As Xerxes may be realizing, March’s self-esteem is a bit. Questionable. He ties his self-esteem to his ability to murder, win, survive and make Alice happy, rather than his personality or people liking him or being good or you know. Actually sane things.
March and Xerxes keep swinging because they understand each other ,and can communicate and occasionally break down and stab each other, and March is a highly talkative person who enjoys company so he keeps slipping up and liking him! As noted in his heart game with the other Mad Hatter, March has a bit of a needy personality when he’s not fronting 100% psychocrazy.
Which is bad, because then something happens because of the games and March realizes he shouldn’t like him at all because enemy team!!!!!! NO I WAS DUMB NOW I WILL BE EVEN CRAZIER TO COMPENSATE FOR HAVING STUPID FEELINGS oh hey maybe we can talk more NO WAIT HATE HATE HATE.
Which was where they were at when the gallery flipped into the new setting and Xerxes pretty much stopped talking to him.
Briefly derailing, March tends to over-estimate Canary heavily in the communication stakes. Celeste is really good at discussing threats and meeting up and sharing information and ‘how we’re handling this’, and since Celeste had so much in-fighting he assumed every other team would be 10x more effective at it. He’s slowly realizing no, Canary sucks at feelings and plans, but it affects the following.
So Xerxes stops talking to him regularly and King is making deals with him? March assumes that Canary has shuffled the people in charge of ‘controlling the psychotic’, which was clearly the whole reason they were talking in the first place, right? And he’s semi-okay with that because he’s used to getting dumped by hatters it makes sense! The narrative fits with his world view, and hey, why would anyone want to talk to him normally let alone a Canary? They’re enemies. Just enjoy how long it lasted! And when Hatter brings him food well that’s clearly tied to the fact he’s playing the tactics game!
And then we hit this game, and Hatter more or less starts pointing out uh, blind dude I couldn’t visit, I like you.
??????????? wat ????????????
He doesn’t know how to handle this because. ??????? He’s already established he knows what they’re doing and doesn’t really give a fuck, so you don’t need to pretend to be friends???
why are you bothering???
you don’t really like me i know it
what if you do and i have a frand?!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?
BUT IT’S ALL A TRICK
but??? wat??? frand???
He is a ball of confusion because Xerxes keeps curveballing his attempts to reduce their relationship to game tactics.
I touched on this in the heart game, but here we gooo.
March has a clear goal for what he wants to be seen as: Sexually/romantically unavailable and unassailable, absolutely in control, experienced, adult and quite frankly a predator. The response he tries to engender in general is ‘YOU SKEEVY FUCK DON’T EVER TOUCH ME’ because in general?
That lack of physical contact is exactly what he wants.
He doesn’t want people interested in him in any way, or attempting to use those methods on him, so he does it first and harder. Sexuality and physicality is a clear weak point he compensates for by doing the complete reverse of what you’d expect: Doesn’t like physical contact, licks people! Terrified of sexual attention as a control method, red flags lolo what are a consent or laws*
A lot of his headspace is still back in the worst areas of home, and decollage in a lot of ways pounds that in. Shark definitely did not help, but the kissing for points and all the skeevy little choices in games just tend to make him feel like he’s whoring himself for points. So he wants to establish himself as off limits and not a tool to be used.
Unfortunately that’s what he wants, and not what he is.
Important thing to touch on immediately: March? Does not consider himself attractive! It’s notable that he doesn’t use an avatar to change his physical appearance when outside Deco, in his own world, he could look like a 6ft Adonis. His entire personality is ‘unlikable’, and physically he tends to think of himself as a scrawny, short street urchin.
He has strong ties between physical affection = sex, but not mental affection = sex. Sex isn’t really tied to ‘I like this person’ in his head. At best, it’s a matter of physical desire, and at worst part of skeevy, strategic dominance plays. He’s capable of parsing the like = physical affection = babymaking time between other people, but since no one should like him or find him attractive, if anyone is saying shit like that towards him?
Clearly in the category of people trying to rile/creep him out!
This leads to the hilarity of things like March completely not understanding Shark’s jealous crush as anything more than joking around, or Hatter saying “Let’s do it. SEX. RIGHT NOW. I’M NOT JOKING.” Yes very funny now what are we really talking about???
Anyway, the clash between his internal AAAAAAAAAAAAA DON’T TOUCH ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAA and external HAHAHAHHAA YES I AM SKEEVY PREDATOR :) :) :) SO MANY BITCHES AND BADTOUCHES is why he gives some really weird cues. Stuff like licking people on one hand and reacting to a casual touch like he’s a vampire getting doused in holy water on the other hand comes from the fact the moment he’s not initiating and in control he’s a huge scaredy cat about touch.
Finally, he actually likes physical affection but doesn’t like the associated feeling of being a victim or helpless or weak if he accepts it, so his physical contact ramps way up as he gets more drunk.
This may or may not be why he dates dominant personality types who top him completely personality and combat wise and don’t mind that he only shows interest when he is absolutely drunk.
SORRY ABOUT THE DELAY I LOST THIS TAB. that's what I do with tabs, I lose them.
SO SHARK AND MARCH: post when shark lost his eye, and stabbed March in the stomach, I could... have sworn I wrote about that before but I couldn't find it and trying to involved me getting distracted and opening too many tabs, so I shall avoid that detour this time.
Anyway! That established that Shark did not need to fear March, whatever hold March had over him was rendered null! He is more powerful, and March got the advantage by hammering him in a moment of psychological weakness. They were once more standing on equal ground and shark could not give fucks about March and I am like near positive I essayed on that at the time at you, so moving onto GM and aftershocks!
So, GM! While before the game he reestablished denial as a coping mechanism and got rid of his fear of March, he also is not in his original mindframe of invincibility, especially because in game that is just not practical! Other teams can and will fuck them over! He will use that manic FUCKING CRAZY shield on others, but is unlikely to keep going FULL BLAST at his team, even March. (Also, he's forgotten he hates Rolan, so not at Lark either) SO! MARCH IS EFFECTED WITH HUNGER. SHARK IS MISERABLE AND SCARED BUT NO LONGER TERRIFIED OF MARCH WHO IS ALSO MISERABLE. shark flops because eh don't care march can't do shit to me and i don't see him as the enemy anymore so whatever he flips out then i'll have something to focus on and be manic and crazy instead of miserable, if not, I can flop in peace.
MARCH ACCEPTED FLOPPINGS.
and while there's no formal truce or anything, march also uh. fucking climbed in his lap and chewed on him while he was suffering from hunger? Which he wouldn't have pegged himself as the target of before, unless under SLAVERY. which means March has to realise Shark is not a threat to him right now.
So now that March is not an internal threat to him, and the team is more cohesive, heee realises the team STILL FUNCTIONS as a kind of extension of self in terms of his safety, (because full game targetting in games) and while BEFORE he would have overlooked threats to March specifically because grudges! Now he's not! And the GM also verified that other teams are playing harder too, and celeste has always been a target! He is pretty fucking sure that any celeste ALONE is a target, buuuttt March in particular, after PUBLIC CANNIBALISM and also Janus threatening him in the middle of a safe dating game. . . Yyyyeah he's taken to chaperoning March, now that FEAR has given way and self-preservation also means keeping the team safe. Shiki does not go out as often, Lark and Archer he STILL THINKS OF as a unit, because he hasn't seen much of Lark's amnesia there but is erroneously assuming they are traveling in a pair, and March is still a wandering target.
SO. HATE AND FEAR ARE GONE. And March is someone he was comfortable originally with, with the way they interact on a similar level, (even if their internal logic is very separate) but they never actually BUILT a friendship, too much time being crazy. So he's just baiting him and doesn't really care if he sees or knows about his memory because he doesn't think March is going to fuck over his own teammate at this point in the game, especially since Shark has lost interest in his end. It's. At a level, for anyone else WITHOUT THEIR PASTS would just be like. teammates. friendly acquaintances that can work together and make verbal jabs, but with their shared history, going back to that very baseline level is strange, but! That is where they appear to be right now!
GM really fucked March over in a... good way. In that March before felt like he had to cling to control and that if he wasn't in control he'd get fucked over miserably, and that maybe he needed to be in charge to make Celeste win.
And then they lost. Miserably. Terribly. Horrifically. Even when he was giving strategy. And March blamed himself hard for it. He should have been smarter, better at predicting, he was making the plays and it doesn't matter that they lost by basically one card in the end- He feels it was on his head.
And they didn't self-destruct, and he didn't get killed, or wake up in the nasu basement. He went insane, he 'made them lose', and they not only backed him up against other teams- Shark and Panther flopped on him and didn't apparently care he'd eaten a fucking dude!
So suddenly his team feelings got a little blurry. He's been holding himself mentally apart from Celeste, there's been no real 'team cohesion' because... There hasn't been any, everyone's been in blocks he's been trying to manipulate for control. That was the first moment he felt like he was on a team, and not just using a chair and whip on a pack of lions, and became fully face to face that he'd been fucking up hard with his previous short-term strategy and it wouldn't fall apart if they tried to be a real team.
Then we go to Shark. He's finally settled into neutral territory with Shark, wherein they're both not actively attacking each other or looking to attack each other. Shark could have fucked him up, and didn't pounce on the opportunity, so he's accepted that Shark really does have no interest left- Quite the relief.
So he's treating Shark as someone else who WANTS CELESTE TO WIN and is running on that strategy, which is why he's accepting the stalking instead of rejecting it. They're capable of having stupid arguments and the immediately switching over to tactics, and they don't care about each other or are interested in each other, it's simply a matter of celeste protects celeste from now on.
He wouldn't have made the deal, given he already rejected it, but he got slammed hard by the threat from Janus and well. Case of a bigger fish. He'll take the person he knows needs celeste to win over someone who wants them to lose, and worst case scenario, Shark's someone he's beaten down once before.
tl;dr a weird neutrality of team tactics and we're even so now let's not care about each other.
THERE'S A LOT OF OTHER TEAMS SO I'M GOING TO SUMMARIZE FOR EACH
TEAL: hissss hissss least favorite. yes go stab one of ours and then get other teams involved when we try and fucking STOP YOU. >(!!! especially dislikes Mochi, but the team as a whole has no points with him.
SHELL: favorite non-celestes. aside from the people he likes best off-team being on this team, he appreciates them apparently wanting to fulfill their side of the ally bargain. If they need anything from him, he'd at least try to do what he can.
CARDINAL: knows very little about! Lark has a connection on this team, and they severed a head. HE'S HOPING they will take some attention off Celeste in the future.
Byzantium: HOLY FUCK IT'S BEEN FOREVER I HOPE YOU BASTARDS ARE NOT STILL HOLDING A GRUDGE??
Lilac: knows they hate Celeste but finds Maka decent company and Cleo seems the honourable type, he figures if she gets any info she might inform them too out of that kind of duty. Still, near the top of the bussing list.
Saffron: THEY EXIST?? Mostly remember Mister, and his terrifying pacts.
Copper Rose: FIGURES THERE'S NO POINT TRYING TO DO ANYTHING THERE NOW THAT HE LOST HIS SERVANT. will bus as called for.
Fawn: until recently, off his radar entirely. But threatening to mind-rape one of Celeste, gee, that's not a good way to get his attention.
Canary: HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S UP THERE, ORIGINALLY MARCH VS CANARY WAS A THING but now they seem to be getting on well? Letting march do his thing there, whatever...
SAGE: Finds Apple insufferable, dislikes Kuroko and the rest on principle, the gimpses of Elliot he's seen (YELLING DURING THE FRAYED/CLOVER GAME) also seem insufferable, anddddd Paru seems passable but ick Sage. They also took Jackal and he seems happier, so he'll refrain from commenting most the time.
Iris: THEY EXIST??? <-- hasn't interacted with them yet, really. Knows Rena exists, and that Shell's redhead has a twin there, and that Shell plus Iris apparently get on, which he heard from Rena.
AT FIRST he hated her. She was arrogant, high class, looked down on him, and generally everything March likes stabbing even without the Canary bonus. He doesn’t like being treated as a lesser being, even if he’ll casually refer to himself as a street rat and what not to troll other people.
And then they kept talking and he realized she was really
really
easy
to trick.
March has gone from debating murdering her everytime she opens his mouth to casually talking to her because he finds it hilarious to convince Duchess of ridiculous shit. He feels in control of the situation because she just cannot get a read on him, and continually throws him treats of secrets, canary team workings and closets, which leads to him winding down on the aggression because he believes even if he accidentally slips up and reveals something she won’t catch it, and the more they talk the more he gets on her.
So 90% I AM TOTALLY AN EVIL MASTERMIND USING YOU and 10% holy shit I should not be enjoying talking you into things half as much as I am.
10. March doesn't do threat gradients, he parses everything as a 0 or a 10 more or less, which is why he reacts murderously to people threatening to punch him or slap him.
THE ONLY REASON he didn't make it a fight to the death right then and there was that he was drunk enough and still aware of the rules, so he assumed it was a set up and controlled his reaction. If she had tried to touch him, he would have gone for her throat.
He's confused by the fact that she warned him she was sneak attacking which was ?????? because no, you just kill people or you don't kill them, you don't warn people three times you're going to sneak up and kill them that isn't sneaky, so he doesn't have much respect for her murdering abilities, but he definitely assumes her intentions are 100% his entrails on the floor.
The next thread he will uh. automatically try to kill her so
FAWN AND CELESTE REALLY NEED TO TALK OOCLY ALL TOGETHER since ICly Fawn keeps trolling and Celeste won't take one more attack without stabbing all the bitches. a-awkward war impending if Fawn doesn't back off quick.
hahaha! Knives pretty much loathes March right now. She didn't have anything against him at first, she just thought he was a jerk, and she was offended by his making fun of her constantly, but there was no murderous rage or anything. He was just an irritating crazy person to avoid.
During the GM game, Knives got hit with severely increased anger, and while she was still status effected, she found out that March had not only killed Musica but that he had gone to the revivals and killed him again. (She doesn't know he ate part of him.) Knives likes Lilac and Musica in particular is someone she likes, so hearing this just compounded the anger she already felt toward March, and she straight up wanted to murder him and would have tried to do so if her own team hadn't stopped her.
During the dating game, she was still pretty pissed off and seeing March made her decide it was a good idea to spout off a bunch of threats. Her anger status effect was fading, and by now it's totally gone, so she's still furious about what March did, but now she's not exactly looking for him so she can try to murder him. However! If it comes to a fight, she's willing to try.
As for warning him, in her mind it's not really a warning because of how fast she is. She doesn't know that March has enhanced speed, too. Ha ha. 8'D
AND YES FAWN AND CELESTE SHOULD TALK OOCLY since. yes. things.
SHE LIKES EVERYONE WHO PLAYED THE GAME AND DIDN'T GIVE UP pretty evenly right now, she hasn't heavily given out any quests (and one of Fawn called her a bitch during the second she did) or interacted.
So far, she's really only spoken to Setsuna and Loki! She liked Setsuna enough to give him her name (well, a name) and Loki she just found boring, but she can fix that. Loki is the kind of person she's bad with, though, she almost spilled what her games would be about and that would be unfair, she caught herself at the last second. :'D But Setsuna was pretty damn cool.
(One day I wanna do a portraits-only post with her going HEY THEY KEEP ASKING EACH OTHER WHAT THEY THINK OF US, WHAT DO WE THINK ABOUT THEM?)
How is Miyoko faring? Does he have any particular feelings towards the dumb Sages?
like everything has gone terrible, he blames himself for fucking them psychologically in the GM game with his blood, he's forgotten the one person he showed his torture memory and has COMPLETELY forgotten being talked down slightly with 'maybe there are reasons and context and you're not a hideously evil monster'
so yes
he thinks he's a hideously evil monster :D i should diiieee
about the only thing keeping him from offing himself is that he would cripple Enkidu, because he thinks Saffron would be better off without him
BUT SINCE HE CAN'T he's just doing his best to be a good adult.
He thinks the Sage babies need a good adult and he is going to mother them so hard in every thread. THEY ARE KIDS??? THEY NEED ADULT SUPERVISION!!!!
"This guy seems really familiar but I can't place why".
memories of Mister having some amazing boobs aside though
she feels really guilty about throwing shit at him especially since he was so damn nice afterwards. STOP MOTHERING US I AM NOT A CHILD AND ALSO YOU SHOULD BE MAD AT US!!! WHY DON'T YOU HATE US!!! But he seems nice and really high-strung so she thinks he should probably relax. She has a vague note in her mind of "DO SOMETHING NICE FOR THIS GUY HE NEEDS IT", so she may come by to try to feed Saffron at some point. (Also to pet Hummy because HUMMY *u*)
Does Mister have any strong feelings about the portraits other than Sys and Woods?
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March is fishhands.
Shhh only fishhands now.
As Xerxes may be realizing, March’s self-esteem is a bit. Questionable. He ties his self-esteem to his ability to murder, win, survive and make Alice happy, rather than his personality or people liking him or being good or you know. Actually sane things.
March and Xerxes keep swinging because they understand each other ,and can communicate and occasionally break down and stab each other, and March is a highly talkative person who enjoys company so he keeps slipping up and liking him! As noted in his heart game with the other Mad Hatter, March has a bit of a needy personality when he’s not fronting 100% psychocrazy.
Which is bad, because then something happens because of the games and March realizes he shouldn’t like him at all because enemy team!!!!!! NO I WAS DUMB NOW I WILL BE EVEN CRAZIER TO COMPENSATE FOR HAVING STUPID FEELINGS oh hey maybe we can talk more NO WAIT HATE HATE HATE.
Which was where they were at when the gallery flipped into the new setting and Xerxes pretty much stopped talking to him.
Briefly derailing, March tends to over-estimate Canary heavily in the communication stakes. Celeste is really good at discussing threats and meeting up and sharing information and ‘how we’re handling this’, and since Celeste had so much in-fighting he assumed every other team would be 10x more effective at it. He’s slowly realizing no, Canary sucks at feelings and plans, but it affects the following.
So Xerxes stops talking to him regularly and King is making deals with him? March assumes that Canary has shuffled the people in charge of ‘controlling the psychotic’, which was clearly the whole reason they were talking in the first place, right? And he’s semi-okay with that because
he’s used to getting dumped by hattersit makes sense! The narrative fits with his world view, and hey, why would anyone want to talk to him normally let alone a Canary? They’re enemies. Just enjoy how long it lasted! And when Hatter brings him food well that’s clearly tied to the fact he’s playing the tactics game!And then we hit this game, and Hatter more or less starts pointing out uh, blind dude I couldn’t visit, I like you.
??????????? wat ????????????
He doesn’t know how to handle this because. ??????? He’s already established he knows what they’re doing and doesn’t really give a fuck, so you don’t need to pretend to be friends???
why are you bothering???
you don’t really like me i know it
what if you do and i have a frand?!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?BUT IT’S ALL A TRICK
but??? wat??? frand???He is a ball of confusion because Xerxes keeps curveballing his attempts to reduce their relationship to game tactics.
SOTU MARCH AND HATTER
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Talk to me about March's internal logic versus how he presents when it comes to others' interest in him and sexuality.
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March has a clear goal for what he wants to be seen as: Sexually/romantically unavailable and unassailable, absolutely in control, experienced, adult and quite frankly a predator. The response he tries to engender in general is ‘YOU SKEEVY FUCK DON’T EVER TOUCH ME’ because in general?
That lack of physical contact is exactly what he wants.
He doesn’t want people interested in him in any way, or attempting to use those methods on him, so he does it first and harder. Sexuality and physicality is a clear weak point he compensates for by doing the complete reverse of what you’d expect: Doesn’t like physical contact, licks people! Terrified of sexual attention as a control method, red flags lolo what are a consent or laws*
A lot of his headspace is still back in the worst areas of home, and decollage in a lot of ways pounds that in. Shark definitely did not help, but the kissing for points and all the skeevy little choices in games just tend to make him feel like he’s whoring himself for points. So he wants to establish himself as off limits and not a tool to be used.
Unfortunately that’s what he wants, and not what he is.
Important thing to touch on immediately: March? Does not consider himself attractive! It’s notable that he doesn’t use an avatar to change his physical appearance when outside Deco, in his own world, he could look like a 6ft Adonis. His entire personality is ‘unlikable’, and physically he tends to think of himself as a scrawny, short street urchin.
He has strong ties between physical affection = sex, but not mental affection = sex. Sex isn’t really tied to ‘I like this person’ in his head. At best, it’s a matter of physical desire, and at worst part of skeevy, strategic dominance plays. He’s capable of parsing the like = physical affection = babymaking time between other people, but since no one should like him or find him attractive, if anyone is saying shit like that towards him?
Clearly in the category of people trying to rile/creep him out!
This leads to the hilarity of things like March completely not understanding Shark’s jealous crush as anything more than joking around, or Hatter saying “Let’s do it. SEX. RIGHT NOW. I’M NOT JOKING.” Yes very funny now what are we really talking about???
Anyway, the clash between his internal AAAAAAAAAAAAA DON’T TOUCH ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAA and external HAHAHAHHAA YES I AM SKEEVY PREDATOR :) :) :) SO MANY BITCHES AND BADTOUCHES is why he gives some really weird cues. Stuff like licking people on one hand and reacting to a casual touch like he’s a vampire getting doused in holy water on the other hand comes from the fact the moment he’s not initiating and in control he’s a huge scaredy cat about touch.
Finally, he actually likes physical affection but doesn’t like the associated feeling of being a victim or helpless or weak if he accepts it, so his physical contact ramps way up as he gets more drunk.
This may or may not be why he dates dominant personality types who top him completely personality and combat wise and don’t mind that he only shows interest when he is absolutely drunk.
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SO SHARK AND MARCH: post when shark lost his eye, and stabbed March in the stomach, I could... have sworn I wrote about that before but I couldn't find it and trying to involved me getting distracted and opening too many tabs, so I shall avoid that detour this time.
Anyway! That established that Shark did not need to fear March, whatever hold March had over him was rendered null! He is more powerful, and March got the advantage by hammering him in a moment of psychological weakness. They were once more standing on equal ground and shark could not give fucks about March and I am like near positive I essayed on that at the time at you, so moving onto GM and aftershocks!
So, GM! While before the game he reestablished denial as a coping mechanism and got rid of his fear of March, he also is not in his original mindframe of invincibility, especially because in game that is just not practical! Other teams can and will fuck them over! He will use that manic FUCKING CRAZY shield on others, but is unlikely to keep going FULL BLAST at his team, even March. (Also, he's forgotten he hates Rolan, so not at Lark either) SO! MARCH IS EFFECTED WITH HUNGER. SHARK IS MISERABLE AND SCARED BUT NO LONGER TERRIFIED OF MARCH WHO IS ALSO MISERABLE. shark flops because eh don't care march can't do shit to me and i don't see him as the enemy anymore so whatever he flips out then i'll have something to focus on and be manic and crazy instead of miserable, if not, I can flop in peace.
MARCH ACCEPTED FLOPPINGS.
and while there's no formal truce or anything, march also uh. fucking climbed in his lap and chewed on him while he was suffering from hunger? Which he wouldn't have pegged himself as the target of before, unless under SLAVERY. which means March has to realise Shark is not a threat to him right now.
So now that March is not an internal threat to him, and the team is more cohesive, heee realises the team STILL FUNCTIONS as a kind of extension of self in terms of his safety, (because full game targetting in games) and while BEFORE he would have overlooked threats to March specifically because grudges! Now he's not! And the GM also verified that other teams are playing harder too, and celeste has always been a target! He is pretty fucking sure that any celeste ALONE is a target, buuuttt March in particular, after PUBLIC CANNIBALISM and also Janus threatening him in the middle of a safe dating game. . . Yyyyeah he's taken to chaperoning March, now that FEAR has given way and self-preservation also means keeping the team safe. Shiki does not go out as often, Lark and Archer he STILL THINKS OF as a unit, because he hasn't seen much of Lark's amnesia there but is erroneously assuming they are traveling in a pair, and March is still a wandering target.
SO. HATE AND FEAR ARE GONE. And March is someone he was comfortable originally with, with the way they interact on a similar level, (even if their internal logic is very separate) but they never actually BUILT a friendship, too much time being crazy. So he's just baiting him and doesn't really care if he sees or knows about his memory because he doesn't think March is going to fuck over his own teammate at this point in the game, especially since Shark has lost interest in his end. It's. At a level, for anyone else WITHOUT THEIR PASTS would just be like. teammates. friendly acquaintances that can work together and make verbal jabs, but with their shared history, going back to that very baseline level is strange, but! That is where they appear to be right now!
REVERSE!
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GM really fucked March over in a... good way. In that March before felt like he had to cling to control and that if he wasn't in control he'd get fucked over miserably, and that maybe he needed to be in charge to make Celeste win.
And then they lost. Miserably. Terribly. Horrifically. Even when he was giving strategy. And March blamed himself hard for it. He should have been smarter, better at predicting, he was making the plays and it doesn't matter that they lost by basically one card in the end- He feels it was on his head.
And they didn't self-destruct, and he didn't get killed, or wake up in the nasu basement. He went insane, he 'made them lose', and they not only backed him up against other teams- Shark and Panther flopped on him and didn't apparently care he'd eaten a fucking dude!
So suddenly his team feelings got a little blurry. He's been holding himself mentally apart from Celeste, there's been no real 'team cohesion' because... There hasn't been any, everyone's been in blocks he's been trying to manipulate for control. That was the first moment he felt like he was on a team, and not just using a chair and whip on a pack of lions, and became fully face to face that he'd been fucking up hard with his previous short-term strategy and it wouldn't fall apart if they tried to be a real team.
Then we go to Shark. He's finally settled into neutral territory with Shark, wherein they're both not actively attacking each other or looking to attack each other. Shark could have fucked him up, and didn't pounce on the opportunity, so he's accepted that Shark really does have no interest left- Quite the relief.
So he's treating Shark as someone else who WANTS CELESTE TO WIN and is running on that strategy, which is why he's accepting the stalking instead of rejecting it. They're capable of having stupid arguments and the immediately switching over to tactics, and they don't care about each other or are interested in each other, it's simply a matter of celeste protects celeste from now on.
He wouldn't have made the deal, given he already rejected it, but he got slammed hard by the threat from Janus and well. Case of a bigger fish. He'll take the person he knows needs celeste to win over someone who wants them to lose, and worst case scenario, Shark's someone he's beaten down once before.
tl;dr a weird neutrality of team tactics and we're even so now let's not care about each other.
SHARKS THOUGHTS ON OTHER TEAMS?
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TEAL: hissss hissss least favorite. yes go stab one of ours and then get other teams involved when we try and fucking STOP YOU. >(!!! especially dislikes Mochi, but the team as a whole has no points with him.
SHELL: favorite non-celestes. aside from the people he likes best off-team being on this team, he appreciates them apparently wanting to fulfill their side of the ally bargain. If they need anything from him, he'd at least try to do what he can.
CARDINAL: knows very little about! Lark has a connection on this team, and they severed a head. HE'S HOPING they will take some attention off Celeste in the future.
Byzantium: HOLY FUCK IT'S BEEN FOREVER I HOPE YOU BASTARDS ARE NOT STILL HOLDING A GRUDGE??
Lilac: knows they hate Celeste but finds Maka decent company and Cleo seems the honourable type, he figures if she gets any info she might inform them too out of that kind of duty. Still, near the top of the bussing list.
Saffron: THEY EXIST?? Mostly remember Mister, and his terrifying pacts.
Copper Rose: FIGURES THERE'S NO POINT TRYING TO DO ANYTHING THERE NOW THAT HE LOST HIS SERVANT. will bus as called for.
Fawn: until recently, off his radar entirely. But threatening to mind-rape one of Celeste, gee, that's not a good way to get his attention.
Canary: HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S UP THERE, ORIGINALLY MARCH VS CANARY WAS A THING but now they seem to be getting on well? Letting march do his thing there, whatever...
SAGE: Finds Apple insufferable, dislikes Kuroko and the rest on principle, the gimpses of Elliot he's seen (YELLING DURING THE FRAYED/CLOVER GAME) also seem insufferable, anddddd Paru seems passable but ick Sage. They also took Jackal and he seems happier, so he'll refrain from commenting most the time.
Iris: THEY EXIST??? <-- hasn't interacted with them yet, really. Knows Rena exists, and that Shell's redhead has a twin there, and that Shell plus Iris apparently get on, which he heard from Rena.
I think that's all of them
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And then they kept talking and he realized she was really
really
easy
to trick.
March has gone from debating murdering her everytime she opens his mouth to casually talking to her because he finds it hilarious to convince Duchess of ridiculous shit. He feels in control of the situation because she just cannot get a read on him, and continually throws him treats of secrets, canary team workings and closets, which leads to him winding down on the aggression because he believes even if he accidentally slips up and reveals something she won’t catch it, and the more they talk the more he gets on her.
So 90% I AM TOTALLY AN EVIL MASTERMIND USING YOU and 10% holy shit I should not be enjoying talking you into things half as much as I am.
He is going to prank you constantly and terribly.
SOTU MARCH AND DUCHESS
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THE ONLY REASON he didn't make it a fight to the death right then and there was that he was drunk enough and still aware of the rules, so he assumed it was a set up and controlled his reaction. If she had tried to touch him, he would have gone for her throat.
He's confused by the fact that she warned him she was sneak attacking which was ?????? because no, you just kill people or you don't kill them, you don't warn people three times you're going to sneak up and kill them that isn't sneaky, so he doesn't have much respect for her murdering abilities, but he definitely assumes her intentions are 100% his entrails on the floor.
The next thread he will uh. automatically try to kill her so
FAWN AND CELESTE REALLY NEED TO TALK OOCLY ALL TOGETHER since ICly Fawn keeps trolling and Celeste won't take one more attack without stabbing all the bitches. a-awkward war impending if Fawn doesn't back off quick.
anyway SOTU KNIVES AND MARCH
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During the GM game, Knives got hit with severely increased anger, and while she was still status effected, she found out that March had not only killed Musica but that he had gone to the revivals and killed him again. (She doesn't know he ate part of him.) Knives likes Lilac and Musica in particular is someone she likes, so hearing this just compounded the anger she already felt toward March, and she straight up wanted to murder him and would have tried to do so if her own team hadn't stopped her.
During the dating game, she was still pretty pissed off and seeing March made her decide it was a good idea to spout off a bunch of threats. Her anger status effect was fading, and by now it's totally gone, so she's still furious about what March did, but now she's not exactly looking for him so she can try to murder him. However! If it comes to a fight, she's willing to try.
As for warning him, in her mind it's not really a warning because of how fast she is. She doesn't know that March has enhanced speed, too. Ha ha. 8'D
AND YES FAWN AND CELESTE SHOULD TALK OOCLY since. yes. things.
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who are her favorite people so far? if anyone.
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SHE LIKES EVERYONE WHO PLAYED THE GAME AND DIDN'T GIVE UP pretty evenly right now, she hasn't heavily given out any quests (and one of Fawn called her a bitch during the second she did) or interacted.
SAME FOR ALCHEMIST
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(One day I wanna do a portraits-only post with her going HEY THEY KEEP ASKING EACH OTHER WHAT THEY THINK OF US, WHAT DO WE THINK ABOUT THEM?)
How is Miyoko faring? Does he have any particular feelings towards the dumb Sages?
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he wants to diiieeeeeeeeee
like everything has gone terrible, he blames himself for fucking them psychologically in the GM game with his blood, he's forgotten the one person he showed his torture memory and has COMPLETELY forgotten being talked down slightly with 'maybe there are reasons and context and you're not a hideously evil monster'
so yes
he thinks he's a hideously evil monster :D i should diiieee
about the only thing keeping him from offing himself is that he would cripple Enkidu, because he thinks Saffron would be better off without him
BUT SINCE HE CAN'T he's just doing his best to be a good adult.
He thinks the Sage babies need a good adult and he is going to mother them so hard in every thread. THEY ARE KIDS??? THEY NEED ADULT SUPERVISION!!!!
reverse what does paru think of mister
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memories of Mister having some amazing boobs aside though
she feels really guilty about throwing shit at him especially since he was so damn nice afterwards. STOP MOTHERING US I AM NOT A CHILD AND ALSO YOU SHOULD BE MAD AT US!!! WHY DON'T YOU HATE US!!! But he seems nice and really high-strung so she thinks he should probably relax. She has a vague note in her mind of "DO SOMETHING NICE FOR THIS GUY HE NEEDS IT", so she may come by to try to feed Saffron at some point. (Also to pet Hummy because HUMMY *u*)
Does Mister have any strong feelings about the portraits other than Sys and Woods?