#thought it would be an interesting twist on why Smiler might wear the mask

[victorluvsalice]

A “Valicer Of The Opera” Thought

This one’s for @stretch-time, in reference to the “Valicer Of The Opera” AU that we discussed back in March. Specifically, I came up with an idea for why the Smiler in that AU would wear a mask! As previously mentioned in the thread, I liked the idea of that AU being a sort of cyberpunky/set-in-the-future-with-robots-and-stuff AU, with Smiler being an android who is hiding out in the opera house for some reason and playing “ghost” to pass the time. My original idea for them wearing a mask a la Erik was that their face might be damaged in some way to make the fact that they’re a robot obvious -- but now I’ve got another idea in mind. One that relates a little more to the coaster and its themeing. It goes a little like this --

-->Smiler is an android made by Dr. Kelman and the Ministry of Joy, for the purposes of brainwashing people into social compliance. They’ve got the ability to breathe Giggler Gas, inject people with hidden stores of Joy Serum, and hypnotize people with their eyes.

-->Something happens to convince Smiler that, uh, maybe Dr. Kelman and the Ministry shouldn’t be in charge of making people happy, and they run away, ending up hiding beneath the opera house.

-->And then they try to interact with someone -- only to discover the hypnotizing effect of their eyes can’t be turned off. Basically, if they make eye contact with someone, that someone is going into trance. Good for quickly convincing people to ignore them or allow the “opera ghost” to stay in the opera house; bad for having just normal conversations.

-->Result? Smiler makes a full-face mask with the fun swirly-eyed logo and pretends it’s just part of their aesthetic, when it’s also to protect people from their gaze.

So yeah -- Smiler’s just trying not to hypnotize everyone they meet! Which -- is kind of the opposite of what the coaster does, but you should be used to my Smilers having ethics by now. :p