Theorem App~

[weekending]

OOC

Name: Snarky
Age: 30s
Contact: wildzubat
Invite Link: here

IC

Character Name: Sunday
Canon: Honkai: Star Rail
Canon Point: Post patch 3.6 / Trailblaze Mission 'Back to Earth in Evernight'
Character Age: ??????? seems to be in his late 20s???
History: wiki link

Division:
((ETA: SUPPORT))

We find ourselves at a crossroads because two options stand out as viable for Sunday.

Sunday's background is primarily in administration, management, politics, and something akin to being a priest with a focus on hearing confessions and offering counseling. As the Head of the Oak Family he was, essentially, head administrator of his entire world until quite recently, sharing the responsibility for managing both the physical world of Penacony and its corresponding Dreamscape (a dream world and what one might call the "real" Penacony as the Dreamscape is its main attraction and where everyone spends the vast majority of their time) with the other four branch Family Heads. As such, he would fit well into the Support division. He is analytical and detail-oriented to an at times obsessive degree, but he is also deeply compassionate towards others with a strong motivation to alleviate suffering. While he'll willingly slot himself into whatever duties he's assigned and work diligently to complete them to a high standard, Sunday's prior experience would be best utilized in a role that has him listening to others and assisting with problem solving and organizational tasks. Diplomacy, coordination, counseling - wherever there seems to be a need.

That said, a strong argument can also be made for him to join Research & Archives, particularly given the focus on researching the Edicts and tales thereof as their similarities to the Aeons he is familiar with would not go unnoticed. Sunday's experience as a Bronze Melodia (the aforementioned priest-like occupation) would serve him well in patiently talking with and listening to any locals in the places they visit to learn what they might have to share. Moreover, although he has devoted himself to his work and conformed to what he felt he needed to be to fulfill what was expected of him, Sunday is at heart something of a nerd, and when he is focused on trying to find something out, he is thorough and meticulous. Also, his habit of keeping journals stands him in good stead for recording new findings and observations. (Also x2 you'd better believe if any of the worlds they visit have musical traditions, he will be all over wanting to hear it. He has a knack for being able to replicate things he's heard on the piano, which probably translates to being adept at transcribing things. Perhaps he might even think of his sister and her own work, among other things, preserving songs that were at risk of fading into extinction.)

Left entirely to his own devices, it's hard to way which he would pick. Sunday's tendency to want to make himself useful would likely lead him to Support, but if nudged to follow his heart and interests or if there seemed to be a deficit of researchers and archivists, then Research & Archives it would be.

Dear moderator, in his shoes, which choice would you make?

[optional Talk to Snarky, the apper]
Me: EZ choice c'mon.
Me: Obviously, R&A. Let your inner nerd fly free. Besides, it's pretty obvious that he was miserable as the Oak Family Head, yeah? Why relive even a fraction of that stress by volunteering to help with administrative paperwork again? Embrace the spirit of the Trailblaze and that sense of discovery~

Edict: The Last Pilgrim
On this arduous journey, we will see the stars.

Sunday's journey has in many ways really only just begun, but he is determined to see it through step by step, no matter what thorns may lie in his path. As such, The Last Pilgrim suits him best at this stage in his life. After all, not only has he quite literally recently set out on a long journey through the cosmos as a passenger aboard the Astral Express, but also he has figuratively been on quite a mental journey, reflecting on the past as well as where he has gone wrong and what he needs to change for the future both to simply atone and do better and to ultimately achieve his long held wish to some day create a paradise were all can be truly be happy. Who knows what the future holds or if he will crash and burn before he sees his dreams fulfilled? In the meantime, all he can do is move forward one step at a time.


Powers: I wasn't quite sure how to categorize things b/c there's sort of like... overlap between stuff or i wasn't sure where the line was between different categories? idk i did my best. Throws the Harmony and also Sunday and also Tuning into a black hole.

Sunday is a Halovian, a humanoid species physically characterized by floating halos and wings sprouting from behind their ears. Per the FAQ, "If they have superhuman features, those parts will still work, but will be without anything superhuman like advanced senses or built in weaponry," I have been assuming Sunday still has his head wings and halo, but that the halo lacks any of its typical function as a psychic radio antenna an amplifier / channel for his powers or glowing or w/e.

Halovian Things - Halovians are natural empaths, sensitive to the emotions of beings around them / the emotional energy of a place, perceived in melodic ways. They can also manifest additional wings when channeling power. Sunday specifically manifests two additional pairs of head wings at times. Their halos seem to act as channels / amplifiers for their powers, and they can communicate with each other via telepathic empathy with their halos.

Tuning - Tuning is in essence resonating with mental / emotional frequencies. It can be used for all kinds of things, from relatively mild things like analyzing someone's mental state or even changing someone's state of mind (such as to, for example, help them feel more at ease) to much more complex things like moving someone's consciousness into a different mental space such as a dream space or a pocket inside your own mind. It can be used therapeutically to do things like mend fractured consciousnesses or alleviate 'disharmonies' and 'distortions' caused by psychic ailments. It can even be used to manipulate other's perceptions to a certain extent, either directly such as in a jedi-mind-trick kinda way or in a more projection-from-self disguise aura kind of way that causes other people to perceive you as something other than yourself. basically tl;dr - psychic emotion-based mental manipulation

Blessings - Sunday is a Pathstrider of Harmony, which is part of why he is as powerful at tuning as he is as the Harmony is a very mind-and-music-of-the-soul-based Path, but he also is capable of utilizing the Harmony in other ways such as to bless others with boosted crit surer strength, give them another turn help speed their movements up, or bolster their energy.

Imaginary Energy Manipulation - Sunday can coalesce imaginary energy into various forms such as thorny vines for attacking or self-bondage restraining things. He can also conjure several little glowing golden sprites to help him either do small tasks, carry light things, or give his blessings to others; they (the sprites) are called Echoes of Faded Dreams and seem to be made at least in part out of memory. He also seems to be able to transform them into much larger puppets, though it's unclear if that's something he can do in a physical world or only in a memoria/dream world space.

Dream Stuff - Although not as capable of shaping and manipulating the stuff of memories/dreams/consciousness (known as memoria) as beings explicitly specialized in the field, Sunday is still quite knowledgeable and capable of manipulating memoria. He is experienced with dreamweaving (i.e. constructing things in dream worlds) and seems to have some know-how on making light cones (i.e. refined crystalized bits of memory).



As the Ascendants deemed your character worthy of being on this exploration voyage, what qualities did they observe in your character that they found appropriate for the mission?

He likes birds and is knowledgeable about music, both of which seem like extremely important qualities considering Starling's Lament in Flight's shape and the goal of seeking the Song.

There are bound to be all kinds of worlds out there in this universe, and consequently, bringing along someone with some experience in governing a particularly strange world of dreams might not go amiss both for his potential insights into navigating any similar such worlds in this universe and for his experience in things like diplomacy or trade negotiations. And in such things, he seeks mediation and peaceful solutions wherever possible. He also has a lot of experience in just listening to others - so much of his job has always been to listen and do what he can to put others at ease, either as a confessor or as an administrator. Moreover, Sunday is a hard worker who does not shirk the tasks he is given (although notably, he is not blindly dutiful. If he deems something of greater importance, he will devote more of his attention and resources to that instead).

But more important than any, let's call it, resume experience he has, Sunday is someone who is willing to pick himself back up again when he falls. He is both capable and willing to grow and change from past mistakes and strive to become a better person. On an exploratory voyage into the unknown, you don't know what kind of setbacks you might encounter, and so you need a certain degree of resiliency and determination to bounce back and to keep going one step at a time. Sunday has those qualities - and his care for others will see him doing his best to help others who might be struggling to keep going as well. It will be a difficult journey, but they are all capable of making it.

What is your character's best quality, what is their worst, and how do these two qualities affect each other?

Sunday's best quality is probably his compassion. From an early age, he has always yearned to make others happy, expressing to his sister once that his wish included not only her own wish but everyone else's as well. When they found an injured baby bird, his first instinct was to find a way to protect it and keep it safe, to care for it. And this instinct to care for others and alleviate their suffering has never left him, even if his view of humanity grew more cynical over time.

One of his worst qualities is his "control freak" nature - a mixture of perfectionism and deep need to try to have control over situations. He overthinks thinks things, analyzing and researching to the point of paranoia at times. While he is working on this, trying to relinquish control, embrace his discomfort with imperfections and so on, he nevertheless has a history of trying to do the thinking and decision making for others.

The interplay between these two has led to, at its extreme, him at one point trying to draw everyone into a utopian dream of (false, shallow) happiness whether they wanted to be a part of it or not in a grand effort to create a paradise where all are happy. This approach was flawed on several levels, not the least of which was his quite limited understanding of what real happiness even was, but most relevantly to this discussion, he chose to disregard the free will of others for the sake of doing what he thought was best for them. And while he has since had plenty of time to reflect upon all of this and realize the error of his ways, changing as a person is an active process that he is still undergoing. He cares deeply about the well-being of others but his need to control image, situation, etc. continues to get in the way of things like him directly expressing his feelings.


Your character's Edict appears in front of them, and agrees to grant them one wish: what does your character wish for?

Are the Edicts any more capable of saving people unconditionally than any other gods? Forgive him if he is skeptical that such an offer comes without strings attached. More than ever, he is convinced that to change anything - to achieve any wish - you must do it with your own hands. It is up to the you of the present and the future to answer your own prayers of the past.

However, if he could somehow be assured that there were truly no conditions... well, Sunday's deepest held wish is to create a world where all can be happy - a paradise free from suffering. He additionally envisions it as a place free from gods - which... to wish for such a place from a god - does that not create an inherent contradiction? He already tried, once, to create a (admittedly quite flawed, he realizes this now) possibility of such a space using, among other things, the power of a dead god, but that was not without its costs. So how, then, to phrase such a wish? Should it instead be for the knowledge of how to build such a place from the ground up himself? For the understanding and wisdom necessary? Or -- does he start with step one of wishing for the Aeons to cease to exist and that no new ones to be born so that humanity is truly free to build a better world on its own? But there would be so many unforeseen consequences to something so sudden like that, and it would likely do more harm than good in the short term to so fundamentally alter the structure of his home universe...

-- all of which is to say that Sunday would give this question a lot of thought before giving his wish, if he ever even gave one at all or ultimately declined on principle. But if, in the end it is as he suspects and the Edicts are fundamentally no different than any other gods he knows, then he cannot trust a wish he makes here to affect his home, and he should exercise utmost care. Still, a wish for the answers he seeks would be tempting...

The Theorem has broken down, and is drifting toward a black hole. There is very little hope of outside rescue. What does your character do?

Very little hope isn't quite the same as no hope, so while there is still time, Sunday assists in whatever ways he can. He's not of much use when it comes to repairing things, but he can help coordinate efforts between groups or be a pair of able hands all the same. When it becomes clear, however, that the situation can no longer be helped from their end - or if even before that panic starts to spread, his priority instead turns to consolation for everyone else, offering whatever comfort he can to others until the inevitable end.

When Sunday was a small child, his homeland was destroyed by a terrible disaster, leaving him and his sister orphaned. Their mother died while holding them, in fact, but before she did, she sang to them to ease their fears. And in the years that followed, Sunday in turn would hum to comfort his sister and help her sleep. He therefore knows deeply both the primal terror of facing an overwhelming seemingly inescapable disaster as well as the power that comforts like song or being held can have.

If by this point Sunday has regained enough of his abilities, he would use his Tuning to help ease minds and allow people to face the end calm and unafraid. Even if he hadn't, he would still do what he could to that end, listening and offering those that might wish a final chance at talking and confessing to a listening ear. Sunday is no longer a Bronze Melodia, and even then he does not share a faith with anyone else on the ship, but does that really matter at the end? The important thing is really just for people to have a chance to be heard, to get those last weights off their chests so they can face the end freely.

But if he can, he may even offer to put people into a gentle sleep, tucked away in a dream where they won't even be aware of the slow death that is to come. However, as he only has himself to sustain such a thing, it sadly won't be able to last indefinitely. But perhaps it will be enough to allow others a gentler death. (For himself? It doesn't matter. He will accept whatever awaits.)

Writing Samples:
TDM thread with Jiaoqiu
TDM thread with Castiel