Demotion Deets & PTR
Oct. 21st, 2019 03:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
therushingskyBut Rhys is adorable? How did such a charming young cyborg get demoted?
You know what? Rhys is adorable! But he also possessed Betelgeuse and made him jump off the deck.
Wow what? That's kind of extreme!
I know, I know don't @ me! But this hasn't come from nowhere. Rhys has never been an altruistic warden. His moral compass has always been defined by a combination of ego and personal interests, and a lot of what's kept him on the straight and narrow as a warden has been the fact that a lot of his self esteem is tied up in being good at his job, which eventually was paired with a major emotional attachment to his inmate.
In fact, when Bill briefly broke the Barge, and Rhys decided to go with him - pretty much the only thing that made him a moderating presence and not just a stupid wingman on a weird and wild ride with his new horrible friend - was his conscious commitment to what was best for Hux.
Now however, with Hux graduated, and Rhys just kinda hanging on because he likes the Barge, he's left with the fact that it maybe kinda hasn't been entirely great for him. One thing that he's done massively while he's been on board, is to indulge in friendships, rivalries, and relationships with people who satisfy an urge that he has for... well, power and pissing contests. Even his aspirations to be better and do better than people, are rooted - very literally - in wanting to be better than other people rather than having a strong moral core of his own. A lot of these destructive dynamics come from the toxicity of working for Hyperion - where there was a lot of currency in hostile banter, backstabbing, and cut-throat ladder climbing. I said in his original app that Rhys was an octopus who learned to swim with sharks, but that means there's a lot of stuff that he also never unlearned, because of...
Our old friend, trauma!
This is why Rhys is getting demoted right now and not a few months back when Hux first graduated. Because Betelgeuse - right from their first encounter - was hitting some fuckin' buttons for Rhys.
The thing is, there is already a nickname issuing, wise cracking, vividly threatening dead guy in his pretty recent past. With whom Rhys made some extremely bad decisions and had kind of an intense relationship, involving possession, intangibility, and ended with Rhys condemning him to infinite nothingness.
The thing is, Rhys's kneejerk reaction to meeting Betelgeuse was to low key recognise this dynamic, and to be lured back into a bunch of his own behaviours that had come with it in the past. Partly out of guilt, or insecurity about having gotten rid of his actual idol in such a hauntingly unpleasant way, and partly just because - as mentioned above, he's never actually unlearned the shit that led to this in the first place.
While some of what got Rhys into this situation was the fact that he was emotionally compromised by the moon event, the actual moment where he forced Betelgeuse to jump overboard after him was pure Rhys. He was punishing someone for traumatically hurting him - he was lashing out at the memory of someone who wasn't there - and he also just needed to win.
Path to Redemption
It's actually not super complicated beyond what I've written above!
Rhys needs to do more to unlearn the corporate culture of Hyperion, instead of constantly having it in the back of his mind as a fallback for when he meets someone who it'll be fun to have a weird and damaging rivalry with.
One of Rhys's strengths on the Barge is that he's pretty accepting of other people, no matter how bad they are. This isn't something he should lose, but he needs to be able to tell the difference between being accepting of someone and mutually enabling his absolute worst instincts with them.
This is probably going to be complicated by the fact that he's going to be unbelievably embarrassed and angry at what he sees as an unfair demotion because I'm a cruel player! \o/
You know what? Rhys is adorable! But he also possessed Betelgeuse and made him jump off the deck.
Wow what? That's kind of extreme!
I know, I know don't @ me! But this hasn't come from nowhere. Rhys has never been an altruistic warden. His moral compass has always been defined by a combination of ego and personal interests, and a lot of what's kept him on the straight and narrow as a warden has been the fact that a lot of his self esteem is tied up in being good at his job, which eventually was paired with a major emotional attachment to his inmate.
In fact, when Bill briefly broke the Barge, and Rhys decided to go with him - pretty much the only thing that made him a moderating presence and not just a stupid wingman on a weird and wild ride with his new horrible friend - was his conscious commitment to what was best for Hux.
Now however, with Hux graduated, and Rhys just kinda hanging on because he likes the Barge, he's left with the fact that it maybe kinda hasn't been entirely great for him. One thing that he's done massively while he's been on board, is to indulge in friendships, rivalries, and relationships with people who satisfy an urge that he has for... well, power and pissing contests. Even his aspirations to be better and do better than people, are rooted - very literally - in wanting to be better than other people rather than having a strong moral core of his own. A lot of these destructive dynamics come from the toxicity of working for Hyperion - where there was a lot of currency in hostile banter, backstabbing, and cut-throat ladder climbing. I said in his original app that Rhys was an octopus who learned to swim with sharks, but that means there's a lot of stuff that he also never unlearned, because of...
Our old friend, trauma!
This is why Rhys is getting demoted right now and not a few months back when Hux first graduated. Because Betelgeuse - right from their first encounter - was hitting some fuckin' buttons for Rhys.
The thing is, there is already a nickname issuing, wise cracking, vividly threatening dead guy in his pretty recent past. With whom Rhys made some extremely bad decisions and had kind of an intense relationship, involving possession, intangibility, and ended with Rhys condemning him to infinite nothingness.
The thing is, Rhys's kneejerk reaction to meeting Betelgeuse was to low key recognise this dynamic, and to be lured back into a bunch of his own behaviours that had come with it in the past. Partly out of guilt, or insecurity about having gotten rid of his actual idol in such a hauntingly unpleasant way, and partly just because - as mentioned above, he's never actually unlearned the shit that led to this in the first place.
While some of what got Rhys into this situation was the fact that he was emotionally compromised by the moon event, the actual moment where he forced Betelgeuse to jump overboard after him was pure Rhys. He was punishing someone for traumatically hurting him - he was lashing out at the memory of someone who wasn't there - and he also just needed to win.
Path to Redemption
It's actually not super complicated beyond what I've written above!
Rhys needs to do more to unlearn the corporate culture of Hyperion, instead of constantly having it in the back of his mind as a fallback for when he meets someone who it'll be fun to have a weird and damaging rivalry with.
One of Rhys's strengths on the Barge is that he's pretty accepting of other people, no matter how bad they are. This isn't something he should lose, but he needs to be able to tell the difference between being accepting of someone and mutually enabling his absolute worst instincts with them.
This is probably going to be complicated by the fact that he's going to be unbelievably embarrassed and angry at what he sees as an unfair demotion because I'm a cruel player! \o/
