[Coldsaturn]

"oh, this is so beautiful in my mind's eye"
Cinematic masterpiece in my head. 

"because you have a familiar scent"
And not just because we were kissed. Put a pin on it!

"how did we know that random trivia fact?"
It's not directly state in the main story, it's actually implied in an option that turns up in text messages after Ebb and Flow, but basically we start as MC being mostly ignorant about Lemurians because she regarded it as mythology, but after learning Raf is one she starts studying them to understand him better.
OR we picked it up from Raf's thoughts through our bond

"out of all times, now is ...  because you need it? because i'm here now?"
This is an important question because there are fans who believe Raf doesn't remember his past life and read his actions+words in this chapter as someone who didn't know where he was going or what he was doing, especially because he waited until that moment.
I disagree.
He needed MC to awaken the Tome, but in order to do that she needed to know who he really was, and that was a very risky info to give out. He needed to trust her first.
Second, he couldn't just go happily and merrily because he's been hunted. The anniversary event was the perfect justification for him being there under a false identity, getting him closer to his objective while keeping plausible deniability.
Why NOW now rather than in the future: yes, things are getting worse and Raf needs to act.

- When MC bleeds on the tome and it starts awakening, she narrates "The distant roar of a tsunami echoes in my mind"
Lemuria resurfaced from the deep sea after a tsunami caused by the chronorift.

"is this my memory? or .. his?"
As Sylus warned us, having a whole aether core would kickstart the hallucinated memories.

"but i never came back, did i?"
Yup. Just like he said in Nightly Stroll. After that, the deepsea became a prison for him because he wanted to be with her.
There's also an interesting thought around his "you awakened me" and young Raf talking about their bond. It's unclear whether he didn't know he had a bond with her until he met her (she awakened him and all the memories), or if he always knew he was bound to someone on the surface (reason why he got close enough to be swept by the waves in the first place) and "awaken" refers to something more general about feelings and life meaning etc.

"are you okay?!"  "No."
We're so not prepared for Raf when he's honest lmao

- THIS SCENE 
Legendary. Iconic. 

"A follower? Or just a lowly sacrifice?"
Put a pin on both titles! They both come with a very specific set of rules and expectations

"Rafayel, was this your power all along"
That's an interesting question! There's a fan theory that tracks the weather in his cards, and it seems like it follows Raf's emotions one too many times to be coincidental.

- "with the authority granted to me by the ocean's covenant, I order you to..."
And as she says this, the symbol on his chest starts glowing, exactly like when we believed we were drowning and we said "Don't go"

"Do you know who I am, Rafayel?"
"Of course"
But we're assuming he was not recognizing us before. Are we sure, though?

- "Do you need to be a sacrifice...or a Sea God?"
Put a pin on both titles! They both come with a very specific set of rules and expectations

"and since i accepted its power, I must answer its call"
This is a very important insight into Raf's godhood because it doesn't look like he IS the sea. The Deep Sea is an entity of nature all in itself, and the Sea God is like the conduit for its power, a way to easily govern and take care of it, but the Deep Sea and the Sea God can clash in terms of power hierarchy.

"Even if certain futures have a predetermined end, I can't refuse..."
Put the biggest pin on it!!!

"i HATE having forboding, ominous feelings that i'm going to be left behind."
Very relevant to a Raf's analysis video I'll put in your playlist


- Captain Harlock FF
That is amazing. No cognition, just pure vibes lmao
Also, that is another anime pillar of my childhood. Luckily I got to watch it dubbed in my mother tongue lol
And high five for Sesshomaru the greatest. I don't know if you were there a few years ago when the spin-off sequel came out and all us shippers were vindicated 15 years later

- "at the end, we remembered *something*"
It's interesting that MC never stops to think about that. She put out a full string of very specific words, yet doesn't dwell on it even a second. If it was a conscious memory, I believe she would have narrated about it, instead I think it was just pure instinct drawing from the depths of her brain.

- Those lyrics! They're perfect.
Ocean mythology and imagery is one of my absolute favorite, and it probably plays a not small part of why I main Raf. The writers are doing a great job with it.

"but whatever hold he gave us over him, to call him back or even just to call his name, it's still there and that must burn on all levels."
All of this. Whatever happened (both what you'll find out and what we still don't know), he's stuck in a lose-lose situation.

"he looked.. so otherwordly. so far above and away even with his hand holding us down, as though he was thinking about ripping our heart right out of our chest."
YES.