;-- random play wouldn’t be random play without wise and, hell, i can confidently say that without belle, random play would still top. whoa, slander on my favorite blueberry? nah, it’s just evaluating the psychology between the two siblings and how they function in society. see, without belle, random play lacks liveliness, quirkiness, and uniqueness. she offers the “loud” side to the store and is the face of the business with her constantly taking care of customer service more than her brother. she is friendly and easy going, always a smile on her face, and someone people can ease up to and hold a conversation with. she also is the top dog in terms of the horror genre, so without her, horror would be out of the question. people love belle, bangboos do too. belle brings in the customers and keeps them loyal.
but wise maintains the store. he is the one handling things from behind the scenes. he’s the one balancing their budget every month to make sure they can pay off their bills and other expenses. he’s the one making sure repairs are done in the building itself, contacting and staying in touch with enzo next door to help out with that. he’s the one editing videos that he records or belle brings to him for advertisements. he’s the one making flyers to post around new eridu. he’s the one to make sure each employee gets paid accordingly and manages their hours. he also makes sure volunteers get their compensation for offering their time. he does inventory, he contacts people who have tapes they want to donate, he makes sure the store has what it needs to keep it afloat. this man has several business books to help guide him when he gets stuck. owning a business is hard work.
but he can also speak well with customers, his soft nature is easy for those who might not like to socialize. he is well versed in the movies he promotes ( minus horror ), he loves chit chatting about plots and the directory a movie takes. he can make someone feel heard and welcomed in a warmer way than his sister can. he just has this comfortable vibe to him that lures people in, almost like people sitting around a campfire to listen to his stories. not to mention he is the one who wakes up really early to make preparations for the day while belle wakes up around noon at the latest.
wise is more than capable of handling the store on his own with the addition of bangboos and fairy to provide assistance, but his sister adds color to random play plus she also does her own heavy lifting in terms of gathering tapes from abandoned video stores, thrifting, or even fetching them from hollows when available. she also does her own promotion by being her outgoing self and selfishly advertising her store when the opportunity is golden. she charms people into checking them out, she’s too cute to be ignored. when her brother isn’t feeling his best, she takes responsibility, probably not as good as him but she does her best. and it always works out in the end.
besides, while wise’s skills serve beautifully for random play to flourish, belle’s skills lie in proxy work where she’s the one taking charge. and i can reverse their roles here too with belle being the shining star as wise is the supporting role. at least in my version of lore, wise is more at home behind the screen where he can calculate, see numbers and big fancy words scroll through his monitors, and conduct high end performance assessments. he enjoys being in the passenger seat in proxy work bc a lot of those skills he hones as he works on random play. and his role aint no joke either bc him being there to help his sister has helped tremendously from redirecting hollow routes, transcribe readings belle can’t fully understand, and keeping his sister safe by helping her not get too overstimulated and calming her down. there’s been moments belle couldn’t complete a commission bc she got too overwhelmed and wise was there to finish it for her while she took a breather. so yeah, wise’s second in command role is very crucial.
belle thrives in proxy work, her implants are more advanced than her brother’s so it’s of no surprise. being an extrovert, exploring hollows is her cup of tea and being able to communicate with agents and clients alike gives her an outlet to let all that energy she has out. she loves navigation, loves seeing new sights, likes being in the field of action ( though kinda scary still ). she is a very hands on type of gal, is very intelligent in terms of hollow topology and mapping routes out, very precise and keen with her observations and orders that have saved countless lives with her quick thinking, and people overall just feel super safe being around her. plus with her new abilities to literally hack into certain systems to either maneuver bangboo tech, distort or glitch out interference to cause system failures, and even spy on people via camera feed AND her ability to “birth” and tame pyrois faster than her brother can puts her at the top on terms of proxy work like goddamn. what other proxy can do that?
( in my lore pyrois does get “birthed” from wise due to an overheat in his own system after he touched thaumiel but can’t tame them as well as belle can when she was pulled in to try and contain them in order to help her brother and a bunch of other details im still working on to fit my lore blep but wise is slowly getting there too in terms on his own proxy prowess to be just as good as belle’s )
but overall, these two have their strengths, and it is safe to say that one cannot live without the other idgaf about what i said earlier with wise being able to run random play on his own no wtf. past me isn’t real ignore all of that i was just lying. phaethon is a tango of two, not one, and anyone who tells me otherwise will get speared by pyrois and shanked by eous, 18, and 6.
