Yanny's Self Indulgent Blog

So, for those unaware, Project Moon has fired VellMori, the CG artist for Limbus Company. Now, a not inaccurate statement that can be made from this is "Project Moon fired a woman for being a feminist" but this is... somewhat reductive. Let's immediately get out of the way that VellMori did absolutely nothing wrong. Some people have said she is a TERF. I've seen no evidence of this. Some people have said she wished death on all men. I've seen no evidence of this.

What I HAVE seen is that VellMori thinks sexual abuse is bad. Now, why would this lead to a firing? The short answer is that a bunch of violent incels, one of which was literally dressed as a clown, came knocking at their office doors.

See, Limbus Company has a "beach" event coming up. In this event, we are getting a water themed outfit for two of the characters, one male and one female. For Sinclair, the guy, he has been given an EXTREMELY slutty mechanic's outfit. For Ishmael, the woman, she has been given a very skintight wet suit outfit. Now, I wanna take care to note that VellMori is the CG artist - she had no hand in these designs, a man made them. I would also like to mention that both outfit designs are amazing, and I will be including them at the end of this post for reference.

Now, upon revealing the wet suit design for Ishmael, a bunch of whiny incels on what is basically Korean 4chan got upset that Ishmael, instead of being in a bikini as is usual for gacha games, was wearing a wet suit. Nevermind that the designs in Limbus Company have always been conservative and that the Sinclair design is the most skin we've ever seen and it's just an open shirt. Again, the wet suit is still super revealing, it's skin tight and this is literally the first design of her that doesn't make her look flat chested. They're not rioting over the lack of sex appeal, they're specifically mad that it's not a bikini.

The incels come to the conclusion that the lack of any skin being shown on Ishmael's outfit is a result of evil feminism. No, I'm not exaggerating. They initially begin harassing the artist who is actually responsible for drawing the outfits, but upon learning that he is a man, set their sights on VellMori because she's a woman, and being an artist is good enough I guess. What they do from here is they start digging and digging and digging on VellMori's twitter, making use of archived pages because many of the "offensive" tweets had been deleted.

I'd like to take a moment to point out that VellMori never actually tweeted anything out here - it was all retweets from a 4-6 year old archive, and retweets that have been long deleted. These retweets contain such transgressive statements as "I'm sick of misogyny" and "If being against patriarchy makes me antisocial, then so be it" and just... mirroring back to men what those men were saying to women. Some people would like to have you think she was calling for death to all men. She wasn't. She ALSO retweeted all this stuff while she was a teenager and well before she worked for Project Moon.

Nonetheless, the incels had decided that feminism was the reason Ishmael had a wet suit and not a bikini and they had found a feminist working for Project Moon. It is at this point that we must take a brief detour and talk about Library of Ruina, Project Moon's previous game.

See, in Library of Ruina, one of the protagonists, Angela, has this whole arc about escaping her abuser and becoming a human. Yes, she is literally a robot, but Project Moon isn't exactly a stranger to symbolism in their stories and a feminist reading of Angela is ridiculously easy. The main antagonist in Library of Ruina is Argalia, the Blue Reverberation, and his crew is called the Reverberation Ensemble. Every member of the Reverberation Ensemble is a violent lunatic who each want to reinforce the status quo in their own unique shitty way. In addition to this, typically in order to reach the titular Library, you would need to be invited. The Reverb Ensemble are the "uninvited guests", the ones who managed to reach the Library and knock down the door without an invite.

Why am I talking about this? Well, the incels decided to start calling themselves the Reverb Ensemble, and referring to each other using names of the Reverb Ensemble members such as Pluto, Elena, and Oswald. Having taken on the moniker of the uninvited guests, they then showed up to Project Moon's office to protest. Over the lack of a bikini. Now, remember how I mentioned someone was dressed up as a clown? One of the Reverb Ensemble members, Oswald, is a clown with an extremely tenuous grip on reality. So much so, that his ideal world is one in which there is no meaning whatsoever. That is the character they chose to dress up as. This is either a case of extreme self awareness or extreme self unawareness.

Eventually, the incels were let into the office possibly as a form of damage mitigation to prevent the crowd of protestors from getting any bigger. This was a questionable decision, but they had a group of violent incels at their doorstep either way, and I don't exactly have full details on this. Regardless, Project Moon had on their hands a group of violent protesting incels, who they felt compelled to let into the building, and who had demands including the firing of their feminist employee.

So while "Project Moon fired a woman for being a feminist" isn't inaccurate it also isn't the full picture. More appropriately, it'd be "Project Moon fired a woman because a group of violent incels who weren't satisfied with a form fitting wet suit instead of a bikini showed up to their office demanding that an artist who did not make the wet suit design be fired because she retweeted some feminist stuff 5 years ago while she was a teenager".

I'm not happy with this. None of this is good. People are allowed to be feminists, and Project Moon stories have always presented progressive ideas to anyone with half a brain to do some basic literary analysis. I can understand why they would cave to the demands of people who were threatening them and showed up to their actual place of work, but at the same time, that's someone's livelihood gone and proof that in the future, the same sorts of people can use the same sorts of tactics to bully Project Moon into doing whatever they want. All of this sucks.

For those who would like to see the retweets in question alongside translations: https://twitter.com/danghwangs/status/1683884236888223744

And for people who would like reference as to what the artworks these incels were up in arms about, Ishmael in the wet suit and Sinclair in the mechanic's outfit.

"Would you like to dance?"

You look at Lucien as if he's grown an extra head, as he extends his hand to you, waiting. The two of you were taking a stroll in his gardens after dinner, and you were in-between feeling at peace in the environment, and incredibly nervous as you were walking alongside Lucien Lockhart, trying to wrap your head around the fact that he was no longer just your favorite character beyond a screen, he was living, breathing, right next to you, you.

You were quietly taking in the foliage under the moonlight, reveling in the novelty of it, never having had the chance to see such a gorgeous garden at night (but really, everything was new when you were in an entirely different world) when he sprung the question on you.

You could feel his quiet amusement to your reaction, as you stare holes into the palm of his hand, wondering if it was worth taking it, to risk making a completely fool out of yourself in the process, in front of him, and so soon after meeting him? No, you couldn't-

"You are always welcome to say no, please don't feel pressured to do anything you don't want to."

Doesn't that just lay on the pressure even more!? But as you look at him and his gentle expression, like you could do no wrong, it felt easier to go along with it. And the moment you placed your hand in his, you felt it was the right choice seeing his face light up from that action alone.

He gently pulls you into position, one hand still holding yours, the other on your waist. He looked for all the world, content, as if it was enough for him just to hold you, have you near. He gives you one last questioning look, silently asking if it's alright to keep going. You can't back out now; you give him a nod, not trusting your voice.

It took all of 2 seconds to step on his foot. Oh this was a terrible idea what were you thinking-

You were brought out of your down-spiral by the sound of your name, prompting you to look up, at his face, his ever present smile when he's near you, immediately providing you with reassurance.

"Don't overthink it, just trust me."

Trust him.

Wasn't that a lot to ask from someone who's practically a stranger? But then again, maybe you weren't. After all, the two of you knew about the other this whole time, when you assumed it was a one-way street. In fact, you think he knows you better (knows you well, too well) than most of the people in your life. You could see it in all the little considerations he made for you in your short time together.

So you couldn't help but want to trust him.

You take a deep breath to ground yourself, and as you do, you could hear music drifting in the air, faint, but present. It was from the musicians Lucien had hired to play during dinner (to welcome you, he explained, when you said it was a bit too much fanfare for someone like you. He promises the next dinner onward would be simpler, for you. You couldn't help but feel a little wonder, at the assured promise of future dinners spent together, like it was only natural.)

So they were still playing, you hadn't noticed from your nervousness, but it made it feel a little less awkward to have some music to dance to.

You set your shoulders, resolute, as you gaze back at Lucien. He gives you a knowing smile, and begins to move again.

Trust him.

And so you do. You let yourself loosen up, trusting him to lead, to go where he pushed and pulled. It takes a moment, but soon the two of you fall into a rhythm, dancing to the music, and soon everything else fell away. You couldn't help the smile that tugged at your lips; you were doing it, you were dancing! And when Lucien smiles back at you, eyes filled with nothing but pride and admiration for you, you could feel happiness swell from within you.

"I'm going to spin you, ok?"

The next moment, he gently pulls your arm up and leads you in a twirl, and you couldn't help but feel a little silly(a little giddy) as you enact a scene you could only imagine before.

"Once more"

That was all the warning you get when this time, he lets go of your hand to instead place both on your waist. You couldn't help the gasp ripped out of you when he lifts you for a spin, impossibly stronger than he appeared, but soon devolved into delighted laughter as you grab his shoulders, weightless in the air.