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about reverse 1999: i’ve always wondered what the different types of damage symbolise. mental versus reality. i always assumed that isolde (my fav and my main) would be mental damage because of, yknow everything about her lore and character but surprisingly, she was reality
Hello!
Honestly, mental vs reality damage has always been super interesting to me. But now that I lost interest in the game and haven't been keeping up with it, all I can remember about it are the usual mentions in the Tutorial Notebook and even that is just crumbs!
If you guys have more insight and mentions of type of damage within the story or other aspects of the game, feel free to add to this post!
The screenshot above says:
Our minds and materials in reality affect each other. Arcane skills can use 2 kinds of damage: Reality Damage and Mental Damage.
- Introduction to Arcane Skills, Chapter 2
Some enemies are particularly agile. Certain damage can't hurt them. Please keep in mind the type of each incantation and select the proper one.
Mental and Reality ... We can't have it both ways, right?
With this we can easily gleam some stuff; there's a direct connection between both types of damage that parallels the way Afflatus works, they directly "affect each other." They're also mutually exclusive, "we can't have it both ways," but these don't seem to be mutable traits within people like Afflatus is. Someone's Afflatus can change if their perspective and ideals change over the course of their life, such as Kakania, but I don't recall any character having mechanics that make them switch between these two damage types.
The text also says that arcane skills have these damage categorizations, which might lead us to believe that it's exclusively an arcanist thing. This is easy to dispel by looking at all the playable humans within the game--Kassandra is Reality, while Aleph is Mental. No playable humans were released when the game came out, so I assume this is mostly an oversight or just not an issue, since humans have small little differences like having "Reasoning" instead of "Resonance."
Then there is the aspect of agility, implying it's a strictly physical thing like if you're fast enough you can probably avoid Reality attacks, or perhaps Mental attacks are slower and so on. I would like to bring up that the enemies found within the tutorial have buffs like these, which specifically negate any non-Ultimate attacks of their own type of damage. So there is something else here!
This is a small tangent, but I swear its related!
I wholeheartedly believe that the incantations each character possesses can reveal a lot about their personality, way of thinking and story overall--each incantation has little tidbits of text that develop as the rank rises, some are references to actual media that might've been used as basis or inspiration, but I don't think this diminishes its importance and how it might relate to the character in question. Not only that, we have Ultimates, their most powerful attack, which I see as the core of a character and what they represent overall--hence why these are usually the attacks that enemies cannot avoid.
I've brought up incantations and their relevance in a few of my previous analysis, so allow me to bring up some examples again! These screenshots were taken from the fandom wikia because I'm too lazy to open the game lol.
Pavia is a MENTAL damage character, and his Ultimate is the following:
Nosier Than Me
Split the shadow to reveal the offspring nurtured within. They'll be feared as a pack of wolves by the mortals.
This Ultimate clearly references Pavia's background as a child forced to grow up in his aunt's basement in complete darkness, where it's implied that he developed his shadow arcanum which he now uses to manifest a pack of wolves. The animation is him summoning these very same wolves to attack, before launching himself into the fray as well. "They'll be feared as a pack of wolves by the mortals," the phrase alone also invokes a feeling of separation between the pack and humanity, perhaps also a separation between Pavia himself and humanity--which is referenced and further developed in his Beast Afflatus, relating to the struggle of the underdog against a system.
We can even go a step further and analyze what the Ultimate itself does; it hurts a single targeted enemy, but it also heals Pavia himself. Note that Pavia is one of the few characters who benefits from his teammates dying, further hinting towards how he thrives when alone.
Now let's see a different character.
Lucy is a REALITY damage character, and her Ultimate is the following:
A Step Forward
By changing ourselves, we have the power to change the world.
Lucy's Ultimate references the story within 1.9 Vereinsamt, in which she sacrifices herself over and over to negate all side-effects of La Una Cirklo for the sake of humanity--she changes, she's reversed over and over and she comes back in her most primitive form. She goes through change not only here, but in her daily life as well; Lucy, as an Awakened defined by and rooted in progress, must change alongside the world that created her.
While I don't have to say a lot about her animation, the mechanics behind her Ultimate continue to point towards a much deeper reading of the characters. The status of [Pragmatist] causes all allied Afflatus to be stronger against the enemy, as if they followed the proper order of Afflatus relations. She gains the [Leadership] buff as well, all hinting towards her role in guiding humanity towards a better outcome, which lines up with all the hard choices she is forced to make for the greater good, all while learning from her peers.
This entire tangent serves to insist that attacks and incantations matter beyond mechanics. It makes sense as to why non-Ultimates can be dodged if we understand Ultimates as the attack that most resonates with a character, the one thing that defines them. If attacks carry Afflatus, which relate to a character's entire life and ideals, struggles and thought patterns, then it makes sense that the type of damage they do carries the same weight.
So I think it's more fun to interpret certain enemies who can dodge certain types of damage the same way we see Afflatus. The tool or concepts a character uses to attack are simply not strong enough, not physically but perhaps metaphorically--some battles don't actually take place in a literal way, they're representations of a mental or emotional struggle, such as Artificial Somnambulist Therapy levels! But at the same time, most battles do happen, so in these cases it is definitely a matter of skill and arcane power.
When it comes to what these damages symbolize, my best guess with the limited information I have is that they're pretty much what their namesake implies!
Reality damage hurts you with the truth, the tangible, the things that are real. Mental damage hurts you with the abstract, the feelings, that which is imagined.
This would explain why characters like Isolde or Jessica, both rooted in horror and the mind, are Reality Damage instead. They are hurting you with things that are real, that cannot be denied.
Isolde's family arcanum might deal with ghosts, but they are allowing the spirits of people that lived to possess them--you are essentially confronting death through the women of the family, they're borrowing the skills of the dead, skills they should not have but now they do. When we focus on the story itself, both 1.7 E Lucevan le Stelle and 1.9 Vereinsamt, we see how she hurts not only Kakania but others around her in straightforward and physical ways. She shoots her own brother, she shoots Hoffman. She forces Kakania to confront the cold reality of never having truly understood her, committing horrible things that Kakania never thought her capable of because Kakania was blind to the truth.
On the other hand, Jessica quite literally turns the horrors of the mind into a reality, she creates a playground based around Blonney's stories and all of the horror tropes she's learned about during 1.2 A Nightmare at Green Lake. These two characters play with the aspect of illusion a lot (Jessica through roleplay and acting, Isolde through faking and masking) and, with their themes dealing with horror and mental illnesses, it makes sense as to why their type damage is difficult to grasp.
But this also goes the other way around, if they embody this type of damage then this means that they are most hurt by the opposite type.
This is easier to understand--Isolde is most hurt by Mental damage because her themes of mental illness and the treatment of women's "hysteria" in her era, her family's own history and so on and so forth. Her mind was, essentially, broken through trauma.
This is why Kakania is MENTAL damage, the type that hurts Isolde the most. Their respective mechanics and traits as playable characters continue to compliment and mirror each other as a way to emphasize their bond within the main story. Notice how both characters with these opposing damages affect each other; Kakania becomes suicidal after realizing that everything she did and stood for, namely her treatment of Isolde, was misguided, doing more harm than good. And then Isolde becomes near catatonic with grief when confronting the fact that Kakania will never see or treat her like she once did, how the one thing that bound them together (in her eyes, at least) cannot be salvaged.
I would like to invite everyone to look at their blorbo and analyze what their damage type might say about them!
You can get a lot of interesting reads, like how Tuesday is very obviously Mental damage because her modus operandi revolves around exploiting everyone else's deepest fears, but then her weakness to Reality damage might imply a more nuanced aspect of her background, having potentially survived the absolute massacre of her family and so on. Most members of Apeiron are Mental damage, not only the playables but the NPCs fought in some stages, even when some of them are affected by the Storm Syndrome! Recoleta, despite everything about her character pointing towards fiction and the barrier between reality and unreality, is Reality damage!
;R1999 JOE - "i won't pray for you (but i'll follow you anywhere)"
Knight!Joe x Reader
8.6k words
hurt/comfort, knight AU
The cold metal that protects and conceals him does very little to hide him from you─if you focus, you swear you could even see his expressions clear as day from under the helmet, under the mask that covers scarred, burnt skin, patterns and textures that you’ve committed to memory through gentle touches time and time again.
This is the knight of the common people, but you know him better as Joe.
long time no see! i've been very busy lately moving and managing zines and surviving and whatnot, but here's a secret santa gift for my friend panda!
this isnt a songfic but i did listen to “Toll (Dinner with the Duchess)” from Sorry We’re Closed for the 14 hours of dyonisian madness fever that it took to write this, and i love spreading Sorry We're Closed propaganda so go give it a listen for maximum vibes!
The world knows him as a knight of the people.
A knight that follows no king, wielding a sword that draws no blood; this is the classic tale of the common hero, a lowly farmboy that rose to become a symbol of hope for those like him.
The flag he serves belongs to no country; it is that of a tattered shirt, stained and frayed, patched and old after a hundred days of hard work under the sun; the beautiful colors of a well-loved tapestry, passed down from generations, each fiber woven with care and expertise; and the everchanging hues of the fields, from that honey-rich gold of wheat in the spring to the brown and barren soil in the winter, a cycle of bloom and rot.
And while others worship the fair hands of nobles─thin fingers, covered in enough gold and precious stones to feed an entire village─he worships the callouses on the hands of the elderly, the hands that fed him even when food was scarce, sharing what little they had with a smile on their face, the hands that toiled and dug deep into the earth so that he may grow up. The champion of the lost and needy, a neighbour to the sons of bakers, daughters of farmers, and all the children of a nation that can only reach upwards with their dirty fingers, to clutch at the fine velvet capes of nobles with nothing but a dream to their names.
To be seen. To be heard. To be saved. These are the people he will fight for.
But more often than not, those in power will trample over the needy without sparing a single glance. He’s seen this happen time and time again─as a victim himself, as an observer, as the perpetrator. All the crimes and injustice he’s witnessed over the years served as the fire that forged his blade, a glistening red-hot iron forever sheathed behind his back. It is a formidable weapon that he refuses to wield, not out of principle but fear.
The many titles he’s been given and the many stories of his exploits have grown larger than life, larger than him. Now that he’s known across the land as a rogue, there is a price for every offense─people sing his prayers and praise in hushed whispers, never in broad daylight where the aristocracy may hear. This knight is the man that liberated villages from the folly of tyrants, but could never keep the injustice from festering in every corner, nor cut the problem at its root. If he steps out of line now or allows anger to cloud his vision, the ones that will bear the consequences of his actions are those that look up to him for hope and salvation.
And that terrifies him to no end.
He knows better now, or at the very least he hopes so.
The cold metal that protects and conceals him does very little to hide him from you─if you focus, you swear you could even see his expressions clear as day from under the helmet, under the mask that covers scarred, burnt skin, patterns and textures that you’ve committed to memory through gentle touches time and time again.
This is the knight of the common people, but you know him better as Joe.
The city celebrates his return not with a grand parade, but with dozens of people gathering around him. They hold him steady when he wobbles off of his horse and when he insists that he needs no help despite the injuries he may carry, they open the doors to their houses so that he may sit and rest. Soon, the aroma of food lingers in the air and the initial panic subsides─worried faces are replaced with smiles as the knight speaks of his adventures to the children that stand on their tippy toes, enraptured by his tales, and they laugh when he enacts all of his special moves to defeat all the evildoers and beasts. Little by little, as the afternoon goes on, the crowd disperses with warm words and cheerful laughter.
You see him eat, raising the visor of his helmet just enough to reveal his mouth. The people have no riches to offer him, so they take care of him instead. And you know that he would continue to care for them, even if they didn’t. In your eyes, this big and heroic knight is no more than a man with a soft, childish heart─he doesn’t curse in front of women, he refuses food only to have his stomach rumble in betrayal. He picks his nose when no one looks, he loves the idea of a just society in which every voice is heard.
And he only discusses the cold and hard truth once every child has left the room.
From your hiding spot, perched atop a nearby tree, you have the perfect view to see the knight stand up and attempt to bring his plate over to the woman that housed him. You see him shift his weight from leg to leg, scratch the back of his neck only to realize he cannot do so with his armor still on..
After a moment, he says something to the couple in front of him, and the effect comes in ripples.
The man collapses on the nearest chair, covering his face, and the woman paces behind him, hands together in prayer. You can’t hear anything, but you don’t need to─these are the people he protects, sure, but these are your neighbours and friends too. You know about the empty spot in their dinner table, the empty bed on the second floor. You have talked to this woman before, she knows your favorite sweets by heart and all of her children know you as their dearest sibling figure. You have worked with this man before, he’s taught you small tricks here and there to make life easier, and he’s thanked you for looking after his kids. The children in their house are not theirs by blood, and yet they’re loved all the same. They bring you trinkets and stories, they hug your legs and beg that you play swords and dragons with them.
While you could never know what it’s like to lose a child, you know what it’s like to lose a friend─worse, to lose someone you wanted to see grow up healthily─and no matter how hard you try, a bitter knot forms in your throat in the shape of a name. Wizen. That small brat with the crooked smile and mischevous twinkle in those green eyes of his. The kid that swore to follow after Joe’s footsteps once he grows up, who pestered you for days on end to teach him how to swing a sword.
Two months ago, he disappeared without a trace.
Five months ago, it had been the blacksmith’s daughter, a few years younger than you, who shared with you in absolute secrecy that she was preparing to propose to her partner.. Eight months ago, it was one of the scholars that would tell you about all the intricacies of pottery across all the different countries he’s traveled to.
Further back still, you recall the names of all the missing people. Bianca, who taught you how to read people’s palms. Phoebe, whose interest in herbs led her to find the best tea blend in town. Dexter, the most unlucky and skittish man you’ve ever met. Maich. Cooper.
Paulina.
A part of you wants to believe in the good old cynical thoughts inching closer and closer, “I knew this would happen” is a much more easier pill to swallow than the death of all hope, even if done so to protect what’s left of your aching heart. You knew this would happen and yet you wanted to be proven wrong─you wanted this knight to live up to his legend and bring back a friend and neighbour, to know that there is someone keeping all of you from slipping between the cracks, from being lost in a world that cares but cannot save anyone in its cold indifference.
For a split second, you were part of the dream this knight had given everyone and forgotten the most important thing; he’s made of flesh and bone, like you. He’s flawed, stubborn, and he can’t do it all.
You don’t miss the way his broad and imposing silhouette fades to give way to a much more familiar sight. Joe stands awkwardly and out of place inside this cozy home, he can only rest a hand on their shoulders and promise to do better next time, even if he doesn’t believe in a better outcome. He’ll force himself to believe, one way or another.
With heavy steps and a heavier heart, Joe steps outside. And the world moves on.
It moves on regardless of the broken sobs behind those closed doors, it keeps on going, raging mercilessly through time. Inside, the world might as well have ended for that grieving couple. Outside, stragglers wave at Joe and go on about their routine as daylight fades. Grief is but a bubble that contains a single moment in time, it keeps you from experiencing the vertigo of the days passing by─one day, however, it must pop. You want to remain inside a little longer. Unconsciously, you wrap around your arms around yourself and you look away.
Directly into a pair of bright blue eyes. The clarity in them is enough to drag you outside of the bubble, thrusting you into the present.
Joe has come to the base of the tree, a hand resting over a few small and uneven notches cut into it─the highest one barely reaches Joe’s torso. Two memories overlap one another; on one hand, you’re ten years younger, watching Joe play with his very first wooden sword, a simple toy turned into a weapon of destruction once he figured out how to sharpen it just enough. His moves are a poor imitation of the knights he’s seen train nearby, and the next time you blink, those blue eyes are a vivid shade of green, tanned skin now pale, a headful of blond rather than black. You see Wizen, practicing with a different toy. A crude attempt at a spear that he built himself. The two figures move as one until you no longer know which is the real one.
Your gaze wanders aimlessly. Soon, you find yourself looking at all the other houses in the distance, the smoke coming from the chimneys, the warm candlelights in every window, the shadows of people moving about inside. How many more disappearances will it take for the mayor to care? Did you even grow up at all? Are you an adult weathering each and every single obstacle life throws at you, or a child playing pretend, wearing shoes much too big and speaking words much too complex for you?
A deep voice anchors you to reality. The casualness of it all somehow comforting. “Hey, thinking of getting down any time soon? I can’t exactly climb with this on.” He gestures at his armor, and you scoff.
“Might as well learn how, since you barely take that thing off.” And for the final sting, you add with a teasing sneer. “You probably reek, man.”
You regret saying that immediately, your body holding on for dear life the second you see Joe grab onto the tree trunk with both hands, attempting to shake it. Nothing happens, of course. The people may believe he can move mountains, but a tree is a tree and a man is a man.
“Hah! Someone’s jumpy tonight.”
“What if I actually fell?!”
He lazily holds out his hands. The message is clear: if you do, he’ll catch you. It’s cute that he thinks he can, and it’s endearing that he believes you’ll land softly into his embrace, without hurting yourself on the sharp edges of his armor or without hurting his own tired arms, muscles stiff with the weight of responsibility. You share with him as much, doing little to conceal that hint of bitterness in your voice.
“I can still give you a hand to climb down?” It’s no use. You’re angry for things he cannot help doing, things he never had a say in. And here he is, waiting patiently for you to make a choice. A tree of this height is nothing for you, of course─you’re the one who taught Paulina and Beckett to climb every surface your fingers could dig into when you were kids─but you still take that gentle gloved hand in your descent. A quiet compromise. “See? It wasn’t so bad.”
Without hesitation, Joe moves his hand to the small of your back and begins to lead you away─you recognize the path immediately as the one that leads to your house. Joe had always been a creature of impulse, with little reservations for invading other people’s personal spaces, but there is a sense of urgency in his footsteps and gestures that is hard to ignore. He tells you to mind your step, takes half a step in front of you when a carriage passes by despite the wide berth of the street.
The Joe you know does not wait for you to catch up, he does not coddle you like he used to back when he was a few heads shorter and he only had you and his sister to look after. He teases you when you fall, but waits for you to stand up on your own. He doesn’t act like you’re made out of glass unless something’s on his mind. Wizen? No. It’s something else. It’s obvious that he’s sensed your scrutinizing eyes on him, because Joe hurries to distract you.
The worst part is that it works. “I’m leaving tomorrow, first thing in the morning.”
Your brows furrow at this, and you shift slightly from him. “You just came back.” The force behind that statement alone should’ve been enough to change his mind, to know that you want him here. But you rarely get your way when it comes to him. Joe chuckles, half-apologetic and half-vacilant.
“Yeah, and I’m not even gettin’ paid for all this. Can you believe that? Would be nice if you came to see me off, but no pressure. You’re probably busy with the store and all.”
“I don’t work there anymore.” There’s a hint of reproach that can’t help slip through into your words, but neither of you follow it. This is something he should’ve known, but how could he? He can’t receive any of the letters you write for him, because he’s never in one place for long enough for them to reach him.
“So that’s a ‘yes’ for tomorrow?”
“Joe, seriously. Not even a day? You just came back!”
That’s when the visor is fully raised and Joe’s disgruntled expression comes into view; he looks at you like you’ve grown a second hand or if you had told him that pigs can fly and water is dry.
“I got things to do, and if I don’t do ‘em, no one will.”
“And we’re just going home? You’re not even going to say hi to Mercuria, or drop by the tavern?” He only grunts dismissively to your questions, and something clicks in your mind.
While traversing one of the more secluded streets─a shortcut you both discovered years ago─you choose to turn around in a flash without a warning, using the momentum to push Joe against the wall. This feat only works because you’ve caught him off-guard, this is obvious, but a knight of his caliber would’ve been able to parry you with ease. That is, if he weren’t injured. Any noise or complaints that comes out of his mouth are swallowed by the clashing of metal against brick, and you press forward with your hand against his abdomen, where three metal plates of his armor overlap one another.
The reaction is instant; Joe flinches and his visor falls back in place, his body bending on instinct as if that could help him escape the pressure of your hand. You can’t smell any blood this close, not when the smell of sweat and mud is so prominent, but it’s clear as day that he’s more hurt than he lets on.
“Joe,” you begin, still deciding on whether to be angry at him hiding a nasty injury from you or angry that he didn’t just tell you right away. “You’re hurt.”
“Fine, fine. I got a lil’ hurt. If I let you treat it, you’ll let me go in the morning. Deal?”
“That depends on how bad it is.”
“I’m still standing, yeah? Can’t be that bad.” You press again on that particular spot, leaning your weight forward until you feel the coldness of the metal tickling at your skin through your clothes. “Owowowow! I thought you wanted to help, not make it worse!”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?!”
“With all those people around? Like hell I was gonna let ‘em know.” He hisses as he peels himself from the wall, adjusting his armor here and there. “But I was gonna tell you the second we got home.”
Like hell he was. He barely lets anyone see his face these days─too much of a risk, he says. You don’t tell Joe that you think he’s being stupid for no reason, that it doesn’t matter whether he wears a mask or not, the people who raised him will be able to pick him within a crowd of hundreds. That you would gladly time him down if it means he’ll stay to rest and recover for more than a single night. That you’re at the verge of crying over everything and nothing, the stress keeping you from fully understanding just how much you crave the comfort of a familiar presence, a friend. You don’t realize how deep your sadness runs.
All you can do is scoff and lead him by the arm towards what used to be his home.
The moment he steps inside, you can tell he’s looking for all the things he remembers, beaming when he finds them and sulking when he doesn’t. There are notches cut into the doorframe leading to the kitchen, with initials hastily scrawled next to them, showing the growth spurts of not three but five children in total. It had always been a race to become the tallest between Joe and Beckett─at some point, you even got close to winning against both, that is until Hollick surprised everyone with one last growth spurt. When Joe peeks his head into the kitchen proper, his eyes wander to where you keep your utensils. He’s looking for that small knife he forged for you almost a lifetime ago, the one that you completely worn down to a blunt edge over the years.
“Did you throw out the─”
“I did, now move your ass to the bedroom.” You cut him off as you usher him into the biggest bedroom of the house. It used to be Joe’s when Old Tang passed, and then you had shared it with Paulina before she left to greener pastures. That’s when the whole place became yours.
“No way, I saw the corner of your mouth twitch” Your silence makes his resolve waver. “You’re not… serious, are you? That was the first thing I made for you!”
You don’t reply, too busy preparing the things you’ll need to treat his wounds─instead you gesture with your head towards one of the drawers in your room, and Joe practically leaps to open it, finding that very same knife among some other trinkets and keepsakes.
“See! I knew you wouldn’t.”
“You could fix it for me. As it is, I can’t even cut a single slice of bread with it.”
“Smart, I almost fell for it and said yes on the spot, but I know what game you’re playing. Do you know how long it’d take to sharpen this thing? S’all rusted, in pretty bad shape.” Joe clicks his tongue, inspecting his old handiwork with a playful smile. “Would be easier to make a brand new one, maybe bigger and not as shabby.”
The routine goes like this: he sits on your bad and takes off his helmet, he complains about being tired until you help him get the annoying bits of armor off, you either scold him or joke about the state of his wounds and then you patch him up.
But this time, before Joe’s hands can reach to undo the clasps of his helmet, you capture his wrists and gently lead them away. You’re standing so close, with his long legs at each side of you, and when he looks up from his spot, you can glimpse the way his mouth hangs slightly ajar.
But he doesn’t stop you, and you continue.
Joe is much more docile when he’s sitting down, when he has no way to let out all of that nervous energy he carries around with him and all he can do is wait for things to happen. It’s almost like you can see the wolf ears atop his helmet flicker and lower with a whine, not unlike a puppy learning how to behave. You raise the visor to inspect his face closely, no wounds from what you can tell, but your nimble fingers still find the angle of his jaw, tracing it until your thumb comes to caress his cheek. One of your hands wanders away, sliding under his ear and around his neck, where you meet the messy locks of red─you don’t know when he dyed it, but the color suits him all the same─and the metal clasps he always fiddled with.
They become undone with a soft click, and with an almost reverential gesture, you lift the helmet and set it aside, never once looking away from him. Strangely enough, you can’t find it in you to look at those bright blue eyes, even if you can tell that he’s searching for yours. His voice reaches you loud and clear, even when spoken in a whisper.
“Hey, are you…” Okay? Angry? Completely nuts? Joe doesn’t finish that sentence and the words float around the two of you, unsure.
You don’t allow this moment of doubt to settle; soon enough, you confront the last barrier, the black and thin mask that covers half of his face. It looks silly, honestly. You never understood what this mask aimed to cover, his scars are on the opposite side, after all. While the meaning might be entirely lost on you, you still make sure to gently peel it off before moving to the belts and buckles near his shoulders─the rust-colored cape flutters downwards onto your bed, followed by black and matted fur.
Next are the gauntlets. When you gesture for Joe to extend his arm, he does so, eyes half-lidded and mouth kept in a tight line as you work your way through the armor. Your skin meets his once the gloves slide off and he comes to rest his searing hot, broad and clammy palm somewhere near your collarbone for support, the feeling of it sudden but not unwelcome. Your fingers travel clumsily across his forearm and under the couter of the elbow, fiddling to figure it out how to set it loose. Joe pretends not to see, you know he has because of the way his eyes flicker back and forth, as if wondering on whether he should help. Truth be told, you have no idea what you’re doing, nor the reason why you’re doing all of this. Maybe stalling is also one of your secret talents.
“Is it here?” You emphasize by digging your finger into a small crevice, where you feel the rough texture of yet another leather belt keeping the piece in place. Joe shakes his head, his other and hovering awkwardly over yours, but he refrains from guiding you.
“Lower, it’s─yeah, that one first.” You follow his instructions until both of his arms are completely free. There’s something heavy in his voice, clearly not in a rush like he insisted before.
Then, it’s the gorget that protects the neck, along with the cuirass and all of its parts. You’re especially gentle with the very same spot you had abused before, back when you had Joe pinned against the wall. Maybe this is your way of apologizing for that, or thanking him for all the other things he’s done for others. Underneath all the metal lies your best friend, soaked in sweat and wild hair ruffled, his already tanned skin slightly darker on the spots that his armor doesn’t cover─you don’t comment on this small design flaw, that will be ammunition for a different day.
The point that drives a knife through your heart is how painfully common the man in front of you is. Not in the way stale bread is, but more so like how common wildflowers are by the side of the road. There is no God to deem him a martyr among men, nor a king to choose him as his champion; the face that looks up at you is one that you could find anywhere by walking through the streets of any city. Your average, everyday man, with your average, everyday story.
When you frown, it’s not out of anger or pity. You don’t dare give it a name, out of fear that it might overstay its welcome and fester. All you know is that it hurts to know your beloved friend had to be the one to carry such burdens. It could’ve been anyone else, but it had to be him. Out of everyone in the world. Him. It’s the same when you think about Wizen, when you think about all the others that disappeared, the ones that did not survive the harsh winters. It could’ve been anyone else, and it still would hurt. Whether it’s a face you know, or a stranger you’ve never crossed paths with.
Now, all the things that can be so easily ignored in the light of the day are coming to weigh down on your shoulders. You want to be soft and gentle with Joe, but you want to argue with him about the way he does things. The neverending work and long travels he goes on. The disappearances across the entire country. The absence of your family and friends. The feeling of being left behind.
“Hey,” Joe calls out your name, concern painting his features and his cloudy eyes now vivid with utmost clarity. “Look at me. Are you okay?”
No, you’re not, how could you be? You thought that feeling the weight of his armour would help you understand his point of view better, to swallow your feelings and acknowledge the need for a hero in these hardened times. The knight in front of you is a symbol before he is a man, he is an idea before he is a person. It’s not like you’re completely oblivious or immune to the comfort that a figure like him brings, that beautiful dream in which things can be just and right if everyone were a little kinder, a little braver or a little stronger.
But when Joe sits in front of you like this, waiting for you to peel that last one layer from his body to reveal all the scars and injuries he’s received in the name of justice and love for his community, your own love for him threatens to drown you from inside out. You can’t do it. You can’t let him go, you don’t want to let go and you don’t want to see what the world has done to him. It’s easier for everyone to hail him as as a savior when they don’t see the soft interior, perhaps this is why Joe refuses to show his face to the world and shatter the illusion he’s built over the years. Perhaps this is also why you enable it, allowing the the curtains to be drawn shut and helping him maintain his image as an undefeated hero.
Your fingers dig into the fabric of his black shirt and the muscles underneath tense, completely taut. Joe’s voice merely an echo in the back of your mind. How the hell does he do it? You’re supposed to be there and help when he needs it, but it’s so hard when he keeps coming back to you in tatters, if he ever comes back to see you.
“Don’t go,” you push the words out through tears, any semblance of serenity gone in an instant. “Please, please, please, Joe. Don’t leave.”
“I’m here, ain’t I? Hey, c’mon. It’s fine, it’s not that bad, I promise.” His voice does little to soothe your nerves. It does the opposite, in fact, when he raises his shirt to expose a dark bruise, the muted and black iridescence of broken blood vessels. The sight alone makes you want to punch him. How can he keep doing this to himself? It is bad, and you feel like sobbing. “It … okay, it looks worse than it is. Made a bad call while looking for Wizen, it happens.” But it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t happen because someone else should look for this child, a child that shouldn’t even be missing in the first place. These thoughts play on repeat in your mind, until you’re completely stuck in a cycle.
But you lack the words to voice any coherent thought. Your body moves automatically, hoping that the cold rag can soothe a fraction of the pain the universe insists on inflicting onto Joe; he shudders at the contact, but holds your wrist in place before you can even think about retreating.
“You’ve patched up worse injuries than this.”
He urges─no, he pleads for you to look. It reminds you of the time Paulina was afraid of a ghost haunting the house, only for you and Joe to find out it had been the shadow of a cloth swaying with the night breeze. Back then, he had also forced Paulina to look and let reality sink in so she could get over her fears, but what are you supposed to do when the solution isn’t that simple? You can look at Joe’s body deteriorate, but how will that make it hurt any less? Has the play pretend role become his real identity after so long?
“I shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t be getting hurt like that, and you should’ve told me or anyone about it. No one should live like this.” Your voice breaks here and there, and you don’t care about it because, at the very least, you were able to get the words out. It’s all you can do before you gently lower yourself onto your knees, feeling the weight of a thousand days of wistful thinking pressing on your shoulders. “No one should.”
Joe has the audacity to look at you like you’re the naive one, as if he’s not the same breed of fool that you are. The hand that comes to cradle your head, to rub soothing circles at your nape, is shivering. Maybe you’re the one shaking, it’s hard to tell, but when he applies the smallest bit of pressure, you follow it and rest your head on the armor plate on his leg. In the silence of the room, you hear the soft plip plip of your tears clashing against cold metal, and the sight must be truly pitiful because something in Joe’s eyes shifts─you wonder if he can hear the loud voices in your head, the way you chastise yourself for putting him on a pedestal. Even now, you’re kneeling and looking up at him like he could singlehandedly burn away all the horrors that threaten you, a devotion born from love and desperation in equal measure.
“...Yeah. No one should.” He echoes these words back to you, the one time he concedes.
Of course he does, no one knows this better than he does. Joe spins tale after tale about princesses in towers and ancient beasts hoarding treasures when the real monsters are those that hide behind a veneer of politeness, holding a knife behind their backs. Those who so casually dismiss the loss of human life. Cattle is worth more than a missing child. And you both hate that, in a way, this is true. You hate the way the world forces this to be their truths.
“But gettin’ hurt is part of life,” Joe continues, using a voice reserved for those he trusts, the tiniest of accents slipping through. It makes you feel like you’re fifteen again, being held in his arms for the very last time; the end of life as you know it and the beginning of his knighthood. Your hand is numb but it still holds onto that wet rag, dabbing it here and there uselessly against his bruise─you don’t like the way he presses harder when he speaks the following words, hellbent on finding out just how much it’ll take before he breaks.
“And I’d rather let it be me than you. Wizen isn’t the only kid that’s gone and he won’t be the last. But if I keep tryin’, at least one of ‘em is bound to come back home to their family. I’ll take that chance any day.”
The back and forth is tiring. When morning comes, he won’t be there with you─after tonight, you doubt he’ll give you the chance to see him off like he asked, and you curse this self-torturing martyr to hell and back in your mind. It’s fine. It’s fine. You tell yourself that you don’t care, even when your body shifts even closer so that your head now rests on his stomach, nestled at an awkward angle against solid muscle like a petulant child who doesn’t know how to stop hurting. Joe holds you in place with a hand on your shoulder, the other filling the empty spaces between your fingers with his own.
The man holding you is not a saint, and you are not a devoted believer. But your bond and trust in the other might as well be just as blind, just as fierce and unbreakable.
You don’t want Joe to be the one that saves you if it means not saving himself, you don’t want him to save anyone. You want him safe and sound, hammering away at the red-hot iron to create tools for those around him, giving back to the community in ways that don’t end with his life on the line or years of distance between the two of you. For once, you wish that he could stop being a knight for the needy and desperate to just be yours again. Your partner in crime, your dearest friend, your first love. If he can be a reckless and selfish idiot, then so can you─you refuse to lose him when he’s right here, within your reach.
A shudder runs through him, and you realize your mistake a beat too late; those last musings meant only for you and whatever God watching from above have managed to slip by, out of your heart and into the world for him to hear. Frozen in place, all you can do is hope that your expression is hidden well enough from him, but you can practically hear the gears turning in his head. Nervousness tickles at your body and you sniffle without reason, an empty gesture that makes Joe wipe at the non-existent tears out of the corner of your eyes.
Joe supports your frame as he urges you to stand, little by little, until the roles are reversed─his cheek is pressed so tightly against your sternum, his impressive height still noticeable even when sitting, and his arms wrap around your middle, locking you in place. He squeezes, nuzzles and sighs, and when the pressure on your legs is too much, he leans back ever so slightly so that you can push your weight on him. You have no option but to do so, your fingers carding idly through his messy hair, pretending to untangle every knot they find with a patience you don’t truly possess. A content sigh escapes him, and it’s impossible to resist the swell of emotion at the sight, so you dip your head close and press your lips to the top of his head.
This is all he needs before he falls backwards onto the mattress, with you secured in his arms. The fabric of his cape spreads out underneath him like the broken wings of an angel. You don’t look a it, but it taunts you out of the corner of your eye.
The thrum of his heart is loud, booming in his chest and against your ears, his face and the tip of his ears are flush but those thick eyebrows are furrowed in deep thought. You never quite imagined that love could make someone look so pensive and miserable─Joe stares at the ceiling of your bedroom in uncharacteristic silence as if looking for the answer to questions you’re not privy of.
You think you know, though. What if he goes, what if he stays, what is the toll?
There are no answers you can give, he doesn’t voice his worries either. All you’ve done so far is waste the hours together, neither reaching a solution to any of your problems nor achieving the catharsis of letting everything out─it’s a quiet dissatisfaction to thread on uncharted territory, with your foot caught between the door, not quite adventuring outside and not quite in the safety of the inside. But any step in any direction will do.
“Joe?” The Adam’s apple in his throat bobs before he hums in acknowledgement. It doesn’t come across as casual despite his efforts. You ask the one thing that matters at the moment. “Are you leaving tomorrow?”
There is a pause and you feel his chest swell when he takes a deep breath. His mouth moves to answer, but he’s yet to figure out what to say. Eternity holds both of you in its embrace and finally, he speaks, no longer uncertain.
“No,” he lies to you.
“Good,” you lie to him.
The door is finally open and after catching a single glimpse into each other’s world, it’s glaringly obvious that neither of you are ready to take that first step yet. That doesn’t mean you can’t meet in the middle just for today, It certainly beats looking outside through the window, forever isolated from those you want to reach.
“Do you really think that?”
“I did ask you to stay. Why wouldn’t it be a good thing?”
Joe chuckles. “Nah, not that. Do you really mean what you said before?”
“You weren’t supposed to hear in the first place,” this is as satisfying of an answer as he’s ever going to get. It doesn’t stop him from insisting. He tears his eyes away from the ceiling to glance downwards at you.
“But I did. C’mon, yes or no. I need to know so I can give you a proper answer.”
“A proper answer to what?” It wasn’t a confession and I didn’t tell you anything you didn’t know already.” A hint of defensiveness coats your voice. “I’m not expecting you to answer.”
“You called me a reckless and selfish idiot, so I feel like I gotta.” It’s useless to argue─Joe will say whatever he wants to regardless of your answer, so you redirect your attention elsewhere. The hand that was resting on his chest slides down to his abdomen once more, hovering over his bruise. When you ask if it still hurts, he pointedly ignores your question to continue speaking. “I’m just not sure what I wanna say, or if I wanna say it at all. Now that there’s actual stakes to this whole thing, I’m kinda─err, lost. I guess.”
“Oh, so there weren’t any stakes before?”
“This is different, that’s why I gotta know if you meant all that.” Joe moves to lay on his side, gently sliding your figure off of himself so that you’re stuck with him and no way out of his sight; your head is nestled under his chin, where the rumble of his throat when he speaks is loud and clear. It echoes within you, even when he whispers. “Do I lose you too if I leave? It feels like, I dunno. A permanent goodbye, and I don’t like it. Isn’t it fine to be like this whenever I come to visit?”
“If you come ever have the time to visit. If I’m still around when you do.”
Joe hides his face in your hair, taking in your scent as if committing it to memory. “You can’t just force me to pick between helping others and being here with you.”
“But it’s fair that you’re forcing me to sit here and wait for the day they find your body by the side of the road?”
“That ain’t gonna happen─”
“Says who?” You shift away from him so you can look him in the eye. It’s only right that you do, considering the gravity of the words leaving your mouth. “When you talked to those people earlier today, what did you tell them about Wizen? Does he get to come back? Do his parents and friends get to rest knowing at least his body is home?”
“No.” Only the first question is left unanswered; you don’t chase after that dead end anymore.
“So, is that what you want for me?”
“Goddamnit, what do you want me to say?!” Joe curses and mutters your name with a growing frustration that eats at him from the inside. He sits up, rubbing helplessly at his face with his palms. When that does nothing to cool him down, he tugs angrily at the belts holding his greaves in place. “Fine! Yes, yes! I would rather have them drag my dead body over to your doorstep than have you go somewhere I can’t find you when you need me. This is the city we grew up in and people take care of each other, I don’t care if I gotta bust my balls to make sure we’re all okay─you’re all I have left!”
The metal plates fall onto the ground with a loud clang, where they lay forgotten and discarded as Joe sits with his legs crossed and shrinks into himself. The absence of his warmth is unbearable, and maybe it’s the way his voice grows bolder and more raw he longer he speaks that it instills a fighting spirit within you.
“If you’re not here then what’s the fuckin’ point? What good am I for?! I felt like shit coming back knowing I couldn’t do a single damn thing to help Wizen, I felt like shit when Hollick and Beckett didn’t have the money to stay and keep their shop open. I didn’t even know Mercuria was here, ‘cause I’m too much of a damn coward to see her after what happened to Bianca! I feel like shit now cause I either lose you or I let the whole damn world burn!”
It’s a searing hot fire that moves your body forward, frantically leaping to hold Joe’s face in your hands and truly force him to look at you. Your eyes are almost manic, searching on instinct for something in his avoidant gaze─you say nothing, and he continues pouring his heart out.
“I’m supposed to be this big scary knight that makes all those rich people piss their fancy pants in fear, I’m supposed to be this perfect picture of justice and shit, but how am I gonna look at anyone who needs my help in the eye when I know deep down that I’d pick us over them?!”
There it is. The defilement of a martyr, the death of an idol. A legend that has grown too big for him. A saint has stepped off his shrine, no longer entombed under the purity knighthood demands─you’ve dragged him down from the heavens, from his spot above the masses of people, to meet you on solid ground where grass lay under your feet and dirt hides under your fingernails, and the people are as confusing and fickle as the weather. His face is so clear to you now; an unfiltered expression of pain and love, torn by duty and the contradicting complexities of humanity. He bleeds like you and he cries like you and his heart beats as one with yours. When the divine armor is peeled off, all that remains is the man you fell in love with,
There he is. And there you are, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes.
“Do you mean that?”
“If you think I’d say something like that and not mean it─yes, damnit! I’d pick us. I’d pick this hole in the ground we call a home over the other damn hundreds of villages I swore to protect! Wizen, you, Paulina, Beckett, Mercuria, Hollick, Tang─” Joe lists all the people dear to his heart in no specific order, the walls that caged him these past few years coming undone after weathering endless torment. His breathing is uneven and erratic, like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs. Like this is the first real breath he’s taken in a long time. .
Large and calloused hands rest on yours as a silent plea for you to never let go, lest he drift away. Little by little, unspoken thoughts and repressed desires spill out from him, starting from a light drizzle to a never ending downpour that leaves you completely soaked in the aftermath of his feelings. Gods don’t ask for forgiveness, Gods don’t need to be absolved of their sins─but Joe looks at you like he wants nothing more than to beg for such things. Every word an admission of guilt, each of them a sword that sinks deep into his back and that only your hands can dissolve, turning into a spring of water that you drink from greedy and shamelessly.
You hold back a choked laugh that is anything but proper given the situation; the tables have turned and now, the unbreakable and untouchable knight of the people leans into your touch as if only you could save him from eternal torment. Perhaps it’s human nature to idolize everything that we love─people, ideas, objects, stories─to cut them aside from the filth of the mortal world and preserve them forever.
It makes sense, but right now, it sounds so silly. So, so, so silly. You’re two drops of water in an ocean. Divine responsibility is reserved for those who hold the oars and have the power to defy the currents. You don’t want the promise of forever, just the certainty of tomorrow.
Once there is nothing left to confess, Joe can only pant, face flush with an emotion he can’t quite name. That dazed expression makes him look years younger, his eyes somehow brighter, especially when he asks, “Am I … really that selfish?”
The door is open and it has been torn off its hinges; there were never any barriers, just a long path to tread together. But you’re only human, and your pace never matched his. This may be the first day you’ve truly walked side by side, hand in hand.
With the first smile of the day playing on your lips, you lean in close and deliver your answer into his mouth. You may resent heaven for the unfair weight it has placed atop of Joe’s shoulder, but the aftertaste of his kiss when your lips depart is something that you can only describe as heavenly. As soon as it’s over, you kiss him again. And when that is over, he’s the one that strains his neck to do it one more time. And another, and another─the perfect picture of a selfish, greedy man.
“It’s fine if you are.” Because so are you.
You lean in once more to kiss his brow, his eyelid, his cheek, his jawline─you squeeze him in your arms like you’re the one who needs to protect him from the world and he melts into you. In the blink of an eye, Joe’s hands are everywhere─your waist, your arms, your thighs, your hands, as if he’s been finally given permission to live outside of his armor, rediscovering the joys of all five of his senses.
Now that your heart is soft and warm, your sharp wit completely fading away in favour of the sweetness of his touch, you lack the words to explain this sudden enlightenment; it’s fine if he’s selfish, it’s fine that he wants things that he shouldn’t, that he feels he doesn’t deserve, that are near impossible to realize. Those are the fleeting wishes of Joe’s massive heart, now soaring on fragile paper planes to take refuge in your own.
It’s fine if he feels like this, because you know that tomorrow morning he will be gone. You cherish the few hours you have left before he sets out to finish what he started and bring Wizen home, carrying all those secrets with him─a smaller load than the day prior, but a heavy burden nonetheless, one that he hoards like a precious treasure to keep anyone else from worrying. Change doesn’t come easy for anyone, it’s almost impossible for someone like Joe who clings to his stubborn ideals and the way things should be like a lifeline.
But you’ve been waiting for change your whole life.
The next time you open your eyes, the sunlight coming from a small crack in the window highlights the empty space on your bed, the single plate of food on your table, the single chair pulled up, the only pair of shoes by the door. Joe has taken with him every possible trace of his existence, all but the memory of his sleeping form next to yours, the gentle rise and fall of his chest and the clinginess in which he held your hand through the entire night.
He can leave you behind, he can return to the routine, but you know of the great shift in your dynamic last night. It’s no mystery that Joe is controlling in his affections, overbearing with his concern and rough with his words. And that’s fine, you adore it all the same. Because the uncertainty of the unknown can’t stop you anymore, not when you’ve taken a bite out of that soft and sweet interior, learning of all the secrets buried within.
The weight of the sword feels perfect in your hand, not too heavy and not too light; the first time you unsheathe it, you stare at your own reflection on that silver edge. It is not as nearly as impressive as the one he carries on his back, nor it was forged by your own hand─it was a gift from all the familiar faces you grew up surrounded by, the hands that held you when you fall, fed you when hungry, and turned this so-called hole in the ground into a home.
And if this is your home, then it is your goddamn right to protect it just as ferociously as he does. If he can spread himself thin for an oath that doesn’t care about him, you can make your own promises and let the wind carry your secret oath wherever he may be. You don’t need to delude yourself thinking that you can save everyone, you don’t need a fancy title or for bards to sing your tale, warping your image to that of the greater heroes that came before you.
The world will never know you, but somewhere out there, there are people who do.
I keep hearing people talk about a Jean Loo interaction with Sinclair and I can’t find anything about it 😭 I’m startin to this is some mandela effect nonsense
Hello!
I replayed the game to find it for you (it's also very helpful for me, this means I can hunt more Jean Loo cameos and add them to the transcript hehehoho)
Note that his dialogue says "Meh" but the voiceline that plays is "I heard that!" which is very curious! Here's the transcript and how to reach this cameo if you need it:
Compilation of headcanons and analysis of Jean Loo Pissoir as a character and other related things.
cracks knuckles. time to get into blorbo's head
and now that i've finished this post, i can work on all my other jean loo fics, hooray!!
On the subject of Jean Loo's route and hidden depths.
Contrary to popular belief and despite his existence as the literal butt of the joke for most of his screen time, there are a lot of fun details and subtleties about Jean Loo that often go unaddressed and give a lot of depth to his character!
First and foremost, he is one of the most demanding characters in the game, keep this in mind for later! When it comes to objects native to the bathroom or commonly associated with it (therefore counting Amir, but not River, Hector or Lux) Jean Loo is the only one who requires two SPECS attributes at 100 for his Realization Recipe, which involves getting an ending with every character within said attributes. For reference: Farya, Rebel, Bathsheba and Johnny all have a single SPECS attribute at 100, while Amir and Tyrell's highest attribute is at 80. The only one to even get close to Jean Loo's requirements is Barry Styles with two attributes at 90.
Of couse, this isn't to say that Jean Loo is the only character to do this in the game--there's Artt, Lux, Dante, Mateo, Dishy, Ben-hwa, the Hanks, Washford and Bodhi as well (I was able to quickly check their Recipes thanks to this video, if I've forgotten someone, feel free to let me know! ).
But Realization Recipes isn't the only way Jean Loo stands out as a demanding character.
When asked about SPECS, Skylar explains that no endings will be locked behind SPECS checks, as any options that require a certain number of SPECS are mostly for extra dialogue and potential collectables--and yet Jean Loo's Friend and Love endings require the player to pass five (potentially four) SPECS checks found in his final interaction, the crap (NOTE: Cool Rap) battle against him. It's worth noting that even Jean Loo himself warns the player of these high requirements, giving them all the time to prepare and raise their SPECS to even have a chance at winning.
(before dwelving deep into the mechanics of his rap battle, I'd like to say that this is all information I have gathered from replaying his route over and over with different set of SPECS to transcribe it and cross checking all of his voicelines with this compilation to ensure I didn't overlook anything! I'm only missing two specific voicelines, one from Ballcock tied to a SPECS attribute I can't trigger to show up and another from Jean Loo which seems to be completely glitched and unaccessible as of writing this--if you have screenshots or recordings for these specific options, please share them with me!)
Allow me to walk you through the rap battle! The first check serves as a good starting point, as it offers a choice that requires no SPECS at all but is still considered correct, "Match his pace"--note that this is the only time this happens, as the rest of SPECS-less choices will be automatic failures. Alongside this freebie, we also get two other choices, both for the SASS attribute. "[SASS 20] Go faster to scare him!" leads to failure and sets a precedent for future checks; you can still fail despite picking a choice with SPECS requirements, and to be safe, you should heed Jean Loo's words and aim for the ones with higher points.
The second check quickly ramps up the difficulty, since the correct choice with the lowest SPECS points I could acquire (this is where that one Ballcock voiceline that I'm missing is!) is at 65 SASS points, easily doubling the first check's "[SASS 30] Accelerate" option! The other two require 70 EMPATHY or POISE. If the player cannot meet any of these requirements, they'll be forced to pick from one of the two default incorrect options.
The third check throws a curveball at the player; the highest choice at 70 CHARM allows the player to skip the fourth check and go straight to the ending, but it also offers a lot of other SPECS choices of various point requirements and only half of them are correct. "[SMARTS 50] Use homophones" and "[POISE 40] Turn his theming around!" are correct, while "[CHARM 50] Act like you're hot shit and call him a bitch" and "[POISE 20] Get upset" are incorrect. Notice how the precedent set by the previous checks to prioritize the highest points is broken here, as POISE 40 will get you further than CHARM 50 in this situation.
The fourth check, if not skipped, offers four choices total which seem to go in pairs, one correct choice and the incorrect equivalent with a similar theme, a "what if you rapped about the same thing but fucked it all up instead" situation. There is the correct "[SMARTS 60] Employ plumbing knowledge!" alongside the incorrect, low hanging fruit of "[SASS 3] Toilet Joke!" And then there is "[EMPATHY 60] Hit him with his native tongue!" with "Try to diss him in his native language!" that follow the same format.
After this, we reach the final and fifth check, which happens after Jean Loo employs his forbidden technique of first person pronouns. This final check has four SPECS choices and one optional incorrect option that will only show up if the player can't meet the requirements for one of the previous choices. The curious detail here is the vastly different point requirements between the correct choices; there are the high point ones, "[Smarts 60] School this fool!" and "[Sass 60] Diss!" but then there's the low point ones, "[Poise 25] Give him advice" and "[Empathy 25] Befriend."
We'll discuss the potential reason why and some other details later on in the post, but that is a quick rundown of Jean Loo's rap battle. You need a minimum of 65 / 70 points in two SPECS attributes to clear it and reach his Friend/Love endings!
Mitchell Linn is known for being a difficult character to achieve a Love ending with due to the very specific answers the player must give him, if they don't want to be suddenly friendzoned--Rebel is similar in this regard, as their Love ending requires the player to stick to one lane rather than flipflopping between mean and nice (or too mean that they'll genuinely hate you). Sinclaire's route involves a lot of talking to other characters and it can get tedious, Beau's route is so long it even comes with it's own skip button in the form of Gaia. But even so, none require SPECS grinding like Jean Loo's! No other character has this specific gimmick as far as I remember.
There is also a fun detail about Jean Loo's route; even after messing up in his route and getting him to hate you, the player can come back to Jean Loo and ask for another chance. Supposedly, Keith's candy to undo a Hate ending don't work on him, since Jean Loo demands that the player pay him for his time if they mess up another time, but I think the game might be glitched since that interaction never appeared for me despite returning Dishy for the money Jean Loo asks for? Overall, it's very interesting to see how much thought was put into a character like Jean Loo!
Now, let us analyze Jean Loo's Realization Recipe in detail.
In my previous post, I discussed the understanding of these Recipes as the vibrations that best represent an object's overall personality, or even an aspect of their life. Thus, these stats are meaningful in one way or another to Jean Loo as a whole. We also know that a character's Alignment doesn't necessarily have to match their highest SPECS attribute--in Jean Loo's case, it does as he is a SASS character that requires 100 SASS points.
It's very easy to figure out why Jean Loo would be a SASS character, but what about the other attributes? The Key menu offers these descriptions, which is what we'll be using for this segment.
SMARTS: knowledge, brainpower, logic, trickery or cunning.
POISE: boldness, bravery, the ability to keep your cool and take things in stride.
EMPATHY: listening and communing with anyone you're sharing space with.
CHARM: sweet-talking your way through any situation.
SASS: witty banter, humor, rapport, snappy communication.
On a surface reading, not many would assign traits like Smarts and Poise to Jean Loo given the presentation of his character, and yet these are the core attributes that make up his Realization Recipe--traits that he displays throughout his entire route. To crap (NOTE: Cool-Rap) one must be bold and keep their cool, come up with witty rhymes and diss others, know the process of rapping, and so on and so forth.
During Jean Loo's third interaction, his lesson about meter and flow, the player can have an entirely optional extra segment in which he explains the concept of syllable count and iambic flow--the player may even comment on how they misjudged Jean Loo, given the time and effort he puts into his passion for rap. The player can even continue this optional segment if they want more information or cut it short, as seen below.
Despite his initial claims, Jean Loo is a good teacher. The entire route is him teaching the player something that he's mastered, rapping in a language that isn't even his own mother tongue--we see the heavily gendered french slip into his dialogue, addressing things with "he" or "she" and yet the player can also comment on how good his english is, to even know the correct form of "passers-by." Despite the characterization of a shit-talking rapper, Jean Loo has the talent to back up that smug attitude and his bravado. He's also surprisingly aware of environmental activism, as seen in his love for the ocean. A character that is meant to be taken at face value with no other hidden layers to their personality wouldn't even bring up his own lack of cultural knowledge about the first nations of America.
Notice, however, how I've mostly discussed things related to Jean Loo's rapping or adjacent to rapping. But how to separate the art from the artist?
I'd like to bring up his Date-A-Dex profile, which states the following about his dislikes:
Dislikes: The Cold Reality That He Is In Fact a Toilet Above All.
Along with this line of dialogue, after the player acquires his second collectable, which involves using him as a toilet up to three times if I remember correctly:
"Lil' Crapper tries his best to sidestep the realities of his being with a clever rapping characterization."
These are not the only moments that hint towards a much more self-aware and introspective Jean Loo, but they're the ones that work best to prove my point. Here, we see an entirely different picture about how Jean Loo presents himself as Lil' Crapper, his stage persona.
From my understanding, Jean Loo uses rapping partially as a way to distance himself from his existence as a toilet--rapping is not a façade, nor a mask that he wears to conceal an entirely different interior, but rather a shield made out of something that he loves and has put so much time and effort into perfecting. This is when the Poise attribute comes into play from my point of view, it's Jean Loo's ability to take things in stride and be shamelessly bold; despite that cold realization of his existence as a toilet, Jean Loo still incorporates that aspect of himself into his rap--he calls it Crapping, he's called Lil' Crapper, his albums are related to bathroom terms, his theme has fart reverb sounds and toilet flushing noises... We could've had a character like Prissy Plastique, a plastic plant that is near delusional with the idea of being something that she isn't, a real plant. But instead, we have Jean Loo, whose struggles relate more to Cam.
In Cam's route, the player is forced to walk on eggshells around him or constantly end up insulting him one way or another because of Cam's existence as a trash can--both characters embody objects that are seen as disgusting, as jokes or just undesirable. But Cam himself is proud and confident in who he is and what he does, while being fully aware of the way others will inevitably perceive him. One could say that Jean Loo stands somewhere in the middle of Prissy and Cam, perhaps leaning a little more towards Cam.
Jean Loo's love for rap serves the very specific purpose of shielding him from these preconceive notions about his existence as a toilet in a way that is both familiar and meaningful to him; because if someone is willing to take Crapping and his music seriously, then by extension, they're taking him seriously.
And of course, this backfires and ends up further isolating him.
As previously mentioned, Jean Loo's route is very demanding--he's not only trying to teach the player how to rhyme, he also requires high SPECS to pass his final rap battle. With everything that we just discussed about his self-awareness as a toilet, these hurdles Jean Loo puts for the player to prove themself are now recontextualized as him being desperate to make a connection with someone under his own terms, what he perceives to be the "right" way to find his equal. "If someone is willing to do as I say, listen to what I'm trying to teach them, and like the same things as me, then surely, surely I have found someone worth my time."
This is supported by the two choices with low SPECS points from the fifth check.
The player is lead to think they should pick the choices with higher point requirements to be safe, and yet these are the ones that give the most insight about his mentality, the ones that are so easy to acquire and yet will most likely end up ignored in favour of the other two.
Notice what the player is pointing out about Jean Loo; "He tells himself he's gotta be the best, pass the test 'cause soon, someone will come for him" or "I think that deep down in the depths of your mind you know that there's one thing you just cannot find. Someone who can blend with your rhymes and your beats." The player is literally putting his trust issues on blast for the entire bathroom to hear. These are the only options that rattle Jean Loo and cause him to really consider what the player is saying about him and the way he does things.
One detail I found endearing that is related to Jean Loo's inability to let people close enough to him without putting obstacle after obstacle in their way to prove themselves, is that in his interactions he starts out as his usual aggravating and rude self. And yet, after the first interaction, he's the only character who constantly asks the player if they're ready for his lessons, growing warmer the more they interact with him. If the player tells Jean Loo they're not ready at the beginning of his second interaction, he says the following:
(ends interaction early)
Player: No, not just yet.
Jean Loo: Then do not waste Lil’ Crapper’s time, eh!? Get out of here! Come back when you are done with being the worst!
Compare this to the same exact situation in his third interaction:
Player: Actually, maybe not.
Jean Loo: You need more time to recuperate? Lil’ Crapper understands this.
Jean Loo: ♪ Sometimes the Crapper’s too lyrical. / Sometimes his words are mysterical. / Frankly it's sort of a miracle / His listeners aren't left weary, y'all ♪
Jean Loo: ♪ Some need a restroom with whistles and bells. / Faucet and sink in the shape of a shell. / Can't understand all the words that he spells. / Figured the sheep would return to their cells. ♪
Jean Loo: ♪ … Though some of them say that it's just ‘cause he smells. ♪
By the fourth interaction, he's asking the player to return to him quickly, eager to hang out with him.
Player: I think I should go increase my SPECS Stats first.
Jean Loo: Lil’ Crapper understands this. Sometimes we all need a break, bathroom or otherwise. Lil’ Crapper will wait for you! Reviens vite.
So all in all, Jean Loo is oddly considerate and thoughtful for a character who introduces himself by straight up telling the player he will never teach them how to rap because he's way out of their league. Hell, you could deliver the worst bars known to man and if you accept his handicap, he'll still roll with it.
These are some of the hidden depths I enjoy about Jean Loo that coexist with the fact that he is kind of a dick, a talented rapper and an endless source of easy toilet jokes. He's also some fucking guy with issues! A guy whose actions betray his words! Whose words betray his actions! Self-aware and intelligent, but not enough to get out of the hole he's dug for himself until someone takes one for the team and meets him at his own level, if only to smack some sense into him. Seeing characters like Johnny Splash, Tina and Harper/Dirk are entertaining to watch because the sense of foreboding is there from the beginning--you know that it's only a matter before they crash and burn in their own way, some in more lighthearted ways than others. But there is a level of certainty; you know that Johnny will fail his audition, but he will continue singing. That Tina will continue to love drama even if it ruins her. That Harper and Dirk will keep on gravitating towards each other, for better and for worse.
But Jean Loo is like watching a man slowly drown in a tank while he holds the key to open the latch and save himself. He just won't do it. Someone else has to get in there and pull him out. You know what will happen if you don't move a muscle, if you don't play along, but what if you did? The uncertainty and the hope for better are always present, even the means to change for the better are kept from you.
On the subject of loneliness and Jean Loo's endings.
One of the themes within the game is to form relationships, whether positive or negative, which allow the player to grow as a person--there is a heavy focus on how the player is socially inept for many reasons, someone who may have had too many bad experiences in the past or maybe not enough courage to have a single experience.
This is most visible in routes like Amir's; he compliments everyone to hell and back, and a good chunk of choices given to the player revolve around rejecting everything he says out of fear or because they're suspicious of him.
There is a heavy focus on how lonely the player is, which explains why we have characters like Skylar, Dorian and Regina Rejection; Skylar focuses on love and romantic feelings, as seen in how much happier and giddy she gets when Love endings are achieved, it's something that is even portrayed in her design with hearts all over. Dorian is presented as the biggest defender of friendship, to emphasize how Friend endings are just as important and equally valid as Love ones.
But we also have Reggie, whose existence as rejection is the antithesis of everything Skylar stands for. Hate endings don't allow objects to be Realized, since they need positive feelings for that entire process and Reggie insists on how things are better when they stay the same and know their place, when the possibility of change is gone and everything remains stagnant.
Getting people to hate you saves you the eventual and inevitable heartbreak, it's "the feeling of knowing no one can hurt you."
The inability to change, grow and reconcile with others is exactly what drove Franklin Lieste and David Most apart, it's what's keeping the player inside of their house.
Hatred is, in itself, a special kind of loneliness.
And acquiring a Hate ending with Jean Loo is extremely easy; the player can simply fuck up during any of his lessons or fuck up during the final rap battle (twice, if using the handicap). I'd like to argue that this is one more hurdle that Jean Loo puts between himself and the world; you can interpret this as him preemptively breaking the relationship to save himself some time when things inevitably go sour between him and the player, or something he does unconsciously to force the other party into proving their determination to befriend him, or a secret third option. Or all of them at the same time! Or none! You could also perceive this as Jean Loo being genuinely mad that the player is making mistakes at something that he so closely relates to his own identity.
Before going on about his other endings, allow me to go on a tangent here: Jean Loo has a insane amount of cameos in other routes, and it's impressive to see so many other characters bring him up in passing. He even shows up in Rebel's route, trying to tell them to back off and not be so harsh to the player. I found this one out on accident while wasting time when transcribing his route!
In terms of relationships and dynamics, it's understandable to keep them localized to their respective rooms, but seriously, Tony mentions Jean Loo. River mentions Jean Loo. He's one of the travelers you can bring to Gaia. He helps the Hanks surf. Wili considered working with him. Beverly hates his ass for that one time he rapped about her drinking while she was hungover in the bathroom. Like other loud characters, he has a reputation around the house.
And yet, not a single other character shows up in his own route, not even for a moment. It's just Jean Loo, the player and Ballcock. Everyone is aware of who he is and what he does to some degree, but Jean Loo feels extremely isolated from others. There is a loneliness that permeates his character--compare him to Farya, whose route also features no other characters. With the way she's written, there is no indication that she's lonely nor isolated, nor that she has trouble connecting with others, just busy and focused on her studies. You can even compare Jean Loo to Holly in this regard, the busiest object in the house whose entire route revolves around how little time she has for herself and her friends--but in Holly's route, so many caracters show up to address this. Even Shelley, whose toxic positivity pushes everyone away, has Dasha show up to give her an intervention.
And this loneliness makes much more sense when taking into account the way Jean Loo acts, both with his impossible standards and his antics that never allow for genuine vulnerability with others. It's also extremely ironic how Jean Loo adores the ocean, going as far as to consider a career in marine biology, but River--the embodiment of all water--doesn't like him at all. It's like he can't get a SINGLE win.
Okay, back on track! The difference between Jean Loo's Friend and Love endings rely on a single choice: to accept his handicap or not. If the player accepts his handicap and acquires a Friend ending, there are two dialogue variations based on whether they made a mistake or not.
Notice how despite being friends, there's still a noticeable barrier; he doesn't quite consider you his equal, nor drops the third person speech unlike the Love ending.
The consistent use of first person pronouns seems to be an indicator of Jean Loo's trust and genuine respect, since the beginning of the conversation about Realization also has a variable that shows this.
I don't have a lot to add about these specific endings that we haven't covered already, so I'll tackle the elephant in the room: his Realization ending.
One of the points of tension within the fandom revolves around Jean Loo's Realized ending in which he goes on to become an accountant and ghosts the player due to their finances despite still loving them. I understand why people can be mad at this, but allow me to dispel some of the usual arguments against this ending that I see around!
The idea that Jean Loo "is the only one who has a negative ending" among all objects of the house is straight up incorrect.
Not everyone has a fulfilling and expected "good" ending. Within the bathroom, you have Amir and Johnny Splash, the former struggles to even win a single award despite having a good acting career and the former's entire career has been boiled down to being an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. Daisuke's art never improves and he's is casually thrown into the world of art as a model instead, despite him wanting to create art. Fantina literally has two endings and one of them involves her rotting at home, binge watching shows and never growing out of her obsessive personality, becoming disillusioned with reality. Freddy literally cannot exist and lead a normal human life because he retains his more monstruous appearance. Jerry is overwhelmed by the outside world and only finds solace in his basement, with his model trains. Tina (and Tony if realized as a couple) literally struggles with debt and a crumbling career on TV.
There is also the idea that he's doing poorly financially. Some of these characters canonically struggle with holding a job or with money, but Jean Loo is a literal accountant. That's an average of 70k$ a year in the US.
A lot of people brush off and ignore this ending altogether because Jean Loo's music career is gone, along with his other interest in marine biology, showing that he might've given up on his dreams in favour of a stable job--but we also see that his music career did, in fact, succeed to a degree.
In the background of his Realized ending illustration, we see he has TWO porcelain records for Lil' Crapper.
"Soon enough, he rockets up the charts! Platinum! Triple platinum! A new rank called Porcelain, just for Jean Loo!" He straight up got famous enough for the industry to invent an entire new rank for him, assuming these are legitimate. (the biggest tragedy for me is the fact that he stops painting his nails </3)
I also feel like ignoring this ending is a disservice to these aspects of his character that are already constantly overlooked; Jean Loo, despite all of his bravado, the toilet jokes, the existential crisis over being a toilet and his constant insistance at crapping (NOTE: Cool-Rapping) could still study to become an accountant and hold down a normal, down-to-earth job. So many other endings are fantastical and deal with a lot of out of pocket situations, but Jean Loo gets a quiet yet realistic life--he could've died in that drive-by-shitting like he said after a life of drugs, vices and rap, but he just went on to become an accountant.
This ending is vague and open enough to headcanon anything; maybe Jean Loo chose to give up on his one and only passion after figuring out just how difficult human life could be, maybe he's still an indie musician on his free time. Maybe he's saving up for college to get a marine biology degree! Maybe capitalism is slowly sucking up his soul and he'll stick to being an accountant forever! Who knows!
I personally like to perceive Jean Loo as someone who barks very loud but in the moment of truth, he knows better than to chew more than he can bite. With everything we've discussed, it feels right that he doesn't get everything that he hoped or wished for, and instead deals with a more realistic existence as a lonely human without fully giving up on his passion--rap just has to take a backseat, just like how his first relationship with the player also has to go for now, because it's not the right time nor the right place for any of these things to flourish. And maybe, just maybe, he continues to repeat those same patterns and old habits, needing someone to meet him at his own level to drag him out of the hole he's dug for himself.
On the subject of Jean Loo's family.
This segment is all speculative headcanons since the format of the game doesn't allow for a cohesive explanation about every character's families and history in that so-called parallel existence in the object dimension. But we can assume that objects live similarly to humans in terms of families thanks to Mikey, Fantina, Rebel or Freddy.
Mikey's route specially gives a lot of insight on this matter; it confims that children in the object world are objects/concepts that have yet to exist in the real world, as seen below.
But just like how each of us represents one thing in existence... kids in the object world become new things that haven't been invented or discovered yet!
Parents in the object world are a difficult subject to tackle. Sometimes they're the means through which the object was physically made (think of Dirk and his mother, a loom), objects of the same item category (think of Fantina and her parents, who are different types of fans) or concepts related in a way to the object (think of Mikey's parents being the Roulette Wheel and Addie Addiction).
So we can assume that Jean Loo must have had parents prior the invention of the modern porcelain toilet. I don't dare theorize what exactly his parents may be, since it would take a lot of time to research toilet history and production, but I do like to headcanon that they're relatively normal. For Jean Loo to have enough sense to become an accountant despite everything requires a pair of sensible parents and a sense of normalcy. It would also fit the vibe of his rapper persona and his dreams, starting from a humble beginning and making it big in the industry.
We could also headcanon different types of toilets such as portable toilet or airplane toilets as Jean Loo's siblings. I like the concept of his siblings being just as regular as their parents, sticking to the family job and heritage as toilets without a problem while Jean Loo serves as the odd one out. On the other hand, I also really like the idea of Jean Loo being an only child and lacking that fundamental sibling dynamic that could've helped him make connections with other objects in the house.
But the idea of siblings is also complex, as it's been portrayed as the same product as the character, like Freddy's siblings being different fridges of the Yeti line, or Rebel's million siblings being rubber ducks from the same batch. Mickey even mentions his mother having many, many children and therefore having many, many siblings related to different addictions while he himself is rather new as a microtransaction.
A headcanon I do have regardless of what Jean Loo's family may be is that he's cut off all contact with them, not out of spite or due to being mistreated--it was just so easy for him to slip and allow his relationship with his family to fade away, that he no longer has it in him to call home out of embarrassment and shame.
Random assortment of headcanons I couldn't fit anywhere else.
Jean Loo has many, many piercings but ironically no tattoos at all, since porcelain is always so squeaky clean. He mostly has beauty marks and moles, but gets freckles during summer because of the sun.
His hair is naturally blue (the carpet matches the drapes) but he dyes his roots black AND tells people that he dyes his hair blue instead--he's playing 9D chess to make himself sound a little cooler, since it's a bit hard to stand out when there's objects with naturally pink hair, neon orange hair, tentacle hair, electricity hair, and so on. No one's really out there getting their hair dyed.
Johnny Splash has an actual published autobiography that continues to muddy the specifics of his lore; Jean Loo's autobiography is all oddly realistic and cohesive, but it's exclusively found online on some old, forgotten, near-defunct site.
He does, in fact, bring up this picture from Lady Memoria's route as often as he can whenever he feels like winning a stupid argument against the player.
Even though his route lacks a proper "rejection" scene from the player, I do like to think Jean Loo developed a crush on them pretty easily based on how the only choice during the rap battle that renders him speechless is the one where the player openly flirts with him and brings up the idea of him having a crush. And similar to Cabrizzio with his movies, Jean Loo bases all of his knowledge about romance on all the music he studies for his rap.
Has a horrible sleep schedule, but he's an early riser. Jean Loo doesn't start his morning early to do usually productive things, though--he mostly hangs around in silence or writes down lyrics until there's other people awake around the house. I like to imagine Jean Loo is the type of person who is used to having people exist around him, even if he doesn't interact with them--it's not that he despises being alone, but it is much easier for his mind to spiral without the background noise of people going on about their day and routines. This may, or may not be related to how he feels about being a toilet, overall ignored unless needed, never a priority for anyone.
...That doesn't mean that Jean Loo enjoys parallel play whatsoever; whenever he hangs out with someone, he naturally monopolizes their attention, though he's painfully aware of how easy it would be for literally anyone else in the house to catch the player's attention.
Most likely cried out of sheer emotion the first time he went to the beach and saw the ocean post-Realization, but there were no witnesses so you can't prove anything! I don't think he has a single romantic bone in his body, so he wouldn't make a big deal out of bringing someone he trusts to the beach with him--but it WOULD be a big deal for him, in secret.
My turn to make an input on all this ahehe (as a JL fan myself, as well) as someone who's also been trying to understand him via gameplay and just psychoanalysis in general
(my rambles tend to get quite messy the more I go on, so just a warning for possibly incomprehensible tangents being led on by my train wreck of a brain) I kinda respond but am mostly adding my obvious(?) & biased opinions/perspective on to this post, but I'm not that great at psychoanalysis, so you don't have to respond to this OP '3'
First off, I've also been trying to explore all his dialogue in game, but yes I've run into a few (possible) glitches:
I refunded Dishy to get his money, but no matter which dialogue chains I go thru, it never gives me the option to give him candy, nor does he ever bring up paying him; there was a bug that's been discussed in the DE server where people's sass candies were automatically used on him, but still getting a hate ending with him
>>> At least it was confirmed by Robbie that the refund Dishy route exists in the game, but I don't think the bug has been voiced or is even known about enough for devs to be aware to fix
* Can't remember if I ever ran into the ballcock stinky/thinky line, or if I've just listened to the JL voiceline vid too much ahehe (at least I don't have a recording of it), but yea it's been really difficult and meticulous trying to find all of his dialogue in the final (c)rap battle; I've also never seen/heard the "on a roll / buttered" lines myself :(
I was told by one or two people in the JL thread in the DE server that calling him a bitch can work, but the first time I tried that, I got a hate ending so I had to reload the save; even trying to choose all the confident dialogue options thruout his route, it doesn't seem to work at all -- kinda strange cuz I feel like it should be able to work since he appreciates such confidence and being dissed (doesn't even seem to matter on whether you do or skip his lesson on his third day/interaction)
>>> Altho I haven't tried it again in a long while, where in a newer file, I got at least 70 charm before talking to him, where that option is replaced with "fluster him", but maybe that dialogue option could be rigged from the start (theoretically thinking, 50 charm isn't enough to pull off that rapping verse, even if the game allows it)
It's such an interesting insight that in the final round of SPECS checks for the final crap battle, that the higher options are more savage verses, whereas the lower options are more emotionally open but explore more of his defensive character ;-;
As for his dislike and using him 3 times for his collectable, I feel this interaction is the most straight-forward way to show how there's a deeper meaning behind why he puts up such a strong front with his rapper persona; also a little sad that his only hobby is rap, but that further reinforces how important and meaningful rap is to him, reiterating himself away from his established purpose.
As upsetting it is to me on how people find him annoying, whether it be for his asshole attitude, or how there's so many toilet jokes/motifs integrated throughout his story, (idk if you would call this ironic but) that further reinforces how he tests those who approach him to find out who's truly worth his time; ofc if you don't like him, he doesn't like you, and then you can choose to never interact with him again as he can continue to do his own thing. On the other hand, if you do care about getting close with him via improving your rapping skills, he really appreciates it and can see via your numerous visits that you do care/appreciate him for who he is and for his passions. Also as someone who has struggles with making close connections with others, I also have defensive walls where it takes quite a bit for me to determine whether I can trust someone who understands and accepts me for who I am, especially with my own niche/weird(???) passions. If I don't feel a close connection, I prefer to remain cold/distance and continue living in my own world. (What's also interesting is that I started liking Jean Loo because of his secret tsundere/dweeby side, but it wasn't until after having various psychoanalytical discussions about him where I found that he & I are quite similar in this regard of being a lone wolf and having particular standards for relationships with others... ouch...)
Jean Loo being arguably the most difficult dateable to win over (friend or love), I like to think of it being almost as difficult as how someone with trust issues and/or social awkwardness (ahem like me), where demonstrating genuine interest to someone as such helps break down those walls, to which takes times and proper engagement. It can be argued that Jean is being really demanding/selfish, having such high expectations (i.e.: wanting to see good rapping skills and high SPECS from grinding), before he decides to reveal more vulnerable/open sides of him while the player has to be openly genuine & engaging towards him first. At least there's some moments of banter sprinkled throughout the lessons whenever you choose the correct options -- those being moments that show him gradually growing closer / more trusting of you. I can't exactly say whether this is realistic/common or not, but like how he finally opens up to you after beating him in the final rap battle, (at least with me) when such a special/big moment happens between you and another (that most likely involves something that you really care about), from that moment on, (it's most likely that) you're willing / feel more open to trust your true thoughts & feelings with them. It kinda relates to how "less compatible" dynamics can work, but just require more work/effort from both sides. If you don't like someone and aren't willing to put much time & effort into trying to understand them, but rather move on from them, that's valid. It's a two-way street. If it feels like it takes little time & effort to get close with someone you may have "high compatibility" with, that's also valid, and probably is more worth spending your time on.
Going back to Jean Loo tho -- if you don't like him cuz he's white/french, a rapper, and/or a toilet, that's fine. If you don't wanna put in the time to understand why he's the way he is, that's fine too. Yes I know you can generally say this about all the dateables, where you can choose to either ignore them or go for their hate ending (and also then not ever interact with them ever again). Heck, I'm not even into rappers, but (again) it was that more hidden part of his personality that I liked and wanted to explore more of. It seems like what people (non-fans) hate the most about him is his rapper persona and constant rapping (and him being french I guess) (and him being shitty in numerous ways... pun intended), and it's interesting how that's part of his story where it's not only his no. 1 passion, but also his biggest wall for truly getting to know him. And again, it's fine if you're not bothered to care/know why he's the way he is. He literally says multiple times thruout his story (depending on where you mess up) that he rather you not waste his time if you don't put in the proper effort to understand his art (and ultimately, to understand him).
*Not invalidating those who genuinely wanted a friend/love ending but fucked up, but (hopefully) you get what I mean here...
I do really like how he even acknowledges in one of his final rap battle verses that he's aware on how he's alone cuz he acts like a dick (cuz I'm kinda the same) -- choosing to expose himself this way in the last interaction out of all times, being evident that he's opening up here, but still keeping in mind that cuz this is the final battle, you gotta further demonstrate your developed rapping skills for him to really determine if he wants to open up further. I honestly didn't realise until this post where when you talk to him about realisation, the pronouns he uses depends on whether you got his friend or love ending.
*There was one mistake that might have slipped by the writing process, where at the end of Sinclair's mystery story, Jean Loo can pop up and shout "I heard that!"; I think that's the only instance in the game outside his love ending where he speaks in 1st person (I also wanted to make a list of moments on when he refers to himself as Lil' Crapper and when as Jean Loo but I'm not exactly bothered atm; there's also one or a couple of times where he says Little Crapper instead, but not exactly sure if those were also minor mistakes, or there's some deliberate choice with those lines)
Despite being the butt monkey of the cast, he arguably is one of the most tragic dateables -- him being a toilet by purpose where most either ignore / come-and-on, or are disgusted by him, all the while not really spending time trying to really get to know him. It's sad how it seems like the only character he's remotely close with is Rebel, and even the two of them don't really seem to be that good friends. He says that he's super popular, and only the best of the best can hang with him, yet we don't really see him properly hanging out with anyone (his cameos don't really count; and YES it makes me sad that no dateable makes a cameo in his story except the one mention of Beverly, which kinda reinforces how no one really cares about him). Faking/lying about this could be him coping with the reality of his existence, but (mostly?) constantly working on his bars to maintain his persona is how he chooses to live his life -- maintaining this wall while staying true to his passions, even if he has to be mostly alone where no one can hurt or bother him (same, king TAT)
That paragraph where only he can decide to save himself by properly acknowledging his issues, or have someone help him out and/or pull him out themselves really hits homes for me ;-; (and also got me more emotional over my man here ahhhHHHHH--) -- but now this gets worse where it may relate to the dilemma JL fans have with realising him or keeping him in the house -- if he stays an object, he can continue to live with his passions as a rapper. If he gets realised, he (most likely) has to say goodbye to those dreams and live a shitty life in human society.
Yes -- the severe lack of context in his post-realisation ending leaves to many interpretations on what happened to him before he became an accountant, and what happens to him from there on (PLS DEVS GIVE HIM ANY SORT OF REDEMPTION IN FUTURE CONTENT). It may have been that he had brief/little/no success with his rapping career right after he left the house, to which then he decided to get a proper job in order to stay on his feet as an independent human. I sadly/mostly agree with the headcanon that his porcelain records were joke awards, but I also think he may have gotten those produced personally. Despite how miserable he looks in his ending art, him keeping those records may be an indicator that his dreams aren't all lost; he still keeps that passion/dream in the back of his mind (and the back of his office cubicle). It's also nice that the narration says that he still loves us (if you get his love ending ofc), but getting shit on yet again by the devs doesn't feel great :( (shaming us for loving a "toilet-man", which he is, but you didn't have to refer to him as such multiple times)
I also like the headcanon/interpretation (and have been using as a coping mechanism) that he chose to ghost us cuz he's not in a good mental place, where he isn't the best version of himself, that he doesn't feel worthy to be in your presence at this time. The IRONY of this too!! Making you out to be someone who deserves better than a miserable office worker who couldn't succeed in his (shitty?) rapper dreams, and was formerly / started off as a toilet. He had initially asked so much from you, only for that dynamic to do a full 180 in the worst way possible. At least with this mindset, it's really nice to think of this as a way for him to be humbled by reality, and then being able to start over and rebuild himself to be the best version of himself, even if it's drastically different from his expectations of what would come out of him dreams to be a successful & famous rapper. Kinda feels like an analogy where when I first saw his realised form (before I found out what happens to him post-realisation), I assumed he had become the best version of himself, being dressed in gold, and thus me assuming that he made it big, only to be slapped in the face by his miserable-looking ending art.
Regarding the argument that he's the only dateable with a bad ending -- yeah there's a handful of the cast who didn't lead down the paths exactly as they hoped/expected, but they still got something that related to their dreams. Again, I know there's a severe lack of context for Jean's ending, but based on what's been established in his final lines, and especially considering how the devs treat him as the butt monkey (plus shaming us multiple times for liking the toilet), and having his story end on "he became an accountant" rather than "he worked his way up to becoming a rapper and/or marine biologist", even though it can be interpreted that he works his way up again, I think most of us can agree that his ending isn't good. The writers/devs might've wanted to focus more on having a funny/shitty ending for him cuz he's a rapping toilet, and then forgot (or chose to ignore) the crumb/lore of him having interest in marine biology.
I'm on both sides that his ending is shitty and that he deserves better, and that it's good where it allows more realisation development for him. Ofc I was upset when I found out about his ending, and even more upset that he ghosts us. But I'm not really expecting the devs to change the writing of his ending in the base game (altho still praying for any redemption in future DLC/content), and yes, again, with the power of fanfiction, we can openly re/interpret how his story goes. Also with this hyperfixation of mine, the more I have to accept the lore that's we're left with, the more I've grown to love him more... Like yes I love that he's a cocky bastard who's also a tsundere/dweeb (and may kinda be classified as a jerk with a heart of gold), but having to picture that he has to reform himself as a mature/developed and serious business man got me feeling some things... I wasn't exactly into his fit at first (me not being into rappers in general), but I really like how he pulls off the baggy clothes and swag-ass accessories, and then transforming into a formal/"normal" suited man -- what can I say? Both are hot >:) (or it could mostly be me being incredibly hyperfixated/infatuated with him... this is the weirdest hyperfixation I've ever had......)
Hello, thank you for taking the time to add your own thoughts!!
It's always so fun to bounce back ideas with other fans, hope you don't mind me adding stuff as well! (most of is from a technical pov about the variables in his route and dialogue I was able to transcribe, but reading your takes was very fun!) <3
About the few possible glitches, I have a save where Jean Loo's Love ending screen is triggered right before his Hate ending is activated, which is very funny to see! And every time I attempt to trigger his refund/"pay me" scene, it only leads to the Hate dialogue where he raps about the player wasting his time. It doesn't surprise me to hear there's a lot of glitches in his route given all the variables found in it lolol
I'm assuming the "stinky/thinky/dinky" Ballcock voiceline is part of the second check, since the player brings up washing their hands and that's the lead up Jean Loo gives in the first check to the second.
From what I can gather, the game only shows a maximum of four choices per check, and it priotizes those with highest SPECS points? So I tried replaying the game with only 70 Smarts and 70 Poise to see if this Ballcock choice was tied to those stats and allow space for it to show up in the list. But it didn't show up, so not sure if it's tied to a different SPECS attribute!
As for the lines you're missing, could this be it?
It's the recovery Jean Loo gives if you take the handicap and choose the incorrect no SPECS choice during the third check! It's the only time he ever mentions being on a roll, aside from his first interaction ("On a toilet roll")
There is also another voiceline that seems to be glitched for me that can also be found in this specific check; instead of playing, it automatically skips to the no mistakes allowed version even if it's not supposed to play. I only caught it thanks to the video! Maybe someone else has more information on this one or was able to trigger it!
As for the "[Charm 50] Act like you’re hot shit and call him a bitch" choice, Jean Loo only has recovery lines for the choices that are direct failures, so it seems odd to me that this one could work because it has a recovery line.
As for the "slip" in Sinclaire's route, I think that's perfectly normal rather than a mistake! Jean Loo still uses first person pronouns from time to time during his very first interaction, even if very very scarcely, when he's not even close to the player.
But the conscious choice of giving him two voicelines that differentiate between Love and Friend endings is still meaningful, at the very least I like to think it is--otherwise it seems curious for them to add such emphasis on the switch when winning the Love ending.
Here's the transcript if anyone would like to give it a read or use it as reference, by the way! It doesn't have all of Jean Loo's cameos in other routes, but the meat of his own route is there.
Compilation of headcanons and analysis of Jean Loo Pissoir as a character and other related things.
cracks knuckles. time to get into blorbo's head
and now that i've finished this post, i can work on all my other jean loo fics, hooray!!
On the subject of Jean Loo's route and hidden depths.
Contrary to popular belief and despite his existence as the literal butt of the joke for most of his screen time, there are a lot of fun details and subtleties about Jean Loo that often go unaddressed and give a lot of depth to his character!
First and foremost, he is one of the most demanding characters in the game, keep this in mind for later! When it comes to objects native to the bathroom or commonly associated with it (therefore counting Amir, but not River, Hector or Lux) Jean Loo is the only one who requires two SPECS attributes at 100 for his Realization Recipe, which involves getting an ending with every character within said attributes. For reference: Farya, Rebel, Bathsheba and Johnny all have a single SPECS attribute at 100, while Amir and Tyrell's highest attribute is at 80. The only one to even get close to Jean Loo's requirements is Barry Styles with two attributes at 90.
Of couse, this isn't to say that Jean Loo is the only character to do this in the game--there's Artt, Lux, Dante, Mateo, Dishy, Ben-hwa, the Hanks, Washford and Bodhi as well (I was able to quickly check their Recipes thanks to this video, if I've forgotten someone, feel free to let me know! ).
But Realization Recipes isn't the only way Jean Loo stands out as a demanding character.
When asked about SPECS, Skylar explains that no endings will be locked behind SPECS checks, as any options that require a certain number of SPECS are mostly for extra dialogue and potential collectables--and yet Jean Loo's Friend and Love endings require the player to pass five (potentially four) SPECS checks found in his final interaction, the crap (NOTE: Cool Rap) battle against him. It's worth noting that even Jean Loo himself warns the player of these high requirements, giving them all the time to prepare and raise their SPECS to even have a chance at winning.
(before dwelving deep into the mechanics of his rap battle, I'd like to say that this is all information I have gathered from replaying his route over and over with different set of SPECS to transcribe it and cross checking all of his voicelines with this compilation to ensure I didn't overlook anything! I'm only missing two specific voicelines, one from Ballcock tied to a SPECS attribute I can't trigger to show up and another from Jean Loo which seems to be completely glitched and unaccessible as of writing this--if you have screenshots or recordings for these specific options, please share them with me!)
Allow me to walk you through the rap battle! The first check serves as a good starting point, as it offers a choice that requires no SPECS at all but is still considered correct, "Match his pace"--note that this is the only time this happens, as the rest of SPECS-less choices will be automatic failures. Alongside this freebie, we also get two other choices, both for the SASS attribute. "[SASS 20] Go faster to scare him!" leads to failure and sets a precedent for future checks; you can still fail despite picking a choice with SPECS requirements, and to be safe, you should heed Jean Loo's words and aim for the ones with higher points.
The second check quickly ramps up the difficulty, since the correct choice with the lowest SPECS points I could acquire (this is where that one Ballcock voiceline that I'm missing is!) is at 65 SASS points, easily doubling the first check's "[SASS 30] Accelerate" option! The other two require 70 EMPATHY or POISE. If the player cannot meet any of these requirements, they'll be forced to pick from one of the two default incorrect options.
The third check throws a curveball at the player; the highest choice at 70 CHARM allows the player to skip the fourth check and go straight to the ending, but it also offers a lot of other SPECS choices of various point requirements and only half of them are correct. "[SMARTS 50] Use homophones" and "[POISE 40] Turn his theming around!" are correct, while "[CHARM 50] Act like you're hot shit and call him a bitch" and "[POISE 20] Get upset" are incorrect. Notice how the precedent set by the previous checks to prioritize the highest points is broken here, as POISE 40 will get you further than CHARM 50 in this situation.
The fourth check, if not skipped, offers four choices total which seem to go in pairs, one correct choice and the incorrect equivalent with a similar theme, a "what if you rapped about the same thing but fucked it all up instead" situation. There is the correct "[SMARTS 60] Employ plumbing knowledge!" alongside the incorrect, low hanging fruit of "[SASS 3] Toilet Joke!" And then there is "[EMPATHY 60] Hit him with his native tongue!" with "Try to diss him in his native language!" that follow the same format.
After this, we reach the final and fifth check, which happens after Jean Loo employs his forbidden technique of first person pronouns. This final check has four SPECS choices and one optional incorrect option that will only show up if the player can't meet the requirements for one of the previous choices. The curious detail here is the vastly different point requirements between the correct choices; there are the high point ones, "[Smarts 60] School this fool!" and "[Sass 60] Diss!" but then there's the low point ones, "[Poise 25] Give him advice" and "[Empathy 25] Befriend."
We'll discuss the potential reason why and some other details later on in the post, but that is a quick rundown of Jean Loo's rap battle. You need a minimum of 65 / 70 points in two SPECS attributes to clear it and reach his Friend/Love endings!
Mitchell Linn is known for being a difficult character to achieve a Love ending with due to the very specific answers the player must give him, if they don't want to be suddenly friendzoned--Rebel is similar in this regard, as their Love ending requires the player to stick to one lane rather than flipflopping between mean and nice (or too mean that they'll genuinely hate you). Sinclaire's route involves a lot of talking to other characters and it can get tedious, Beau's route is so long it even comes with it's own skip button in the form of Gaia. But even so, none require SPECS grinding like Jean Loo's! No other character has this specific gimmick as far as I remember.
There is also a fun detail about Jean Loo's route; even after messing up in his route and getting him to hate you, the player can come back to Jean Loo and ask for another chance. Supposedly, Keith's candy to undo a Hate ending don't work on him, since Jean Loo demands that the player pay him for his time if they mess up another time, but I think the game might be glitched since that interaction never appeared for me despite returning Dishy for the money Jean Loo asks for? Overall, it's very interesting to see how much thought was put into a character like Jean Loo!
Now, let us analyze Jean Loo's Realization Recipe in detail.
In my previous post, I discussed the understanding of these Recipes as the vibrations that best represent an object's overall personality, or even an aspect of their life. Thus, these stats are meaningful in one way or another to Jean Loo as a whole. We also know that a character's Alignment doesn't necessarily have to match their highest SPECS attribute--in Jean Loo's case, it does as he is a SASS character that requires 100 SASS points.
It's very easy to figure out why Jean Loo would be a SASS character, but what about the other attributes? The Key menu offers these descriptions, which is what we'll be using for this segment.
SMARTS: knowledge, brainpower, logic, trickery or cunning.
POISE: boldness, bravery, the ability to keep your cool and take things in stride.
EMPATHY: listening and communing with anyone you're sharing space with.
CHARM: sweet-talking your way through any situation.
SASS: witty banter, humor, rapport, snappy communication.
On a surface reading, not many would assign traits like Smarts and Poise to Jean Loo given the presentation of his character, and yet these are the core attributes that make up his Realization Recipe--traits that he displays throughout his entire route. To crap (NOTE: Cool-Rap) one must be bold and keep their cool, come up with witty rhymes and diss others, know the process of rapping, and so on and so forth.
During Jean Loo's third interaction, his lesson about meter and flow, the player can have an entirely optional extra segment in which he explains the concept of syllable count and iambic flow--the player may even comment on how they misjudged Jean Loo, given the time and effort he puts into his passion for rap. The player can even continue this optional segment if they want more information or cut it short, as seen below.
Despite his initial claims, Jean Loo is a good teacher. The entire route is him teaching the player something that he's mastered, rapping in a language that isn't even his own mother tongue--we see the heavily gendered french slip into his dialogue, addressing things with "he" or "she" and yet the player can also comment on how good his english is, to even know the correct form of "passers-by." Despite the characterization of a shit-talking rapper, Jean Loo has the talent to back up that smug attitude and his bravado. He's also surprisingly aware of environmental activism, as seen in his love for the ocean. A character that is meant to be taken at face value with no other hidden layers to their personality wouldn't even bring up his own lack of cultural knowledge about the first nations of America.
Notice, however, how I've mostly discussed things related to Jean Loo's rapping or adjacent to rapping. But how to separate the art from the artist?
I'd like to bring up his Date-A-Dex profile, which states the following about his dislikes:
Dislikes: The Cold Reality That He Is In Fact a Toilet Above All.
Along with this line of dialogue, after the player acquires his second collectable, which involves using him as a toilet up to three times if I remember correctly:
"Lil' Crapper tries his best to sidestep the realities of his being with a clever rapping characterization."
These are not the only moments that hint towards a much more self-aware and introspective Jean Loo, but they're the ones that work best to prove my point. Here, we see an entirely different picture about how Jean Loo presents himself as Lil' Crapper, his stage persona.
From my understanding, Jean Loo uses rapping partially as a way to distance himself from his existence as a toilet--rapping is not a façade, nor a mask that he wears to conceal an entirely different interior, but rather a shield made out of something that he loves and has put so much time and effort into perfecting. This is when the Poise attribute comes into play from my point of view, it's Jean Loo's ability to take things in stride and be shamelessly bold; despite that cold realization of his existence as a toilet, Jean Loo still incorporates that aspect of himself into his rap--he calls it Crapping, he's called Lil' Crapper, his albums are related to bathroom terms, his theme has fart reverb sounds and toilet flushing noises... We could've had a character like Prissy Plastique, a plastic plant that is near delusional with the idea of being something that she isn't, a real plant. But instead, we have Jean Loo, whose struggles relate more to Cam.
In Cam's route, the player is forced to walk on eggshells around him or constantly end up insulting him one way or another because of Cam's existence as a trash can--both characters embody objects that are seen as disgusting, as jokes or just undesirable. But Cam himself is proud and confident in who he is and what he does, while being fully aware of the way others will inevitably perceive him. One could say that Jean Loo stands somewhere in the middle of Prissy and Cam, perhaps leaning a little more towards Cam.
Jean Loo's love for rap serves the very specific purpose of shielding him from these preconceive notions about his existence as a toilet in a way that is both familiar and meaningful to him; because if someone is willing to take Crapping and his music seriously, then by extension, they're taking him seriously.
And of course, this backfires and ends up further isolating him.
As previously mentioned, Jean Loo's route is very demanding--he's not only trying to teach the player how to rhyme, he also requires high SPECS to pass his final rap battle. With everything that we just discussed about his self-awareness as a toilet, these hurdles Jean Loo puts for the player to prove themself are now recontextualized as him being desperate to make a connection with someone under his own terms, what he perceives to be the "right" way to find his equal. "If someone is willing to do as I say, listen to what I'm trying to teach them, and like the same things as me, then surely, surely I have found someone worth my time."
This is supported by the two choices with low SPECS points from the fifth check.
The player is lead to think they should pick the choices with higher point requirements to be safe, and yet these are the ones that give the most insight about his mentality, the ones that are so easy to acquire and yet will most likely end up ignored in favour of the other two.
Notice what the player is pointing out about Jean Loo; "He tells himself he's gotta be the best, pass the test 'cause soon, someone will come for him" or "I think that deep down in the depths of your mind you know that there's one thing you just cannot find. Someone who can blend with your rhymes and your beats." The player is literally putting his trust issues on blast for the entire bathroom to hear. These are the only options that rattle Jean Loo and cause him to really consider what the player is saying about him and the way he does things.
One detail I found endearing that is related to Jean Loo's inability to let people close enough to him without putting obstacle after obstacle in their way to prove themselves, is that in his interactions he starts out as his usual aggravating and rude self. And yet, after the first interaction, he's the only character who constantly asks the player if they're ready for his lessons, growing warmer the more they interact with him. If the player tells Jean Loo they're not ready at the beginning of his second interaction, he says the following:
(ends interaction early)
Player: No, not just yet.
Jean Loo: Then do not waste Lil’ Crapper’s time, eh!? Get out of here! Come back when you are done with being the worst!
Compare this to the same exact situation in his third interaction:
Player: Actually, maybe not.
Jean Loo: You need more time to recuperate? Lil’ Crapper understands this.
Jean Loo: ♪ Sometimes the Crapper’s too lyrical. / Sometimes his words are mysterical. / Frankly it's sort of a miracle / His listeners aren't left weary, y'all ♪
Jean Loo: ♪ Some need a restroom with whistles and bells. / Faucet and sink in the shape of a shell. / Can't understand all the words that he spells. / Figured the sheep would return to their cells. ♪
Jean Loo: ♪ … Though some of them say that it's just ‘cause he smells. ♪
By the fourth interaction, he's asking the player to return to him quickly, eager to hang out with him.
Player: I think I should go increase my SPECS Stats first.
Jean Loo: Lil’ Crapper understands this. Sometimes we all need a break, bathroom or otherwise. Lil’ Crapper will wait for you! Reviens vite.
So all in all, Jean Loo is oddly considerate and thoughtful for a character who introduces himself by straight up telling the player he will never teach them how to rap because he's way out of their league. Hell, you could deliver the worst bars known to man and if you accept his handicap, he'll still roll with it.
These are some of the hidden depths I enjoy about Jean Loo that coexist with the fact that he is kind of a dick, a talented rapper and an endless source of easy toilet jokes. He's also some fucking guy with issues! A guy whose actions betray his words! Whose words betray his actions! Self-aware and intelligent, but not enough to get out of the hole he's dug for himself until someone takes one for the team and meets him at his own level, if only to smack some sense into him. Seeing characters like Johnny Splash, Tina and Harper/Dirk are entertaining to watch because the sense of foreboding is there from the beginning--you know that it's only a matter before they crash and burn in their own way, some in more lighthearted ways than others. But there is a level of certainty; you know that Johnny will fail his audition, but he will continue singing. That Tina will continue to love drama even if it ruins her. That Harper and Dirk will keep on gravitating towards each other, for better and for worse.
But Jean Loo is like watching a man slowly drown in a tank while he holds the key to open the latch and save himself. He just won't do it. Someone else has to get in there and pull him out. You know what will happen if you don't move a muscle, if you don't play along, but what if you did? The uncertainty and the hope for better are always present, even the means to change for the better are kept from you.
On the subject of loneliness and Jean Loo's endings.
One of the themes within the game is to form relationships, whether positive or negative, which allow the player to grow as a person--there is a heavy focus on how the player is socially inept for many reasons, someone who may have had too many bad experiences in the past or maybe not enough courage to have a single experience.
This is most visible in routes like Amir's; he compliments everyone to hell and back, and a good chunk of choices given to the player revolve around rejecting everything he says out of fear or because they're suspicious of him.
There is a heavy focus on how lonely the player is, which explains why we have characters like Skylar, Dorian and Regina Rejection; Skylar focuses on love and romantic feelings, as seen in how much happier and giddy she gets when Love endings are achieved, it's something that is even portrayed in her design with hearts all over. Dorian is presented as the biggest defender of friendship, to emphasize how Friend endings are just as important and equally valid as Love ones.
But we also have Reggie, whose existence as rejection is the antithesis of everything Skylar stands for. Hate endings don't allow objects to be Realized, since they need positive feelings for that entire process and Reggie insists on how things are better when they stay the same and know their place, when the possibility of change is gone and everything remains stagnant.
Getting people to hate you saves you the eventual and inevitable heartbreak, it's "the feeling of knowing no one can hurt you."
The inability to change, grow and reconcile with others is exactly what drove Franklin Lieste and David Most apart, it's what's keeping the player inside of their house.
Hatred is, in itself, a special kind of loneliness.
And acquiring a Hate ending with Jean Loo is extremely easy; the player can simply fuck up during any of his lessons or fuck up during the final rap battle (twice, if using the handicap). I'd like to argue that this is one more hurdle that Jean Loo puts between himself and the world; you can interpret this as him preemptively breaking the relationship to save himself some time when things inevitably go sour between him and the player, or something he does unconsciously to force the other party into proving their determination to befriend him, or a secret third option. Or all of them at the same time! Or none! You could also perceive this as Jean Loo being genuinely mad that the player is making mistakes at something that he so closely relates to his own identity.
Before going on about his other endings, allow me to go on a tangent here: Jean Loo has a insane amount of cameos in other routes, and it's impressive to see so many other characters bring him up in passing. He even shows up in Rebel's route, trying to tell them to back off and not be so harsh to the player. I found this one out on accident while wasting time when transcribing his route!
In terms of relationships and dynamics, it's understandable to keep them localized to their respective rooms, but seriously, Tony mentions Jean Loo. River mentions Jean Loo. He's one of the travelers you can bring to Gaia. He helps the Hanks surf. Wili considered working with him. Beverly hates his ass for that one time he rapped about her drinking while she was hungover in the bathroom. Like other loud characters, he has a reputation around the house.
And yet, not a single other character shows up in his own route, not even for a moment. It's just Jean Loo, the player and Ballcock. Everyone is aware of who he is and what he does to some degree, but Jean Loo feels extremely isolated from others. There is a loneliness that permeates his character--compare him to Farya, whose route also features no other characters. With the way she's written, there is no indication that she's lonely nor isolated, nor that she has trouble connecting with others, just busy and focused on her studies. You can even compare Jean Loo to Holly in this regard, the busiest object in the house whose entire route revolves around how little time she has for herself and her friends--but in Holly's route, so many caracters show up to address this. Even Shelley, whose toxic positivity pushes everyone away, has Dasha show up to give her an intervention.
And this loneliness makes much more sense when taking into account the way Jean Loo acts, both with his impossible standards and his antics that never allow for genuine vulnerability with others. It's also extremely ironic how Jean Loo adores the ocean, going as far as to consider a career in marine biology, but River--the embodiment of all water--doesn't like him at all. It's like he can't get a SINGLE win.
Okay, back on track! The difference between Jean Loo's Friend and Love endings rely on a single choice: to accept his handicap or not. If the player accepts his handicap and acquires a Friend ending, there are two dialogue variations based on whether they made a mistake or not.
Notice how despite being friends, there's still a noticeable barrier; he doesn't quite consider you his equal, nor drops the third person speech unlike the Love ending.
The consistent use of first person pronouns seems to be an indicator of Jean Loo's trust and genuine respect, since the beginning of the conversation about Realization also has a variable that shows this.
I don't have a lot to add about these specific endings that we haven't covered already, so I'll tackle the elephant in the room: his Realization ending.
One of the points of tension within the fandom revolves around Jean Loo's Realized ending in which he goes on to become an accountant and ghosts the player due to their finances despite still loving them. I understand why people can be mad at this, but allow me to dispel some of the usual arguments against this ending that I see around!
The idea that Jean Loo "is the only one who has a negative ending" among all objects of the house is straight up incorrect.
Not everyone has a fulfilling and expected "good" ending. Within the bathroom, you have Amir and Johnny Splash, the former struggles to even win a single award despite having a good acting career and the former's entire career has been boiled down to being an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. Daisuke's art never improves and he's is casually thrown into the world of art as a model instead, despite him wanting to create art. Fantina literally has two endings and one of them involves her rotting at home, binge watching shows and never growing out of her obsessive personality, becoming disillusioned with reality. Freddy literally cannot exist and lead a normal human life because he retains his more monstruous appearance. Jerry is overwhelmed by the outside world and only finds solace in his basement, with his model trains. Tina (and Tony if realized as a couple) literally struggles with debt and a crumbling career on TV.
There is also the idea that he's doing poorly financially. Some of these characters canonically struggle with holding a job or with money, but Jean Loo is a literal accountant. That's an average of 70k$ a year in the US.
A lot of people brush off and ignore this ending altogether because Jean Loo's music career is gone, along with his other interest in marine biology, showing that he might've given up on his dreams in favour of a stable job--but we also see that his music career did, in fact, succeed to a degree.
In the background of his Realized ending illustration, we see he has TWO porcelain records for Lil' Crapper.
"Soon enough, he rockets up the charts! Platinum! Triple platinum! A new rank called Porcelain, just for Jean Loo!" He straight up got famous enough for the industry to invent an entire new rank for him, assuming these are legitimate. (the biggest tragedy for me is the fact that he stops painting his nails </3)
I also feel like ignoring this ending is a disservice to these aspects of his character that are already constantly overlooked; Jean Loo, despite all of his bravado, the toilet jokes, the existential crisis over being a toilet and his constant insistance at crapping (NOTE: Cool-Rapping) could still study to become an accountant and hold down a normal, down-to-earth job. So many other endings are fantastical and deal with a lot of out of pocket situations, but Jean Loo gets a quiet yet realistic life--he could've died in that drive-by-shitting like he said after a life of drugs, vices and rap, but he just went on to become an accountant.
This ending is vague and open enough to headcanon anything; maybe Jean Loo chose to give up on his one and only passion after figuring out just how difficult human life could be, maybe he's still an indie musician on his free time. Maybe he's saving up for college to get a marine biology degree! Maybe capitalism is slowly sucking up his soul and he'll stick to being an accountant forever! Who knows!
I personally like to perceive Jean Loo as someone who barks very loud but in the moment of truth, he knows better than to chew more than he can bite. With everything we've discussed, it feels right that he doesn't get everything that he hoped or wished for, and instead deals with a more realistic existence as a lonely human without fully giving up on his passion--rap just has to take a backseat, just like how his first relationship with the player also has to go for now, because it's not the right time nor the right place for any of these things to flourish. And maybe, just maybe, he continues to repeat those same patterns and old habits, needing someone to meet him at his own level to drag him out of the hole he's dug for himself.
On the subject of Jean Loo's family.
This segment is all speculative headcanons since the format of the game doesn't allow for a cohesive explanation about every character's families and history in that so-called parallel existence in the object dimension. But we can assume that objects live similarly to humans in terms of families thanks to Mikey, Fantina, Rebel or Freddy.
Mikey's route specially gives a lot of insight on this matter; it confims that children in the object world are objects/concepts that have yet to exist in the real world, as seen below.
But just like how each of us represents one thing in existence... kids in the object world become new things that haven't been invented or discovered yet!
Parents in the object world are a difficult subject to tackle. Sometimes they're the means through which the object was physically made (think of Dirk and his mother, a loom), objects of the same item category (think of Fantina and her parents, who are different types of fans) or concepts related in a way to the object (think of Mikey's parents being the Roulette Wheel and Addie Addiction).
So we can assume that Jean Loo must have had parents prior the invention of the modern porcelain toilet. I don't dare theorize what exactly his parents may be, since it would take a lot of time to research toilet history and production, but I do like to headcanon that they're relatively normal. For Jean Loo to have enough sense to become an accountant despite everything requires a pair of sensible parents and a sense of normalcy. It would also fit the vibe of his rapper persona and his dreams, starting from a humble beginning and making it big in the industry.
We could also headcanon different types of toilets such as portable toilet or airplane toilets as Jean Loo's siblings. I like the concept of his siblings being just as regular as their parents, sticking to the family job and heritage as toilets without a problem while Jean Loo serves as the odd one out. On the other hand, I also really like the idea of Jean Loo being an only child and lacking that fundamental sibling dynamic that could've helped him make connections with other objects in the house.
But the idea of siblings is also complex, as it's been portrayed as the same product as the character, like Freddy's siblings being different fridges of the Yeti line, or Rebel's million siblings being rubber ducks from the same batch. Mickey even mentions his mother having many, many children and therefore having many, many siblings related to different addictions while he himself is rather new as a microtransaction.
A headcanon I do have regardless of what Jean Loo's family may be is that he's cut off all contact with them, not out of spite or due to being mistreated--it was just so easy for him to slip and allow his relationship with his family to fade away, that he no longer has it in him to call home out of embarrassment and shame.
Random assortment of headcanons I couldn't fit anywhere else.
Jean Loo has many, many piercings but ironically no tattoos at all, since porcelain is always so squeaky clean. He mostly has beauty marks and moles, but gets freckles during summer because of the sun.
His hair is naturally blue (the carpet matches the drapes) but he dyes his roots black AND tells people that he dyes his hair blue instead--he's playing 9D chess to make himself sound a little cooler, since it's a bit hard to stand out when there's objects with naturally pink hair, neon orange hair, tentacle hair, electricity hair, and so on. No one's really out there getting their hair dyed.
Johnny Splash has an actual published autobiography that continues to muddy the specifics of his lore; Jean Loo's autobiography is all oddly realistic and cohesive, but it's exclusively found online on some old, forgotten, near-defunct site.
He does, in fact, bring up this picture from Lady Memoria's route as often as he can whenever he feels like winning a stupid argument against the player.
Even though his route lacks a proper "rejection" scene from the player, I do like to think Jean Loo developed a crush on them pretty easily based on how the only choice during the rap battle that renders him speechless is the one where the player openly flirts with him and brings up the idea of him having a crush. And similar to Cabrizzio with his movies, Jean Loo bases all of his knowledge about romance on all the music he studies for his rap.
Has a horrible sleep schedule, but he's an early riser. Jean Loo doesn't start his morning early to do usually productive things, though--he mostly hangs around in silence or writes down lyrics until there's other people awake around the house. I like to imagine Jean Loo is the type of person who is used to having people exist around him, even if he doesn't interact with them--it's not that he despises being alone, but it is much easier for his mind to spiral without the background noise of people going on about their day and routines. This may, or may not be related to how he feels about being a toilet, overall ignored unless needed, never a priority for anyone.
...That doesn't mean that Jean Loo enjoys parallel play whatsoever; whenever he hangs out with someone, he naturally monopolizes their attention, though he's painfully aware of how easy it would be for literally anyone else in the house to catch the player's attention.
Most likely cried out of sheer emotion the first time he went to the beach and saw the ocean post-Realization, but there were no witnesses so you can't prove anything! I don't think he has a single romantic bone in his body, so he wouldn't make a big deal out of bringing someone he trusts to the beach with him--but it WOULD be a big deal for him, in secret.
I read you're Date Everything analysis and I think it's super cool, hope more people start to pick at some of the really interesting concepts that the game holds. I also wanted to say that you should check out the DLC characters (Lucinda and Mikey) storyline on YouTube, I think they both bring some new potential angles to look at the world and at lot more questions.
thank you for the kind words! I'm also hoping people go absolutely feral with blorbo analysis, but I always say that for any fandom I join lmfao
I meant to go check out the DLC routes but I saw you also get the artbook + the entire OST so I HAD to buy it on the spot???? if the demons don't take me away, I'll probably make another post going thru Lucinda and Mikey!
;DATE EVERYTHING - Thing Theory, SPECS and Realization Analysis
Analysis and headcanons regarding Thing Theory, SPECS, Realization, Realization Recipes and how they play into existence of awakened objects/concepts.
I have. too many ideas for fanfics and analysis that can ONLY be written AFTER I organize my other ideas about the worldbuilding of this game, so here we are!
as usual, if there is some information I might've missed or overlooked, please feel free to let me know or discuss ideas with me! it's fun to bounce thoughts back and forth about blorbo game <3
beware of spoilers! this post is. very long!
First of all, this post is fueled by Skylar's Suspension of Disbelief--I love the game and the lore it presents, and even the meta lore and jokes added to explain itself! But I also love thinking deeply about everything or trying to make sense of it, so this post is for those who also want to read a lot into the little things!
With that out of the way, I can now go deranged! As usual, I'll be very pedantic about things that might be considered Common Knowledge, so that everyone can be on the same page!
On the subject of Thing Theory and the existence of objects/concepts
The picture above reads:
Thing Theory theorizes that at large enough scales, all objects and concepts coalesce into their own one-dimensional wavelength that unifies all of that type of object throughout the universe!
The first subject to tackle is Thing Theory, which explains how conscious and self-aware objects/concepts exist in a separate plane of existence that humans cannot perceive. As the name implies, Thing Theory is based on String theory, but all we need to understand is that everything that is big or tangential enough has its own specific set of vibrations/wavelengths--or "animus" as Skylar calls it.
Both physical things and abstract concepts can have their own animus, from furniture to feelings. But the specifics of how big and/or complex an object or concept must be to gain its own animus is not as clear.
String is said to be too small to be a dateable character, but perhaps the concept of all yarn is complex enough to have its own animus. Skylar uses a piece of wood as an example; on its own its just a piece of wood, but once you add more to it, you could turn it into a toy boat--its status has changed, it has become something bigger than the sum of its parts, and thus it has changed to a new wavelength.
This explanation is used to justify how certain objects can be made from the same material and still lead into entirely different characters, such as Abel (table) and Chairemi (chair)--they're different animus, because they're not made the same way. This is also why there is a distinction between Able and Dasha (desk)--a desk is a type of table (hence why the two bond over their similar struggles) but it's still distinct enough to be its own category. We don't say dinner desks, but we can say work table. All apples are fruits, but not all fruits are apples!
But what about abstract and non-tangible concepts, such as Nightmare (nightmares) or Dough (overwhelming sense of existential dread)? In Zoey Bennett's route, she specifically asks the player to bring as many characters that "span the distance between object and idea."
The physical aspect of having more complex and bigger mechanisms or different parts cannot apply to them, so we must take into account another factor into how animus are created: the purpose and intent.
For example, Jerry (junk desk) is physically part of Dasha, and yet they're two separate identities because the concept of "a drawer to shove all the garbage you're not quite ready to throw away yet" is tangential enough to be its own wavelength without leaning too far into a concept like Cam (trash can) or "the place you're supposed to throw all of your trash into." There is a specific intent when you start leaving miscellaneous items that might be useful in the future or that you can't be bothered to sort through. In Jerry's route, you may use parts of his collection to create something new and artistic, which ends up being a merry-go-round, and this object vibrates along Artt's (art) animus!
Parts of a whole can become their own thing (or already established things) if given enough relevance through purpose and intent.
Through Lady Memoria (memories) we can also see a similar process --at some point, your old possessions become mementos of the past. In her route, the player sorts through various old pictures, posters and papers, choosing on whether to keep or throw them away. If thrown away, they're donated to Cam but if kept, they're given to Artt so that he may find a place to display them. But here's the kicker, even though Artt's own route revolves around curating paintings to display them around the house, the objects you choose to keep from Lady Memoria's route remain within her own wavelength rather than his--because the purpose is the same; these are still pieces of your past that bring a nostalgic feeling, just in a different spot.
But what happens when you take all the parts of a whole?
The obvious assumption to make is that if you disassemble or break a physical object, they die. But Skylar confirms that "each object is the same from all corners of the universe." Every door is Dorian, every chair is Chairemi, every microwave is Luke--no matter how its designed or how it may very from country to country, if they fall within their animus, then that object is part of their consciousness. They still exist in all other iterations of whatever they represent, outside of the player's house.
This implication that objects/concepts are omniscient to a degree is confirmed as well by Skylar too when discussing communication between objects/concepts. She mentions the following:
The speeds at which objects and concepts think is both faster and slower than the rate at which humans think and speak. Faster in that the objects have instantaneous consciousness throughout their different forms in the universe...And slower that the timelines for them can stretch into eons...
She exists as the necessary medium to translate everything into your own time and language, but even so, she's not privvy to all the details--just the moments she can see while she's being used.
And this leads us to another bit of lore: the fact that objects/concepts exist in an entirely different dimension that humans cannot perceive.
(though it's worth noting that Skylar has a date with Penelope in the latter's route which, as far as I know, was agreed to behind the scenes and away from the player's eyes. since Skylar is an object, she must also exist within this same plane of existence)
This is somewhat easy to grasp, since plenty of the characters know of each other or have unique relationships and dynamics with one another. Phoenicia (phone) mentions social media that are exclusive to objects and do not exist in the human world, which she can't access after being Realized.
And whenever the player goes on adventures with the Hanks (hangers) or visits Volt & Eddie (breaker box), they do so in a seemingly impossible space in which the player is small enough to paraglide with the Hanks or walk into the electricity closet which instead has been turned into an entire night club.
Skylar even explains the logistics when asked about what the player is exactly doing when they're being intimate with non-Realized objects/concepts, so we can assume that the process for the previous adventures in the realm of objects is similar.
We could assume that the player's consciousness is momentarily able to exist in this plane of existence exclusive to objects.
To return to the discussion of object/concept omniscient consciousness, I want to talk about two things!
First of all, the idea of objects having various forms--different instances and designs for that which they represent. This was brought up briefly before when mentioning how every door is Dorian and every chair is Chairemi; depending on which door you interact with, there is a different Dorian, some more unique than others. Trapdoors and back doors are, at the end of the day, different doors.
Skylar describes this as "putting on a costume," which makes perfect sense with a character like Chairemi, an actress who plays many different roles throughout the week but also has many different jobs in that object plane of existence. There are many different designs for chairs, so it makes sense to portray them as different characters in a performance, all played by the same animus.
But then we have other objects that "repeat" in the house, with their own unique flavour of having "different selves" and/or paths to their routes. Dirk/Clarence is the same person and the same object, only in different states; dirty laundry and clean clothing respectively.
(note how Dirk/Clarence's situation is different than Timothy/Timmy's (clock), which could be interpreted as having multiple personalities instead, since the player is asked to mediate between the two if doing Timmy's route. In Dirk's case, there's no communication with Clarence. And in Timothy/Timmy's case, there is no change to their physical being.)
Wyndolyn has four different routes depending on which set of windows you interact with--north, east, south and west--because she sees different things depending on the direction she's facing. Earning a Love Ending with her requires following at least two of these routes' stories til the end. We also have Curt and Rod who follow a similar premise to Dorian, asking the player to come and meet their different iterations throughout the house, wanting to add variety to their people-watching sessions.
All these windows are Wyndolyn and all these doors are Dorian, but rather than imagining them "running" around in the object dimension to meet you at the specific space and time you're choosing to interact with them, I suggest the idea of selective omniscience instead. If these objects can already exist in all iterations of the objects tied to their animus with their own infinite timelines, why limit their existence to one?
I like to interpret this as the objects/concepts choosing to focus on the current space and time they're inhabiting when the player speaks to them--of course the objects in your house recognize you when you awaken them, it's your house after all! But if you were to first awaken Dorian in someone else's house, then he may not recognize you, as this physical object--the door itself--is in an entirely different place, having an entirely different life with whoever lives there.
This could also explain why some of Wyndolyn's routes mention not knowing what happens inside the neighbours' house even though she's technically there as a set of windows--the Wyndolyn you're talking to, complaining about not being able to hear if your neighbours are getting a divorce is also the windows from that very same house, just not right now while talking to the player and not there in the player's living room.
Like this, there is more room to theorize and play with their existence as near-immortal and omniscient objects turned human! And it's an insanely good source of potential angst.
The second thing I want to discuss is the connection between an object's physical being and their animus--or their "hot person from a hidden plane of existence" state of being--to further support my idea of selective omniscience.
Shelley (shelf) is haunted by a defect in her physical being; one of the shelves was mounted incorrectly, thus causing her to be anxious at the idea of failing her purpose to support things. Wallace (wall) worries about losing focus and having cracks appear on his physical surface, since he takes his job of holding up the foundation of the house very seriously.
This is most notable with Rainey (record player) whose route is analogue to being a physically disabled person; the record player itself was knocked over during a party years ago, leading to Rainey's difficulty to play music like she once did. This is completely different case to Mac (computer)--they may be a wheelchair user, but they seem to be designed to be that way by Skylar, as she confirms to be the one who comes up with everyone's appearances based on how she perceives them in their totality.
Both Rainey and Mac are obviously representation for the physically disabled, but Mac's disability wasn't caused by external forces to their physical being--this is simply how they look through the lenses of the Dateviator. We need to understand that these characters can go through events similar to the human experience, but they can also be completely detached from the human experience as objects. And with the concept of objects having lives parallel to ours in their own dimension, it's free real estate to headcanon anything you'd like!
Either way, Rainey is able to recover when the physical object is fixed by tightening some screws around--but Rainey, as a conscious animus, still suffers the consequences in the aftermath of it all, at least in a social and emotional aspect, knowing that the people who might celebrate her recovery also shunned her during her time of need.
On a much less serious note, Jean Loo's breath and Jerry himself are both said to smell because their physical "bodies" are not cleaned regularly (ironic, since I don't remember reading any of this for Cam--though his entire route is a struggle to avoid committing microaggressions towards him).
With all these examples, we see that the state of the physical object has a direct effect on the awakened animus--but we also must remember that Shelley is every shelf in the world, and Rainey is every record player in the world. Why would they suffer so much due to one injury, when they could be in worse or better states in other places?
Selective omniscience, babeeey! They exist in the iteration, in the moment and in the place you find them.
But now that we know that the state of the physical object impacts the character, we must ask ourselves a question: is true death possible for these objects? If an object's awakened animus gets injured, does it influence their physical being?
On the subject of mortality and animus.
The example Skylar uses to explain object/concept death is that if one were to destroy all microwaves in the world, then Luke--as the animus carrier of all microwaves--would die. But he could be revived if a microwave were to be recreated anywhere in the universe.
Therefore, death is not permanent and is extremely difficult to achieve as an object/concept.
We already discussed the effect of the physical being onto the animus, so we must discuss the opposite. In the game, Daisuke's animus form gets injured--"chipped" like the dishware he represents--but the plates and dishes are perfectly fine. With this, we could assume that the relationship between physical being and animus is a one-way thing, and that objects/concepts can get injured without influencing their physical beings.
But if death can only occur under very specific, near impossible circumstances, what happens when a character's animus gets mortally injured? Is it even possible for them to be mortally injured while their physical being is intact?
Daisuke's dialogue implies that his injuries can get worse enough to completely keep him from working, and Holly (holidays) is so overworked that she cannot stay awake for too long during one of her interactions.
But then we also have Freddy (fridge), who proves that events that happen in the object dimension can affect their physical being.
In his route, he aggressively lashes out at the player after food goes bad, and later on explains that his siblings have always teased and bullied him for being the runt of the litter during their time at the factory--this continued to the point where Freddy "got so mad, he blew a cooling line." Since then, he's struggled to keep that anger under control.
We see that his emotions were able to affect his physical being. So how can this be? Let's discuss animus again for a second!
Through Thing Theory, we understand that "animus" refers to the unique vibrations and wavelengths of each object/concept. We know that through changing the way we perceive something and/or by changing its physical state, its vibrations are altered--therefore finding a different wavelength that transforms that object into a different animus carrier. Every object can become Lady Memoria with enough time and nostalgia, every thought could become Nightmare if you fear and overthink it enough.
We'll discuss Realization in detail later on, but for this we have to know that the process of bringing an object to life involves Skylar altering the vibrations to become as human as possible. She doesn't create a human body for scratch or transfers them into a real human body. "They will always have their own vibrations underneath..."
And Realization can only occur through strong positive feelings that are akin to the vibrations of a character's animus--hence why only Love or Friend statuses can lead to Realization.
So we can see that animus can be altered without changing the identity of the carrier--Skylar uses this for the specific process of Realizing objects/concepts which requires positive emotion, but the focus on feelings and how they play with vibrations is there.
To explain how Daisuke and Freddy's struggles can coexist, I like to think that strong emotions can affect their physical state, since they follow the core of their existence of vibrations--but an injury caused in the object plane of existence is forever tied to that plane of existence, with no way to interact with the real world similar to Phoenicia's social media.
For example, if you break a plate, then Daisuke would be injured until that plate is fixed or thrown away. If thrown away, it becomes trash and Daisuke would continue to exist as the other plates in your kitchen. If Daisuke gets injured in the object dimension, the plates aren't affected at all because that injury is tied to the object dimension. But if Daisuke's emotions are strong enough--perhaps the frustration and the rage at being too injured to go about his life in said object dimension--then perhaps your favorite mug will have those mysterious cracks that appear overtime through use, perhaps the handle is more fragile and breaks off easily.
We could even explain certain things like this; losing socks in the washing machine could be a result of Washford being too distraught over Drysdale's fling with Dirk. Or maybe it's a result of Dirk's stress, knowing his life as Clarence is hurting Harper (hamper), and she will hurt him in retaliation once he gets dirty again and returns to her. Maybe you keep getting shitty rolls during a D&D campaign because Chance is absolutely stumped running his own G&G campaign (he already does this, rolling a 20 or a 1 in the game, if you've gotten a good or bad ending with him respectively!)
If the majority of objects take pride and joy in doing what they were created for, then I think it adds a lot more weight if sometimes things around the house don't work as well because maybe they're having a bad day!
On the subject of SPECS and Alignment
SPECS as we know them are part of the player's personality traits (Smarts, Poise, Empathy, Charm and Sass).
These attributes can only increase through the first Love, Friend or Hate ending acquired with a dateable character, which Skylar contextualizes as the player gaining experience through socialization--you can gain insight and introspection from interacting with others and solidifying your relationships, whether these are positive or negative.
When it comes to objects/concepts, SPECS are only relevant in two ways: Realization Recipes, which we'll tackle later, and Alignment.
Alignment is never outright described beyond a game mechanic to know which SPECS attribute you'll gain with certain characters. The first assumption one can make is that Alignment refers to a character's highest stat in their Realization Recipe, indicating that this is the most important attribute--but a quick look through the Date-a-Dex proves this wrong.
Not every character's Alignment corresponds to their highest stat in their Realization Recipe. Bathsheba is a CHARM character, but her highest SPECS attribute is SASS at 100 points, while her CHARM requirement is only 50 points.
The other assumption we can make is that Alignment refers to the SPECS attribute that the object/concept's personality gravitates towards the most.
Not necessarily in the sense of "this character's Alignment is SASS, so they're always sassy," but instead adhering to the descriptions the game gives about each attribute, as shown above. This allows for a more detailed and deeper reading of characters who seem like the perfect embodiment of their Alignment and also those who, surprisingly, don't seem like they'd fit on a surface level.
Let's look at the POISE attribute. The Key menu describes it as "boldness, bravery, the ability to keep your cool and take things in stride." Tydus (detergent), Wallace and Hero-Hime (anime figurine) fit like a glove. But then we have other POISE characters like Parker (boardgames), Stefan (stove) and Harper who require a bit more introspection to fit into this category; we could argue that one must keep their cool when playing board games, as to not give their hand away, hence Parker's Alignment. He might be defined by loud and near aggressive randomness, but during his route we can see the attention to detail when it comes to the rules of all the games he plays.
Stefan is similar in this regard, Mr. Cluckles exists to check in on his temper when interacting with others and yet we also get to see his passion, perfectionism and dedication to his craft in the kitchen, even opening up to the raw foods he disliked so much as an object that is meant to cook food. Harper is shamelessly bold and brave in her affections, and while we mostly deal with the consequences of her relationship with Dirk, we also see how easy it is for her to adapt when fixing their relationship or, if the relationship was broken, how quick she moves on to flirt with the player.
There are other notable Alignments that caught my eye while looking through the list! Johnny Splash's profile states he dislikes snark, and yet he's a SASS character. Amir (mirror), coincidentally, is also here even though it's quite easy to pinpoint him as a CHARM character. Wyndolyn, who presents herself as put together, confident and extroverted, can be found in the EMPATHY category. Kristof (crosstrainer) and Fantina (fan) are POISE. Sinclair (sink) and Doug are SMARTS. It's food for thought!
On the subject of Realization and Realization Recipes.
If you've made it this far, I can finally confess that this entire post was a sidequest so I could write Jean Loo fanfics in which he gets turbo depression post-Realization, but I had to dissect the entire worldbuilding first to do so. Now we can finally get into the most interesting part of the analysis!
Realization is the process of turning an inanimate object/concept into a human. Tinfoilhat--or Franklin Lieste--first brings up this process in Thiscord DMs. His explanations are a bit misleading as he says that this process can "100% literally--transform objects into living, breathing humans" but this is easily explained as him not having the full scope of whatever was done to his schematics and prototype.
Skylar gives a more precise explanation: rather than creating or transferring the animus to a new physical human body, she alters the animus of the character to become as close as possible to a human, able to experience "practically every human feature [we're] familiar with." They're still vibrations underneath it all.
We know this is true, since Sinclaire is able to become a turtle in one of his Realized endings, which state that he goes on to outlive every single other character in the game--therefore, Realized characters can age like humans and die like humans!
The only difference is that despite being as close as possible to humans, they're still animus at the end of the day and thus, their partial immortality remains. When a Realized object dies, they simply return to their original state, to the object dimension most likely.
Skylar confirms that they leave no body behind, which in turn explains some details about certain Realized endings; Harper, whose entire character revolves around the concept of permanence due to her abandonment issues, becomes a tattoo artist for couples but refuses to get a tattoo in honor of the player--instead, she can plant a tree in the park in their honor (if Clarence was chosen) or spray paint the player's face and information in the back of her shop (if Dirk was chosen).
We can now understand that she does this because she knows that getting a tattoo herself will not be as permanent as something that can fully stay in the human world.
Reactions to the possibility of becoming human may vary from character to character, but it's a huge deal among objects/concepts.
The majority struggle with getting used to their human bodies--most complaints are about how "gooey" and "moist" humans are, referring to their organs, blood and other liquids--but their reactions are as enlightening as entertaining, since they seem to confirm their physical being as objects takes priority over their parallel lives in the object dimension. After being Realized, Mac laments how "less good" their brain feels now that they no longer have instant access to all the information they wish to know, and Chairemi is amazed at the fact that she has two legs, but also that her torso can bend.
Characters who deal with more abstract concepts are the most curious to me. Diana, as the player's diary, struggled to separate her identity from the player's own thoughts and feelings, but once she's Realized the first thing she celebrates is having a "middle," a metaphor for how she finally has a center to balance herself that is neither you nor the chaos of her mind.
Airyn, who once despised the idea of air being wasted on words, instantly realizes talking is fucking awesome and takes up a job that allows her to talk as fast and as much as she wants. Nightmare basks in the way people pay attention to her, since she retains her monstrous form as a human, and she continues her passion for horror making indie horror movies before retiring and volunteering at a senior center. Doug even has a change of perspective.
A lot of them were vastly limited by their near immortal and omniscient existence as the personification of one single thing, but it's interesting to see how much more freedom they can have when limited to a finite human existence.
It's also curious to see the forms these non-conventional objects/concepts take on after being Realized--Nightmare remains exactly the same, but Dishy transforms into an actual human-looking man. In Artt and Dough's paired Realization, Artt comments the following:
I believe that as our previous forms were always more abstract, it has created a bit of a "left of center" approach to the human form!
This is good enough of an explanation to justify the differences--or lack thereof--in some of their designs.
Circling back to the process of Realization, we have to talk about Realization Recipes.
As a game mechanic, in order to Realize objects the player needs to acquire the stats necessary to do so, which can be found in the Date-a-Dex. In-universe, this is explained as the player gaining personality traits that resonate with an object/concept's animus. Once more, we return to the importance of feelings as a powerful force that brings about change, a force that can alter vibrations and animus. The player is able to change for the better through connecting with others, whether their relationships end up being positive or negative as mentioned before.
But to be able to change an inanimate object's animus so much in order to Realize them, they require positive feelings and a wavelength that is similar to theirs--which is why only Love and Friendship endings allow this.
We could equate these requirements as wanting someone you know you can trust and who knows you well when going through big changes in your life. After all, the not so subtle subtext of the game tackles the extreme loneliness and isolation the player feels, physically unable to leave their house not only because of the Dateviators, but because of their own anxiety. Rebel (rubber duck) is one of the few to acknowledge this after being Realized; they admit to being scared of the outside world, and they rightly believe that the player is scared as well, but they wish them luck since the effort into stepping outside will surely be worth it in the end. Like Skylar herself mentions at the beginning of the game, love is one of the most important feelings--this is reflected in the game mechanic, since you can achieve great endings with platonic friendships. What matters is having a support system of people that you cherish and who cherish you as well.
Franklin Lieste further supports Skylar's explanation on Realization in a more methodical way, for those who prefer to focus on facts over vibes.
The relevant text is the following:
After analyzing the data, it appears certain objects can only become human if the Dateviator user possesses the necessary personality traits. I'm not sure why... I theorize it's because certain character attributes emit an energy vibration on the same resonant frequency as the molecules of a particular inanimate object. Regardless, I was able to discover which personality traits seem to resonate with each inanimate object, and I've uploaded that data into the dateviators.
He also brings up the concept of Realization Recipes.
We've already discussed Alignment, the emotional and metaphorical aspect of Realization and how SPECS checks play into it, so for this segment I'd like to bring up something slightly different regarding Recipes.
If we can understand that Alignment could refer to the trait each object/concept gravitates towards the most because it aligns with their own personality, and that Realization can only happen when the player's own attributes resonate with that of the object/concept's, then we can understand that Realization Recipes aren't only the wavelength in which these characters exist but they also represent their own personality or life to some degree.
In the game, there are five pairs that the player can get together. One of these pairs is a bit special and we'll discuss them later, so for now we'll talk about Washford (washing machine) and Drysdale (dryer); as a couple going through a rough patch, no longer on speaking terms, we can reunite the two or keep them separated. If kept apart, they each have their own respective Realization Recipe as seen below--Drysdale is on the left and Washford is on the right.
Right away, we can see that their Realization Recipes complement each other--if you merge their SPECS requirements, you would get 100 points in each attribute--and this makes sense given their relationship and their love for each other, not only as romantic partners but as performers.
If you Realize them together, the Realization Recipe changes entirely to reference their acrobatic act as a duo, perfectly symmetrical and balanced.
This also happens with other two matches! Their individual Recipes compliment each other, while their Recipe together forms a relevant shape (as relevant as can be with this format) for the characters involved.
Tina (triangle) and Tony (toolbox) form an upside down triangle, which references the love triangles Tina obsesses over as the superior shape. Abel and Dasha form a table with two chairs, since they're both objects made for similar purposes of holding up others--you could even relate this to their love for cooking together since their shared ending involves creating a community garden with vegetables and a soup kitchen for their neighbourhood.
The only pair not to do this are Doug and Artt, which makes sense to me as they're both abstract concepts that aren't quite opposites of each other nor complimentary, but instead concepts that could go hand in hand--maybe referencing the idea of a tortured artist, or that art draws from all feelings, even the darker ones, to create.
Ironically enough, Harper and Dirk aren't considered one of these matches--a fun detail about them is that both have vastly different individual Realization Recipes, with Harper's being more spread out through all attributes and Dirk focusing only on a few that require high points. But when Realized together, their Recipe has... extremely low requirements overall except for Sass, which is what they give to each other most of the time.
Still, we can see that there is also an intent behind the Realization Recipes, and while we can assume that this treatment is only reserved for couples, we have our last match to discuss.
Let's look at these characters: Celia (ceiling) and Florence (floor)
All are considered their own individual characters, unlike two for one characters such as Eddie & Volt, Curt & Rod, or even the Hanks. Celia and Florence are a special case, as they must be Realized together no matter what and thus, share their Realization Recipe from the beginning.
But oddly enough, another character shares their exact same Recipe--Stella (stairs) who does not get into a polyamorous relationship with neither of them, as far as I'm aware, but she's a vital part of their route since her pyramidal scheme indirectly affects Florence, acting as the catalyst for everything. What matters is that at the end of the route, if done properly, Stella's business ends but she's given the opportunity to work with Celia and Florence.
Like this, we can interpret the Recipe as symmetrical stairs that go from the floor to the ceiling, representing all three characters rather than just one couple.
Other notable characters with very recognizable Realization Recipes are Daemon (glitch) and Sinclair, as seen below respectively. Clearly, these reference Daemon's status as a bug in the game and Sinclair's identity crisis due to the psychedelics stuck inside of him.
There is also Airyn's Recipe, in which she specifically asks for 0 points in the two SPECS attributes that are defined by talking and communication--Charm and Sass. Textbox-chan (game UI) who is a Smarts attribute character, but her highest SPECS is Empathy at 100, the attribute that revolves around "listening and communing with anyone you're sharing a space with," relating to her passion for making games accessible through transcripts and easy to read fonts.
You can read even deeper into these Recipes!
Jean Loo's Recipe involves 100 points of Sass, which is expected given his passion for rap and his crapping (NOTE: cool rapping) classes for the player. And given his tendency to instigate conflict or be somewhat abrasive with other objects, it makes sense that his Empathy and Charm requirements are at 0 points--Jean Loo doesn't use sweet-talk, he shit talks, and he's never shown living in harmony with those he shares spaces with, as seen in his relationship with other objects in the bathrooms. But he also asks for 100 Poise and 50 Smart points, possibly hinting towards his knowledge and cunning with languages to rhyme.
It's also worth noting that within the bathroom residents, Jean Loo is one of the few characters who asks for somewhat high Smarts points--Farya (first aid kit) is the highest at 100, followed by Tyrell (towels) and Jean Loo at 50. After that, it's Amir at 20, with everyone else asking for 0 Smarts points.
With this, I want to urge people to take a look at their favorite characters' Recipes and analyze how it may apply to them! And before concluding this bullet point, I'd like to thank the official Date Everything wiki gg for the Realization Recipe tables and this video for the screenshots of all Realization moments used in this post!
Further reading into details I didn't know where to fit in.
This is the final bullet point so I'll be quick with this one! I can't add more images to this post so you'll have to navigate through the links instead!
Characters often mention having families; these don't exactly fit in with what we understand as biological families, but they can get pretty close!
For example, Fantina's parents are a ceiling fan and a desk fan who worry about her stalker and obsessive tendencies, as seen in one of her collectables. Clearly, there is no way for two objects like them to conceive a child. But then we have Dirk, whose mother is a loom. Technically, she created him--or part of him, the iconic scarf that can be seen in his sprite and Harper's hamper. Stefan's mother is a chiminea, so we can at least confirm that an object/concept's "biological" family are things that fall within similar categories. Stefan himself acts as a parental figure to Miranda (toaster) in her route.
Rebel also mentions having a million siblings that they loved before they were all separated, unlike Freddy who was constantly bullied by his--these siblings are implied to be the same "batch" of objects created at the same time in the same factory.
There is not a lot I have to say about how families work within the context of objects/concepts, but it's interesting to think about them when the process Realization confirms that the object cannot interact with the object dimension anymore--meaning that a lot of these characters are cutting off many, many ties when they become human.
On another topic, there is also the idea of where each object/concept is from--Gaia's entire route involves finding out all the different nationalities found in the house so she can learn more about the countries she cannot visit herself. Keyes (piano) is from Nigeria, Keith (key) is from Gibraltar, both Mateo (blanket) and Miranda are from Mexico...
But a good chunk of these characters don't specify how or why they're from these countries, which isn't necessary but it is curious to think that objects have nationalities based on something that isn't their place of fabrication! For example, in Maggie's route, Scandalabra is revealed to be from New Jersey because he was a counterfeit item made there. I also don't have a lot to discuss here, but it's fun to theorize!
Compilation of headcanons and analysis about an Alternate Universe in which everyone knows they're living inside a videogame.
hehe.... hehehoho.... I have been playing.... date everything hehehoho.... so of course I wanted to infect it with one of my favorite AUs
I have yet to finish the game, but realizing everyone in a row is super tiring so I'm going off by the info I've gotten so far! I just need to write something that isn't that 9k outline for a Jean Loo fic post-realization, even if I can't pore over transcripts and full compilations of every character interaction for this game like I'd love to do
The idea is that interacting with an object for the very first time with the Dateviators not only awakens them, it also grants them self-awareness to the fact that they're in a videogame.
The level of self-awareness varies from object to object and it manifests in different ways for each character--I like the idea that Skylar, being the necessary vehicle for the plot to advance (and her route involving meta concepts like the Suspension of Disbelief to keep the narrative afloat) is already self-aware by default, similar to Daemon by virtue of being leftover code in the files from a scrapped dateable. Their experience as self-aware characters is much more broad, being able to directly interact with the UI, code and menus of the game itself, things beyond the player's perception.
Phoenicia, Reggie and I, Ronaldini would not be self-aware by default, but because they deal with game mechanics or meta jokes, also have much more influence or insight into how the game itself works as a result.
Phoenicia, as your phone, exists beyond the limited interactions you have when you interact with her app and is technically there watching whenever you open the phone, whether the Dateviators are on or not. Reggie might be able to peer into the specific branching dialogue and situations related to Hate Endings for each dateable, perhaps even influence the dialogue that is supposed to lead you into these endings, changing it to whatever he wishes.
I also really like the idea that I, Ronaldini can pretty much do whatever he wants with the game itself as long as it's something that he can explain as a magic trick, like the way he edits the player's SPECS in his route. There's also Jean Loo who casually breaks the fourth wall by bringing in your small text box capacity. Or Keith, who might now use the SPECS Candy for evil.
Also no, don't ask me about Bathsheba's Sans Undertale moment, I have no idea how to explain that one for this AU </3
The concept of becoming self-aware is different than their in-universe existence as objects (the lore bits that Skylar shares about them existing in ways that can't be perceived by humans), and I like to think that post-realization, many of the dateables experience a lot of struggles now that they've been limited to a single physical body--Airyn and River having to get used to being human, or characters who are various physical items spread around the house such as Beau or Abel being dizzy at suddenly losing their multifaceted perception of the world. It's an experience that can be comparable to phantom limbs, or partially losing your sight, since I assume it must be jarring to go from being many many boxes all over the place to just one person in one spot.
With that in mind, I also like to propose that self-awareness works in a similar way; rather than separating a dateable from its object so they can go off into the world and live their life as a human, you're separating them from the universe of the game itself.
They now know the limits of their existence within the dialogue they're expected to follow, the barriers and limits imposed by the existence of a player meant to play the game and whatnot. Some deviate from the script on the spot, like Beverly, Holly or Cabrizzio, while others might continue playing their role just in case, such as Betty, Chairemi or Maggie.
But there's also the secret third option; characters who, despite becoming self-aware, might still be too dense to fully grasp their situation. Diana comes to mind right away, as she already has so much trouble separating her own thoughts from the player's and might think this sudden outburst of feeling real might just be a passing thought. Fantina is already written to be your biggest fan, so not a lot might change until she really sits down to think about it. Connie's situation is a bit tricky since she's supposed to be trapped in a loop, but self-awareness makes it so that she still exists between her interactions. Not sure how it would work for her specifically, but it would definitely be something!
Another idea that is always fun to implement for self-aware AUs is to give the characters the ability to peer into the reader's device, whichever console they're playing the game in.
I imagine it differs depending on the device you're using; PC? Mac has a front row to anything you do on your computer while the game is open and they take full advantage of this, but will not divulge this information until pressed. PS5, Switch, etc? Connie is there, going through your list of games and choosing which one to base the next adventure whenever you decide to talk to her again.
There's not a lot I want to set in stone for this specific part, since it's very cute to see people to come up with whatever is convenient or fun for them. If you play while leaving a few videos or some music as background noise, the dateables may watch and hear this if they wish so! Maybe this can only happen if you have the game open, maybe if happens even if it isn't! Who knows! Whatever floats your boat.
Another thing I like to keep vague for the sake of creativity is the existence of the player as a stand-in for the reader; on one hand, I like the classic idea of an actual default, blank model that exists to interact with then in the game, but since the player's body is never seen, I also like the idea of the characters simply seeing you beyond the fourth wall through the visual novel format. It could also be both, since these ideas can coexist. Or it can be something else too, whatever people like the most!
It's also fun to imagine that whenever you're not looking, the dateables are actually inside the house doing things. Not as their object selves, but the human versions that you see with the Dateviators. Some are purposefully trying to get you to notice them, others are just victim of circumstance simply trying to hang out with each other, only to have to hide because you decided to walk back into the room they were in. I love the idea that the more people you interact with for the first time in the game, the harder this game of hide and seek becomes, since it's around 100 people or so trying to hide from your line of sight. It's even funnier if you go to interact with an object, only to have that character be somewhere else entirely and having to figure out how to distract you so they can return to their position.
On the subject of Realization in a self-aware AU, I like to think in this context it's something the characters actively try to avoid, since it technically signifies the ending of their involvement in the game. Once you realize them, they're just gone because there's no more content they can offer until you pick a new save. It's a good segway into a lot of deep discussions about what's the best way for them to exist; self-aware but stagnant and practically the same, or gone from the rest of the game not knowing when you'll pick it up again but as a human with closure. I find it particularly fun to think about this, considering how many of them get so many fun and good endings!
This ALSO makes me think about the replayability of the game--perhaps their self-awareness ends after being realized, thus repeating a cycle for the next time you start a new game. Maybe this self-awareness sticks despite the reloading and saving and new playthroughs.
I like to think that a good chunk of them would find it extremely endearing to see you try to pick the worst options just to find all collectibles or get all achievements. Some might try to lessen the sting of their Hate Endings if this isn't your first rodeo, while others might do the exact opposite and really sell the performance of their lives to make it more interesting for you!
This post only takes into consideration the dateables within the house since that's the only thing I have brainpower for, but I might explore the idea of NPCs like Sam, Tom, etc also being self-aware since there's so much potential there.
Regarding your series of the boys revealing their demon forms I just find it so funny that these boys are (understandably) freaking out, not knowing the absolute FREAKS that walk earth these days and would find their demon forms hotter.
Also having the demons run ice cold sounds like a blessing for someone who lives in a hot place (it’s me I live in Florida I hate it here) like I can be wrapped in my fluffy blanket and not sweat to death? Heaven.
HAHA, I mean, I'm pretty sure a good chunk of them are aware of the monster fuckers. that's why "Your Idol" fucks severely
the vibe I wanted to portray is specifically the fear of having Someone You Care About finding out about Something You're Trying To Hide/Are Ashamed Of! but also Wanting This Person Know, because this something is Still Part Of You! which is sooooo different from random fans thirsting after them over appearance
it's less about "do you think I'm hot and attractive physically like this" and more of "would you still love me at my worst, with visible traits that spell out how awful of a person I am" like the movie itself tackled with Rumi!
but yeah deffo, I bet they're pretty useful to have around during hotter times of the year LMFAO
I'm not the same anon who requested KPOP DEMON HUNTERS BABY - "Would You Still Love Me?" but can I request headcanons for Kpop Demon Hunters Abby, Mystery, Romance, and Jinu with gn reader please?
hi! thank you for the request, but I'm not sure what you're asking for exactly? headcanons about ... what? the post you mention was a fanfic, not a headcanons post!
if you're asking for headcanons with the specific prompt the anon from that post sent in, I'm already working on oneshots for the other guys o7
;KPOP DEMON HUNTERS ROMANCE - "keep looking at me, all of me"
Romance Saja x Reader
2.6 words
hurt/comfort, fluff
Love is capricious; you've come to learn this the hard way after falling in love with the embodiment of romance itself, who loves to keep you at arms length while loudly yearning for your presence like a lovesick dog.
So when he asks to meet you for a long due talk in the middle of the night, you rush to his side.
finally got a break from artfight to work on this hehehoho. I'm still trying to get a proper grip on how I wanna write romance specifically, but I'm very happy with how this turned out! I think it's funnier if he's also the self sabotaging type but shit just works out in the end for him lmfao
this is part of a series of oneshots, all thanks to this prompt over here!
[10:21pm] <<Hey. Can you come over?>>
[10:45pm] <<Pretty please??>>
[10:53pm] <<We need to talk.>>
This message has been deleted.
[10:55pm] <<I have to tell you something important.>>
[10:56pm] <<It can’t be through text or call. It has to be face to face.>>
[11:03pm] <<And it can’t wait until tomorrow, either!!>>
The phone flops unceremoniously onto the bed and Romance follows suit, attempting to sink deeper into the mattress as if it could swallow him whole, along with his feelings. The only thing keeping him company in the darkness of his bedroom is the light coming from his phone screen, displaying a candid picture of you smiling at a passing dog.
And, of course, the glowing vivid purple of his patterns, pulsating with a violent rhythm that matches the erratic heartbeat in his chest.
It’s hard to remember what unsettled him so─or rather, he refuses to dwell on it─but the effects linger; there is a clear disconnect between the petty bitterness building in his chest and his expression of indifference, too tired to spend a single ounce of energy into being angry. The negativity eats him from inside, but Romance doesn’t let it show.
This is what centuries of grief have done to him. Romance clings onto the illusion of control that this numbness offers, sweeping all the dust and the dirt under a rug, left to rot out of sight and out of mind. It cannot hurt him if he doesn’t pay attention to it, he convinces himself of this on the daily, rubbing at his own patterns as if determination could wipe them away.
The rubbing turns into scratching. The scratching into clawing.
Stubbornly, the patterns remain on his person despite his efforts and he picks up the phone in protest. It’s hard to navigate such a small device with those sharp, protruding claws, but soon enough he finds the front camera and Romance meets his own reflection─sickly colored skin, sickly colored eyes, all sharp edges and an outfit to match his miserable existence as an omen of death. No trace of the beautiful façade he tries so desperately to maintain. He can’t even have control of his own feelings in this second life, let alone of his own appearance. What is the point of it all?
But he does have control of one thing. The need for something to change settles in his stomach─no, it makes itself known once more. The impulse to force change, if only to forget how helpless he feels at the moment.
Having spent enough time in the human world, it’s easy to figure out the different ways people cope with this sort of turmoil. They cut and dye their hair, they make impromptu plans to travel, they text all the people they once cut off from their lives, post nonsensical walls of text driven by nothing but raw emotion─anything and everything to serve as the catalyst for change in their stagnant lives. Part of him revels in this, to be able to share something so vile and human, despite his lack of humanity.
Romance takes a deep breath, but this does nothing to lessen the knot lodged in his throat and the pressure in his lungs, nor it calms the sea of voices in the back of his mind, recalling each and every one of his crimes in his first life.
He’s going to reveal himself to you and utterly ruin this relationship.
If he closes his eyes, he can see it so clearly; your face stricken with horror, no longer looking at him with that soft and gentle glint he’s grown to love, stepping away as if repulsed by his very own existence. The idea alone brings him a painful catharsis, but catharsis nonetheless. It’s not like any of this─this beautiful experience between the two of you that he refuses to put a name to─was meant to last anyway, and he’d rather shatter the perfect illusion he’s built with his own hands than allow you to find out the truth through someone else.
Yes, this is the better outcome. Of course! He’s doing you a favour, to help you cope with all the eventual heartbreak in your life after he leaves!
He bites and claws at his own pillows, repeating these affirmations over and over in his head. There’s a knock on the door, and all the courage leaves his body in an instant. Before you can even enter, Romance has already hidden under the covers.
“Hey, Rommie?” It’s your voice, he curls up into himself upon hearing the way you gently call out his name. Then, there’s the click of the door closing behind you. “I came as soon as I could, you weren’t picking up my calls so Mystery let me in.”
The sound of your steps approaching make Romance freeze in his spot, like a small animal hoping not to be noticed. He can feel you standing by the edge of the bed, knowing that if he pulls down the covers, he’ll be met with the full force of your worried gaze.
“Hey, you’re not asleep, are you? I can hear you whining. Here, let me turn on the lights─”
“No!” Without realizing, Roma seizes your hand through the safety of his blankets. He must look ridiculous, an oversized sheet ghost pulling at your arm like a child. “You can’t, I’m─I look like, like a mess right now!”
You have the audacity to chuckle at this. “I’ve seen you wailing and sobbing during movie nights, Romance. It’s fine if your eyeliner got ruined, we’ll just clean it up.”
“Okay, it only happened one time, and it wasn’t my fault anyway! I thought we were going to watch a fun romcom, not whatever that depressing thing was! But that’s not the point, just don’t turn on the lights! I don’t … I don’t want … to see myself right now.”
A moment of silence passes, but your free hand finds his cheek in the dark, a familiar warmth permeates the soft fabric of the blanket and Romance finds himself unconsciously leaning into it. “Okay, okay. No lights, but no blanket either. How’s that sound?” Frankly, it sounds pathetic─for a demon like him to cower like this─but he shakes his head. His patterns continue to glow, and the longer you continue to mess both his heart and mind, chipping away at his determination, they’ll only continue to shine brighter in protest.
“No lights, no blankets and I close my eyes. But this is my last offer before I tug this whole thing off.”
It’s an empty thread, and Romance knows this because you’re climbing onto the bed with him as you say this, no intention of uncovering him but to hold him close. As he shifts, now sitting with his back against the wall, he can feel your weight on him, your smaller form flanked by both of his legs while your head rests right over where his heart should be. He really shouldn’t be doing this, he should be direct and straightforward about his intentions, and yet …
“Do you promise to keep them closed?”
“Mhm,” tentatively, Romance slips off the covers, putting away the thin layer that separated him from your full presence. When the purple glow lights up the room, you say nothing. Your eyes are closed shut and now, he has the perfect view of your content expression, enjoying the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes in and out. “Your heart is beating really fast. Is … the thing you wanna tell me something bad?”
Oh, it’s downright vile.
Romance has to keep himself from letting out a sardonic snort, glaring at the patterns and the claws and everything about himself, just barely visible in the dim light. But you keep talking before he can do anything else.
“Like, is it something bad about us or, you know, me? Maybe? I know it’s your thing to play the sensitive romantic type and all for the camera, all drama and emotion but I dunno. You didn’t sound like yourself in those messages.” He has to remind himself that you’re only being this careless with your affections precisely because you don’t know a thing about the real him.
Now it’s your turn to shift, the back of your hand grazes his shoulder and his arm as it travels downwards to find his palm, sliding to intertwine your fingers with his─he doesn’t move, keeping his sharp claws just out of reach.
For a moment, you flinch at the contact. “Fuck, Roma, you’re freezing! Are you sick, is that what’s going on?”
There it is. An opening. Swallowing his hesitation, he whispers, “Are your eyes still closed?”
“Yes, but─”
“What if you opened them and saw something horrible?”
“Come on, you’re overreacti─”
“Cold hands, cold skin, too cold for someone who should technically be alive.”
“Don’t forget cold feet. It’s a pain whenever we sleep in the same bed.”
He calls out your name, with a tone you’ve never heard him use. “I’m serious. And this? What about this, then?” He allows his claws to dig into your skin for a moment, and you jump on instinct, as if a thousand needles had suddenly pierced you. “Knives for nails, razor sharp and deadly. Hard as diamond, cutting through anything with ease.”
“Romance, I don’t … understand? What’s going on?”
He moves both of your hands to cup his face, directing your fingers towards the protruding fangs of his mouth─while Romance may not have tusks as noticeable as most demons, he knows this isn’t the type of teeth a human should have either.
He’s trying to scare you, to get you to react exactly the way he imagined, but as he allows you to take all of his monstrous self in, your thumb finds his lower lip. A gentle tug and he complies, opening his mouth ever so slightly in surprise and anticipation─are you checking if the lower row of teeth are just as sharp? His mouth feels dry, and his tongue darts out unconsciously to wet his lips, accidentally brushing against your curious thumb. You don’t react; instead, you lean closer to him, now fully pressing the pad of your thumb atop of his tongue. The stimulus causes it to wrap fully around your finger.
Mystery may hold the spot for biggest tusks in their group, but Romance’s forked tongue is easily the longest. Surely this would be the last straw, right?
“Oh?” His eyes dart to your face in panic, flushing a vibrant pink when he finds you smiling, yet attentive to anything your hands could figure out about him. Embarrassment creeps all the way to his ears when he hears the delight in your voice. “This is new. I sure don’t remember your tongue being … this lively whenever we kissed. Is this … Romance, are you a vampire?! No, waiwaitwaitwaitt, we ate that spicy garlic bread the other day! Don’t tell me, I can figure it out!”
By the time Romance gathers what’s left of his composure, you’re practically straddling him, petting and patting your way through his face in an attempt to find out exactly what type of creature he is─your eyes remain closed the entire time, like a fun game privy only for the two of you.
So much for a dramatic breakup. He lays there, unable to look away and unwilling to stop basking in your undivided attention as you find your next lead; right there, a spot on his neck where you can clearly feel his heartbeat, his most sensible spot, glowing the brighter when you sweep your thumb across it. Not only it sends an electric pulse through his body, but you feel this magnetic pulse as well, now following along his patterns and the energy they emit, all because of you.
“Scars? No, the texture is wrong. Are these tattoos? Mmmmagical tattoos…? Oh, they go pretty far. Do they cover your entire body, Roma? I thought I felt something weirdly static when I touched your face earlier, but I thought that was just me.” He shakes his head and nods along with your questions obediently, forgetting that you can’t see him. Out of the blue, he feels you pull back and it’s hard to hold back a whine at your absence.
“...Why did you stop? Didn’t you want to figure me out?”
“Yeah, but … It’s really hard with just my hands. I want to see you. Can I?” Your power might as well rival Gwi-ma’s─these honeyed words you speak so casually keep tugging at Romance’s heartstrings, tempting him further and further to indulge in your endearing antics, and he folds immediately.
All you need is a hum of affirmation to open your eyes.
Your smile drops for a second, replaced with a more contemplative look he cannot decipher. Romance prides himself in his acting skills, able to read anyone like an open book, to communicate just the right amount of pressure and gentleness through his gaze to make any of their fans swoon, but right now he’s bracing himself for your reaction; it’s one thing to touch and play, but to see him at his most vulnerable is another.
What is going on through your mind? Does he actually want to know? Where did your smile go? Don’t you like him anymore? Why did you make him believe there was any hope for him?
“Demon, I’m a demon. The patterns give us away, that’s why I didn’t want you to see.”
“That makes sense,” you accept this too easily compared to the centuries he’s needed to come to terms with everything. You always adapt and play off his moods without a problem, as if loving him was the easiest thing in the world.
It's crystal clear in the way you look at him; you love the Romance that bawls his eyes out during sad movies, the Romance that adapts to any persona needed on stage, the Romance that does anything in his power to make you laugh and fall for him, the Romance that gets upset over the smallest things. The Romance that deserves no mercy and no pity from the world.
It’s almost infuriating. And this small little thing grows tenfold in the clutches of his demonic nature, amplifying every negative feeling to it’s most extreme.
“I did horrible things, you know? And this is the end result, you can thank eternal damnation for this face,” there it is again, that self-sabotaging streak within Romance that does not allow him to have a fairy tale ending in which he gets everything that he wants. The whispers return, reminding him of all of his transgressions.“I’m not a good person, I’m barely a person as it is. I can give you my body, heart and mind, but never my soul─all of me. Aren’t I the worst type of lover? Lying to you all this time.”
You kiss the top of his head, gently moving away a strand of pink hair. “But you called me over to tell me, right?”
He nods, breath caught up in his throat. You kiss his forehead this time. “It must’ve been scary to carry all of this on your own. But I’m happy you told me, really.”
He nods again, feeling his eyes hot with tears. You kiss the tip of his nose and wipe them away. “Thank you for trusting me with this, with the patterns─with all of you.”
There’s no other voices in his head, none except yours. For a split second, Romance wholeheartedly believes that you could bring his soul back from the depths and right where it belongs: safe and sound in your hands.
Due to a recent influx of asks, I feel it's necessary to address this: this blog and I, as an artist and writer, do not approve the use of c.ai nor other generative AI bots.
I'll be blocking everyone who sent in an ask using these tools for their prompts and update the pinned post with the rules accordingly!
