veryidiotic

"Fear makes you miss opportunities and not strike out. In sorrow and self-limitation, you are losing courage and direction to keep moving forward"... This line specifically reminds me of Ratio's B's Log interview.

In it, he answers a question about why he considers himself an ordinary person with a quote from Atsushi Nakajima's story, "The Moon Over the Mountain." An excerpt from it:

Li Zheng's voice went on: "I said a moment ago that I did not know why I met this fate, but when I think carefully about it, I have in fact some idea why. When I was a man, I did my best to avoid contact with others. People thought me arrogant and self-important. They did not realize it was, rather, shyness that made me act that way. Of course I was not without pride in my old reputation as a prodigy among the boys of my hometown. But it was a timid kind of pride. I hoped to make a name for myself as a poet, but I never attached myself to a teacher or sought out the company of other poets who might have helped me to improve my skill. At the same time, I had no intention of ranking myself together with the common, unpoetic herd. But this was the result of my timid pride and a disdainful shyness. Fearing that I might not be a jewel, I made no effort to polish myself; but half-believing that I might be a jewel, I could not rest content among the common clay.

The bolded one is what he quotes. Just like the line from his Present tarot card reading, "fear" is mentioned once again. And the part about fear making you miss out on opportunities actually makes me think of Ratio's text messages about DU in 2.5

In 2.3, in one of the Human Comedy missions, Screwllum tells you this:

Screwllum: Here we are. The scenery in the Land of the Dreams is always captivating, although that gentleman from the Intelligentsia Guild did not find it to suit his tastes.

Screwllum: I once invited him to bring fresh perspectives to the research conducted by the geniuses as a representative of the Intelligentsia Guild. Conclusion: He declined.

And then in 2.5, when Ratio texts you, you can ask him about it and this conversation happens:

Trailblazer: [Screwllum] thinks highly of you. Yet you declined his invitation, why?

Dr. Ratio: Geniuses are like stars. The value they create can illuminate an entire planetary system.

The mundane is always trying to follow their footsteps, only to be blinded and become lost.

He has his topics, and I have mine.

One needs to walk their own path. This is true to both you and me.

This line of thinking comes up pretty often with Ratio. He believes that ordinary people are also capable of creativity and intelligence and such things are not merely confined to Geniuses (as is stated in his character profile), and that regardless of whether he's a genius, his contributions remain invaluable (as is stated in one of his Express visit dialogues), but he's also always seperating ordinary people and geniuses. Again in one of his Express visit dialogues, he says that what defines a genius is ultimately of no significance, yet you can see from every single thing he does and says that it's pretty important to him.

That's what I believe the "habitual self-imposed limitations" mentioned in his tarot card reading is referring to.

Ratio considers himself an ordinary person, and even if other people see him differently, he seems firm in his perception of his identity. You can see this from his Knowledge voiceline ("The beauty of truth is that it never changes, even when no one understands it. Well, that's true for me, at least.") or the importance he puts on knowing oneself.

Part of why he calls himself ordinary is his inability to get into the Genius Society in the past. He seems to have accepted that and given up on trying to become a Genius, and he truly does believe that ordinary people are capable of achieving things and leading meaningful, happy lives if they put in the effort to think for themselves too. Thus, you can interpret him calling himself ordinary as something more empowering, and/or a way of defining his existence, and him being a mundanite is a very vital part of his character... Yet, him calling himself an ordinary person seems to be tinged with a sort of... self-deprecation, at least from my reading of it.

In his character stories, he is said to "let out a self-deprecating laugh" after receiving an invitation from the IPC/the Guild rather than the Genius Society, and his downed voiceline in every language other than EN is "Ordinary person... Ha..." I don't speak those languages, but based on the voice acting and from what I've heard, the line seems to carry a more negative tone and the "Ha" is like a laugh. Which makes it sound like he's mocking himself, no? And since it's a downed voiceline, as he dies/passes out too...

I don't think these are the only instances of him being a bit self-deprecating either. To quote another dialogue from his text messages about DU that I mentioned earlier:

Trailblazer: You are the partner Screwllum mentioned?

Dr. Ratio: Screwllum is trying to understand and resolve the differences and conflicts among intelligent lifeforms. I only provided him with some materials and advice during academic exchanges.

As for "partner"... that's just him overstating my contribution.

But despite that, you can see from Screwllum's dialogue that he truly respects and values Ratio as a research partner... It's just Ratio himself not really seeing it that way.

I've talked about this before (+ in this post too), but in general, I think there is a theme about being misunderstood, of nobody seeing his real self, in Ratio's character. But someone's perception of Ratio not fully matching up to his perception of himself does not necessarily mean they don't understand him, especially since he seems to look at himself with a negative bias

From all of this, you can see how Ratio firmly thinking of himself as ordinary could be considered a self-imposed limitation that can be harmful to him, right? Something that can cause him to miss out on opportunities due to his way of thinking and fear, sort of like him declining Screwllum's invitation

The "self-imposed limitation" could also be referring to the way he often tries to specifically put himself in the position of the professor/a supporting character (as is said in the description of his Penacony sticker, "I'm just doing what a supporting character should do.") too.

Then, perhaps the Future and New Year's Revelation in his tarot card reading could be implying that what he needs to reach a new level of self-actualization and achieve true confidence in himself (and get some character development) is to break away from the definitions of a genius AND an ordinary person, shedding the two labels he has always been stuck between entirely and not constraining himself with them anymore, or something similar to that, like keeping his identity of an ordinary person but becoming truly self-assured in that label, not letting it limit him. Maybe him slowly becoming friends with the Geniuses (him appearing with Herta in the Fate story, and with Ruan Mei & Herta in this year's in-game anniversary event, being put alongside the SU dev team in this year's anni web event, the little interaction he has with Stephen in a Hoyolab post etc) is a step towards that.

"Fortune is unfavourable. You may need to hold out for longer~" Does... does this mean these things will be explored and he will actually get this character development in future quests, Hoyo? You can't play with me like this Hoyo please 😭😭😭😭

Additionally, some smaller thoughts:

Past reading: "In the past, you have devoted yourself to your studies and immersed yourself in the mental world, thus ignoring the duties in the physical realm."

Thus ignoring the duties in the physical realm... 🤔 Information about Ratio's past is always intriguing to me, because we really don't have much info about it. I think this part does imply Ratio when he was younger was wholly devoted to his studies and desire to join the GS. 

Of course, if you devote yourself to a specific goal all your life, including your childhood, perhaps in the process becoming someone who is pretty isolated, later realizing that you'll likely never achieve that thing no matter how hard you try would be pretty crushing, wouldn't it? So his mentality around being an ordinary person does make a lot of sense.

Also, this specific paragraph lives rent free in my head:

Present reading: In the present, you are content with your circumstances, and fear makes you miss opportunities and not strike out. In sorrow and self-limitation, you are losing courage and direction to keep moving forward.

bonus points if elijah kamski and gavin are estranged brothers in this fic, and gavin has to begrudgingly ask for his help because he doesn't know what the fuck he's supposed to do about being stuck in a time loop and elijah is unfortunately the smartest person he knows. these two in the past, when they were still kids and got along, set a password that they'd use if one of them ever got trapped in a time loop and wanted to let the other know (they were weird kids, okay?) and one loop, gavin calls elijah. before elijah can make some smartass remark about how he's surprised gavin is reaching out since he rarely calls, gavin says the password and revels momentarily in the ensuing silence it produces from his brother. then elijah sends him his address and things go from there. i imagine as thr loops pass, elijah eventually manages to invent a machine that allows him to (mostly?) keep his memory from past loops, and gavin can't decide whether he's grateful or somewhat annoyed. maybe they become closer again in the end

other specific things i'm imagining is

gavin, after being in the time loop for a while (but not close to the end of them), sometimes just handing in his badge and quitting his job to go on vacation, sit back and relax before time resets again

gavin stumbling across pre-deviancy markus in the street one day and thinking "wtf". for some reason, something compells in him to call out to the android and be like "when you do your protests this time, maybe don't go the very violent route, okay? those usually end up going badly." markus, confused, politely says he doesn't know what gavin is talking about and gavin just sighs exasperatedly, saying "just keep it in mind. or in your memory datebase, idfk" before storming off. later on, the protests actually do end up being peaceful this time. even if things still go wrong in the end, maybe that's when it starts hitting gavin a bit more than he might actually be able to change things with his actions

gavin at the beginning of the loops being pretty anti-android, but as time goes on, a lot of shit happens in the loops that he didn't see the first time around & he knows that connor and some other androids working in the station end up deviating later (and in the end, are usually killed), and without even noticing, gradually starts to be more cordial with androids and treat them like people, and his unusual behaviour keeps weirding out the people around him who are familiar with his normal self

i'm imagining ratio and aventurine getting married, living together, maybe considering having a kid, and it's all very domestic. then sometimes, aventurine just bursts into tears all of a sudden, in all sorts of situations like when they're laying in bed together, doing grocery shopping, during the times they visit eachother at the other's work place etc... at first, aventurine's subordinates get jumpscared at their boss suddenly starting to cry at times, but they gradually get used to it and it's just like a thing that sometimes happens

ratio, on the other hand, is really quite concerned. aventurine's not the type to cry often, if ever, at all. he worries that something may be wrong with aventurine's hormone levels or maybe he's struggling with his mental health or maybe he's not really happy about the life they've formed together. he keeps trying to refer him to a doctor but aventurine insists he's alright, and even when aventurine does get a check-up, everything seems perfectly fine. if anything, aventurine's healthier than he's ever been. so ratio begrudgingly lets it go, and just sighs and gently wipes aventurine's tears with a handkerchief when he starts crying while they're dining together at a restaurant

in reality, aventurine's just crying because he never thought he could be as happy as he is now. he never thought he could love or be loved again after his family died. and even when doing completely mundane things with ratio, he often feels overwhelmingly happy and those feelings just burst out of him in tears he could never shed before

About Self: True Appearance: I don't mind revealing my true colors if it helps me teach students and treat patients. But in my experience, it's usually counterproductive.

Considering it says "true appearance" and him canonically being described as attractive multiple times ("The face under the strange alabaster head sculpture is apparently unexpectedly handsome."), you can read this voiceline as him basically saying he needs to cover his face while teaching or else people get too distracted by his beauty, and he also says that he wears the headgear partly because he doesn't want to look at idiots, both of which are very funny lol

But I would also like to point out this other voiceline:

Knowledge: The beauty of truth is that it never changes, even when no one understands it. Well, that's true for me, at least.

In this voiceline, he talks about truth, yes, but also himself. This is especially more obvious in other languages where the last line translates to something more along the lines of "That applies to me too." He's saying that his true self doesn't change, even when no one understands him.

If you can apply this voiceline to his self, if you're meant to do that... Can't you do the same for the previous voiceline too?

In his character stories, which consist of excerpts from a book called "Wisdom as a Privilege: Decoding Dr. Ratio" and are all entirely told through the perspectives of others, Ratio is described to be "as contentious as his research". It is said that there are no less than eight documentaries detailing his legendary exploits, and over a dozen memoirs about him, and yet, despite the plethora of commentaries, none of them seems to provide a compelling perspective.

Ratio being/considering himself an ordinary person is one of the biggest parts of his character, and in his final character story, the author of the book wonders why Ratio calls himself mundane, asking whether it's a form of submission, mockery, or a declaration of war. Similarly, in his B's Log interview, the interviewer asks him why he calls himself an ordinary person.

His statues which represent him in the 2.7 photo event are described as "appears legion, but fundamentally united." His technique is named "Mold of Idolatry", and it is him placing a statue that taunts all enemies and makes them solely pay attention to it, makes them attack it, while his real self can roam around unnoticed.

His skill name "Intellectual Midwifery" (as well as a few other things about his character) is a reference to Socrates, who famously did not author any of his own works and is known mainly from the accounts of other people, which are often contradictory. This is known as the Socratic Problem. I'll attach this excerpt from Wikipedia:

In historical scholarship, the Socratic problem (also called Socratic question) concerns attempts at reconstructing a historical and philosophical image of Socrates based on the variable, and sometimes contradictory, nature of the existing sources on his life. Scholars rely upon extant sources [...] for knowing anything about Socrates. However, these sources contain contradictory details of his life, words, and beliefs when taken together. It has become apparent to scholarship that this problem is seemingly impossible to clarify and thus perhaps now classified as unsolvable.

...Meaning that Ratio being someone who is not understood, who is seen differently by many people, is an apparent theme in his character; one which he talks about, in his Knowledge voiceline. "The beauty of truth is that it never changes, even when no one understands it."

In his character information, it is said that Ratio often conceals his appearance with the plaster head. According to his character stories, he even wore it while at university, and he was already a prominent figure in society at that time. His plaster head also shows up in his Cosmodyssey board encounter from 2.1:

The IPC's academic representative, Dr. Ratio, is the walking epitome of a "people-displeaser." Everyone's first impression is focused on his creepy head covering that radiates a vibe of *antipathy*. Maybe you can also try getting a plaster cast head of your own...

The creepy head covering that radiates a vibe of antipathy, which is the thing everyone first focuses on...

Then, doesn't the literal mask Ratio wears - concealing his human face from the eyes of others with the head of an unliving statue - sound like the representation of the metaphorical mask he wears...?

Keeping this in mind, read the first voiceline I talked about again.

About Self: True Appearance: I don't mind revealing my true colors if it helps me teach students and treat patients. But in my experience, it's usually counterproductive.

Again in his character information, he is described as sharp-tongued, and this is clearly true with the way he talks to people ("Zero points! Fail, get out!" lol). In his character introduction post, the disembodied voice of who I suppose is an interviewer says "I heard you're strict on your students...", which Ratio responds with:

"There are students of mediocre abilities, students who think too highly of themselves, students who waste their talents... There are too many kinds of students, and the ones among them who are talented and dligent are few and far between. Those filled with vim while vacant a thought remain a horde.

"As for the passing rate being 3%... You should know the beauty of truth is even if no one can truly understand it, even if the pursuit of it demands tremendous effort, the truth itself will not change... therefore, the initial filtering process is extremely important."

Disregarding how a passing rate of 3% is kinda crazy, this answer happens to highlight the teaching method Ratio believes in and prefers: Criticism. And he is not someone who's only critical towards others and the world, but also himself - highly valuing knowing oneself and recognizing one's own folly, of making people recognize their own folly. ("So, ladies and gentlemen, turning a blind eye to the folly of others is not an etiquette, but a wicked worldly practice. To spread knowledge, we must first make people realize their folly. The same surely applies to the scholars of the Guild.")

In Mundane Troubles, he speaks of this too. "Pursuit tinged with negativity is still pursuit, and it is capable of leading us to the right conclusion. For the masses of the mediocre to reach a level of awareness — this is a necessary rite of passage." Ratio is someone who critiques, who lays down questions, puts people in a position where they have to think critically, so that they can realize their ignorance and improve themselves with their own capabilities.

Naturally, due to this demeanor of his... he is sort of insufferable lmao, or at least is often perceived that way. He is very much aware of this as well, saying in one of his Express visits "I'm aware I'm not the most endearing person." (which I actually like to look at the CN version of because online translators translate it to "I know I'm not likeable." and that makes me feel more like 🥀)

This sharp tongue of Ratio's is part of his personality, yes, but like I said, it is also connected to his role as a teacher. And Ratio is almost constantly acting as a professor, or as the supporting character. In 1.6, in 2.1, in the 2.7 photo event where he gives photography advice to March, in the 3.5 bartender event where he's there to answer the questions Sushang keeps bombarding his inbox with... Similar to how Ratio is said to often wear the bizarre plaster head scultpure.

On the flipside, the personality Ratio shows to the world does not only breed contempt from others, but idealization as well. He's a famous/infamous public figure, he canonically has a "Dr. Ratio Fan Club (Insane Version)", students who are from the university he gratuated from pray to him as if he's a god to be able to pass their exams, the livestream chat freaks out when he takes off his alabaster head in 4.2 etc.

The most noteworthy part is, like I said earlier, his technique named "Mold of Idolatry", which is him placing down a statue that resembles him and taunts all enemies.

Ratio puts on that mask, he places down that statuesque image of himself, and that is what people see. People project onto that image, see what they want to see in it. They may hate it, get taunted by it and attack it, or they may idealize it and treat it like it's a divine being. Idolatry - the worship of a physical object as a god.

All the while, Ratio firmly considers himself merely an ordinary person... But he's an "idol" and everyone views him differently, nobody really seeing the unchanging truth of his real self ("At that time, Ratio was already a prominent figure in society, but there were varying opinions about him among his teachers and peers.").

So then, if Ratio's demeanor is connected to the supporting role he places himself in, and he conceals his true colours because in his experience, revealing it to his students and patients tends to be counterproductive, and he implies that he has a true self (or what he considers to be his true self) that exists and never changes regardless of whether other people recognize it... I wonder what Ratio truly is like when he completely takes off that "mask" and shows his "true colours"?

*Grips Ratio's shoulders* Ratio is your sharp tongue not only a part of your personality and an extension of your preferred teaching method, but also a defense mechanism and mask born from the expectations and many eyes of others that were placed on you since a relatively young age due to you being a gifted kid, which is perpetuated by the supporting role you purposefully put yourself in ("I'm just doing what a supporting character should do."), which can be seen as a way you distance yourself from other people ("Yet, from my perspective, I am invariably the teacher, and [Aventurine], along with you and every other individual, is the student."), and you're fine with not being understood or being disliked by everyone as long as those people can learn from you ("It doesn't matter if you know me or not, but you should know yourself and the data I sent. That's very important."), which all of that is also perpetuated by your feelings of self-deprecation related to being unable to gain Nous' recognition and the reality that you likely never will no matter what you do, how much you try? Ratio answer me rn

Anyway, I would also like to link this fanart from my bookmarks which brought this on in the first place, where Trailblazer asks Ratio wouldn't it be better to not wear the plaster head. Makes me wonder what kind of experiences Ratio could have had to start covering his face, to say that revealing his true colours tends to be counterproductive and just as he doesn't want to see idiots, idiots don't want to see his face either...

except this time, the soul inside kris is doing the normal route, but susie's terrified things are going to unfold the same way again so she tries to change things and is very concerned and protective over kriselle, who are very confused (kris) and flustered (noelle) about the sudden 180 in her demeanor

one day, pure vessel's alone with some kingsmoulds, and one kingsmould casually telepathically says something to the pure vessel and they get jumpscared by it. like they just slowly turn around and do a double take. as the kingmoulds continue chatting both to them and amongst eachother, pure vessel's like ?????????? does father know of this???????

after some confusion and hesitance, pure vessel ends up responding back to them, probably saying something about how the kingsmoulds are supposed to be constructs with no consciousness, hollow, just like they themselves are. then one kingsmould is like "well, considering we're talking to eachother right now, neither of us are hollow, are we? 🤨"

which makes the pure vessel go 😨 and immediately deny the implication that they're not hollow. but a part of them fears that the pale king would think the same if they attempted to communicate this whole matter with the kingsmoulds to him, so they end up not doing anything about it.

honestly, i just want pure vessel to see how these beings born from void who are supposed to have no consciousness have formed identities and a community amongst themselves, and i want them to gradually become friends with the kingsmoulds and slowly start to form their own identity pls. specifically i have this image in my head of pure vessel and some kingsmoulds having a secret tea party (none of them can drink tea, probably)