ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ ค"๐๐๐๐"ใ คโโใ คthe index nursefather of the house of spiders. originally sourced fromใ คproject moon's ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ;ใ คthough written as unreliant on source as possible. important information related to interaction & characterization can be found under the "๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐."
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ ค"๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐"ใ คโโใ คthe spider who can't leave the web, devotion over happiness โ devotion over self ("hand-puppet of the prescripts, what do you even know of choice?"), ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐'๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ (this is not a good thing for you), how grief comes & goes with the waves, how much of the artist can be found in the masterpiece, living a life that was never meant to be yours, & how in the end; ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คRIEN IS NOT A GOOD PERSON.ใ คthough he is portrayed in a sympathetic manner, especially near the end of his story involvement, this does not erase his actions & inactions throughout the story. while i intend on playing into his tragic qualities, & a joke may be made here or there, this is not a place for blind apologism of him.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คwith this in mind,ใ คTHE FOLLOWING CONTENT WARNINGS ARE ISSUED FOR THIS BLOG:ใ คgore, torture, body horror, self-mutilation, self-harm, child abuse, child death, animal death, non-sexual grooming, loss of identity / loss of self, religious / cult themes.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คwhen it comes to rules, THE TYPICAL DNI CRITERIA APPLIES. don't use AI in your writing or images. i block liberally to maintain a comfortable atmosphere for myself; please never take being blocked personally, i can guarantee you it's never that serious. all-in-all, use common sense when interacting with me & there shouldn't be any problems. i prefer not to be restrained by canon when it comes to interactions; if something is fun or interesting to write, that's all that matters to me. though project moon's lore is very in-depth & somewhat complicated, i have no issue (in fact, i greatly enjoy) interacting with characters from other media. as such, i try to be as flexible as possible where his character allows.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คthough my intent is to write rien in a way which is not reliant on project moon's expansive lore, there are some aspects of the world that rien cannot be divorced from due to his character. while i can do my best to adapt these things to various interactions, they are too important to be entirely removed. those details are listed below as simply as possibleใ ค(as such, some project moon terminology is not used)ใ คfor easy reference.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คPRESCRIPTS:ใ คprescripts are tasks delivered to or by members of the index. these tasks are unpredictable in nature, varying from mundane but nonsensical demands to overly violent & indulgent acts, & for certain members of the index, often contain targets to eliminate โ usually as a result of not following through with their own assigned prescripts. rien receives prescripts via a pager he carries, from a "god" called hermes, & his prescripts dictate his every thought & action.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คrien's devotion to the prescripts is best summed up with the following: the prescripts demanded he change his name, so he named himself rien. the prescript demanded he start a family, so he got married & had a child. the prescripts demanded he watch his family die, so he did nothing to save them.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คTHE INDEX:ใ คone of the groups belonging to the five fingers, a collection of five syndicates who control the slums outside of the nicer, higher class areas of the city. the index is devoted to the fulfillment of prescripts, & is known for an almost omnipotent knowledge of the world, given the nature & timing of some of their prescripts. they are effectively a cult, with members being frequently referred to as zealots.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คTHE HOUSE OF SPIDERS:ใ คa group of five nursefathers, each being a prominent disgraced member of each of the five fingers, who were brought together to raise a child to become the perfect wielder of a relic known as the arayashiki, that can sever anything from reality with the swing of its blade. rien is the index nursefather.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คYOSHIHIDE / RYOSHU:ใ คthe child under the house of spiders' care. rien was the nursefather most involved in parenting & raising her, while also being the one who taught her the most about a variety of weapons & how to use them.
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people like to draw & occasionally touch on the idea of a sinner au for rien, & it's such an interesting concept to me that i feel never gets given the amount of actual in-depth thought that could go into it. (though, don't get me wrong. i get it. sometimes you just want to draw a beautiful man in the lcb uniform. i agree. more people should do that. please.) but i love thinking about rien being a part of limbus company, both in regards to a potential post-canto ix universe (though, he wouldn't be a sinner here, i could see him being taken in to work for a different department of limbus) & in regards to a sinner-swap. (something that often includes other canto antagonists or just important characters in their cantos swapping with the canon sinners, like heathcliff - catherine, ishmael - ahab or queequeg, sinclair - kromer or damien.)
there's a lot of interesting options that you could go with it. there's the "closest to canon" option, where rien is still a rather high-ranking member of the index with the same backstory of his lost family, except he wasn't put partially in charge of the house of spiders to raise someone to wield the arayashiki. he would likely be instead ordered by a prescript to join limbus, as a result of potential conspiring between the index & dias.
then, there's two options that i call respectively the "yoshihide option" & the "kandata option."
the yoshihide option ties into the post i made earlier about what i lean towards thinking about rien's backstory. this is a "rien" (yoshihide) who perhaps never joined the index, potentially living a life contracted by a variety of different corporations for unknown ends โ though, those unknown ends would definitely end up being tied to his family, as i do think rien is one of those cases similar to heathcliff & catherine being doomed in a wide variety of mirror worlds; in a large majority of mirror worlds, yoshihide is doomed to suffer the loss of his family in some form or another. in this case, maybe the tragedy would be the loss of his family in present time. maybe he would have some ties to the story of mirror technology, perhaps having some degree of awareness of universes where his family died. maybe he would be someone who feels an inexplicable emptiness, no matter what, & in his seeking for a purpose, (including joining limbus company) he loses his family.
either way, i do think about this art quite a bit for the yoshihide option.
the kandata option plays on the house of spiders' ties to the spider's thread story. in this one, i imagine a rien who is a truly disgraced member of the index. perhaps he actually gained the courage to defy them properly & flee. due to the fact this is basically suicide for an index member, however, he's been on the run from proxies for who knows how long โ he is strong enough to fight them, at least, as a star of the city level threat in canon, but it could also play into the almost greek tragedy-esque nature of rien's ties to hermes & make it so that hermes is actually keeping rien alive purposefully, with prescripts effectively sending proxies to fail โ until he's recruited by limbus company for effective asylum to be safe from the proxies. the lcb is treated as the thin & fragile "spider's thread" pulling "a criminal" (rien, a disgraced member of the index) out of hell. (the all-consuming grief of his family's deaths)
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คhe gave it to me. and now iโm giving it to you.ใ คใ คโโใ คใ คMESSENGER:ใ ค@lovaend.
A SEED DROPS FROM A PLANT, AND IS LEFT TO THE WHIMS OF NATURE. THE WAVES, IN THEIR PASSIVITY, CARRY THE SPROUT TO THE PLACE IT WILL TAKE ROOT. โโ rien is as fluid as the ocean, yet murky in perception, depths obscured to even the most trained of eyes ; rien is as tangled as a spider's web, fragile in the face of greater things, yet sturdy in his grip on the weaker. โโ one hand is pressed to the mask adorning one half of his face, a quiet sizzling sound as the cracked marble presses against an eternally unhealing wound. a brief cauterization, until time's threads pull taut his skin & encourage the bleeding once more.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ ค โโ his other hand, however, is pressed to his chest. (perhaps, if he keeps it there, tightly, he will eventually feel the beating of his own heart once more.)
silence encroaches in the space that hangs after sakura's voice. a memory intrudes, a girl with long white hair extending a handful of worthless seashells: [they were pretty, daddy!] the far - off giggling of a woman; endeared. a woman buried beneath the sand. those pretty things, like all else, have long since collected dust.
ใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ คใ ค โโ THE HAND AT HIS MASK OUTSTRETCHES IN RECEPTIVENESS. NOT ENTIRELY OF HIS OWN VOLITION. (it's easier to think of it that way.)
โ i'm honored. โ tempered voice betrays internal turmoil. โ i'll treat it as an omamori, and in even the darkest abyss, i will tightly clasp my hands around it. โ empty words, to match his empty smile. rien has long since lost the urge to hope, to pray for fortune & protection โโ why would he have the need, when the grace of hermes was an ever - present, ever - burning sear? but empty words of reassurance are a kindness in some form, a pleasant aroma is one of the few things a gutted fruit can offer.
โ but remember, sakura, gifts from others shouldn't be given away carelessly. you should ensure the recipient will appreciate what you give them just as much as you appreciated it first. i hope you still consider me the proper recipient, with that in mind. โ
i have a lot of headcanons about rien's past for a character that is ultimately defined by being nothing & abandoning his previous identity. due to how he's obviously meant to parallel the literary yoshihide just as much as ryoshu does, i think he grew up in a ring-controlled area of the backstreets, which is where his fascination with art began. at one point, that art probably aligned more with one of the schools of the ring, but through his time as an index member, this sense of art has both been shoved aside in favor of his blind devotion to the prescripts (though he does still partake in his personal tastes when the prescript allows him to. ie: the torture basement) & has become less confined by the division of schools in the ring proper.
while i mostly feel this way because i think it makes sense given, as i mentioned, his shared yoshihide parallel with ryoshu, i also think it makes sense as to why callisto is so... somewhat vitriolic towards him?
i dunno. i'm working off of ideas here. but the idea of rien being an artist originally & him previously having the ideals of a different syndicate before being recruited into the index feels like a fun take on his character.
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So my life drifts slowly through time and will wane before long and still reach the placeless space where the tides of desire rejoin the timeless ocean.
Hermann Hesse, โLike a Waveโ from The Seasons of the Soul
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i'm properly going through canto iv on my own now & i'm having so many thoughts about how yi sang is the one to get the rien-based id. i see so many people think it's just because they look the most alike but god no. it is so much deeper than that it's actually going to make me sick. that acceptance with being nothing, that acceptance with lacking your own free will. brushing aside your past yet being unable to entirely sever it. walking around with a void within you that you aren't sure is overflowing out of you or swallowing everything else. good lord.
every time i think i can't get more sad about rien i go & listen to children of the city & i reread anything related to yan from library of ruina & then i reach new levels of despair.
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โโI could have sworn that the manโs eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure.โโ
i got this clip specifically to show off this cutscene to some people on discord & figured it was worth posting here also. because it is a really cool cutscene & anyone who doesn't know limbus company should watch it.
