#is this cornplating

thinking about his most replayed memory in the paradise dimension being his 9th birthday, and the chocolate cake he got to eat during it. thinking about prime escaping and still not getting to sit down and eat with someone for years because he was stuck in prison, alone. thinking about how even when prime got back to a fake version of his parents at the end of countdown, they were terrified of him and he ate all his meals isolated in his basement.

V has her claws out in this little hallway scene when she sees the N hologram, but the second she sees the solver, she puts them away

(in my head at least) this feels like V had her claws out because she feels more comfortable with the claws vs the hands(because i would imagine to V the hands feel too close to her being a worker drone)

she had them out because she thought she was approaching N who she feels comfortable with, but puts them away even if they're weaponry because seeing the solver makes her feel like that child in the manor again

grabs the chain when he gets up off the floor when he first gets out of the tub with his left hand (to be fair, its the one closest to it)

briefly shields his eyes when the lights come on with his right hand

grabs chain with both hands (which ever one is further up the chain switches between shots)

braces himself on the floor when he sits with his right hand

pushes on the bottom of the cuff with his right hand (does this every time we see him trying to push the cuff off- worth noting, this may be because the cuff is on his left leg so this may be more about the angle rather than using his presumably stronger hand for leverage)

grabs the part of the chain wrapped around the pipe with his right hand

puts his right hand on the floor to support his weight when he sits again

puts his weight on his right hand when he gets up from sitting position to show off his tummy

holds his shirt up with his left hand while he checks his body/gestures while he talks with his right hand

I think this is enough to make the case that he's right handed, but here's the next 5 minutes if you have my same brand of neurodivergence:

the differences in jae and cassias portraits are so well done and help hint at and suggest things about their characters before you even really get to know them, imo.

color wise, cassia is shockingly cool toned. the brightest spark of color is the book on her left hip, which bears the symbol of the navis nobilite, the organization cassia belongs to. you can also see this symbol on her pauldrons, and the eye motif is continued in her belt, the staff she's carrying, and her eye covering.

cassia is also overwhelming drenched in gold, a metal primarily associated with wealth and royalty, and her eye covering also mimics a tiara, or headpiece, what with it being metallic and having a blue "jewel" in the middle.

blue is probably the primary color in the piece, but also purple. purple is a color, again, associated with royalty. originally, purple was a notoriously difficult dye to source. the most famous example of this is tyrian purple dye (πορφύρα porphúra) which was secreted by several sea snails belonging to the muricidae family. it required tens of thousands of sea snails to produce, and was thus very, very, very highly sought after by nobles. to wear purple was a flex, so to say.

so cassias design screams royalty, and helps contribute to her princess image. the "tiara", the fact that she's the only female companion to wear a full dress, and that dress being almost entirely purple, her golden jewelry + accessories all contribute to showing off that cassia comes from a wealthy background.

her positioning in the frame is important too. obviously, most characters in game are in the direct centre of their portraits, duh. however, cassia is pulled away from the player. she's very zoomed out! this is to show off her full outfit, yes, but it's also helps hint to the distance that cassia often feels from other people. shes been intentionally isolated since childhood, and many people fear her for being a mutant, so she's kept away from everyone.

cassia is also not looking at the player, shes looking a bit up and away, almost as if the camera is very slightly angled up to look at her. this helps with exaggerating her height, as she canonly has elongated limbs (alongside other issues) from her navigator mutations, but also shows off the distance, again!

as a contrast, jae is warm. very warm toned, the coolest things in her portrait are the background, which is intentionally blurry and "not worth focusing on" and her jacket, which is a similar shade of purple that cassia is absolutely drenched in.

this also hints at jaes real backstory. while cassia is, for better or for worse, a princess and a true noble, jae isn't- but she lies, and says she is. the difference in purple hints at the falseness of jaes nobility, or at least suggests shes not as noble as the other princess-y character in game.

alongside, jae is doing a classic come hither pose with offering the player alcohol, and is staring directly at the player while doing so, a sharp contrast to cassia. you're on a level playing field with jae.

coupled with the more traditionally "masculine" details like her pants, boots, and facial scars, presents jae as a bit more rough and tumble than cassias sickly, traditionally "feminine" appearance. hilariously, jae is one of the more feminine characters in the game, she's just unfortunately placed next to a disney princess.

jae undercuts this though via drawing attention to her chest with the shock of bright white her shirt brings, as well as just flat out showing off her chest via having her shirt be unbuttoned. her boots, while "masculine" are also heeled, pretty severely, too, adding another "feminine" touch.

its also interesting that the two things that connect jae back to her real origins as a smuggler and former serf are silver, ie her neck augment and most of her arm, unlike the rest of her accessories, which are richly adorned in gold. it's another notch in how jae isn't really a noble, or at least not as blue-blooded as cassia.

you can also talk about how jaes portrait is her in a bar, probably the adeptus amasecus where you first "properly" meet her, a dingy, disgusting bar located a few steps away from an active plague zone, versus cassia who is located on what i'm pretty sure is the main bridge of the ship.

so, does that mean that was really the first time he nosebleed like that? he looked unwell in s1e1 and the greenhouse scene so i assumed he should be used to blood, but in the bathroom when he saw the blood he kind of... panicked? like he hadn't gotten used to it. does this mean connecting with mark, moving into his lumon house worsened ptk's condition?

or maybe he just didn't want mark to know how sick he was because he didn't want mark to be troubled and get worried.

anyway i just want to say maybe ptk was killed(or at least die faster) by the fact that he's living in his friend's house 🥰