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singular-yike · 11 months

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"Lily Pad Ice" Dimensions

As you've probably already realised reading the title, this is going to be... a rather complex one today. Still, I'll try my best, so please bear with me.

Len'en has a lot of big concepts, most notably dimensions and timelines, which are often associated with Suzumi Kuzu, perhaps the most complex character in the series.

Today I'll try to go over a semi-theory of how dimensions and timelines are understood in Len'en, along with trying to understand related terms in relation to the theory.

The "Lily Pad Ice" Model

To start off, the reason I call this a semi-theory, is that it relies on a comment not directly related to Len'en, but definitely not unrelated either.

When the album A World That Isn't Fantasy came out, JynX gave the new music tracks comments in several pixiv FANBOX posts. Notable to for us today is that of Alice Leaping Atop Lily Pad Ice, which reads:

"Lily pad ice" forms when the ice on top of frozen seas and lakes melt and the ice chunks bump into each other, their edges get curled up and they get their lily pad-like shapes. In my mind, there are several images for other dimensions, other worlds, other wordlines and parallel worlds, one of them is quite similar to lily pad ice. What once was whole breaks apart, it's pieces bump and they roll up, creating walls in between, and thus the pieces no longer interact with one another. These lily pads of ice are hard but brittle and eventually disappear, and something's skipping around the thin sheets elegantly…

Below: Lily pad ice, or pancake ice, atop the water.

Basically, my internal image, understanding and theory about dimensions and timelines in Len'en are all based on this passage.

I hesitate to take it as 100% canon to the universe of Len'en, since it's about JynX's personal word view rather than that of Len'en, though it's certainly the most we've gotten.

So! Based on that passage, the framework has three central concepts:

All dimensions comes from one source, one origin point.

A new dimension is formed when a split action is taken.

"Timelines" and "dimensions" are, in truth, the same thing.

Point 1: One source, one origin

No. 1 doesn't really need much more explanation, everything comes from one source, a single piece of ice.

Though I would like to note that while, in theory, there is an origin point for all dimensions/timelines, when applying the framework we can also freely set our own "origin point", pick out a single piece of ice from the myriad to track its progress.

Point 2: Split paths, split dimensions

This can be nicely demonstrated in my example for point 2. Here I'll use the beginning of the Shrine Team's route as my "origin point", the ice piece that I'll be tracking the progress of.

In one timeline, the Shrine Team met Souko, in another Kurohebi, in yet another Jun and so on and so forth.

This is basically, as JynX describes, "what once was whole breaks apart", they start out as one event, "the Shrine Team is kicked out of the Shrine", but with the game, a myriad of alternate timelines are created.

Point 3: Timelines, Dimensions, Realities

Now, for point 3, we can quite easily demonstrate it by doing a little thought experiment: Say I envision a random scenario, "Yago decided to take up gardening rather than blacksmithing".

Think about it, is there any difference in me saying

There is an alternate timeline where Yago is a botanist.

There is an alternate dimension where Yago is a botanist.

Functionally, not really. The terms "dimension" and "timeline", in this case, really collapse into one thing: "reality". There is an alternate reality out there, in which Yago is a botanist.

And this I think is key to understanding many of the terms, concepts and scenarios in Len'en, some of which I'll go over in the next section.

Notable Terms, Scenes and Situations

Timelines and Dimensions

Despite my claim that these two terms are functionally the same thing, we can still try to define them somewhat.

Under this framework, you could say that the closer-related each piece of the ice is, the more likely they are to be considered timelines, rather than dimensions.

For example, most people would agree that the events of BPoHC all happened in alternate timelines. Despite the variety of events that can happen in the game, they are all ultimately rather close, all coming from the same "source", the BPoHC prologue.

Conversely, lets go back to the botanist Yago thought experiment, in that reality, the Tasouken would've never been made, the powerful clan leader perhaps never murdered, and thus orochi youkai would never have been created.

Even if everything else goes the same, the world is separated into "outside" and Mugenri, Taira no Masakado's rebellion still fails, Tsubakura's mother still passes away, Tsurubami still spirits them away to Mugenri, etc.

It is undeniable that this would create an alternate reality where EMS simply, cannot happen. When things are this distant, I feel most would be comfortable calling it an alternate dimension.

Continuing with this as my example, the entirety of BPoHC, as we know it, may take place on a single piece of ice on the right tree, and it is that piece of ice cracking into its many pieces that gives us the timelines of BPoHC.

Thus we see that there's no true division between timelines and dimensions, those closer to one another in the universal pond are called alternate timelines to one another, and those distant are called alternate dimensions.

Homeologues

Homeologues, a concept introduced to us through Suzumi, is perhaps one of the most confusing and intriguing in the series so far.

A term coined by Tsubakura, it refers to "similar people across different dimensions, although they do not necessarily exist in every dimension."

There's a lot of confusion as to what this really means, but looking at the original Japanese terms shows us that it's really just the character version of the lily pad ice model.

The term is "common originator lifeforms" (同祖体), and therefore it refers to beings that share a common origin, somehow.

Under the framework that dimensions and timelines are really the same thing, the easiest type of homeologue is therefor simply the same person across different timelines.

For example, the Tsubakura who drank ink for breakfast on the morning of BPoHC and Tsubakura who drank Yabusame's coffee instead are homeologues to one another.

Of course, I kind of doubt that Tsubakura invented the term to be used for these cases, but rather for realities that are further separated from one another.

Though with the lily pad ice model, it's easy to see what this means, even if separated by a great many pieces of ice, there will still inevitably be people who "correspond" to one another.

Back to the botanist Yago scenario again, for one botanist Yago and blacksmith would definitely be homeologues of one another.

The Tsubakura Enraku equivalent born in the "ice pieces" originating from the botanist Yago line would be the homeologue to the Tsuba we know and love.

However, since the whole Tasouken line of events could not happen, it would be unlikely for there to be a Yaorochi homeologue other there, thus, "[homeologues] do not necessarily exist in every dimension"

Suzumi Kuzu

Suzumi's ability to let them turn back time can also be understood by the lily pad ice model, they are the "Alice Leaping Atop Lily Pad Ice", the figure "skipping around the thin sheets elegantly".

Their ability basically allows them to travel to a different sheet of ice from their own, and of course, since their destination would undoubtedly have a Suzumi of its own as well, it causes the clone situation.

It is here that I do want to point out problem with the lily pad ice model, it pretty much requires us to freeze things and look at them in terms of snapshots.

Suzumi is unable to travel to the equivalent point of time in another timeline, they must go back in time, and go through a different string of events to reach a different conclusion.

So perhaps you could say that Suzumi breifly reforms the ice, right before it cracks apart and jumps across the crack, entering a different timeline.

Mugenri and the Outside World

Mugenri and the Outside World are rather curious cases, it's sort of implied that Mugenri is but a pocket dimension of the Outside World, but it doesn't exactly make it clear what it's relationship with the Outside World is.

Is Mugenri itself a parallel Outside World, despite being made out of it? Is Mugenri and the Outside World, on a cosmic scale, just two places on the same piece of ice?

This is one question that the lily pad ice model simply cannot answer, unfortunately.

The "Mugenri of the world where we were born in"

In BPoHC, ??? Team VS. Yaorochi, we get the following Suzumi monologue (Quote for Hamee and brackets for Ardey):

"Really though, there sure are a lotta familiar faces 'round here~." (Those would be "homeologues," yeah. Can't say I like usin' the name Tsubakura gave 'em, but whatever.) [...] Yaorochi: "Who goes there?!" (See, now here's a good example.) [...] "Ooh, now here's another familiar face. I'm not even surprised anymore." (Seems like their name's still "Yaorochi", even in this world.) [...] "But there's still, like, a LOT of homeologues here. Isn't that weird?" (It's 'cause this is the Mugenri of the world where we were born in. There's more than a few red threads running off us.)

There are two curious things here:

Ardey's implication that they've seen a different Yaorochi before

The "Mugenri of the world where we were born in".

To be completely honest, I'm unsure how to interpret #1. Personally, I've always been under the impression that Suzumi is comparing our Yaorochi with one that they've met in a distant dimensions.

However, apparently a lot of people think that this refers to a parallel Yaorochi in the Outside World instead.

Given what I've mentioned about the ambiguous relationship between the outside and Mugenri, I must honestly say I have no answer for this, and can only leave the mystery be.

As for #2 though, I believe that with the lily pad ice model, it's extremely easy to see what Suzumi means here. They are taking their own birth as their "origin point", every version of Mugenri that exists this event, would be a "Mugenri of the world they were born".

Conversely, any Mugenri extending from universes where this particular Suzumi was never born, are the "other Mugenri's", like the one from botanist Yago's line.

Ending things off

So yeah, this was a bit of a ramble this time, I must admit. It's a very ambiguous topic that we don't know much about, so I was perhaps over-ambitious in trying to tackle it so casually.

Perhaps I would've done a better job getting my point across if I could illustrate it better, but that's just not my forte, so I hope what is there helps.

In any case though, if nothing else I'd love for more people to read about the "lily pad ice" vision of dimensions that JynX has, and come to their own conclusions as to how it all works in Len'en.

As usual, I hope you enjoyed~! :)

#len'en #len'en project #len'en lore #len'en theory #a world that isn't fantasy #suzumi kuzu #yabusame houlen #I could've spent more time on this to polish it off #but I wanted to get this one out before BotC come out #I feel like understanding of that game is either going to heavily depend on this #or its going to completely smash this theory to bits #no in-betweens #it's gonna be within this week for sure!#quite exciting indeed~

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fleshadept · 2 months

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looking at (vetted) gofundmes for people trying to escape palestine and i don't know how many of you actually click on the gofundme links you reblog but i would like to point out, for what it's worth, just how amazing it is that so many have raised so much money. it may overall feel like a drop in the ocean but the fact that several gofundmes have raised tens of thousands of dollars is amazing. it is so expensive to leave gaza right now, and people still need money after they escape. but regardless of what propaganda the US, UK, canada, and other western nations are trying to pump out, people across the world are doing what they can to help these people survive. many of them are still very far from their goals (like this one and this one and this one) and some of them are very close to high goals (like this one), and some of them have reached almost double their original goal.

and that's not even addressing direct aid or organizations that take continuous donations for distribution of food, menstrual products, etc. the PCRF has raised $16,000,000 of their target goal of $20,000,000 to fund current aid and long-term relief efforts in gaza. ANERA's febuary 13th update discusses the material ways they helped palestinians today:

(ANERA donate link)

my point is, it often feels like the world is turning a blind eye to palestine. but i would like to point out that there is an important difference between "the world" and "western political leaders and media narratives". a breathtaking amount of real people, the people who make up the world, are trying to help. in the face of israel attempting to commit genocide, the world is saying No. These people deserve to live. and literally sending millions of dollars internationally, through the internet connection that israel has desperately been trying to destroy.

it may not feel like it matters in the grand scheme of things. but to the people who get fresh clothes, or a hot meal, or blankets, or the kids who get new toys, or to the people who are able to bring their families to safety, it matters to them. go make someone's day better. i've linked so many options with ways to do that.

#free palestine #cricket chirps #palestine #gaza #if you feel overwhelmed and don't know where to begin #i recommend deciding on a total amount of money to donate (e.g. $20 $100 etc)#and deciding you will either donate it all in one place or split it between a few places #do what you can!!! it will always be helpful no matter how little #1k #5k #10k #20k

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