WELCOME TO HSR BRAIN ROT CLUB! HAPPY TO HAVE YOU HERE.
I do want to hear your thoughts about Aventurine, his connection to the Mask Fools and what it means to turn down an invite to the Tarven. >:3c
So the thing about the Masked Fools is, and I'm taking this verbatim, is that "the Fools believe that the truth of the world is a joke, and that the ultimate meaning of all things lies in mere laughter," which taken from the in-game database. The Masked Fools, as followers of Elation, think that nothing matters because it's all inevitable, or, to quote Monty Python, "Life is just a show so keep 'em laughing as you go," etc, etc. There's no point in it, there's no greater meaning, and not in the Nihility way of nothing mattering, but in the entropy way? Nihility is about irrelevance, not irreverence, and about futility. Elation is knowing that and laughing in the face of it because if nothing matters, then neither does despair.
Aventurine does not believe the world is a joke or he wouldn't be taking it so seriously. He may treat it that way, and he may think he believes that, but compare him to, say, Sparkle, and the difference is pretty clear. Sparkle, the most manipulative and scheming of all the fools we've seen, also has a tendency towards wagers that play with fire (Russian Roulette, much?) so she's a great example. However, we also see that she's more opportunistic than scheming, like with her offer to Sunday, and is in it for the entertainment, not the potential benefits.
The difference I'm really seeing here is stakes. We don't know what Sparkle stands to lose but I'm gonna go with nothing, or very little. Contrarywise, Aventurine lives by "go big or home," except he can't go home so he has to go big. I'm honestly not even convinced he enjoys gambling (and I have proof but that's for a different essay). He wagers because is audacious, it's unignorable, and it's the fastest and easiest way to get what he wants, and it's also something that once he wins, he can wave off as not something to do with him. It's all down to luck, after all, and his is better than yours, but maybe yours will be better next time; care to try again? And, as we've seen in the most recent text message convo he sends you, he can use a loss offensively. It's about the presentation!!!
All this to say, I think the Fools respect Aventurine because he's out here being visibly chaotic and audacious and they appreciate anyone laughing in the face of fate and deciding they can do it better. I think Aventurine does not respect the Fools because they're literally playing a game and he's not. He has a goal, he has stakes, and he has lost once before; he knows what it is to lose and that it hurts. They're not taking his art seriously because they literally cannot, and the fact that he has something to lose means he could never be a proper Fool.
All that said, I don't think there's any consequences to turning down the Tavern, if he was ever even invited--and that's an if because he went straight from genocide to slavery to the IPC and has been a model employee since. Though, like, imagine you're a giant company and this one high-ranking manager keeps getting public invites to join your local fatalistic anarchy group; just--just imagine that performance review, that would be hilarious to explain.