Cielo State of the Union Essay
This is more an essay than a state of the union meme, because I realized when I was talking to Kuhn, that I desperately need to essay about Cielo's current mindset. Because I've been having increasing problems playing with him, and, well, until I talked to Zhores, I hadn't realized how fucked up the inside of his head has gotten.
This isn't a sudden thing! It's something I first noticed when Argilla dropped, and each remaining drop has made it worse. And then there's additional complicating factors that I'll get into later, as well as the added stress of October, but it's essentially left Cielo...quite possibly less mentally healthy than he was when he committed suicide near the end of the game. GUYS CIELO IS SO WELL-ADJUSTED.
Let's start with the obvious. The Embryon is codependent. When they are together, they can handle anything. When they're not together they range along a scale of toughness from "would hate it but could handle it" to, well, not handling it at all. Cielo is on the lower end of the scale, and there's a lot of reasons for it. Cielo's entire personality is based off having people around. He's a fairly extreme extrovert. He NEEDS people around. But with his life history, well, it takes a while for him to relax enough around people for them to really fulfill his need for people. He's also honestly, probably the most bitter member of the Embryon by the end of the game, in the way that only someone who's a determined optimist that has been gut-punched repeatedly by his optimism being betrayed at every turn could be. I don't want to call him weak, because he's not. He can be amazingly strong and even well-adjusted when he's given the opportunity, and if the Embryon were ever in a truly good situation, he'd downright thrive there. But his very openness leaves him more open to being damaged by life than someone like Gale, and that leaves him...shall we say fragile?
Cielo shores up that fragility with his comrades. When they were all here, before any of them had dropped, he bloomed. He absolutely loved camp at the start, and viewed it as the closest place to Nirvana. Offscreen, he was spending every moment he could exploring it, sometimes with his comrades sometimes by himself, but always knowing that they were there and happy and healthy.
And then Argilla dropped. And then Gale dropped. And then Roland and Jinana dropped. Currently, in camp, the Embryon consists of him, Canaan, and the Serph/Sera/Heat triangle. And what Cielo did with his comrades starting to die around him was start to retreat away from camp and back into the Embryon. Because he didn't want them to die without him around, because he's convinced the rest of them (including him) are about to die and doesn't want to waste the rest of their time together with people who aren't them, because the fewer of his comrades that are left the more he needs their presence rather than the simple knowledge that they're alive and healthy and around. When Cielo's under stress, he tends to hold on harder to the Embryon, because he needs them more.
Then there's the additional complication of who is left. I haven't talked to Serph, Sera, or Heat about this, so I don't know what they think takes place offscreen. But honestly, I'd be surprised if Cielo never felt at all excluded by them because, well, that's what people in relationships do, and the Serph/Sera/Heat triangle is intense enough that they do have a tendency to get absorbed in each other. I mean, let's be honest. The second Sera arrived in camp, Heat immediately took up full-time Sera-stalking as a hobby. XD And Cielo completely understands this and certainly does his fair share of Sera-stalking, but at the same time he does miss just chilling with Heat a little. Serph's probably the best of the three of them, because while he does love Sera a little more than the rest of the Embryon, he loves all the Embryon the way only a jesus can. If Sera's the world's jesus in DDS, Serph's the Embryon's. Cielo's problem with Serph comes from two things. Number one is that Serph jesuses through actions, rather than words. But Cielo's method of falling apart tends to go straight from "Yay optimism!" to "Hey I'm getting bitter" to "lolsuicide IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE?" which doesn't exactly give Serph a lot of places to jesus him with actions. Second is that he still hasn't fully resolved his issues with Sheffield. This doesn't actually affect him much a daily basis, but it basically makes it more difficult for him to reach out to Serph when he's feeling stressed out. With Sera...okay Cielo with Sera? Is entirely his fault. Cielo shoves his negative feelings back into the box around Sera, because he just really does not want to add to her burdens. Her life sucks already, and he views it in some senses as his responsibility to try to keep her spirits up. He's gotten better about not doing that in camp, but he'll still try to keep himself from falling apart when she's around a lot harder than he would for any other Embryon.
And as a whole, well, they do tend to get absorbed into each other. Heat stalks Sera, Sera clings to Serph, and Serph's kept busy keeping things from getting explosive and also loving on them. I tend to assume that off screen, Cielo tends to spend a fair amount of time with Canaan because he's a tribe member who doesn't have that same preoccupation. Canaan, feel free to disagree or provide any input! XD But I totally figure when he gets kicked out the cabin because Heat's making out with Serph or Sera he wanders over to Canaan. (...Hey, do Serph and Sera kick him out of the cabin when they start making out too? THIS IS A VALID QUESTION DON'T JUDGE ME) And Canaan is the type of personality that does do a good job of balancing Cielo (i.e. yes, a lot like Gale in some ways, except more early Gale than late Gale). So that helps his mindset! But it doesn't exactly bring it up to well-adjusted levels.
All this made the CFUW both more and less interesting. In retrospect, I really wish I'd figured this out before the game, because I could have used this perspective when I was struggling with Cielo's voice and reactions. I knew that he had basically no interest in the game except through Sera, which made it difficult for me to play much, but I hadn't really figured out why. When Cielo's already getting bitter he just...doesn't have a whole lot of empathy for people outside the tribe. He'll try to save their lives, yeah, especially when that also involves saving his comrades, but...it's more this odd mix of not caring about them as individuals, but instead focusing on the whole. I wonder if that's a trait that most the Cyber Shaman candidates shared, to be honest, because Cielo and Sera both tend to focus a little more on the whole than on the individual, while most the Embryon focus more on the individual. Except Sera tends to focus on the whole world, with a special focus on the Embryon in general and Serph in particular, while Cielo tends to focus on the Embryon as a whole, and the world as an afterthought. In that, I guess he's more like Serph, except Serph's focus on the Embryon seems to encompass them more as individuals than Cielo tends to manage. I have no clue if this is making sense and it's not what I meant to essay on, so! End of digression.
But really the first thing that made me go "...huh maybe I need to figure out what Cielo's headspace is like at the moment LIKE. REALLY BADLY" was when I realized that he was disappointed to wake up alive in the labs. I mean, he was also relieved because he did not want to leave Sera alone playing as a wolf in a kill game because that sucks. And also that was a pretty lame death on his scale of awesome deaths and overall he'd rather die saving his comrades if he can arrange it. But! He was still pretty disappointed he wasn't dead and in Nirvana this time. He doesn't exactly believe in Nirvana at this point, but he does believe that he'll see the rest of his comrades again in the afterlife, and he'd take that over a Nirvana without them.
What this meant and still means in practice is that it's been a lot more difficult for me to throw him out. A lot of deciding to throw a character out comes down to whether or not something pings them, and Cielo's pingability has decreased dramatically. When he does, he tends to be more subdued and not as interested, and that tends to make threads die faster.
In some ways I find all this intensely interesting, because it's pretty much the same arc he went through in the game, from eager and optimistic confidence, to a more subdued bitterness with occasional flashes of optimism and silliness. At the same time, it's not as fun to play. I mean, it has potential and now that I've consciously realized it I can adjust my play properly so that it does interest me more, but on the whole, I prefer characters that, well. Aren't suicidal. So! I suppose I need to figure out what, exactly, I plan on doing with this. I plan on playing him with this mindset for a while, especially since now that I actually know what the hell I'm doing with him it's a lot more interesting and I'm having a much easier time getting into his head now than I have in months. But honestly, leaving him like this forever will increase my odds of dropping him, because I just...don't like keeping my characters in a situation they are ready to leave forever. And I never want to drop him so! I'm going to think of ideas on how to get him out of it.
Any suggestions, comments, ideas on how to get Cielo out of his rut, laughter at me writing YET ANOTHER essay (and yes I'm working on one for Ferdinand don't judge me) are welcome!
This isn't a sudden thing! It's something I first noticed when Argilla dropped, and each remaining drop has made it worse. And then there's additional complicating factors that I'll get into later, as well as the added stress of October, but it's essentially left Cielo...quite possibly less mentally healthy than he was when he committed suicide near the end of the game. GUYS CIELO IS SO WELL-ADJUSTED.
Let's start with the obvious. The Embryon is codependent. When they are together, they can handle anything. When they're not together they range along a scale of toughness from "would hate it but could handle it" to, well, not handling it at all. Cielo is on the lower end of the scale, and there's a lot of reasons for it. Cielo's entire personality is based off having people around. He's a fairly extreme extrovert. He NEEDS people around. But with his life history, well, it takes a while for him to relax enough around people for them to really fulfill his need for people. He's also honestly, probably the most bitter member of the Embryon by the end of the game, in the way that only someone who's a determined optimist that has been gut-punched repeatedly by his optimism being betrayed at every turn could be. I don't want to call him weak, because he's not. He can be amazingly strong and even well-adjusted when he's given the opportunity, and if the Embryon were ever in a truly good situation, he'd downright thrive there. But his very openness leaves him more open to being damaged by life than someone like Gale, and that leaves him...shall we say fragile?
Cielo shores up that fragility with his comrades. When they were all here, before any of them had dropped, he bloomed. He absolutely loved camp at the start, and viewed it as the closest place to Nirvana. Offscreen, he was spending every moment he could exploring it, sometimes with his comrades sometimes by himself, but always knowing that they were there and happy and healthy.
And then Argilla dropped. And then Gale dropped. And then Roland and Jinana dropped. Currently, in camp, the Embryon consists of him, Canaan, and the Serph/Sera/Heat triangle. And what Cielo did with his comrades starting to die around him was start to retreat away from camp and back into the Embryon. Because he didn't want them to die without him around, because he's convinced the rest of them (including him) are about to die and doesn't want to waste the rest of their time together with people who aren't them, because the fewer of his comrades that are left the more he needs their presence rather than the simple knowledge that they're alive and healthy and around. When Cielo's under stress, he tends to hold on harder to the Embryon, because he needs them more.
Then there's the additional complication of who is left. I haven't talked to Serph, Sera, or Heat about this, so I don't know what they think takes place offscreen. But honestly, I'd be surprised if Cielo never felt at all excluded by them because, well, that's what people in relationships do, and the Serph/Sera/Heat triangle is intense enough that they do have a tendency to get absorbed in each other. I mean, let's be honest. The second Sera arrived in camp, Heat immediately took up full-time Sera-stalking as a hobby. XD And Cielo completely understands this and certainly does his fair share of Sera-stalking, but at the same time he does miss just chilling with Heat a little. Serph's probably the best of the three of them, because while he does love Sera a little more than the rest of the Embryon, he loves all the Embryon the way only a jesus can. If Sera's the world's jesus in DDS, Serph's the Embryon's. Cielo's problem with Serph comes from two things. Number one is that Serph jesuses through actions, rather than words. But Cielo's method of falling apart tends to go straight from "Yay optimism!" to "Hey I'm getting bitter" to "lolsuicide IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE?" which doesn't exactly give Serph a lot of places to jesus him with actions. Second is that he still hasn't fully resolved his issues with Sheffield. This doesn't actually affect him much a daily basis, but it basically makes it more difficult for him to reach out to Serph when he's feeling stressed out. With Sera...okay Cielo with Sera? Is entirely his fault. Cielo shoves his negative feelings back into the box around Sera, because he just really does not want to add to her burdens. Her life sucks already, and he views it in some senses as his responsibility to try to keep her spirits up. He's gotten better about not doing that in camp, but he'll still try to keep himself from falling apart when she's around a lot harder than he would for any other Embryon.
And as a whole, well, they do tend to get absorbed into each other. Heat stalks Sera, Sera clings to Serph, and Serph's kept busy keeping things from getting explosive and also loving on them. I tend to assume that off screen, Cielo tends to spend a fair amount of time with Canaan because he's a tribe member who doesn't have that same preoccupation. Canaan, feel free to disagree or provide any input! XD But I totally figure when he gets kicked out the cabin because Heat's making out with Serph or Sera he wanders over to Canaan. (...Hey, do Serph and Sera kick him out of the cabin when they start making out too? THIS IS A VALID QUESTION DON'T JUDGE ME) And Canaan is the type of personality that does do a good job of balancing Cielo (i.e. yes, a lot like Gale in some ways, except more early Gale than late Gale). So that helps his mindset! But it doesn't exactly bring it up to well-adjusted levels.
All this made the CFUW both more and less interesting. In retrospect, I really wish I'd figured this out before the game, because I could have used this perspective when I was struggling with Cielo's voice and reactions. I knew that he had basically no interest in the game except through Sera, which made it difficult for me to play much, but I hadn't really figured out why. When Cielo's already getting bitter he just...doesn't have a whole lot of empathy for people outside the tribe. He'll try to save their lives, yeah, especially when that also involves saving his comrades, but...it's more this odd mix of not caring about them as individuals, but instead focusing on the whole. I wonder if that's a trait that most the Cyber Shaman candidates shared, to be honest, because Cielo and Sera both tend to focus a little more on the whole than on the individual, while most the Embryon focus more on the individual. Except Sera tends to focus on the whole world, with a special focus on the Embryon in general and Serph in particular, while Cielo tends to focus on the Embryon as a whole, and the world as an afterthought. In that, I guess he's more like Serph, except Serph's focus on the Embryon seems to encompass them more as individuals than Cielo tends to manage. I have no clue if this is making sense and it's not what I meant to essay on, so! End of digression.
But really the first thing that made me go "...huh maybe I need to figure out what Cielo's headspace is like at the moment LIKE. REALLY BADLY" was when I realized that he was disappointed to wake up alive in the labs. I mean, he was also relieved because he did not want to leave Sera alone playing as a wolf in a kill game because that sucks. And also that was a pretty lame death on his scale of awesome deaths and overall he'd rather die saving his comrades if he can arrange it. But! He was still pretty disappointed he wasn't dead and in Nirvana this time. He doesn't exactly believe in Nirvana at this point, but he does believe that he'll see the rest of his comrades again in the afterlife, and he'd take that over a Nirvana without them.
What this meant and still means in practice is that it's been a lot more difficult for me to throw him out. A lot of deciding to throw a character out comes down to whether or not something pings them, and Cielo's pingability has decreased dramatically. When he does, he tends to be more subdued and not as interested, and that tends to make threads die faster.
In some ways I find all this intensely interesting, because it's pretty much the same arc he went through in the game, from eager and optimistic confidence, to a more subdued bitterness with occasional flashes of optimism and silliness. At the same time, it's not as fun to play. I mean, it has potential and now that I've consciously realized it I can adjust my play properly so that it does interest me more, but on the whole, I prefer characters that, well. Aren't suicidal. So! I suppose I need to figure out what, exactly, I plan on doing with this. I plan on playing him with this mindset for a while, especially since now that I actually know what the hell I'm doing with him it's a lot more interesting and I'm having a much easier time getting into his head now than I have in months. But honestly, leaving him like this forever will increase my odds of dropping him, because I just...don't like keeping my characters in a situation they are ready to leave forever. And I never want to drop him so! I'm going to think of ideas on how to get him out of it.
- SOMEONE APP GALE GUYS no really this would solve my problems like. Instantaneously. But unless I plan on apping Gale and doing the most epically fail playercest of all time, not exactly something I can control! YOU SHOULD STILL ALL APP HIM NEXT ROUND BECAUSE HE'S AWESOME.
- Get someone to jesus him. Of his preexisting relationships, I'd say Serph could most easily jesus him, but it would take something to happen first and I don't know what. If Serph's interested we could talk something out! Other people who could probably successfully call him on his current mental state: Sera, Canaan, Raidou, Pell, Kuhn, random insightful bystanders, Bat if we're going for the whole "worse before better" thing.
- ...Hilariously this would actually be fixed if everyone else in the Embryon dropped. For. Reasons that would take a whole nother essay to explain but boil down to being forced to deal with no comrades would have a huge effect on his ability to cope. Even if he would be even more suicidal. BUT NO AND ANYONE SUGGESTING IT I WILL CRY AT YOU.
- Start him on a long slow arc of just, generally, getting over it. Figure out situations where he can finish them feeling like he's accomplished something and generally just try to nudge his mental health upwards gradually.
- ...I had another idea but I forgot it.
Any suggestions, comments, ideas on how to get Cielo out of his rut, laughter at me writing YET ANOTHER essay (and yes I'm working on one for Ferdinand don't judge me) are welcome!