' category with saying day 3 deaths: 29857 days, or roughly 81 and three quarters of a year.

I don't think lowest 68 years is really likely, especially given again if keeping to near 3/4s of loops seems to be on 4-5 day range, if accepting example scenarios we see are general rule of thumb, ditto for amount of times Claire most likely died to random monsters (potentially including mini bosses of each scenario sans in Noel's scenario too, which is day 2 deaths if so.), while I don't think it is the highest bound of 137 years (if every loop was 5 days, which it isn't in this case).

I think I personally find the likeliest range to be somewhere between 95~128 years, with personally having settled on roughly 114 and half/might as well be 115 years for what I take as likeliest/accounting enough for most loops having to be closer to 4-5 days while outliers do exist/Other category lowers it with general 1-2 days range for most likely demon related cause of deaths, since 4 days each loop would be 109 and half years, which Ashe ones being around half the time would skew it closer to 137 a bit more, hence why 95~128 range makes most sense to me, at least as far as I can piece things together right now.

Hopefully this made some sense.

[ghostnightbride]

So uh I found something interesting

For those who don’t remember/don’t follow me, a few nights ago I sorta got drunk and wrote a song about Azusa. I went back over the lyrics doc for shits and giggles and found I had named it “Azusa to Liz no Ondo [Azusa and Liz’s Marching Song”] with a note saying to find the kanji for Azusa bc I had written it in hiragana.

So since I have free time I decided to find the kanji for Azusa and found it’s this:

梓

To double-check that was right, I looked it up in a kanji dictionary. In Japanese, it’s not uncommon for kanji to have several different readings. My own name,  茉莉 (Mari) can be read either Mari or Matsuri. So I looked at the alternate readings for 梓 and found the other one is shi. For those who don’t know, shi is the Japanese word for “death.” 

TL;DR The kanji for Azusa can also be read as shi, which is death in Japanese and that’s pretty accurate tbh.

[fuckyeahbrontes]

How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters is a mystery.

Graham's Lady Magazine (1848) on Wuthering Heights [via]

[fuckyeahbrontes]

Anne Brontë… raises a set of ethical and representational questions concerning the limits and requirements of sympathy with animals, cruelty or violence to animals, and the depictions of such violence.

Ivan Kreilkamp, "Petted Things: Wuthering Heights and the Animal"

[fuckyeahbrontes]

Here all the faults of Jane Eyre [by Charlotte Brontë] are magnified a thousand fold, and the only consolation which we have in reflecting upon it is that it will never be generally read.

- James Lorimer in North British Review (1847) on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights