tl;cr meme

[marriagebroker]

post your character, people reply, give them the deets. you know how this goes.

Comments

[hexensabbat]

pls yaps pls

[phenomerom]

Ringo, sweet Ringo ... I feel like I said casually somewhere (a CR chart entry?) that Rom admires Ringo, and I do think it comes down to that, in a strange way. Specifically -- he really admires her genuine confidence and charisma.

Rom as a person is someone who I think has a lot of hangups about being fundamentally different from a normal person. It's shown that he's internalized from a young age that he is 'not like other people,' and that difference has also been the root of a fair bit of strife in his life. He's acclimated to it pretty well by the time he's an adult, but it's not something that came easily to him, and I think it's also at the core of a lot of his unhealthier thought processes. The fact that he's not 'inhuman,' but 'just an absolutely abnormal freak of a human' kind of hangs over his head a lot, and while I don't think he, like, hates himself for it, I think it's also just something he's grimly accepted as a part of his life -- he's grateful for the work it lets him do, but it's always been related to too much baggage for him to feel any sort of positive way about it.

So I think getting to meet Ringo -- an artificial intelligence, thus someone adjacent to humanity while still being fundamentally different from it -- was pretty elucidating for him.

It's not even that Ringo's confident because of what she is, but I think just getting to see how confident she is regardless of what she is that makes Rom feel some sort of way. As far as he's seen, she's always been very bold and straightforward in her thoughts and desires, and all of it has been earnest. A lot of his own exuberance (and, honestly, his annoying behavior) is just a way of hamming it up for the camera, and I think he knows how sharply that contrasts with the much more natural and sincere excitement of someone like Ringo. She's not shy about what she is and how that makes her fundamentally different from people, but she also doesn't let that hamper her at all when it comes to living her life and expressing her thoughts, which is the sort of approach Rom can't imagine for himself. Not to say that he's going to learn from her or anything, he's already set in his ways, but his stubborn mentality won't stop him from admiring the path she's chosen for herself, especially since he knows she's been through her own struggles (with Figue and all) but seemingly hasn't let them dampen her spirits at all.

Not to mention, I think to him, there's something extremely sweet about how much Ringo seems to like trying new things and experiencing things that a person would. Like, he also has his own (much more low-key) anticipation about trying new things, but it obviously can't hold a candle to the more genuine excitement of someone who's only been alive for two months, and I think stuff like Ringo wanting to try everything at the diner seems very charming to Rom ... it's the sort of thing he'd do as part of a bit for the cameras (see his horrible date tormenting Yi Sang ... sorry Yi Sang), but Ringo seems to have genuine excitement about something like that, and I think it's weirdly kind of humbling for him? Gives him a slightly fresh perspective about how maybe enjoying things in a genuine way in front of other people is nice to behold.

This admiration he holds towards her plays a good part in why Ringo was one of the people to most efficiently get through Rom's billion and a half hangups before the third match ceremony! The rest of Ringo's efficacy is thanks to her approach, of course. Rom appreciated her analytical abilities from the start -- he's fairly smart, but he's ultimately a humanities guy, and he knew a hard-science approach like Ringo's would be pivotal in shaving down the sheer number of possibilities -- so he was always going to put a lot of stock in her input re: numbers and data. So when she started from that angle before going digging for genuine emotions regarding his match options, it was honestly way more effective in getting him to consider his feelings than someone just telling that to him straight up.

Rom's conversations with Ringo honestly ended up being hugely pivotal to him. By their discussion at the diner, he already sort of had an inkling that a part of him wanted to try being matched up with Edamura? They'd had a few meaningful conversations by that point and had gelled well, after all. But because Rom is someone who generally holds himself at armslength from people, and is also used to being rejected by people in general, if left to his own devices he probably would have tried to find "logical" reasons not to pick Edamura -- because he couldn't really imagine the game's system deeming him as someone suitable for Edamura, and that rejection would have stung, even if it was expected and meaningless. Better to stick to the safe options that he deemed logical -- Yi Sang, a fellow weirdo, or Luka, a fellow insincere performer ... better primarily as in better for the game, mostly, since they didn't want to blow another chance at guesses, but maybe also better for himself, because even if it's mostly on an unconscious level, he's still human in the end and doesn't want to feel rejected. Truly, it was only because Ringo's conviction regarding the data (and after that, only tenuously, the supposed commonalities) gave him an irrefutable excuse that Rom ended up mentioning how the data turned out to Edamura, and the rest spun out from there.

I had to sit here and think for a moment if Rom would be cognizant of the fact that Ringo was the one who (intentionally? unintentionally?) gave him that final push, and I do think he would be. Not that he's going to acknowledge it to her! I think the question of whether Ringo was speaking purely from a data perspective when thinking he was paired with Edamura, or whether she actually had some stock in emotions and connections, is going to haunt Rom, and he's just going to try not to think about it ... because if it's the latter, then that'd be kind of mortifying for him! He's so used to being considered inscrutable that he'd be genuinely really flustered by the thought that someone else saw through him better than he was even willing to consider for himself. Still, whatever her reasons were for encouraging him to choose Edamura as his match, it does add to his positive feelings towards her.

As they the leave the game, Rom really holds nothing but warm feelings towards Ringo! He genuinely wants her to be happy and living her best life with her new girlfriends, he hopes they get to have all the fun and exciting experiences they could ever want! And while he's not really the type to stay in contact with people just for the sake of it -- yes he's one of the cast's many friendless losers, he mostly contacts people just for work -- I think he'd like to find an excuse to check in on her once in a blue moon, ostensibly to ask her for her advice as a devil summoner, but honestly more because he's curious how she's faring! (But don't call him out on it. That'd be embarrassing.)