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@hattricks &&. said...

How did you come to choose to play this character? What are your favorite things about him?

( holds him up like a marketable plushie. ) i just think he's neat. 😇

okay, but in all seriousness, i feel like i kind of had a different first impression with sunday overall compared to a large portion of the fanbase because i only had the opportunity to experience hsr relatively recently — which means i had the privilege of getting most of his story so far all at once. i saw his introduction, i saw his antagonist era and i saw the his very first steps towards the future without any long stretches of downtime in between. i really, really enjoy characters who begin the story very flawed and get put in a position where they're forced to grow and develop as people. if you're familiar with some of the past muses i've written ( looks at bede and scaramouche ) you can kind of see how a lot of them tend to fit this archetype. sunday also slots into this role, but he's a bit different in the sense that he genuinely comes from a place of good intentions. his goals are painfully altruistic to the point of self-destruction. he's intelligent, but he's also very sheltered. he's empathetic, but he's also very prideful. ( not to mention condescending — and oftentimes more than he realizes. ) you can see at his core that there is the foundation of a genuinely kind person there — and you can see how that foundation has been purposefully groomed and twisted into everyone's favorite biblically accurate control freak.

i also just really enjoyed his arc so far overall. i love penacony, i love the aesthetic and the themes the story presented — and yes, i do enjoy the yapping. ( genuinely, i love sunday's yapper tendencies. i'm unironically so happy to write a muse that speaks paragraphs. ) i think it's interesting how we're introduced to sunday at more or less the most stressful point in his entire life. the responsibility for the charmony festival is resting on his shoulders, fucking gopher wood being fucking gopher wood, there's all kinds of unexpected guests from different factions popping up out of nowhere, he's under immense pressure from the family — and his sister ( his most important person, the only blood family he has left ) is SEEMINGLY MURDERED. this man deserves to get a little bit unhinged, i think. does it justify his actions? no, of course not. but honestly, it's a testament to his composure that he handled everything as smoothly as he did. c'mon guys — he could have been worse! he only threatened a little murder. 👉👈 the lotus eater machine was for your own good! every day could be sunday!

i also think characters who aren't just your run of the mill human are inherently fascinating by default. hoyoverse hasn't expanded on halovians a ton beyond dropping a handful of absolutely WILD breadcrumbs of dubious canonicity. it's my city now and i get to write the manual on these weird musical angelic bird people. i love worldbuilding. i am so normal about it.

LIGHTNING ROUND BELOW THE CUT. click read more if you dare. i'm going to be so cringe and babble a lot and also get kind of personal, but chicken boy is my comfort character and i am doing the polite thing by warning you now to avert thine gaze.

okay? the pact is sealed, then.

i really like his sweet tooth and how it's interwoven into his arc. how it's something he freely indulges in when he's still a carefree child — and tries to repress as he gets older and grows more burdened by responsibilities. how the last letter he leaves for robin mentions eating the same pudding tarts he enjoyed when he was little. also in general, i think it's kind of an endearing quality and plays into a more gap moe-esque angle of his character. yes, the very responsible and orderly oak family head loves strawberries and pudding tarts. he strikes me as the kind of person who orders a black coffee for the sake of appearances while staring wistfully at the caramel macchiato on the menu.

i adore his stupid little >:3 face. i want to shake him. i like the implication that it's definitely not a sincere smile and it's really just something he's maintaining for the sake of a palatable, professional facade — hence why he loses it in his playable model... but honestly, it's just so silly looking and i love it. ( i know he isn't the biggest fan, but in general his playable look is just so comfy to me. )

i find it very fascinating how a character who has religion interwoven so intimately into his story and overall aesthetic actually has a very transactional relationship with the gods.

his little guys! his cherubs! his echoes! his oomfs! i love them. i think they're so so cute.

it's very funny to me that everyone keeps comparing him post-penacony to a confused duckling. i've seen some people on other sites ( predominantly reddit ) complaining that he's been toned down since 2.7 — but i think saying that is kind of a fundamental misunderstanding of both his character and current arc. there's a really good quote during his last conversation with robin where she more or less spells out everything he's going through at the moment. "he's stronger than most ordinary people, but because of it, people have this misconception: they think that when he falls, he will stand back up faster than anyone else. [...] before he stands up again, he will hesitate and agonize for ages over whether that is the right course of action." that's basically where he is right now — he's had his entire worldview shattered before his very eyes, and now he's lost and unsure what to do next. he's clinging to everyone else around him for guidance, he's going full people pleaser mode with the nameless. it's a defense mechanism. he's not going to be like this forever — i'm firmly of the opinion that we're inching our way towards astral express sunday eventually. give him a chance to breathe.

on a semi-related note, i think it's hilarious that there's a lot of people only realizing now that sunday's ingame model isn't actually that tall. he's just usually been standing by himself or next to shorter people in a lot of his earlier scenes. the scene where he confronts gallagher always makes me laugh because he's trying so hard to verbally eviscerate this man but he's like a whole head shorter than him.

OKAY SO THIS IS THE EMBARRASSING PART. BRACE YOURSELF. i actually do find myself relating to sunday a lot in a number of aspects. not in an unhealthy "blurring the line between mun and muse" sort of way, but a "( sweats nervously ) oh ... i do that" sort of way. for example, i'm a huge people pleaser. it's an issue i've been trying to work on, but it's something i still do occasionally find myself struggling with nonetheless. i see a lot of that reflected in sunday — and i think the most obvious example comes in the form of his text messages. he's being very polite, but there's a kind of underlying desperation there. he's giving everyone personalized gifts. he's inquiring about ways to be helpful. he'll even serenade you if you ask. there is literally no response you can give him that doesn't net you a courteous reply, even if you pick one of the shitpost dialogue options — because he wants so badly for you to accept him. the people pleaser is trying to people please.

"i'm trying to connect with everyone [...] but I may need some time due to my personality." oh. god. i'm cringing. that line gave me psychic damage. i think i taste metal.

on another note, there's the infamous charmony dove speech. i know he gets a lot of flak for it — i know the story about the bird gets repeated over and over and over again. but i feel like a lot of people are so caught up in complaining about it that they don't really look into what it implies about his thought process. ( beyond just the surface level debate of the bird and the cage. ) every single time he tells the story, it becomes more intricate. more detailed. more dramatic. he thought about the weather that winter. he took stock of the predators in the yard — which ones would be most likely to prey upon a vulnerable baby bird. have you ever had an experience that was intensely distressing to you ( whether out of embarrassment, trauma or anything in between ) and your mind keeps cycling back to it? you think about it again and again and again, analyzing it from every possible angle — calculating every possible outcome. because that's definitely something i do, and that's also something sunday does on more than one occasion.

this whole yapfest probably makes very little sense, but you have my undying admiration if you actually manage to sit through it. i love this sad bird. i love his brain. i want to see him live well. i think he needs a handful of flintstones vitamins, a headpat and a trip in my washing machine's spin cycle to atone for his crimes.

conclusion: