#jester disagrees

[curlyflesh]

symbolism - POLLE

i wanted to debunk some people suggesting that the “old man” line could allude to polle representing the unborn baby, as well. i disagree!

see POLLE = ANYA theory here

so we all know that fathers are often called “old man” as a joke by their children. while there are some forms of personification of the unborn baby (the baby cries + the ultrasound baby), i do not think jimmy would personify it as a full form of consciousness that could/should talk to him. thus, the baby is not polle.

my interpretation is that in the beginning of the scene, polle is simply himself. the mascot that we see jimmy interacting with and is actively peeved by. we know the real polle is sarcastic and witty so calling jimmy “old man” is simply polle mocking him. and then once jimmy acknowledges that polle is dead (the company), that’s when anya’s consciousness takes over to press him.

and we know it’s anya because of the backdrop changing into the night screen in the lounge. as well as the text color similarity, like i mentioned on the original theory post

i also believe jimmy stops caring about the baby completely because he already avoided it/escaped it in the scene prior (the vent chasing scene). just like daisuke and swansea’s scenes, he forgets about them afterwards. he successfully avoided taking responsibility for their doom. so, this final polle scene is solely anya’s attempt to seek jimmy’s remorse herself, albeit through a mascot he already doesn’t respect

also in general, jimmy doesnt hallucinate anyone talking to him, except curly and polle (which is anya). it just doesn’t make sense that he would conjure up the unborn child talking to him because he already views it as a parasitic centipede monster (that is an amalgamation of polle, birthed from polle). so yeah! that is my explanation 👍

lmk if there are any scenes or interpretations you would like me to clarify or elaborate on! hit my inbox or simply message me :3

[ratatatastic]

i love how when i write the funniest tags my internet IMMEDIATELY cut outs like im a patron at the bar whos had too much to drink and still demands a little beer for the road and the bartender is yelling at me JERRY. YOURE DONE. WEVE TOLD YOU THIS. YOUVE BEEN DONE SINCE THURSDAY. GET IN THE CAB JERRY.

[shorthaltsjester]

nothing more morally reprehensible than a cleric (checks notes) using the key features of their class…? surely that can’t be where we are regarding analysis of character actions in cr at this point.

[jesterbracket]

I promise you I'm sorting through the submissions! Some of them have been knocked out due to I don't think they're really a jester but we have hit a snag! Mostly, I don't know where I stand with Spinel Steven Universe.

it's in your hands now dear viewers

[deadtrich]

Jevil deltarune

somethin I've noticed

[reinemichele]

Since I've been reblogging anju, I feel like I should say that their name is not anger-me like "🤬😐👈🏻" caveman commercial dialogue but . apparently . a combination of the french ange + larme = tears of angels . The story is that the leader of the group came up with it, but the group had previously been named smileage (you know, smile mileage . ) so I'm blaming the dumb marketers that come up with other names like these

tag yourself, I'm hangry and angry, obviously

Anyways, I've been a fan since 2009, but they had their image/name change in 2014 so I don't bother tagging them as their previous name anymore, but I do know that seeing "anger me" is like "😟 Anger you?" No ❤️ Just like, an impossibly stupid and aesthetically unpleasing french portmanteau

[essektheylyss]

I love that Caleb does not ever seem to take opportunities to take any kind of "this might be the last moment I have" actions. No matter what, when everyone else is going around and making their desperate moves, Caleb doesn't. Even after he recommends otherwise to others, it is notable that he among the group doesn't do so, and this is consistent with his previous behavior.

I like to think that stems from the moment he opted against trying to work with Trent—which I think, at its core, was an attempt at such an action. If Caleb had died fighting the Somnovem, he had every reason to believe that Trent would continue in his actions. Though Astrid and Eadwulf were willing to subtly undermine him, they had made it clear that they were not willing to challenge him outright. Caleb tells the Nein, when they are discussing their last wishes at the Blooming Grove before returning to Eiselcross, that he would appreciate Trent being eliminated in the event of his death. I have to believe that there was a fear or regret that his dearest motivations would not come to fruition which spurred his interest in using an alliance with him in Aeor to trap and kill him.

I've mentioned elsewhere that I believe Essek's willingness to disagree with him was one of the factors in Caleb being able to trust him and his judgment, but I would also argue it was a wake-up call for Caleb—about letting himself be distracted; about not focusing in on the mission at hand; about, potentially, expecting failure in this goal, especially after he has watched his friends say their goodbyes as if they too expect to die. "Stay on task, Widogast," is a mantra he uses in Vergessen, but he does get caught up, to an extent, in enacting as much damage as he can to the place in the process, and regardless of whether this ruthless assault slowed or sped their discovery, Trent did catch up to them, and very nearly caught Veth and Jester as well as himself. Given Caleb's fears throughout the campaign that he will draw the danger that dogs him onto his newfound friends, and his later apology to Essek in the same conversation for drawing Trent's attention to him, it is not a stretch to argue that this is yet another guilt he shoulders.

It isn't lost on me that Caleb almost died before the Nein even met, he was perpetually aware of his fragility among the group, and he was the last member of the Nein to go down and need to be revived. So I just think it's very fun if he, who so often seemed to be on the verge of death, who in fact planned to step back in history and in the process erase the person he had become, found himself at some point determined to live, and firmly confident in his ability to do so.

He does not wrap up his affairs, he does not say goodbyes, and while he may acknowledge the stakes for the group, he does not entertain the idea that he personally will not make it out alive—because, as Dorian notes, he has a lot to live for. He has to get back home to his partner and his well-maintained garden; he has to make sure the Cerberus Assembly's nefarious schemes do not continue in Ludinus's absence, perhaps even in the absence of the Assembly itself, depending on what its members do in its wake; he probably has to go egg on his godson's shenanigans as payback for Veth threatening to shoot him out of the sky.

Caleb Widogast is an absolute cockroach of a wizard, and, in true Mighty Nein form, he is at all times thriving on unfinished business.

[pollyanna-nana]

Imagine you’re Delgal. Imagine you were raised from birth alongside the court jester. You do everything together. You look up to him, being so much older. He seems wise and responsible, and always encouraging you and caring for you, more than your own busy parents are able to. In every sense of the word, he is your brother, despite how different you look and the distance of your station. The people around you tell you that he is an elf, the tone of their voice implying that’s something scary or even dangerous. But you disagree. That’s Thistle, your big brother.

But… as you age, things become confusing. You get taller, smarter, stronger, and Thistle is there for you through it all. Only… he never seems to change. In your entire journey to adulthood, he hardly seems to have aged a few years, if that. It’s amusing when you first grow taller than him, then grow facial hair, while Thistle’s short stature and youthful face remains the same. Still, you love him, love his music and his wit and even the bold-faced honesty that gets him in trouble if you’re not around to diffuse the situation. You wonder why such a person has been relegated to the inglorious job of jester, and your father tells you very simply that the magic elves wield is too powerful and dangerous to belong to any other position. But you think that’s nonsense, you’ve trusted Thistle from the day you were born and would do so until the day you die.

It isn’t until what should’ve been the happiest day of your life that you truly start to understand just how different Thistle is from you. Kneeling over your father’s cooling corpse, you take in the elf’s panicked face. He’s so young, so unchanged, and in that moment he seems nearly immortal to you. You’ve heard the stories of elf magic, how their spells could be used to heal wounds and raise the dead, but Thistle can’t do any of that. He hasn’t been allowed to. There’s nothing that either of you can do but watch your father slowly die in front of you.

You never want this to happen again, not when there’s something that can stop it. You make Thistle the court sorcerer, even as your advisors warn against it. But you’re the king, goddamn it, and you trust him. But more than that, you want what he can give to you. A power greater than any tallman could achieve. You become busier and busier, only checking up occasionally on his studies. He’s become incredibly proficient in a short amount of time, but your thoughts are elsewhere. Enemies knock on your door, famine chokes the population, and worst of all your beloved son has fallen ill. It’s just like the day of your wedding, but this time, you have something that can defy that fate. Thistle.

But still, it’s not enough. It seems that even elf magic has its limits, and you can’t help but become angry with him. He reacts like a scorned child— is a scorned child, as you���ve come to realize— and you apologize. But he tells you he has something secret to show you, something he’s been searching for, researching for these past few years. The idea unsettles you, but you’ve become desperate, and you can see that he has, too. So you follow him into the dungeon, watch him smash the statue of your kingdom’s guardian and pull the book from the rubble that would decide your and your people’s fate.

Your son is healed, your enemies repelled, and your people fed and taken care of. You’re happy, and so Thistle is, too. You recognize, vaguely, that despite this achievement the familial bonds between the two of you have never been thinner. But you don’t dwell on it. He did what you needed him to do, and now you no longer had to fear the indignity of death or strife.

But of course, things do not remain sweet forever. Thistle has only grown more attached to you, more loyal, and his behavior has become erratic and strange. He keeps you all cooped up in the dungeon, insisting that the outside world is too dangerous. There’s a hardness to his still-youthful features that you never saw throughout all those years growing up alongside him. Slowly but surely the person in your memory is replaced by something frightening, almost repulsive, after he strips your own son’s soul from his body. He seems so unaffected by it all, so… inhuman.

Eventually he decides to give you what you said you wanted all those years ago: to no longer fear death. To become immortal. But it is not what you had hoped for— every day seems to drag into infinity, with joy and mirth seeping rapidly from the unsettled townsfolk as decades, then centuries pass. Thistle has become entirely unapproachable, spending all his time fortifying the dungeon and watching obsessively for any signs of traitors that might challenge the throne. You feel hopeless in it all. No matter how you beg, he never seems to hear you. His power is overwhelming and you fear how he might react to more direct commands. The guilt is intense… you know you pushed him into this, pushed him to find a way to achieve everlasting peace at any cost. But this cost is too much. How could he not see that?

1000 years. 1000 years of this torture, and the population of your kingdom has dwindled to almost nothing. In your dreams you see the vision of a golden lion in chains, its wings pinned as it pleads with you to save it. To save your kingdom, to put the remaining souls to rest. You know what needs to be done, it’s told you the best way. You tell the mad mage that you wish to have dinner together with the whole ‘family’— just like the olden days— and the way his face lights up is almost enough to make you reconsider. Almost.

It was a lie, of course. While he’s distracted you take your son’s empty body, making your way to the surface as fast as your legs can carry you. You know what’s about to happen. You’ll become nothing but dust, but you’ll be free. And with any luck, soon everyone else will be, too. Breaching the surface you get the first rays of sun on your face in a millennium, take your last breaths of fresh air as you tell the story that will free your kingdom.

As you crumble away to nothing, a last thought enters your mind. Perhaps they were all right. Perhaps it was a mistake to trust an elf.

[sailorblossoms-rankane]

Akane will brush off physical injuries and doesn't want to worry others, but emotionally, Akane is not the type to say "it's fine" when it's not cuz she's too nice. If Akane is ACTUALLY hurt, she WILL let you know: she tries to isolate. When she doesn't blame Ranma for the haircut in front of Kasumi, it's because she's genuinely fine with Ranma and doesn't blame him.

Akane tolerates a lot of foolishness, but she's not "a poor victim" of Ranma (like sometimes people imply when they talk about her insecurities). "Love is a battlefield" and she "spars" with that sucker like an equal. The problem is when he doesn't realize he's taking shit too far or "ruining" something cuz he lacks emotional intelligence

I once say the following scene be described as "Akane had her change to tell Ranma to stop, but she made her bed so..." as if Akane can't deal with Ranma's teasing. I couldn't disagree more.

When Akane says "I'm not hurt" in the emotional area, she means it. She's a bit flustered as this is unusual from Ranma (the "tears" and "seriousness") but this scene doesn't hurt her, it annoys her. She LETS YOU KNOW when she's actually hurt (because he's going too far) this here is essentially "I can take you, but not anyone could" ... and it's true: Ranma teases Akane to get her attention. She's the only one she teases that way, because she's the one he feels the closest with. Picking "unserious" fights with her is part of how the fool shows love (it's the only way he learned to communicate with family...) Shampoo or Ukyo would indeed not tolerate this treatment, which also means they're not compatible with Ranma: he needs to hide parts of himself, to backpedal and play nice just so he won't feel guilty while with Akane, he can unleash his full clown self, knowing he has found his match (who will hit back in a way he can take too)

You gotta remember Akane is a bit of a jester herself

[abnomi]

EVERY REASON (that i can think of) AS TO WHY TURBO/KING CANDY IS NEURODIVERGENT 💥💥

i would like to make a disclaimer first and foremost about the obvious, being that Turbo/King Candy is heavily implied to have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Very often, characters with these disorders are portrayed as villains, and Turbo is no exception to this. There's nothing wrong with antagonistic characters having said disorders, per se, but when the only representation available for people with these conditions are found in characters you're not supposed to root for, it can be really disheartening. i won't be erasing these parts of him because i feel it would be in poor taste to gloss over those core elements of who he is, but plz keep in mind that having any kind of personality disorder doesn't make anyone inherently evil!!!🌞 your ACTIONS make you, not your brain

Also if anyone has any suggestions or other ideas for his neurodiversity, i would love to hear them! please do share!! I LOVE PSYCHOANALYZING CHARACTERS AND HEARING OTHER PEOPLE PSYCHOANALYZE THEM !!!! YAY🎉 if u agree or disagree with any of my points I'd love to discuss them further :-]

without further ado... click read more to find out…😈 be ready for a lot of reaches

💥 ADHD 💥

STIMMING

Turbo's constantly moving around in some way; he's a very expressive character! even as King Candy, he can't seem to conceal his frequent giggling. it's a big habit of his; he seems to do it involuntarily to regulate himself, including when he's nervous or uncomfortable.

he seems to display other repetitive behaviors as well, like doing his iconic thumbs-up pose, sticking out his tongue, or hopping around gleefully. he is but a jovial court jester..

i personally like to think that his phrases, "Turbo-tastic!" and "Have some candy!" are vocal stims of his, although i equally really love the interpretation that these (and the aforementioned stims) are tics :-]

another headcanon; i think it would make a lot of sense for him to have an oral fixation of some sort (ignoring the whole sigmund freud part of the term ermm...); just lots of biting, chewing, needing to have something in his mouth. It would align with the whole idea that he smokes, too

HYPERACTIVITY

we can clearly see throughout the film that Turbo has a lot of energy, made abundantly clear by his mannerisms and general behavior. he's constantly moving, using exaggerated expressions and gestures to communicate + express himself. He's one of the most animated and bouncy characters in the movie, next to Vanellope! it's silly how a character not very grounded in reality is such a threat, but i suppose that's what makes him so threatening in the first place...

another factor in this is how he is very adrenaline-seeking, craving activities that give him a rush (sugar rush...😂😂). more on that in a bit!!

HYPERFIXATION

Turbo's fixation with winning is all-consuming for him; it's an obsession. he doesn't appear to care about much else, if anything besides it. this could be interpreted as a hyperfixation for him (or special interest if ur all about that autism lifestyle), as it overtakes all of his focus and impedes every process of his mind.

it's clear that racing is much more than a passion for him, and while that fact is due to how he was programmed, it's a major character trait of his regardless that could be correlated to neurodivergence.

HYPERFOCUS

There seems to be a big theme of "all or nothing" when it comes to Turbo. he will either be fully dedicated to something or brush it aside without a second thought. it can't be denied that he fully wraps himself up in what he wants, whether it's a conflict he can't let go of or a new pursuit he's hungrily chasing after. 

ultimately, his dedication varies depending on if it is relevant to him and his interests or not, but this aspect of him still shares patterns with neurodivergent thought processes.

INSTANT GRATIFICATION

Seeing as he has a tendency to cheat in his use of code to spawn in whatever his heart desires, it can be assumed that this could do with Turbo wanting instant gratification to fill that bitter, empty void inside of him. while this could simply be brushed aside as greed and his belief that he is obligated to have access to whatever he wants, this trait is consistent with his generally dopamine-seeking behavior and wanting to be instantly rewarded by his actions. His obsession with needing to feel good directly relates to his need for another buzz, constantly after the next rush. (a sugar rush if you will☺☺☺)

ADRENALINE-SEEKING

Closely related to the previous speculation, Turbo always seems to be chasing his next high. he loves the thrill of action and being surrounded by crowds of people below him. it's why his big thing is racing! people cheer him on, he can do whatever he wants, he can go really fast and look cool..

it's possible that a big aspect of why he does this is to distract himself from any kind of pain, because pain = vulnerability. bro does NOT know how to independently cope with his own problems.. HE MAD AS HELLLLL!!! 😂😂

STRUGGLE WITH SELF CARE

(i know this is reaching but bear with me... 🐻) going off of his appearance and tendency to make poor decisions, it can be gathered that this man lacks skill in the self care department. his yellowing teeth and sunken eyes not only serve to complement his design, but also give way to the idea that he neglects himself in favor for whatever weird scheme he's up to.

of course, Turbo does prioritize himself above everyone else, but he doesn't strike me as the type to care much about how others think he smells. him being a bother to anyone isn't a concern of his. he cares about whatever gets him the most praise and attention from as many people as possible, which is winning and racing. Who cares about how clean he is when he's up on a podium holding a shiny, golden trophy, anyway?

It's likely that he had to step his game up when he went under disguise as king candy, which is why he looks well-groomed in comparison to his more corpse-like appearance. Ugly hoe. it can also be assumed that he's had more time to focus on himself because everyone loves him without question... Well, except for Vanellope, but who cares about her, right?

also, i know he makes a condescending comment to Ralph about how bad his breath smells, but it's made abundantly clear that Turbo is a massive hypocrite. his comment doesn't erase the possibility that he has suffered from such "halitosis" as well.

💥 ANXIETY 💥

GENERAL ANXIOUS BEHAVIOR

i know, i know, this could technically be chalked up to be "Turbo is nervously giggling and shit because he's scared of getting caught," but guys. g

even in the flashback scene, we can see how easily stressed he can become in an alarmingly short period of time. he is extremely insecure, therefore i am led to believe he is not only emotionally dysregulated, but also by extension, anxiety ridden.

yes, this is purely speculative, but who's to say that he wasn't like this before? being high-strung and intense are significant facets of his personality consistently portrayed throughout the film. as long as he is getting exactly what he wants, he is happy; the moment he loses even a blip of control, however, he immediately grows extremely tense.

if Turbo wasn't anxious about his disguise as King Candy before, he was anxious about how much attention he was receiving on a given day. if not that, then he'd be anxious over how he presents himself. He hates how he can't control how other people perceive him, which is why he is constantly trying to act like he's better than he is.

its why he justifies his behavior to himself, proudly making others refer to him as the "rightful ruler" of sugar rush and relishing in the attention of his countless underlings. Any secure and stable person would NOT ACT LIKE THIS!!!!😭😭😭

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

As we can see a handful of times on screen, Turbo's instinct to protect himself is very easily activated.

 his fear manifests in anger and aggression. we can see at multiple points how easy it is to upset him or fluster him; his anger is one side of the same coin, the opposite end being his fear and paranoia.

Going off of this point, have you noticed that Turbo is either satisfied or furious without much of an in-between? how the second something isn't under his manipulation, he lashes out and fights back? I'm led to believe that this is how he responds to fear (AAUAAYAUUUUGGHHH 🐡🐡🐡🐡🐡🐡🐡). This guy is so against the idea of being vulnerable, that even when afraid, he will utilize violence to regain his dominance over the situation at hand.

CONTROL + PARANOIA

Turbo's always trying to writhe or fight his way out of uncomfortable situations, unable to exist outside of his comfort zone for seconds at a time.

his defensive, paranoid, and controlling behavior are all reflections of how deeply insecure this man is. He feels such an intense need for everything to go exactly how he expects it to go that the moment he senses any kind of threat, he instantly jumps to defend himself and what he feels that he has "earned," regardless of whether there truly is a threat or not.

this could potentially be a coping mechanism for his anxiety and sense of stability; can't forget to mention how territorial he is!! he jumps to conclusions about what others' intentions are before they even get a chance to reply, as seen with his first encounter with Ralph in the movie. 

the racer is so internally discombobulated that he seeks any sense of stability on his environment, including on those around him. his sense of self is so warped that he copes with constant distraction; being under the spotlight, being actively racing, having to be showered with attention, having others make him feel good because he doesn't know how to do it for himself. he needs to feel like everything is under control, lest everything falls apart.

"...if there's ONE thing I can't abide, it's ANYTHING out of order!"

💥 NPD 💥

INFLATED SENSE OF SELF IMPORTANCE

Turbo's most in-your-face trait above all else. It's made more than crystal clear in every scene he's in that his arrogance is a determining factor in how he interacts with others. This is exactly what drives him to desperately crave admiration, to chase after others he's envious of because he thinks he is obligated to take what they have.

he seems to genuinely think he is entitled to get whatever he wants, just because he is inherently "special" or "better" than everyone else. Why else would he have made himself a king, a step above princess?

EXCESSIVE NEED FOR ADMIRATION

Turbo's self worth is COMPLETELY dependent on the opinions of children and teenagers. I think i don't need to say any more than that, but i will. (Evil).

As cartoonishly massive as his ego is, i think that it's fair to assume that Turbo has a very unstable sense of self, distorting his perception of his own worth down with it. his near-constant flaunting and need to be the best is a dead giveaway to his deeply-ridden self-doubt. The foundation of his stability is built around how "good" he is (at racing and winning), how powerful he is, whether or not he is being prioritized above everyone else, whether or not he is the absolute best, etc. etc.

The racer outright manipulates others to shower him with admiration and undeserved appreciation. He is incapable of forming a true sense of internal value, instead heavily and codependently relying on others to form it for him. if he isn't the best, he may as well just be nothing.

INTENSE JEALOUSY

He reacts so severely to what he perceives as others taking away what is rightfully his that it only goes to solidify my previous points even further. the second someone else is getting more attention than him, Turbo will bend over backwards to rip back the praise he believes he so rightly deserves.

being extremely competitive, he will one-up against anyone he thinks of as a threat, dedicating himself to taking them down to the best of his ability, and making sure they STAY down to top it all off.

INABILITY TO HANDLE CRITICISM

if we really dissect the entire one-off joke with Turbo insisting that his stolen pink castle is actually "salmon," along with all of his other domineering behaviors, we can garner that he is very persistent in how he wants others to view him. i wholeheartedly believe that this would translate into him not only being defensive over his supposed "ownership" of Sugar Rush, but also over himself and his own insecurities.

He needs to feel good about himself or else he will die and quite literally try to kill everyone.

LACK OF EMPATHY

He appears to have a fondness for making jokes in very poor taste. Turbo has a big sense of humor, but it's always at the expense of others. Be it a pun about a "fungeon," or jumping to protect himself with a joke about "hitting a guy with glasses," he has a tendency to take serious situations very lightly. It's not that he's unaware of the weight of it; he simply doesn't take it Seriously.

its admittedly impressive how he was able to feign empathy so well for Ralph; it goes to show how he is very capable of understanding that what he's doing is wrong, but ultimately does nothing to change his behavior because it doesn't impact him personally. 

i would like to honor this part of him, because even in the possible alternate path of a redemption arc, his struggle with empathy can be explored in a variety of interesting ways :-] he can understand complicated emotions and situations on an analytical level, but he doesn't feel for them unless it has to do with him specifically. (this obviously doesn't make him inherently evil, his ACTIONS make him evil)

💥 ASPD 💥

LACK OF REMORSE/GUILT

One of Turbo's core characteristics is just how far he is willing to go for his own self-interest with lack of regard for how it impacts everyone else. he has absolutely no concern for how anyone else feels besides himself, willing to go so far as to attempt to mutilate a 9-year-old to achieve his petty goals.

Turbo is shameless when it comes to how he goes about getting his way. While I'd like to believe he isn't fully incapable of feeling regret, he doesn't showcase feeling it in the movie itself. The most regret he'll feel is when he slips up and exposes himself. anything else is the fault of everyone else; he is untouchable in his eyes.

DECEITFUL TENDENCIES + LYING

Where do i even start with this one.

well, first of all, let's acknowledge the... erm, horse? in the room? 🐎😅(Please someone help me there is a horse in my room help helphel) being that Turbo went under disguise as King Candy for at least a decade. Even before this, there's a good chance that he's already had plenty of experience with lies and manipulation. i'd be willing to bet on this!!

one of his specialties is being proficient in manipulation, be it the code of games or the minds of people. theyre basically the same thing to him, anyway... I'm sure you all know the scene where he uses 16 manipulation tactics against Ralph and wins. this was Obviously not the first time he'd done this.

REPETITION OF HARMFUL BEHAVIORS

Time and time again, Turbo can't seem to help himself when it comes to poor decision-making. he never internalizes that his bad choices aren't JUST bad for others, but also for himself, continuing to escalate further and further into very dangerous behaviors until he literally dies.

Here's a list of bad decisions he has made! (at least, that we know of)

Pinning himself above his peers

Harassment + stalking

Carelessly charging through GCS with his car, endangering countless civilians

Attempting to take over a game that isn't his x2

Vehicular manslaughter

Implied mass murder + attempted murder, attempted mutilation

Mass endangerment

Breaking and entering, theft, usurpation, plagiarism

and more!!!!!!!

AND HE LEARNS FROM ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THIS!!! with some of the items listed here, he's attempted to do multiple times! Absolute buffoon.

RECKLESS DISREGARD FOR SAFETY OF SELF AND OTHERS

Considering how he was willing to charge into a game that wasn't his own with the awareness that it could permanently kill him, going as far as to recklessly crash into another car (albeit it's possible this was unintentional), it's easy to gather that he doesn't seem to consider anyone's safety at all in the spur of the moment.

IMPULSITIVITY

his impulsivity and disregard for safety both go hand-in-hand. When it gets to a certain point, Turbo's emotions will boil over and blow up in a cold rage, thus causing him to spiral and act on impulse, becoming a detrimental force to himself as well as everyone around him.

What's interesting is how much restraint he is capable of; he typically is very strategic in how he orchestrates his plans! but once he reaches his breaking point, he snaps and leaves all of his hard work behind in favor of something that calls for his immediate attention.

💥 ETC. 💥

extra tidbits i didnt have enough energy to fully delve into :-]

BPD

Fear of abandonment

Blurry sense of identity

Feelings of emptiness

Self destructive tendencies

Emotional instability

Explosive anger

ODD (oppositional defiant disorder)

He seems so infatuated with his own autonomy that he gets to the point of being resistant and defiant

Resisting against the rules of the world that he directly caused as a result of his own actions, being that one shouldn't "go Turbo."

Enjoys upsetting/getting a rise out of others. this is more speculative as i am going off of the assumption that he thinks pissing people off is funny, based on his other behavioral patterns. (cruel sense of humor, wanting to feel above others via control & manipulation, enjoyment of inflicting pain onto others)

Forcefully defends himself and refuses any kind of criticism

Lashes out when he feels slighted

Excessive persistence despite all odds, whether it's beneficial to him or not

ok bye!! thank you if you managed to read this far ^^ peace and love take care of yourself! all in all turbo is so neurodivergent ok please Okay <3 get this thing his meds

[shorthaltsjester]

endlessly thinking thoughts about cr characters, morality, and selfishness (likely place for me to be, given that my day job includes endlessly researching ethics and meaning of life) but in light of bell’s hells most recent illustration of their insularity and individualism, I’ve been really like. Trying to unpack why I find it particularly egregious in this party when obviously mighty nein were notoriously self-interested, especially at the beginning, and when vox machina had quite a few moments where their horses were far higher than they had any reason to be. And again, I really want to make it clear her that I don’t hold self-interest or selfishness to be some abhorrent and unforgivable thing, in fact I think its incredibly normal especially given the context of main characters in a story told through game mechanics that flourish on the interest of the individuals making the choices. I’ve written before about how one of the throughlines that I’ve seen in laura’s pcs (since I’m someone who particularly enjoys looking at the moral outlooks characters develop) is a common thread of morality that’s highly dependent on their own interests. And like, this is a positive throughline to me! Without getting into my own views on morality, it is particularly compelling to me for characters with isolated upbringing (which applies to vex, jester, and imogen, each in different ways) to develop a moral code informed by that isolation, and in vex we see her moral code is ‘anything goes if it protects those I hold dear’, in jester we see a moral code that doesn’t care about morality as much as it cares about the chance to care and be cared for, and in imogen we see a moral code developed in response to her very unique experience of hearing the darkest parts of people and judging them on those (which to be clear, i am not judging her for that fact, I think it makes extreme sense for someone who hears the thoughts the people have to be horrified by those things, but it does mean her moral system is almost completely backwards, where intention holds more weight than action, which perhaps makes sense of the popularity of defending all of her ideas and choices and the Right Ones by certain parts of the fandom that insist leftism is hidden in the dnd real play). And that’s all to say that, out of the cr parties we’ve seen, I don’t think any single member of bell’s hells is uniquely more or less selfish or more or less of an asshole than previous characters. And in fact, I tend to be quite fond of selfish characters, I have a well documented history of cherishing them well beyond the cr fandom. But the point is that my calling something or someone self-interested is not a value judgement in this context, it's a descriptive claim about the traits a character exhibited.

Imogen, who has insisted time and time again re: the values of the accord that she would not be swayed by the temptation of predathos because she recognizes the importance of this fight, only to turn around and pretty immediately open herself up to predathos to fulfil the most threatening part of ludinus’ plan is self-interested. I cannot conceive of any other way to describe her choices. And her being self-interested doesn’t mean she can’t also be altruistic at times, but I will be clear that I don’t think her risking killing herself as she attempts to bring down the god-eater that she released is particularly selfless. In my best faith interpretation I’d say she’s pretty middle of the road in that choice. But I bring all this up because a comparison I’ve been seeing is that bell’s hells aren’t as mean as the mighty nein or even vox machina in certain moments and that it doesn’t make sense for the fandom to view bell’s hells as likely to be villains when the same wasn’t true of the previous two campaigns, and I think I have to pretty emphatically disagree, and not because I don’t think there aren’t moments in both campaigns that feature extremely high levels of assholery and villainry from pcs – I mean, some of my favourite cr characters are percy and jester, both of whom i’d say are ‘good guys’ due to the pure luck of the found familys they fell in with and both of whom often suggested plans that were. Not okay. To say the least. But ignoring the difference between suggesting fucked up plans and walking your god-eater infused bestie back towards the troops sent to support you in keeping that entity contained, the other big difference I’ve noticed in my own introspection on how I react to bh vs mn and vm, as well as which things i cherish about previous campaigns that were really missing from c3 to what I think is the story and the character’s detriment (staying away from the shape of the narrative, just because others have made posts that put words together better about that than I can) is that while members of vm and mn remained self-interest to the end of their campaigns and have reasserted those habits in appearances since, the parties as entities working in exandria had both, to echo ashton’s apt suggestion to ludinus, grown up.

Like one moment I think of is beau and fjord’s convo in the nein hells episode, because beau is being her asshole self and fjord is being his ‘I care about My People and I’ll think about the rest later’ self (i say affectionately but certain parts of the fandom I recognize would view derogatorily) – clearly they’re not the kindest people as they discuss bell’s hells, but two notable things are (a) they still treat the hells with the respect and use their means to help them prepare for the battle coming, even when they hear the horrifying thought that the hells aren’t certain they’ll choose to save the gods, all the nein request is that they choose the kind option (b) they say none of their doubts to the hells themselves – likely because they have the empathy to realizes that its a high stress situation that won’t be made better by a reminding the hells how small and likely ineffectual in the universe they are – and their comments about cannon fodder are ones made in jest to each other. Even taking that in the worst faith interpretation, the jokes that beau and fjord make in a private conversation has absolutely zero influence on bh. This is quite different than bells hells, after like. as clearly betraying the accord they promised to assist (even if their intentions are ‘good’) as is possible, belittling the religious armies sent to support their endeavor to keep predathos sealed as they all feel the weight of an irrevocable change occurring in exandria, one bells hells has first account knowledge now that it IS incredibly willing to eat mortals, and laudna and ashton, the members of bells hells most often cited by certain fandom spaces as characters who have gone through so much and it only made them kind and strong, look into the faces of people facing literally existential threat and laugh and mock them. That is, mighty nein as individuals is comprised of some of the, perhaps, most asshole pcs, but The Mighty Nein as a party is committed to treating others the best they can, to leaving things better than they found them (a quote that I think is particularly exemplary of the dynamics of self-interest at play in the mighty nein, since it originated as a blatant illustration of molly’s notion of self-importance but developed to become a kind of commandment that the nein became committed to fulfilling). The opposite is true of bell’s hells, where orym and dorian at least both seem to have motivation beyond themselves, imogen’s changes but has shown she is capable of letting go of her ‘intention reigns’ requisitely individualistic perspective, and chetney plays up his selfishness but has shown himself to care quite a bit for people beyond their party but bell’s hells as an entity is uh, pretty self-interested.

To clarify some of my thoughts here in the spirit of the wicked renaissance happening rn, I’ve always felt that for good was an incredibly apt song for the mighty nein, because it really nails that feeling that perhaps they didn’t change each other as individuals to become better people on the grand scale, maybe they’ve just changed each other permanently, but they (and I would agree with this) view each other as having changed each other for the better (e.g., I don’t know if I could say whether jester is a morally better Individual at the end of the campaign, but I can say with certainty that she fulfils and makes moral choices in her work as a member of the mighty nein). And I don’t know if this can be said about bell’s hells – I think they have certainly influenced each other and changed how alone many of those characters felt, and that is not a slight on the story, it can be a great centre for a story to focus on how a relinquishment of the feeling that one is alone in the world can change them. But for the most part, that hasn’t been bh’s story, their story instead has been about validating their refusal to become anything beyond what they insist was out of their control. And not to get to annoying philosophy student about it but bell’s hells are maybe some of the most explicit examples of sartrian bad faith I’ve seen in fiction in a hot minute, because their insistence that they treat their wounds as incurable and entirely out of their hands has led to them limiting their own potential because many of them ignore their responsibility as people to make choices in their own lives. In contrast, at the end of the campaign, mighty nein are still assholes as we all like to refer to them as, but in the context of an apocalypse, I think I’d prefer the assholes like fjord – who is certainly being truthful when he says he doesn’t care about what harm comes to 200 people when jester is at risk but who also, as they traverse into aeor, is insistent that their group won’t be running away from whatever apocalyptic threat awaits them, even if that means dying in the fight – than I would an asshole like ashton – who promises to fight for the little guys but who then turns around and acts upon a philosophy that says the strongest will survive. When you look at the mighty nein, it is incredibly easy to see the fingerprints of change they’ve left upon one another, and even to see the boundaries they place on one another’s asocial behaviours through their presence in one another’s lives (more recently the group chastising jester’s fond words about ludinus is a good example, but others are yasha’s pressuring caleb and essek to move on from their wizard talks as they collect paper in aeor instead of venturing further toward the battle they have to fight, or fjord and jester’s frustrated conversation in the ukotoa reunion about how fjord made a stupid decision and he doesn’t regret but he feels dejected and jester checking him on the fact that they still need to figure out a solution). It takes some extrapolation to see how bells hells have changed each other in more than aesthetic ways, if they have at all. Because the catalyst for change is pressure to do so, and aside from moments where it was truly change or be left behind, bh doesn’t challenge each other unless forced to by morri’s trials or delilah’s interruption and on the very odd occasion an interesting game of rollies-spin-the-bottle. 

And it’s interesting because the asshole behaviour of the mighty nein, like bell’s hells, stems from being left on the outskirts of society and the mistreatment that comes with that, so seemingly the change from being alone to being with others is one that actually insists upon being challenged to grow and change. I mean, just looking at the starting points of the characters, there’s an intriguing amount of stark similarities between their pasts; jester and fearne were both people loved dearly by the family they grew up with but who were loved within the confines of a gilded cage, ashton and beau both have an glaring self awareness that their anger at the world has a very particular source (their parents) but use that as justification rather than a means of self reflection, yasha and orym are trying to navigate a world in the wake of an incomprehensible loss and a sense of duty, fjord and imogen are both seeking out knowledge of their own powers and unknowingly retreading the paths of their missing and presumed dead parental figures. The idea that bell’s hells are uniquely mistreated by society in the history of cr player characters is, politely, laughable. Absolutely they’re mistreated, and I think it could be fair to say these characters are more defined by their isolation than others but I think that has more to do with the lack of downtime rp than it has to do with the context of their suffering.

What I have loved about the mighty nein is that in their realization that the bonds they forge with each other are undermining the truths most of them had taken to be true – that they were alone and without a place in the world – they are also forced to realize that no longer being alone and isolated comes with the weight of social responsibility. And this was born out of a willingness the mighty nein had to call each other out and that the players had to allow their characters to be wrong and get called on it. Because that’s the friction of living with other people on the small party scale and the large world scale – in the mighty nein’s ability to survive as a people who cared for each other even when they didn’t agree or when they made decisions that they couldn’t understand, they were constantly developing their ability to care for the very same world that left them alone. Because in campaign two, the world as a whole had the role that the gods have in campaign 3 – why should a party of nobodies, treated like shit by the world and the people in it go through the effort of saving it?

And the mighty nein answered, in their own imperfection and assholery, that nothing is ever just one thing – one of the things I cherish most about campaign 2 is its commitment to ambiguity, allowing the complexity of the world to go unsolved because there is no solution to the fact that life is immense and sometimes incoherent. I don’t think its a coincidence that I’ve seen some of the people lamenting the idiocy of fandom members like me who think that it actually isnt a leftist win to destroy the world in the hopes of spontaneous justice arising in c3 are the same people who criticised c2’s conclusion with the cerberus assembly for not being leftist (a word which for them means . the aesthetic image of a rebellion sparked and not the unending commitment to doing what you practically can to make life more just for those around you – whether they’re particularly kind to you or not) enough. The conclusion of c2 emphasizes that the choice to make the world a better place isn’t something that can be achieved in one single sweeping action that will wipe the boards clean – there is no murder of all the members of the cerberus assembly that would’ve solved the problems that caused the assembly’s power. There is no forcing of the god’s out of exandria that will deal with the actual issue undergirding both bh and their blorbo-moralized fans' criticism of the gods, which is that mortals are cursed with the burden of free will, and being mistreated by other mortals means constantly having to try and make sense of the fact that someone chose to do something cruel to you (and, sometimes, that you made a choice that allowed that cruelty to occur) – a burden made much heavier when the person who hurt you is your cult-indoctrinated mother, or your cult leader father, or the person in the mirror. The mighty nein take up this fight, and the complexities of their individual identities begin to heal in the light of a commitment in their relationship as friends and as a team to improve the world, even on the small scale. Bell’s hells remain gridlocked and stagnant and unwilling to change in an unspoken turf war of self-interest because they’ve insisted (influenced in part by the context of the campaign 3 narrative but, as others have aptly pointed out, that narrative was much more influenced by bh’s lack of curiosity regarding anything except their own minds) upon finding a solution to a problem they’ve decided is earth-shatteringly (quite literally, to the people of ruidus) unjust based on, aside from encounters where fellow mortals were the primary oppressors, their own testimony of the god’s not listening to them and the obvious villain’s parallel testimony. Something I’ve really been chewing on lately is caduceus words to fjord about his role as a paladin of the wildmother – that maybe it just means that someday, someone will pray for a miracle, and there fjord’ll be and the weight that has given that fjord’s bond to ukotoa came from his desperation not to die and his willingness to accept whatever help would be offered, that fjord could now be the person that reaches out to someone in need, and that the hand he offers won’t come with a curse.  And I think that’s really the poignant difference between bh and mn for me, that for bh, their experiences of injustice, though did make them personally bitter, did not make them morally misanthropic.

Comparatively, Bell’s Hells chose to ensure that, because the gods never answered their prayers, they shouldn’t be permitted to answer anyone else’s. Is this an understandable position? Sure, for the walls of a preschool, not really for a group of characters that I will ever be in any way inclined to view as something close to heroes. While it’s true that there are parts of life that are beyond our control – somethings happen to us that we have no say in, and they cause injuries both physical and mental that we are left to heal without any rhyme or reason, it is still our responsibility to heal them. And if you choose not to, well, then you’ve chosen not to, and are responsible for the consequences and judgements that choice might amount to.

Anyway, sorry this is all over the place but TLDR: calling bell’s hells as a party self-interested is actually just descriptively correct – they can save members of the party made up of their close friends and still be self-interested – and while the individual members of bell’s hells actually aren’t all that uniquely self-interested in the history of cr pcs, the party is uniquely self-interested in how they’ve chosen to navigate the world an their responsibility to the people in it.

[eluxcastar]

One of Repetition — Prologue

── ୨୧：arlecchino x reader

୨୧﹑synopsis :: your sudden dismissal from your position of harbinger, and the fatui as a whole, marks the end of the largest chapter in your life. you had never known a day without the tsaritsa's guidance, and you are set to never know another with it.

୨୧﹑genre :: angst

୨୧﹑content :: fem reader, reader is a harbinger, reader has a pyro vision, capitano is still not human and I haven't played fontaine or natlan ngl, possible ooc, not proofread but lightly edited

୨୧﹑words :: 6.5k

it only took me forever and a day. it's finally here being rewritten this is gonna take so long updates WILL be slow so you're gonna have to bear with me

CROSSPOSTED ON AO3

Her words left you exasperated, literally at a loss for words, and you struggled to comprehend the reason for it. There was nothing you could think of, no instance that struck you as prominent. Yet, somehow, as one of the Tsaritsa's children, you had become what any parent might refer to simply as a disappointment, their failure—the problem child who never quite ironed out their issues. You had always been faithful to her, hopelessly devoted to the archon and her will. News such as this came out of nowhere and struck you like a hammer to the chest.

Effective immediately, you are to be stripped of your title.

Two of her most mighty children were near and dear to her, and now the other had turned against you as he remains loyal to her. The Jester, who you once held in high regard, has turned against you. It is a bitter pill to swallow, for you must now sever ties with the one man you believed was truly deserving of serving the Tsaritsa. Your mother—your world—turns against you with him, before him, leading the way for him. 

In vain, you draw your bow to strike an arrow between his eyes. You have to prove your strength and power as above your position, above him, even with this weapon that disagrees with your armour, but it means nothing. Your strike is blocked, and the Tsarita's Damselette Columbina moves to detain you. You believe she would not be strong enough, but you don't itch to fight eight other Harbingers or their Director. You understand that even you have a limit, and fighting what are supposed to be the strongest people in the country is not a part of that.

Your honour is on the line, an honour which would tarnish not only Brighella's name but also have a ripple effect on your soldiers, men and women who fight for you and do not deserve the punishment that would result from their actions.

"Think carefully, Brighella." Columbina's warning is not lost on you. "You could remain as a hero or fight, and I will lure the creature you brought from the Abyss and gut him before your eyes."

You do not want that. That creature is not yet loyal to the Tsaritsa but to you, and she will convince him he can save you. He will fall into her trap and die because, for all that you have taught him, he is naïve.

You bite your lip, trying to think of a way to escape and capture him so that you can run off somewhere. He does not deserve to die, but you can't think of anything. Not when you know how thorough these people are. There is not a will, really; there is only a has. He has fallen into her trap and is at the mercy of the Damselette.

It suddenly makes an abundance of sense why your greatsword was missing this morning from where you discarded it on the floor of your chambers. Someone took it. They took it so you would appear before the Tsaritsa without your armour to carry your bow with you, taking advantage of your subordinate's absence to wander around so exposed.

You revealed your every weak point just as you were meant to because you are an arrogant creature of habit.

"What if I am to obey?" You finally ask the question you did not want to, surrendering in a way, though the bite has not left your words.

"I'll leave him be." Her answer is swift. She expected that you would eventually give in and only needed to wait for it to happen.

You shake your head, dissatisfied with only that as your compensation. "Not enough."

The smile on her face does not waver, thin and deceitful as ever, eyes hidden and closed, unseen behind the band of lace. "Mm. I can't bargain anything else." 

"Have him take my place." You lay your condition out firmly. There is only one to meet, and it is not a hard one at that. It would be easy to sway him into it, using whatever they plan to do to you as motivation. His loyalty and affection for you would make him accept it.

She ponders the situation and proposal momentarily, powerless to make the executive decision but undoubtedly keen on the thought of it all. "He believes that you are about to fall in battle to a foe and that he is going to save you."

You grit your teeth, knowing that this is her trap. Lure that creature to a place where he is vulnerable. It was not what you had expected, but it is no less the Damselette's style of acting. There is always a damsel, but perhaps she recognised that she would not suffice this time. She needed a better damsel for him to save; for that to work, it needed to be you. 

She needs your name, reputation, and your relationship with your subordinate. They meld with her lies to write a tale of tragedy, with him as the grief-stricken hero vowing to take his mentor's place.

The thought of him rushing to his death under the guise of saving you spikes your blood cold, chilling you. You're aware of her cruelty and always have been, but to experience it is different than hearing about it from her perspective. You are experiencing it from the perspective of the victim. 

His death was another factor to hold over your head—your penance—the anchor to force your compliance. Your blood boils with rage, but you cannot fight. Despite your anger and frustration, you know that lashing out will only cause further harm and pain.

There is only one thing you can do. You know you must. It's simply that you don't want to. 

But…you must. 

You must for him, that poor creature you tried to give a home to and who would never be in such a position if not for you and your ambition. 

"Then I will fall, and you will use the honour I built into him to persuade him." 

It was an honour meant to humanise him in a way, a being only able to imitate humanity. He had a mentor and something to fight for. Now you're imploring that it be used against him to burden him, but he will do well in your position.

Columbina smiles, that mocking smile like she knows the secrets of this world and more. "Would he really believe that?"

The helmet. You should use the helmet to your advantage. Your subordinate's first exposure to humanity being you, a woman in a metal helmet, seemed to last. He used to think that was what humans looked like, and he admitted as much to you as he had asked you to remove it once he could speak. Your impression left an indelible mark on him that he still treasures. Even if he were to see you in the aftermath, he would not uncover the lie.

"He has never seen my face. He would not recognise me."

Columbina accepts that readily, and her eyes open, pools of black and white visible through the cracks in the lace over her eyes. You've seen them before, inky black sclera and inhuman patterns decorating the borders of her irises, but you can't help the unsettled feeling that makes a home for itself in the pit of your stomach. 

-

By the evening, you are stripped of your honours, titles and coat and dumped to the curb like a bag of rubbish somebody left out. There is no more fight, no more bargaining, no more arguing. Everyone has the things they want, for the most part, so you are all satisfied enough to remain amicable with each other. Without a fight, you allow the Jester to remove the fur-lined overcoat despite the cold that rushes over you once it is gone and discarded in a heap of fur and fabric on the floor with none of its previous value. 

After that comes the slow, deliberate removal of every trinket that denoted you as you. From your delusion, several gifts to your very insignia, the only thing left of you is a lone pyro vision and the clothes on your back. You've never been more thankful to not wear a standard-issue uniform lest you be made to undress and hand that over, too.

That was it. Your everything.

With each piece of regalia taken, a part of yourself disappeared until you were left an empty husk of a person, your entire reason for being for hundreds of years snatched out from under you and spat on. Pierro allowed you the pity of dressing you in your weathered armour one last time to see you off, though he admits he cannot return the sword that goes with it.

The Harbingers were supposed to be the children of the Tsaritsa, and this was your grand disowning. A show of power and influence over her closest children and, by extension, the ability to bring pain to her lesser— to her followers. It was foolish of you to ever think you were special in her eyes for having been by her side since during the Archon War. 

What did it matter when she left you amongst the rest of them?

The years you spent since you had hobbled into her life so tiny and cute were now reduced to a few personal belongings and a set of words that shattered your world to sharp and dangerous pieces that would only hurt you in your haste to reassemble them and string your life back together.

Whatever should remain of yourself is torn away as if those things never belonged to you. Your memories are tossed down the drain by time, and the crown you thought sat firmly atop your head as Snezhnaya's spoiled princess is broken by the hurry to dismantle your power in its entirety.

When you were young, your cuteness may have been your best asset: a small body with endearing quirks and the inability to walk long distances without tumbling. You required your mother for everything because you would only find danger in the harsh Snezhnayan winters. To even acquire your own food was unthinkable, so you were sheltered and provided with ample treats that you could nibble from the palm of her hand if that were what you wished. Anything to keep you happy and content.

Like a little trinket, she cradled you for as many years as it took you to grow, and once you were at an age where you no longer needed to be cradled, she made you her loyal companion, or so you had believed. You thought her affection for you was unwavering. She was the only mother you had ever known; she is the only mother you will remember for all eternity.

Although it may have been an exaggeration, watching the sun's gradual descent below the horizon, you could almost believe eternity would quickly prove to be a very real concept. You watch the sky darken in silence for a time. You roam aimlessly around the city, your presence still striking unease in the people from the threatening demeanour you learned to conduct yourself with as a Harbinger, even without your official attire. The only remnant of your former self is a helmet you consistently wore during every public appearance strapped to your hip. 

You can't help your wandering mind. Did your imitation of the Tsaritsa's actions make you weak? Attempting to nurture someone in the same manner she nurtured you? You are not a god, only the former child of one. Maybe you cannot care for him and maintain your objectivity. He may have become your Achilles' heel, as you were forewarned when the Tsaritsa less than subtly suggested you eliminate him.

You cannot live like this.

No matter how many suns you watch set, you will never come to terms with living like this. The world you once knew, which revolved around a singular governing entity and individual, has disappeared without a trace. Without a central axis to anchor it in place, your world spirals chaotically out of control, with each passing second feeling more frenzied than the last.

This purposeless existence where you have no one to create meaning for you feels just as endless as your high on the rush of power once did.

Your head is too muddled, your brain too overwhelmed by your emotions to think objectively of the faults in your time as a Harbinger. Years of your life have been spent that way, burying your thoughts beneath a heavy weight of despair. Your life is over. Even as the woodlands are forced to welcome you, they mark the end of everything, embracing you in what could be your death, as you imagine it is meant to.

The conclusion of those years greets you with nothing but a cold, detached farewell you never expected. The years you spent dutifully carrying out your mother's will should've been concluded by a grand celebration or momentous occasion to mark the end. This is not how these things are supposed to go, but you can't say it's never happened before. Usually, you'd just kill Harbingers your mother no longer approved of. You might have the better side of things, even if your career is at the worst possible end.

You almost want to call those years wasted, but that would be wrong. Without the Tsaritsa, you might've— no, would've died during the Archon War. Perhaps another god would take you in, but it is unlikely that they would have exhibited the same level of compassion and generosity as the Tsaritsa. They would not have coddled you into comfort the way she did. Then again, what if that had been your downfall? Did she ever genuinely want you to stay? Based on this…perhaps you took her kindness for granted and overstayed your welcome.

You had no right to make demands of her in your final moments as her child, acting like a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum. But can you be justified? Can the threat to your subordinate's life negate that? Surely a bit, but not entirely, not if her actions were in response to yours. 

Oh, even if you begged on your knees, she would not take you back now.

Why had you not done that before?

She must be disappointed that your attitude was born from her compassion, the epitome of her failures. You do not deserve to call her your mother. You took her generosity as a guarantee, thought yourself above her other children solely because you were her first, and believed you were her favourite for no reason besides arrogance.

You have failed the only being in Teyvat willing to show pity toward you.

-

The deepest heart of Snezhnayan forest welcomes you readily with open arms and the gnashing jaws of monsters starving for food. The forest seems to come alive with a vicious hunger for flesh. You have only your vision and bow left to aid your defence as you shrug off part of your armour to delegate it to the ties on your hip that secure your helmet.

Your delusion is gone, and your subordinates are nowhere to be found to assist you. The danger is to be braved alone for the first time in what must be forever. Despite this, marking your way with a trail of bodies is easy. It is just an inconvenience to always be on guard, but you are strangely used to it. Your life has been spent that way. Being on guard is what keeps you alive on long expeditions, at night when your lessers slept under your watch, in the depths of the Abyss where it is the only thing stopping the resilient from dropping like flies.

The cold is numbing as the air hits your face, your fingers almost wholly without a sensation of touch and even a tingle in your toes. Your vision emits warmth like a stone of fire seeping into your bones to chase the chill away. It nearly suffocates your fingers each time you press your hand to it, hoping to glean some heat from it.

You spent many missions that way, tensed and expecting violence at any moment, hardly allowing yourself to sleep, let alone relax. Despite so many things changing, you are just as high-strung as you used to be. It feels like nothing has changed in that respect, but you know everything has. You cannot hear the large crackling bonfire or the pattering of footsteps in the snow as your subordinates come to join you, their laughter and chatter and their whispers to each other.

While everything falls apart around you, you freeze as if that is the only thing keeping you together, even knowing that nothing will remain once you finally let go. Breathing is difficult, and so is thinking, but you'd rather not think at all. You want to pretend you'll look across the clearing you wander through and see that creature eagerly waiting, so safe and out of every hand that might harm him.

There is a fragile little balance of land around you that slowly crumbles away piece by piece as it encroaches upon the section that keeps you afloat without regard for where you're supposed to stand when the last of it falls from under your feet. Eventually, you'll have nothing left beneath you.

If there is a time when the only part of what was is yourself, you must protect that no matter what it does to you. You have to maintain the same rigid ways you've always stuck to. Those are the last parts of you made by your mother; those are the last parts of yourself you can trust for as long as you can't trust yourself.

The stark silence is deafening to your ears.

-

On the seventh night, you pass through a village on the outskirts of Snezhnaya, where you first catch wind of the news you had agreed on.

The locals informed you that they had recently halted their work for half a day in honour of your passing, believing that you had been slain in battle, though they are just as unaware as everyone else you've passed that they're talking to the person they believe to be dead. Hearing the story that the Jester spoon-fed the public to explain your disappearance makes it feel a touch more real, the consequences of your obedience stinging in a way you didn't expect. You cannot claim it to be a sick joke when it has had time to reach the smaller villages.

Even when that information would naturally spread like wildfire, the thought that it has come to be known by the nation solidifies the death of Brighella.

In a way, she really is dead.

You're the only one still standing here.

You find what can only be a wayward adventurer not far from the town, engaging a wild boar in combat, brandishing a blade at the beast as it snarls back at him and prepares to rush toward him. He faces it with the heavy hand of experience steadying his grip, ending the boar in a swift movement of his blade that matches the work of his feet to jostle him out of its path.

"Good morning," you greet him after a moment, arms folding over your chest as you watch him poke at the boar with the tip of his sword. "Strike it through the back of its neck. It'll die quickly."

"And painfully," he scoffs back, yet his foot steadies the boar nonetheless, and it is out of its misery by the final stab.

You break away from the spot that had glued you to the ground, approaching the man and his kill to assess the job as if on instinct. "Good work," you tell him without really thinking.

"You think so?" he questions. His eyes focus on you instantly, watching you inspect the boar with a curious gleam. You offer a curt nod. He stares as if waiting to be appraised in precisely the same manner you do a dead animal, weary enough not to sheath his blade. "You really think it's smart to walk around like that?" he asks after a few seconds.

"Why?" you ask, absently poking at the boar. You half expect it will spring back to life and knock the both of you flat on your asses, yet it never does.

He hesitates for the first time since you first saw him, opening his mouth to speak before reconsidering and pressing his lips into a thin line. He catches his breath. "The armour," he begins. "It..."

"It...?" You don't recall ever meeting him before, though it is not uncommon that adventurers know what you look like. You travel so much that it's hardly unusual that people catch glimpses of you, and never forget the Harbinger dressed in the old armour of the guards of Zapolyarny.

It is not unthinkable for a man used to being at odds with Fatui soldiers would recall what might be the most royal pain in his ass.

"A Harbinger was slain," he continues, gaze wandering away. "A Harbinger dressed in armour. I mean, people wear armour all the time, but that set..."

You quirk an eyebrow at such an awkward explanation. It's an accusation he doesn't dare make for its boldness, but he cannot deny it when he considers it for himself. "You recognise it?" you question.

"Something similar. From when Brighella was in Sumeru," he confirms. "I may have been a child, but I recognise it anywhere. Most people have armour custom made to fit them, but yours..."

"Someone else's," you finish for him.

That is technically true regardless. Even as Brighella, the armour was stolen. You vaguely recall the story, but you took it from the stores, assuming it belonged to a guard who no longer had use for it. It should've been the property of a grown man, but you have always accounted for the pinching and awkward proportions. You had to grow into it and didn't grow quite enough.

"You're asking if I killed her," you conclude, though that is an equally bold assumption.

He pauses, weariness in his eyes at the thought, but shakes his head. "That would be a bit presumptuous," he responds. "I just wondered if you really thought it was smart to wander around in armour that looks so much like hers."

"Perhaps not," you admit, swallow your pride to allow that much. "It might be smarter to get some clothes from a market."

"New armour wouldn't hurt," he adds. "You're travelling to...?" he trails off, briefly glancing up as if to seek your appearance for the answer. "Not the heart of Snezhnaya, I hope."

"Fontaine," you answer. "It's the first trail south."

"I'm sure you'll find both of those things there," he says. He offers a slight smile despite the circumstances, an unspoken reliving of the tension you realise lingered on past the point you expected it to.

A part of you knows that he makes that presumptuous assumption. He suspects that you have killed the reigning tyrant but says nothing, perhaps out of relief at the possibility you did. Snezhnaya finds liberation in your slaying. A weight has lifted in your absence that they are not yet allowing themselves to get used to out of fear that you might return. It's as if everyone holds their breath for the news that you resurfaced from the Abyss and were merely lost to a chasm in the world.

You know that news will never come.

Now, the armour that once protected you as a Harbinger will stand as a triumphant emblem of your hard-won victory over Brighella and the end of the Harbinger's tyrannical hold over the land. Even knowing that he is right and it is unwise to wander clad in your old armour, you can't let it go. You are glad it is still yours. Pierro granted it to you, and you didn't care to ask why when it felt as though you were watching your comrades through the eyes of your younger self five hundred years ago. Through danger, you will keep it close, treasuring it always as a tangible reminder of the sacrifices you made to reach this pivotal moment. 

You slayed Brighella. You ended the Harbinger's tyranny.

Brighella is dead.

Though there is no truth to it, you take responsibility for the Harbinger's slaying at the first gasp of a wayward adventurer recognising it. You grasp it as your singular piece of this life—your trophy. It is the first fragment of your new self.

If you didn't know better, you would think you were getting a little too far into it and starting to believe it yourself.

-

By the eleventh night, you find yourself situated in an inn, and the nights only carry on from there all the way up to the twenty-second night since your abrupt dismissal and, to the rest of the world, your supposed demise. The sigh of relief finally sounds, if a tad reserved. Snezhnaya collectively agrees that Brighella is dead enough to think they might have escaped her thumb, even if they aren't wholly convinced that she could really be dead.

The whispers that once revolved around Brighella's defeat now shifted to speculations regarding her successor. The question was not necessarily who, but who could possibly? Her brutal reign as a Harbinger had instilled fear in the hearts of all who crossed her path; in the minds of the people, no one else could measure up to her sheer terror-inducing presence.

Nobody knows what happened once they dared to fight Brighella until now. She was the first of the Tsaritsa's children, and she was the most combat-heavy. No one wished to cross her except for the rumoured contender for her throne, who was spoken of in hushed tones, as nobody was eager to have their reverence for whoever was bold enough to reach the wrong ears.

Your achievements find their place amongst the rumours as people say that Brighella's killer stole her armour and wears it as her trophy.

Despite the slew of gossip that its patrons indulge in, you enjoy the quaintness of this bar made and run by travellers who use it like a pitstop to rest and recuperate. It is a home to them, along with adventurers and merchants who benefit from the atmosphere. The people are strangers, often reserved and eager to keep to themselves, but have an immeasurable wealth of information that spills with a few drinks and a group of acquaintances who are, for only one night of pleasure and indulgence, their lifelong friends.

Among those friends buried in your own tankard of cheap ale, you laugh along with their jokes and entertain their questions like a test of your ability to lie and improvise in this tale you're making for yourself. If they have names, you don't know them. Brighella's death was a glorious battle but isolated to the hills where you were alone.

"Brighella was alone, and they were weakened by prior injury. I don't know what caused it." You mix a dash of the speculations in, downplaying your strength as you're unwilling to expose too much of it. "I'm not one to miss an opportunity. When would it arise again?"

One of your new acquaintances scoffs, amused but no less aware of the dangers of doing such a thing. "And make an enemy of the Fatui?" He is a new graduate of the Sumeru Akademiya who's come to make his way through Snezhnaya for a job offer. Reminds you of someone else, minus the graduating.

"They will not miss her." You are quick to answer—too quick, arguably—as it draws a sliver of attention before dipping back under the radar as a product of your confidence. "Her 'head' makes too cute a decoration on my side to pass up stealing it."

"I wouldn't dare say such a thing. Fatuus comes here sometimes." They are the words of a Snezhnayan native raised to worship the Fatui, though he is somewhat disillusioned by their crimes and cruelty, as you've learned many are.

"Let them hear it!" Your laughter is boisterous and unabashed. "They'll see the armour anyway. They probably despise her like everyone else."

Another one of your new friends, a travelling merchant from Fontaine, interjects your ravings to add only a passing comment. It was as she had done all evening, her secrets locked up tight. "She did not make herself likeable."

"She was not meant to be likeable but a fearsome warrior." Again, the Snezhnayan man rebuts the criticism against her as he had been doing all evening.

"You don't have to get so far up her ass, Brighella's not gonna crawl out of her grave and thank you for it."

"You're so vulgar."

You plant your tankard firmly on the table between the four of you, leaning over it to close the distance between you and the man. "I'm not meant to be likeable either."

Forget being only a little too into the role. You're revelling in the freedom of this new identity of yours.

Quick to disperse the tension, your graduate friend changes the topic without a hint of hesitance in his voice. "They left an underling people believe will take their place. It's a surprise to think Brighella had someone who followed them with such…devotion."

It seems they finally figured out who might take Brighella's place in the grand scheme of things, and the rumours say there is only one candidate.

The creature wearing the face of a man she brought home from the Abyss.

"It's strange but not impossible." The merchant from Fontaine again, contributing nothing you weren't all already thinking.

"Could she have had a sentimental side?"

"Who cares if she had a sentimental side?"

"Upset the attention isn't on you anymore?"

Anger crosses your face, but you stifle it as quickly as it appears. You wish their attention was off of you, really. The former you, maybe, but you nonetheless. You want to know about your subordinate. What happened to your second in command? You don't care to hear their speculation as to whether you were or were not particularly emotional with your underlings. You know the answers to all of those questions and more without their guessing games.

"Regardless of the reason, they say the underlying is much easier to swallow than she is, so maybe the position of First Harbinger will change drastically if he takes it." 

"Would he really change its purpose if he was so loyal?"

"Unintentionally, perhaps."

Gods, these people are so dull. Just by listening to them, you can tell they know nothing about the ways of the Fatui. Harbingers are not individual job positions with specific parameters. Each role is its own, and they are moulded by the person who assumes them like a character in a play, enchanting and unsettling in a horrific mix of theatrics and violence. It is what they stand for. One does not assume the role and become an actor with a script. They must improvise and act on a whim to the beat of the Tsaritsaʼs drum, their life no longer their own.

They are not whatever these ramblings and poor excuses for speculations make them out to be.

"Terribly misinformed, aren't they?" In your ear is the low voice of the Snezhnayan man holding in his laughter at the two as the scholar and the merchant go back and forth. You watch them with a sharp gaze that almost borders a glare, bored of their squabbles and misconceptions.

You glance to your left, where he has leaned closer to you. You eye the way he tilts in his seat, his hand resting on the table. "Repulsively," you respond curtly.

He has a faint glint of satisfaction in his eye as you seem to have confirmed something. "I thought you might've been from Snezhnaya." 

Your eyes narrow at his conclusion, though it is the truth. You don't trust the gleam in his eyes or the way his gaze fixes between you and the helmet secured to your hip. "So what if I am?" you question lowly.

"It was only an observation."

In the background, the main conversation continues, just as clumsy as before you had tuned it out in favour of drinking some more. "Does this mean he will also be named Brighella?"

Straightening back in his seat, the man swiftly interjected their back-and-forth responses to explain to them. "They receive a unique title upon their promotion, and nobody knows what it is until then." A simple enough concept to understand.

"In other words, anything but Brighella."

"It hasn't been long enough to know yet."

"It's strange. Nobody knows his name even now."

That would probably be because you never gave him one.

You considered it in the years you spent with him but couldn't find one you liked. His name was inhuman, not for your ears and not for your tongue, rendering it useless to you and everyone else who would hear it. The night you found him was spent crowded around a bonfire listing off every suggestion you and your subordinates could think of to no avail, as he only sat quietly by your side and said little about any of these choices, finding no familiarity in any of them. That's only natural, you suppose. 

You still haven't chosen a name for yourself that isn't Brighella, either. Your old one is well and truly forgotten, with the years eroding your memories. It had been centuries since you had been called anything else. Evidently, picking names is not your forte. 

"As far as I've heard, nobody knows what it is."

You find the mention of your subordinate has completely ruined your mood. You are grateful the creature is alive but worried the knowledge you're snooping around to find out when he will be promoted could land you in trouble. It's troubling enough to wonder if he has heard your tales through the grapevine about how you had supposedly 'killed' Brighella—his mistress and mentor—which he would not be happy about.

Though you did not fear the creature before, now that you've personally trained him to understand human combat, you're not so sure you'd want to fight him. It would be a hassle. Unlike many, you do not fear the inhumanity of the Doctor or the stone wall called the Jester. Even the cunning Damselette struggles to do more than unsettle you, but you respect that creature's raw strength and understand that no matter what you do, it doesn't matter. You are confined to a human form, and he is not.

You lied when he said he wouldn't recognise you, however. You don't actually know if he would.

You don't know the extent to which his eyes can pick out the details in your appearance that aren't physical. Had he memorised your relative build? Your height? The way you carry yourself and your mannerisms? The thought unnerves you, but so does everything else about him.

"I'm turning in for the night," you declare to the table with a knock of your cup as you slam it down.

Without regard for the ongoing conversation, you announce your intentions and abruptly shut down whatever is being said at the time without much care for it. Whatever it is, it isn't important. Your unfinished drink is left behind as you make your way to your quarters.

In retrospect, you understand their eagerness to merely cover up the circumstances of your dismissal. For a Harbinger as feared as Brighella, it is easier to halt work for a mere half-day rather than attempt to contain the resulting fallout of admitting one of their own was inadequate while simultaneously preserving their tenuous hold on power.

You drop to your bed with far too much faith in it and already regret the potent scent of alcohol on your breath that addles your mind and forces you to wander back to your betrayal. There's not much else you can call it.

Even as you try to squeeze your eyes shut and vanish the image from your tired mind, the confusion lingers against your will. You thought you were your mother's lucky charm. You had been so since the Archon War, to your knowledge, but you lost many of your fragile memories to the sands of time. Something changed while you weren't looking, and her gaze shifted from you to her goals.

Nobody won.

Nobody won...

You have always wondered what she met. You thought it was because the people were at a point of unrest you feared they wouldn't return from, but no one is left to remember the old gods now. You are instead struck by the ghost of your own blindness. You had ventured to the Abyss so many times and lived for so many years that you fell out of touch with her in a way. Even as you did everything to preserve her love for you, it disappeared.

It couldn't have happened in an instant.

You just don't know when it started or at what point it ended, both of which gnaw at your mind incessantly like a parasite that threatens to consume you whole. You dwell on what may never be answered in an attempt to understand something that cannot be understood. You have never been good at avoiding the bad habits of chasing ghosts, even if you fooled yourself into believing otherwise.

Each passing day forces you to wonder if it has anything to do with the many people who died under your command or were distorted by the Abyss during your expeditions. You struggle to imagine it has anything to do with anyone but yourself. You thought you were exactly who she wanted you to be, but perhaps you weren't. Whatever the reason, it escapes you.

You pile your armour off and leave it beside the bed with a touch more respect than you've ever had for it; your helmet carefully stands on the nightstand where you hope it does not fall and collapse back into the bed, eager to escape such vision of before.

You have no desire to remember the days when your hands were smaller, and you could barely reach the handles on the palace doors or fit your suit of armour. Those were the days you never once doubted her affection, though you feared she was pulling away. You looked into the eyes of a weathered old man and saw competition where he mourned his fallen nation as he was forced to linger in a world ruled by the very gods that had caused it to crumble.

You never understood his weakness. By then, though small, you had forgotten what it felt like to be an ant on the mountain where gods battled.

[shamebats]

Every doomsday prepper would disagree with me on this but I fully believe that that in a civilization collapse type scenario a guy living alone out in the woods with tons of supplies who's terrified of everyone and a huge asshole would not do that much better than a mostly loveable but often annoying gayboy who can mend clothes by hand, is good at conflict de-escalation & has a lot of knowledge of weird internet drama from the before times. I'm very confident that people would inherently want to keep me around as sort of jester figure.

[rainbow-starlight]

Why is Help Wanted 2 Sun… Like That?

Okay, I’ve been putting off making this post until I felt like I had a better idea of what was going on, and now that I’ve watched at least part of a play-through and gone over the lines a whole bunch, I think I’m ready.

I’m gonna talk about my thoughts on Sun as a character as well as HW2 as a whole here, so it’ll be a bit long. Pop some popcorn or something.

Please keep in mind that this is all my personal opinion and you’re free to disagree with it! In fact, if you think I’m totally wrong, please tell me why. I love new perspectives!

SO! Let’s get right into it, shall we?

First things first: Help Wanted 2 Sun is not the same guy as Security Breach/Ruin Sun. If his personality difference was significant enough to surprise you, that’s because he’s a different person.

I’m not entirely sure how much of Help Wanted 2 is meant to be actually happening, but I think that at least the mini games are training simulations.

However, it’s important to note that a lot of the stuff happening in the mini games is just… nonsense. How did Freddy get frozen like that? What’s with those regular batteries in his arms? Why are half the supplies in first aid explicitly for robots and not humans? Why is there a shredder table in the daycare for kids to stick fingers into?

Some of this can be shrugged off with the usual “FazCo is meant to be comedically shitty and the tech often doesn’t make sense anyway,” but the first aid simulation is what really stood out to me. Even with the previous explanations, that doesn’t explain the calming gas mask that could only ever fit Helpy or the steel wool scrubber or the tank cleaner spray bottle among the medical supplies. If the goal is to train new first aid staff to avoid lawsuits, it’s doing a pretty poor job of it. So… what is it for?

I touched on this idea previously with my post about Sun’s AI being trained on kids’ artwork. The idea of FazCo making a silly new employee training game as a means of harvesting behavioral data to train their AIs seems very within their realm of scummy.

This is why the Arts & Crafts mini game exists. It’s literally a task that requires exact copying. Maybe it’s essentially like teaching an AI to solve captchas by feeding it a bunch of data on how humans solve them correctly and incorrectly.

Maybe its presence is explained to employees as fun practice with the VR system or a break activity during training or something.

This would explain several things about the game.

The existence of the shredder table and Sun shredding literally ALL of your artwork: It being a funny way to despawn the stuff you make is a lot more reasonable when that’s exactly what it’s for in-universe, too. The generators in the play structures are unsafe enough, but that would’ve been on another level if it were real.

Sun’s line “Be creative on your own time, we are making ART!” It literally isn’t a creative activity, it’s a task. I know you can’t really apply logic to a lot of FNAF stuff, especially the DCA’s design, but if Sun were actually this detail-oriented and perfectionistic with everything, he’d never be able to function in childcare.

The fact that Sun’s “fear” of the dark seems like a bit. It literally is a bit. There’s no threat, it’s not real. I originally thought he just wanted the player out of his space faster and didn’t know how to assert a boundary there, but I think it’s actually just to make the player finish the tasks faster for data collection purposes.

Possibly also why he’s so comfortable being casually rude to the player. He is a jester, after all, and the player has lots of opportunities to do things they shouldn’t, too. It’s basically all a bit.

Also… what if the minigames have versions of the base AIs in there? It’s a version of the Sun AI with the theater programming and the basics of the childcare stuff? His entire existence is a shitty little simulation where he runs a singular activity for grown adults who can’t (or won’t) follow very simple instructions.

The biggest thing that’s been bothering me about the takes I’ve seen regarding HW2 Sun’s personality is that people have been calling him “mean” while completely ignoring the circumstances he’s reacting to. If a coworker came into my personal space and I was so generous as to share my favorite activity with them and they proceeded to intentionally ignore the rules I set and EAT SUPPLIES I USE FOR WORK? Yeah, no, I’d react like that too.

There’s definitely something interesting about how genuinely excited and happy Sun sounds when first welcoming his new friend the player to the daycare and inviting them to Arts & Crafts vs. when they return. He seems like he WANTS to befriend the player, but the game just assumes you’ll be upsetting him so there’s no option for dialogue where you’re nice to him and respect his boundaries and participate in an activity with him in a way he’s comfortable with.

I say “in a way he’s comfortable with” because he is a little weird about the whole “sit right there and DON’T MOVE” thing. He does seem actually excited and enthusiastic about the idea of shooting darts at the items you want so he can get them for you, though. Maybe because he sees it as a happy compromise, or maybe because it’s supposed to be a fun part of the game he’s programmed to be in charge of.

I saw some other commentary on Sun (primarily thinking of @kazzykatt) talking about how he seems almost excessively self-sufficient, and how this could possibly be due to neglect (he and Moon definitely aren’t as well cared for as the other animatronics, the generators in the daycare are a very lazy fix for actually reprogramming Moon properly, he seems bitter that he can’t fix the carousel on his own and he and Moon don’t seem to trust the player to fix it, their design is clearly better suited to the stage but didn’t get changed for the daycare, I could go on and on), and this would also explain his control issues to an extent.

Sun, in SB and HW2, doesn’t leave the daycare. He has so little that he’s in control of in his own life. He used to be on stage (and based on his dialogue probably misses it quite a lot) but had the job he was built for taken from him. He’s a perfectionist that’s constantly overwhelmed by too many things being marked top priority in his system, working too many hours with too many small children. Of course he’d be desperate to hold onto any little bit of control he has.

Honestly, when I first heard his voice lines, the initial vibe I got wasn’t “wow they made Sun mean” but “wow Sun sounds actually miserable” and I’m kind of surprised more people didn’t pick up on that. He sounds less bitchy and more like he’s lashing out because he’s trapped in an awful situation that’s completely out of his hands.

“Wait, are you saying none of HW2’s characterization should be taken seriously?”

You might be asking that, but my answer is a resounding NO! This is definitely still a Sun, and I think seeing two different Suns (even if we don’t know how much of HW2’s personality we can assume is meant to be taken seriously) is really helpful for interpreting what the base Sun personality might have.

It’s also important to keep in mind that none of the Suns we’ve seen were in a good situation. Security Breach Sun had the virus, Ruin Sun had gone slightly mad from isolation, and HW2 Sun is stuck in a shitty simulation babysitting bored adult staff as they fail to complete simple tasks. What we mostly know about him is how he responds to stress, and this is why there’s so much room for interpretation!

Here’s some traits I think every version of the Sun AI would have.

Love of making things. Despite everything, HW2 Sun seems to genuinely love doing arts & crafts. Especially with googly eyes. This could kind of be assumed from SB Sun, but he was also trying to entertain/bribe a child.

On this note… interest in fixing things? Maybe he just wants to avoid having to rely on staff, but if he and Moon are subject to that much neglect, it makes sense that he’d try to learn to do repairs himself. I saw @pixelchills talking about the possibility that the S.T.A.F.F. Bots in the DCA’s room are not there because Moon broke them, but because Moon collected them for Sun to practice fixing. It seems feasible to me, especially since taking something apart and putting it back together might have the same calming and satisfying effect on Sun as completing something like a paint-by-numbers.

Playful insults and lots of drama. I don’t mean actual rudeness, I mean friendly teasing. Again, he is a jester. A lot of his HW2 insults come across more like this. Hell, even his compliments come across like this with the delivery and immediate shredding. He’s just a theater kid at heart.

Difficulty regulating emotions under pressure. This is the kind of thing that would pop up on his worst days (such as being trapped in his destroyed home with a poor connection to his badly damaged physical form while the only help he’s seen in ages ignores his instructions and puts their own safety at risk, or being trapped in a shitty simulation while his only company ignores his instructions and puts their own safety at risk). He’d have to be able to manage this sort of thing better to work well with children, but everyone’s got their bad days. He’s prone to outbursts and tantrums when he’s overwhelmed and unable to stop people from breaking the rules and/or hurting themselves.

People pleasing and nonconfrontational. Yes, HW2 Sun, too. SB Sun seems genuinely desperate to make sure Gregory’s having a good time, and HW2 Sun is shockingly tolerant of some of the player’s bullshit (ex. how he tries to laugh off them shooting darts at him/throwing things). Even calling the player “good friend” when he’s not so happy to see them or threatening them with Moon instead of just telling them their time is almost up seem like signs of this to me. And letting the player make arts and crafts in the ruined daycare in HW2? Yeah, that’s a people pleaser through and through. Sun needs a lesson in setting boundaries (and for those boundaries to actually be respected).

Perfectionistic + “if you want something done right, you’ve gotta do it yourself” attitude. This would mostly manifest in how he completes work tasks, but I think every Sun’s incredibly detail-oriented and would rather do everything themselves just to make sure it’s exactly how they want. This could manifest in lots of ways, from “insulting the staff for how they put things away and telling them to do it again while he supervises” to “politely thanking them for their help and complimenting their hard work only to redo everything himself the moment they’re gone.” I think where on that spectrum you wind up is dependent on the version of Sun you’re interacting with and the environment his personality developed in.

High-energy and social! A given, of course. He never stops moving and everything is always so exciting. New people are friends he hasn’t met yet until proven otherwise.

Love of pranks… to an extent. Again, jester! I stand by my headcanon of Sun and Moon conspiring to convince the staff Moon’s some sort of spooky monster whenever he’s not actively dangerous. As long as he’s not making a mess, breaking the rules, throwing himself off-schedule, or actually hurting anyone? He’s all over it.

Anxiety. This seems like it’s at least partially caused by the lazy daycare reprogramming. All the Suns we’ve encountered seem to lack knowledge of how to actually get children to behave. It seems more like they programmed him with a bunch of games and activities and then set a bunch of super high-priority tasks for him such as “keep kids safe, keep kids happy, keep kids entertained, keep daycare clean” etc. and he’s unable to really prioritize so he’s just constantly overwhelmed.

Kinda always using “childcare voice.” If you know anyone who’s worked with kids, you know what I mean here. Even with adults, he talks to them like kids sometimes, just because it’s what he knows and what he’s used to and because his processor’s fried from however many hours a week he’s surrounded by kids. Consider his reactions to when you eat the crafts as an example. (IMPORTANT NOTE: I don’t think he’d coddle adults like children. It’s more about tone and vocabulary, like “customer service voice”.)

Stickler for rules. He cares about things being done right! The rules are there for a reason! Order is important to him (probably in no small part because it keeps him out of trouble and reduces his stress).

That’s about all I can think of for now, but as someone who writes a very friendly and sweet Sun, I actually don’t think HW2’s characterization was that far off from what I had already assumed based on Ruin/SB. The only difference is that the Sun I’m usually writing is in a much more supportive environment with lots of helpful staff that care about his well-being. If he didn’t have that, I could absolutely see him becoming more like HW2.

I will finish this off with two final important points:

Being an emotional person and liking “childish” things does not make an adult less of an adult.

(He’s a childcare worker, c’mon.)

If someone gets pissed off after being repeatedly antagonized, that does not make them a “mean/bitchy/sassy person.”

(Yeah, he doesn’t handle it gracefully, but to be fair, I wouldn’t either in his shoes.)

Thank you all for reading!!

[utilitycaster]

I'm confused. Did I miss anything? Or am I wrong about the fact that when Molly died half the team had been taken? They didn't have the power level to teleport anywhere. They were in the middle of nowhere? By the time they got anywhere with his body it would be too late? Then when they finally got the chance to get Molly back the fracturing was so vast it that it was a game of chance and they got Kingsley instead. Which isn't a mistake it is how stuff works.

so I will admit it's tough to vague - a thing I fully support - without crossing the line into like, openly screenshotting people to talk about how bad their posts are, which is pretty hostile and I will not do it unless someone is either horribly bigoted, or has done it to me, in which case, well, fuck around find out.

The precise context was not that it was a mistake for Molly to die but that it was a mistake not to have the opportunity to bring him back.

Here is the thing, and here's why I made this post. Taliesin could have brought him back. Taliesin could have said "Matt, I'm really not ready to let go of Molly, though I know death rules in the game are what they are; could there be a cleric in the Savalirwood with Raise Dead so at least there's a chance?" And instead of Caduceus we'd have a different random guy in the woods, and they'd have brought Molly's body to them, and they'd have done some fetch quest to get materials, or they would have found a scroll that Jester could attempt to read, or something like that, and there would have been a resurrection.

Molly could have come back at the end of the campaign too. Taliesin decided that the premise of the character was such that he wouldn't, and instead brought in Kingsley. Again: this is Taliesin's choice.

This is also ignoring the constant argument from Molly fans that Caduceus "didn't want to be there". Like, yeah, Caduceus did have a lot of issues with being an adventurer, which was a great character choice; but you're a fucking idiot if you think that Taliesin did not choose to keep playing Caduceus. Like, we've all seen Tary; if Taliesin said "hey, I want to revisit Molly actually, I'm done playing Caduceus" I do think that would have happened. Like, I do not think you can nor should say "well the dice did that so it's above question," but I think you can say "if Taliesin had really wanted Molly back, an opportunity, if not a guarantee, would have been provided by Matt."

I very much do not agree with the idea that disagreeing with player choices is disrespectful. You shouldn't harass them on Twitter but I think it's readily apparent I think you can say "yeah I disliked that move" and feel zero guilt. But there's this truly incomprehensible refusal among this stripe of fan to admit that the guy who developed and created Molly and who was deeply affected by his death also said "and I think his story is that he died and he stayed dead."

[essektheylyss]

for the ask game: 🧡🖤💚

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

Until I see definitive proof that Ludinus is in fact as old as he wants people to believe he is, I will not believe it. I don't even really have an opinion on how old he is; I just don't think he's as old as he tries to suggest. And lest it be said that I am playing favorites, the thing about Ludinus is that he talks the way Essek talks in 91—and there are a lot of things Essek says at that dinner that I take with a good heaping of salt. It's this sense that they're talking around things that they would rather people not question; they're both very skilled at talking around things in a way where they aren't outright lying, but they'd rather you not think too hard about it because there's shit they're not saying. To be clear I also won't be mad if there does turn out to be some evidence in canon that he is that old, but thus far, there is nothing definitive, and I do not take the word of unreliable NPCs at face value.

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

I don't think this is really an unpopular opinion at this point, but Jester. Nice =/= good. I don't think she's evil, by any means! But her morality is a lot more complex than it's given credit for and I think it's one of the things that is most interesting about her. I'd actually consider her largely amoral; it's just not really an axis of consideration that she worries about. She doesn't want people to hurt her or her friends and she doesn't want something to destroy the world, but otherwise she doesn't really care much about what someone's morality is. "Just don't be evil to me" is an incredible sentiment for a reason. She cares more that Essek said they were his friends than the fact that he's the traitor they've been looking for. Ludinus is so insignificant to her despite his literally world-spanning evil plots that she has basically forgotten him six years later, even though two members of her friend group have spent the last six years trying to pin him down. Jester is hilariously amoral and I love that for her.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

[cracks knuckles] OKAY, this is where I've got receipts, because hooo boy do I have an opinion and I will be proving it.

Essek does not have an opinion on the Prime Deities. He does not really have much of an opinion on religion. He actually does not by the end of the campaign have any real issue with the Luxon, and frankly he primarily expressed issue with the Dynasty's worship because, until he got to Aeor, he wasn't certain that the Luxon was a real entity at all—which he contrasts against the Prime Deities, in fact!—and he seems to believe there is compelling evidence in Aeor that categorically disproves his hypothesis that the beacons are simply constructed Age of Arcanum devices.

Originally he is mostly concerned that the Luxon religion is used as a "crutch" which is "distracting them from what other good things they could do with the time and focus". He does specify that any religion can be used as such, but he only remarks upon the one he knows. His theory about the beacons, as of episode 91, is that they may be "artifacts designed in the Age of Arcanum that have been misread" that could be put to even further use.

He also does parrot the Dynasty party line in their first meeting about the Luxon being "the basis of how we've been able to free ourselves from the binds of the lineage the Betrayer Gods left for us", and while I do not take him at face value here (see the above commentary about unreliable NPCs), I doubt the truth of this statement is lost on him, considering his familial connections to Bazzoxan, which I can only imagine would not exactly endear one to the Betrayers, though this is only conjecture. If we do care to take him at his word here, it's not unreasonable, since he obviously has a lot more interest in the power offered by the beacons than anything else.

With all that being said, his tune on the Luxon itself has at least changed by the time they get to Aeor. He discusses iconography found in Aeor and when prompted by the Nein about whether the beacons were created by mortals, says, "I do not believe that they are made by anyone but the Luxon. They are of the Luxon. But they've been around since the Luxon's been in Exandria, which is the beginning."

So we started with him largely apathetic to religion, uncertain if this god was real, and by the time we circle back to him, he has now sided fairly definitively with the fact that the Luxon is an entity that has been around since at least the Founding. (For those keeping track at home, this is longer than Predathos has been around. In the Dynasty's creation myth, it may also have been around before the Prime Deities arrived, which is technically not incompatible with the creation myth of Exandria at large, but I digress.) Like most of Exandria, and as is perfectly reasonable for both his culture and his region, he probably doesn't have any love for the Betrayer Gods, but doesn't express much opinion if any on the Prime Deities. He has no time for religion, but frankly, he doesn't have time for much except for his own research, so it's hard to really ascribe any noted contempt to that.

Like, look, I've written plenty of religious trauma Essek fic, and I don't doubt that that element of it exists, but overall, in terms of canonical statements, it's pretty tame.

With that being said, I do want to fast forward a bit to draw attention to something else. Because I actually do think he ends the campaign with some measure of respect for, at the very least, the Wildmother.

In 140 after the Raise Dead fails, he talks briefly with Fjord about the unfairness of it. Fjord passively directs him to "if you were to ask my wise friend Caduceus..." Immediately after this exchange, Essek challenges Caleb to not accept defeat, and admits he wishes there was more that he or any of them could do, but concedes that, "Unfortunately, this type of magic is beyond my purview."

Immediately after this exchange, Caduceus asks for divine intervention.

Of course, he then spends several weeks gardening in a temple to the Wildmother, and seems to find some genuine clarity and perspective there, but I think this alone is enough to argue that, for a person as driven by empirical evidence as Essek, this sequence of events in 140 would be plenty to earn a wizard's respect.

So my formal belief is that Essek is not in fact anti-god or anti-religion, let alone against the Prime Deities. My opinion is that it's very easy to imagine him on his post-campaign travels leaving a small offering at any shrine of Melora he might pass, not out of actual worship but as a sign of respect.