⚓️: he/him. i like lunime (specifically gacha world), DOL, boondocks, and paswg. im familiar with deltarune. ✌️ i love talking about character building and development most. i also enjoy roleplay. my tag is #⚓️
gigantophi: hi! i like lunime, cup head, and deltarune. My tag is 🔬
I have such a complicated relationship with Tela, because in my mind's space there's a scale, one heavy weight of how much I love her addition... And also the small but extremely extremely bothersome weight of her being part of some Un-gay The Cyko Campaign.
Tela wasn't actually made at the time of Cykopath Birth, she was made a few years back as a part of Gacha League (now Gachaverse). She actually was designed also with having the same bracelets the rest of the Neon Lunatics have, so it seems she was always intended to be related to their group in some way. The other added characters to Cyko Birth don't have any past existence as I know of so Tela's actually the most reasonable character to have been added to Cyko Birth.
That part is pretty well compounded by the fact that she's the most relevant added character, and she actually leads the resistance, so it doesn't feel like she was just added in to fill up space. I honestly felt like at times some of the added characters just filled up space (not Myo). I think honestly she might be almost too relevant because of the fact she basically orchestrates nearly everything. But, I also have to admit that it might just be the prose falling flat that makes it feel like nobody else really did that much? Cyko Birth is at times hard to criticize because I don't necessarily just have a problem with the portrayal of topics, or the message sent, because it really is just a character backstory book.
Tela ends up falling pretty one-dimensionally as being a serene girl who ultimately sacrifices herself to help the others escape the laboratory, but she doesn't come off as being particularly interesting. Her characteristics mostly fall around her explicit role to lead the revolution and help the children in Project RNG escape the experiments, but just as the others are written, there is nothing negative about her that makes you feel she's a realistic person to learn more about. Her death is sad because it's so factually sad, and I wish she was given more development so she was memorable.
They couldve played into her taking the leadership role at a young age, especially since her Gacha League quote was basically "ahh get the voices out my head". I literally break into hives when I think of the Cyko and Tela romance, but considering the "Path" part of Cykos name is meant to represent the path he takes as he descrnds into immorality, and Telas Gacha League version is "Telapath" their relationship would have been more fascinating. Not only would Tela get more depth but it would play more into the themes of how their powers are gained by trauma.
Given that the abilities themselves are a symbol, Tela and Cyko both experiencing side effects of mental illness would continue the themes. Tela, being also the backbone of the entire escape, would have a really meaningful sacrifice because it could be more than the good in her heart. Being the "Neon Lunatics", if she were to have been already in her own mind dead, then her sacrifice is so much more impactful because someone who loved them so much, and was the pinnacle of strength in their life, was still only a child in the face of dehumanization and torture.
Her death becomes also the truth of how abuse takes away the ability for people to see past their own trauma, even when they can see the good that still remains in their similarly traumatized friends, and how her sacrifice also meant never growing to see if she could have found life again beyond Project RNG. As someone who is extremely biased towards the idea of Cyko Birth including mostly preteens/teenage Neon Lunatics rather than child Neon Lunatics,
So while Tela herself isn't honestly anything to call home about, I feel like as an avid Neon Lunatics fan, there was so much more opportunity in her character that went unused. She really had some of the best potential to be added as a meaningful character to the story of the Neon Lunatics, expanding their back stories as an actual part of the Gacha World universe, going beyond just the Neon Lunatics as a unit group.
But anyways, in my head she would be very much at the very edge of keeping it together, with occasional episodes of severe migraines and panic attacks. Then eventually the calm before the storm, where they've finally got their plan to get out, and she's more ready to die for freedom than she is ready to be free.
