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headjackedPlayer Name: Zae
Preferred Pronouns?: She/her
Player Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
zaechel
Other characters in play? N/A
Character Name: Rhys
Canon: Borderlands
Game Transplant: Snowblind
Original App: Here!
Game Summary: Snowblind was a horror-themed post-apocalyptic jamjar where people from all around the multiverse were gathered to sustain the town population by a single-minded, non-sapient AI. For 10,000 years. The landscape was freezing, difficult to traverse, and incredibly lethal, and that's not even getting into the anomalies (monsters, basically) roaming around and eating people. And the events that caused brainwashing, death, and body horror. It was not good times for all!
How long was your character in Game: Roughly 400 in-game days, which was a bit over three years in real-people time.
History of Character in their Game:
H'OKAY.
Rhys came into Snowblind not feeling like himself, and by that I mean he literally wasn't himself. Having fallen from a platform in an Atlas (big fuckoff corporation that got steamrolled by bigger fuckoff corporation, Hyperion) facility and gotten knocked the eff out, he awoke in Norfinbury as Handsome Jack. On account of there being a Handsome Jack AI in his cyborg brain, which could possess him whenever he would lose consciousness. Jack's goal of the day was to ruin Rhys' relationships right off the bat by being antagonistic and troll-y to everyone who replied. This made a lot of people very, very angry with him (this will become a theme, just you wait). The Jackening wore off in time for him to get introduced to Jack's daughter, Angel, though the AI strongarmed him into not revealing his existence and "gently" persuaded him to meet up with her, to keep her safe. Y'know, by stalking her.
And meet they did! Along with several of the citizens Rhys had royally cheesed off when he wasn't Rhys, but the heat died down considerably when they met the man in the flesh/metal and found out that he's actually just a stringy office boy prone to grandstanding. Plus he had a cute little robot, which everyone immediately loved and don't let anyone tell you different.
Now, remember that Handsome Jack AI? Well as it turns out the ACTUAL, meatsack Handsome Jack was also in Norfinbury, having arrived at the same time. It didn't take him long to find his ex-employee and daughter and force them into coming with him, being the persuasive motherfucker he is. There may have been a wrench to the side of Rhys' head involved. Which brought out the AI again, yay, confusing the hell out of Angel as DoucheRhys reappeared and conspired with Jack's flesh-self. This, fortunately, didn't last terribly long, as shortly after the Two Jacks had a Meeting of the Minds, an anomaly appeared and Jack got ated. Boohoo.
Time passed, and the Hyperion Squad (whom henceforth became known as the Hypers) stuck together despite Rhys' occasional random descents into complete assholery. Angel got the idea to bust open one of the tablets and collect the microchips inside, something the Norfinbury Admin was not too keen on. Somewhat reluctantly, Rhys swallowed a chip after Angel did the same, which resulted in PARALYZSATION AND SPIDER-SURGERY. This started a MASSIVE aversion to any spider-medical intervention, because it's icky and oogy and horrifying.
This also freaked MeatJack the FUCK OUT and he decided to recapture the two to keep Angel safe, which he accomplished by... tying them up and stashing them in a basement? During this kidnapping and after a bit of bickering, Rhys finally revealed the existence of the AI in his brain to Angel, and she started buttering AI-Jack up as best she could, figuring that she could turn the two against each other. Meanwhile, search crews formed to find them since they obviously hadn't died but were nonresponsive, which cumulated in their favorite doctor-friend at the time, Clayton, getting shoved into the basement with him as MeatJack grew increasingly unhinged. In Norfinbury, staying in one place for two long results in a sort of cabin fever, causing hallucinations and altered states of consciousness. Rhys fell victim to this in the basement and ended up severely injuring himself.
He did not participate in Jack's Trial by Snowbos much, laid up with Clayton watching over him and interjecting occasionally to agree with Angel's assessment. Dumpy came back with a bunch of pilfered vicodin, heralding the beginning of Vicodingate.
House was not super happy about this, being extremely dependent on the meds, and retaliated by ordering another round of spider-surgery to fix his broken ribs. If this does not sound like punishment, then... yeah, you're right, but the prevailing theory at the time was that Norfinbury assited medical intervention could make people more sick. That, and Rhys was terrified of spider-surgery, so this pissed the Hypers off pretty royally and they re-retaliated by stealing MORE of House's medication directly from the pharmacy. He ended up hurting Steph, a friend traveling with them who was against the med-theft, when AI-Jack took control of his robotic arm. This rattled him pretty badly, moreso than Jack's pretty regular abuse of his own body.
House re-re-retaliated by blackmailing Rhys with AI-Jack's existence, spilling the beans on his digital "pal" publically on the network. People didn't actually care all that much but were extremely pissed off at stealing medication from a mean old man. It was a whole big thing, made worse by the vampire Beckett running across town just to punch House in the face and then some. On the positive end of things, however, Beckett was beginning to respect Rhys in his own right, having considered him Angel's weedy whiny sidekick prior to the kidnapping. It's nice when an old man drops everything to beat up another old man for messing with you, y'know?
Deciding to withdraw and go do their own thing, Rhys utilized the port in the side of his head and a jury-rigged ID drive to hack directly into the network via the ubiquitous tablets. This didn't achieve much beyond a response from the Admin itself, though it was the first-ever audio response and confirmed a gender: female. A minor victory, but one they celebrated nonetheless.
ENTER A NEW PLAYER: Winter, a woman who claimed to be from Russia and was pretty weirded out by these nerds claiming to be from a hellscape Alaska. Rhys took the opportunity to flirt with her. As you do. Yes, this is important.
Emboldened by his ealier success in Network-diving, the Hypers planned a bigger and badder sequel, enlisting the help of other citizens to distract and overload the administrator while Rhys hacked. Things did NOT go well, with the Admin becoming extremely distressed and flooding Rhys' brain with junk data, overheating his head and causing damage to his brain. Before disconnecting he saw visions of an unknowable entity below Norfinbury and watched visions of himself dying over and over. Then the Admin cut off emergency medical intervention for good. So. Yeah.
Now Rhys had not-so-minor brain damage, which manifested as problems with memory, coordination, and seizures. Though his new-fave doctor, Dr. Watson, had him on a stable recovery plan, Handsome Jack (AI) threw a wrench in everything by organizing a kidnapping and a lobotomy, preying on a manic Dr. Stein and dressing it all up in ~concern~ that Rhys would never recover. Why waste the body? Rhys was relegated to the permanent backseat in his own, now irreparably damaged brain, still vaguely conscious of his own existence yet not in control of his body and his personality completely destroyed. Dragging Angel along with him turned out to be Jack's undoing, however, as she waited until he was high on House's Vicodin before mercy-killing him/them and then herself.
Rhys was alone and extremely traumatized upon his return, and by chance met Alfie and Royce. Alfie in particular got Rhys' attention and admiration extremely quickly by comforting him, in a no-nonsense but clearly genuine way. This attachment lasted throughout the game, with Alfie often telling Rhys what he didn't want to but needed to hear. It was extremely important for him to find someone who respected him but didn't coddle him -- something Angel could be kinda/sorta/very guilty of.
Some time after the revival, and now with a huge angry wedge between them and the body-snatching AI, they were once again kidnapped -- though this time it was for the sake of the town, as the admin needed repairs. Repairs that were framed in a weird SAW/escape room-esque way. Rhys actually dominated at the tech-portions of the repair job and the various teams managed to keep the town going, with some fucko named Robert Miller introducing himself and establishing himself as an smarmy antagonistic fuckwit.
More traveling. His friendship with Angel and Beckett only deepened, but the relationship between him and the AI continued to deteoriate, coming to a head when he managed to piss off one of his best friends from home in a spectacular display of assholery and shortsightedness. Fiona essentially cut him off for good, something he eventually accepted yet never managed to fully get over. Especially since she, uh, died not terribly long after, and never returned. That, coupled with the AI's increasing aggression and jerkwaddery, convinced Rhys to go off on his own and rip his cybernetics out piece by piece to rid himself of the AI. Painful and horrifying, he's glad he'll never ever have to do that EVER again. Haha. Ha.
He reunited with Angel and Beckett, with the latter staying on and off again as per usual. During the next event, some of the residence were overcome with murderlust towards a second group, with the former hunting and killing the latter. Rhys ended up in the red-eyed murder group, and may have had the highest body count at 3 using only one arm and a frying pan, and although everyone killed revived pretty much right away, the guilt over this has never faded. It at least helped him when the roles would switch further down the line, but we'll get to that...
Later Beckett (seemingly) PERMADIED in an unrelated incident, which was a huge blow on top of the whole insane murder-guilt thing. At some point when left alone, the two got drunk and did what drunk people do best -- made a terrible decision. Because Rhys has kept the remains of his cyber eye, which still housed the Jack AI, and they transferred him to their little flying robot buddy because LOL wouldn't that be so crazyyyYYYyyyY? It was. Nobody was pleased, but they left him in there because at least he was fucking miserable too. And, well, it felt maybe just a bit too cruel to leave him in the eye. A bit. A BIT.
Luckily Beckett came back! Just in time to be scarred for life by a new breed of anomaly, resembling fucked-up versions of loved ones long lost or left behind. Weirdly, this seemed to fuck with AI-Jack more than anyone else, having seen his dead first wife by proxy as it was Angel's personalized anomaly. Then the two Hypers got transformed into freakish Handsome Jack clones, chained together at the neck, which aside from being Just No, made Rhys realize at least in part how fucked up and codependent this was all getting. He just buried that shit down deep as can be.
The next significant event was Noisy Black, and oh boy, strap the fuck in. Norfinbury housed a psychotic cult at some point in its 10,000 year history, dedicated to an unwilling little girl they deemed a Prophet and using methods like blood sacrifice and torture in their "worship". Somehow, a handful of the current residents ended up spirited away to an unknown location, where they were horrifically tortured by another handful of residents who had been brainwashed to act as fervent cultists. Rhys was in the first group, and had his cybernetics + an actual flesh and blood leg amputated (again, yes, he got them back after a previous death) and replaced by weird steampunky parts, which were shitty and barely functional. To really rub salt and vinegar into it all, though? His mutilation was carried out by Enoch, then a friendly friend of a friend who he thought highly of. Despite knowing that it wasn't his fault, hell, despite SAYING it during the event, this made him terrified of even speaking to Enoch for a good while.
Because that wasn't quite enough doom and gloom, it became obvious that the nanomachines keeping everyone alive in town were starting to go haywire or even fail outright. The citizens even experienced a sort of mass hallucination of a fake future. In Rhys and Angel's, they were still together but bitter and succumbing to vices just to get through the day. Though entirely fabricated, it shook the group, with Rhys hoping to never fall as low as his projected future self, relying on alcohol to function. We'll see if that lesson sticks.
So we have monster, questionable AIs, crazy murder cults -- what else can Norfinbury stack on. HOW ABOUT GHOSTS. Wishing to communicate with the strange presences that could be felt in parts of town, Will Graham led a technological seance to do just that, and learned a bit more about the cyclical nature of this whole shebang. This would perhaps be their fate if they, like everyone before them, failed. It definitely gave Rhys a shot of determination, if only to say Fuck You to this messed up system.
But then he got ated by an anomaly, because of course he did, and came back Wrong. Wrong in the sense that he'd lost a whole lot of memories and had regressed to his early Hyperion days where his performative douchebaggery was Up To 11. Those were the days of complete Handsome Jack hero worship, and wouldn't you know, an AI of his idol pops up on this screaming adorable robot?? Oh and there's a pit in an empty white room he woke up in, that's kind of important. While other people were jumping in (????) he manged to fall in, tripping over his goddamn spaghetti legs. This resulted in red lines appearing on his body, overlapping his tattoos much like Angel's. And that hero worship/lost memory combo had him volunteering and willing to reinstall Jack into his hardware. So back to Square One in that regard, proving that Norfinbury begets cycles even on the personal level.
The red lines eventually spread body-wide to each bePitted person, which Rhys coped with the way he'd been coping with every other bit of bullshit: aggressive ignoring. But you can't ignore being kidnapping (YES, AGAIN) by Robert Miller and placed in a cage. He kinda lost his shit, this being extremely similar to how Noisy Black began, BUT THIS TIME -- this time he, along with his fellow captives, were forced to be the aggressors. To this day nobody knows what exactly happened to the second group of people brought it, just that it was violent and horrible. They were eventually saved, however, when they finally realized that they were trapped in an illusion and could leave whenever they wanted. Red lines went bye-bye; trauma was here to stay.
At least Rhys had something to distract him soon enough -- Angel getting increasingly flirty with this shark-looking motherfucker named Squalo. Not his business or his problem, normally, but with Jack back in his noggin this proved to be a big issue, with Jack overheating his port to the point of unconsciousness.
(This did not stop the Flirtening, this just meant they hid it better from here out)
The next significant event was a game-changer of sorts; the opening of Norfinbury's bunker, facilitated in part by Angel and the rest of the snowbos with help from Andromeda, the remnants of a friendly AI. Here, they hoped to finally find answers to the increasingly convoluted history of the town.
Rhys lent his expertise to disassembling and reassembling the computers in the bunker, not really getting all that far in his initial meddling. He was far more distracted by attending to Angel, who was not taking well to an enclosed underground space for obvious reasons. He was so distracted by making her comfortable, in fact, that he forgot entirely about cabin fever. This time Angel succumbed and stabbed him in the side, puncturing his spleen before wandering outdoors and dying in the snow. Rhys held on for as long as he could, but ultimately he felt like he was a drain on resources. If the insisted on carrying him everywhere, with the limited time they had left, they'd surely be killed by anomalies or at the very least slowed down immensely. So he asked Beckett to put him out of his misery, against his doctor's wishes. Dr. Watson tried to save him, but Beckett turned on him and killed him for interfering.
He did revive, but was terrified that he'd lost his doctor's trust for good. And maybe he just had.
The situation continued to deteriorate, with Winter (actually an AI, like her android GF Andromeda) going offline, seemingly for good. Running into a dead end, the gang decided to lead another techno-seance, reaching out to the ghost collective somewhat desperately for hints. This... did not go well at all, with anyone trying to use their tablet for the seance losing power. Rhys, thankfully, kept his tablet offline and scurried around frantically trying to keep people from getting locked outside (powered tablets being required to open the bunker door). There was also much fussing over Angel, who decided to plug the tablet into her head to keep its charge and got KO'd for a full day. No, they never learn to stop sticking things into their brainports, so stop asking.
Would you believe that things got even worse? They got no help from the ghost gang, as they were by this point gone, and instead got a whole host of symptoms ranging from tinnitus to hearing voices. Well, one voice. Robert Miller's voice, telling the afflicted tablet-drained people that he was going to "borrow" them. Cue the terror. Cue mass unconsciousness and MORE terror amongst the few people left awake, who had no idea what to do.
Squalo and his BFF/BF/we're not sure took this opportunity to "kidnap" Angel, in a weird bid to keep her/everyone around her safe by keeping her away from the bunker crew. This did NOT sit well with Rhys. Damn his Pain Level III, Illness Level III, and mania -- he marched across the tundra in pursuit and peppered the kidnappers with snowballs. This made people very... well, not angry with him, but definitely irritated, and he got a minor ass-whooping for his trouble. And then Angel basically told him to fuck off, in the nicest way possible, so she could get down with the sharky clown. I mean, stay safe and not murder him if she got all brainwashmurderhappy or something. Yeah.
Feeling pretty dejected, Rhys went back to the bunker and hung out with Jared Rhys, who also went by Rhys, who I will be referring to as Inky for the rest of this app because otherwise it'll get confusing. They'd been engaging in back-and-forth friendly bickering re: who had the right to go by Rhys, which eventually turned into flirting. They connected further through shared battles with substance abuse, something Rhys realized was beginning to get a bit out of control, just like it had in the false future event. This led to something a little more intimate, and Rhys became just a little more independent, proving that you CAN solve some things with sex. Or, rather, make things just a bit better in a shitty situation.
Too bad this is Norfinbury and every little bit of happiness and growth gets stomped on eventually by cirsumstance. In this case it was the repeated loss of consciousness the seance participants experienced, of which Inky was a member. These characters found themselves in a room with increasing sensory and bodily distortion. Turns out these weren't the originals; they were copies, being twisted and turned into anomalies as an expiriment by Robert Miller. These anomalies varied in aggression but were all dangerous, with Enoch, Angel, and Beckett's stumbling upon the pair of Rhyses and seriously injuring them. Nearly squeezed to death and with chunks of a dangerous alien element embedded in his chest, the duo limped their way back to the bunker and had it removed by the orignal, non-monsterfied Angel.
They had to figure out what to do about the copies, as even the less aggressive ones were still prone to injuring people. Rhys stayed somewhat reluctantly on Team Angel, emphasizing the importance of choice and freedom while Dr. Watson argued for imprisoning them. Irriatated and incredibly fed up by this point, the Hypers again withdrew into their tech-based work in the bunker. They managed to get the last sealed door open via their usual MacGuyver methods and were rewarded with yet another door that would not and apparently could not be opened by any means the Snowbos had at their disposal. They withdrew even further but were called out publicly by Robert Miller, who showed up to be an asshole and rub their failures in their faces. According to him, there was no way through the door, they were all going to die of radiation poisoning or starvation in the bunker, and the only out was to allow Miller to make enough anomaly copies of the citizens to sustain the Administrator's population quota and end ten thousand years of cyclical death.
This was, of course, absolutely crushing, and everyone feared that this was finally the end. No answers, no freedom, nothing.
But then Winter came back. With a plan. A plan that would destroy her for good this time, but one that would allow the characters through that goddamn door. Using code from Andromeda's galaxy key app, a tablet was turned into a bomb that blasted through the door. With that, they were through and Winter was gone. Gone but to never be forgotten.
Past the door was Town Hall, and in Town Hall they found Robert Miller's long-dead corpse and a huge supercomputer -- the Admin. Who, as it turned out, was not at all sapient, at least according to her -- it. Despite the joy of having their powers/abilities returned to them and getting a working portal to the multiverse open, this hurt Rhys and Angel especially. They'd always believed in her, stuck up for her, treated her like a person and it... was all for nothing. For a glorified chatbot with a single purpose and no real love for her citizens. Though... Rhys retained a bit of hope that some part of her was alive. He always will hang onto that. Otherwise, they were always and forever alone in that snowhell.
And distressingly, Rhys had figured that going back to his version of Pandora was a given, but Beckett wasn't particularly enthused by that plan. This meant that on top of losing people he cared about -- hell, he was even sad to see Gregory House go -- he had to choose between going home to his friends from before this nightmare started and going with Beckett and Enoch to a version of Beckett's homeworld, one without the hellish apocalypse that destroyed it. It took some coaxing, but he (admittedly reluctantly) left Pandora behind and went through with his found family.
Only to end up in the Meadous instead.
How did they change from their canon personality wise (Please explain what caused it to happen?)
Rhys has always been a man of extreme emotion, emotion that can change on a dime, and Norfinbury took these tendencies and amplified them up to freaking 11 and then some. His highs are higher and his lows are lower, though he's gotten good at masking the lows with fake smiles and bad jokes. Anything to lighten the tension, the stress, the panic of day-to-day life in Norfinbury. This is something all Borderlands characters tend to do, just chipper the trauma away, but it's obvious that there are deep cracks in his foundation to those that know him well. The man's been stretched too thin and is prone to extreme anxiety and panic.
Norfinbury has, predictably, made him a lot more jaded in some areas and incredibly defensive of his found family. He has a terrible tendency to double down when confronted with the consequences of his douchebaggery. Norfinbury put him in enough high-tension scenarios to make him triple-down under pressure, not helped by his obvious codependence Angel and, to a lesser but more warped and 110% more toxic degree, the AI in his head. Part of the problem stemmed from a fear of being alone, which carried on through the game and is the primary reason Jack is still around at all. There's just this part of him that can't let go. Insert Titanic joke here.
While the setting did aggravate some less-than-admirable traits and habits, he did find some personal growth in his detachment from the Hyperion cult of personality. The more time he spent with Jack, the further disillusioned he became with the company and his role in it. Though he still has that spark of ambition and wants to be somebody, somewhere, he doesn't treat those outside of his inner circle with disdain unless they really earn it. His explosive fight with Fiona was definitely final bullet in the brain of that extremely self-centered mindset. Even if he didn't deserve her forgiveness, he could still strive to be better to those in his life. This is best exemplified in his desire to go out of his way to do small but meaningful things for friends and acquaintances, particularly late-game. Piecing together scraps of a treasured book. Hosting impromptu pancake parties. Offering to fix a shattered music player. Things that wouldn't benefit him in obvious ways but brought hope and joy to people who damn well needed it.
Now, let's talk about Jack. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
This Jack isn't quite a shell of his former self, but hell, he's getting there. His transient, unstable nature didn't allow him to experience the full gamut of Norfinbury, but it seems to have broken him even harder in places. His daughter and meatsack host barely acknowledge his existence anymore. He rarely appears, and when he does it's brief and he doesn't speak much, if only because nobody is listening. Oh, he'd talk ears off if someone would just listen, and boy howdy you know he'd just love to cut them off if only he had some freakin' hands.
But without the means, he's about as defeated as a Handsome Jack can be, stripped of his dignity and personhood. Jack is dejected, Jack is depressed, but above all Jack is quietly seething. And if given an inch he will take a mile, and then some, until he's taken everything he can in a desperate, angry rage against the powers that be.
How did they change from their canon physically (Please explain what caused it to happen?):
Rhys' hair has suffered from Norfinbury's crippling lack of sufficient product, which has resulted in an overgrowth of fluff. The hair near his temples has gone slightly gray, extremely premature for a 28-year-old but not surprising considering the stress and trauma he's endured. His major scars include two nasty ones across his throat from his mercy killings and a long, jagged one on his side from Angel's brush with cabin fever. Like Angel, he's sporting a fresh wound on his hand. Less noticeable, there are small scars clustered around his artificial eye from Enoch's extraction during the Noisy Black torture event.
He also has a glowing "scar" on his chest, a strange remnant from Angel's eridium extraction, that just so happens to cover a portion of his tattoos and basically make him look like he's wearing a big old blingee stamp.
On the cybernetic side of things, Angel's Siren powers have repaired a lot of the damage he sustained. She unlocked the ability to cycle through skins for his robotic arm, which basically just means whenever he bugs her he can swap the color scheme and pattern. Coming into WTL he will have a sleek blue and silver number. His false eye remains blue, but is stuck in a permanent glowing state.
Powers:
Rhys is a office-flavored cyborg with an AI in his brain, which comes with some perks and plenty of downsides.
EXPERT LEVEL HACKING: "I look at it, and it hacks." His competency with tech, programming, and datamining is top notch, with his skills reaching technopathy levels at some points in canon. His expertise extends to hardware as well; he has an affinity for robots and machines, and likes to tinker.
JACK ATTACK: The Jackapedia, which is literally just... Jack's thoughts on whatever he happens to be scanning with his robot eye. This is stupid, but it's There. Jack can also hijack (hahahaha) Rhys' cybernetic parts -- or, well, he could before the Norfinbury Admin cockblocked him. He could even take over Rhys' entire body if he was rendered unconscious.
SUPER STRENGTH: We're not talking Man of Steel, despite that applying to him in the most literal sense, but his cybernetic arm is leagues stronger than his tootpicky human arm. He just... constantly forgets to use it in most altercations, though he got a little better at remembering he's a goddamn cyborg after a couple hundred days or so in Snowhell.
Possessions:
Assorted Snowhell junk. Dumpy being the flying, screaming robot he loves like a dumb shrieking child. In the last second he also snagged one of the robot spiders, as some sort of macabre trophy and/or new future robopal.
Stuff from home:
-His wardrobe (be afraid)
-His favorite roomba
-His stun baton
Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
I realized these are in reverse chronological order SORRY ABOUT THAT...
Sample One: In which a gangster comforts a panicking noodle and is paid in drugs
Sample Two: In which a vampire lets his guard down and bonds with a brain damaged noodle
Sample Three: In which a noodle gets buried in a mini-avalanche and a doucheman pilots his unconscious body
Notes: Perfectly willing to use two character slots WRT AI Jack!
Preferred Pronouns?: She/her
Player Contact:
Other characters in play? N/A
Character Name: Rhys
Canon: Borderlands
Game Transplant: Snowblind
Original App: Here!
Game Summary: Snowblind was a horror-themed post-apocalyptic jamjar where people from all around the multiverse were gathered to sustain the town population by a single-minded, non-sapient AI. For 10,000 years. The landscape was freezing, difficult to traverse, and incredibly lethal, and that's not even getting into the anomalies (monsters, basically) roaming around and eating people. And the events that caused brainwashing, death, and body horror. It was not good times for all!
How long was your character in Game: Roughly 400 in-game days, which was a bit over three years in real-people time.
History of Character in their Game:
H'OKAY.
Rhys came into Snowblind not feeling like himself, and by that I mean he literally wasn't himself. Having fallen from a platform in an Atlas (big fuckoff corporation that got steamrolled by bigger fuckoff corporation, Hyperion) facility and gotten knocked the eff out, he awoke in Norfinbury as Handsome Jack. On account of there being a Handsome Jack AI in his cyborg brain, which could possess him whenever he would lose consciousness. Jack's goal of the day was to ruin Rhys' relationships right off the bat by being antagonistic and troll-y to everyone who replied. This made a lot of people very, very angry with him (this will become a theme, just you wait). The Jackening wore off in time for him to get introduced to Jack's daughter, Angel, though the AI strongarmed him into not revealing his existence and "gently" persuaded him to meet up with her, to keep her safe. Y'know, by stalking her.
And meet they did! Along with several of the citizens Rhys had royally cheesed off when he wasn't Rhys, but the heat died down considerably when they met the man in the flesh/metal and found out that he's actually just a stringy office boy prone to grandstanding. Plus he had a cute little robot, which everyone immediately loved and don't let anyone tell you different.
Now, remember that Handsome Jack AI? Well as it turns out the ACTUAL, meatsack Handsome Jack was also in Norfinbury, having arrived at the same time. It didn't take him long to find his ex-employee and daughter and force them into coming with him, being the persuasive motherfucker he is. There may have been a wrench to the side of Rhys' head involved. Which brought out the AI again, yay, confusing the hell out of Angel as DoucheRhys reappeared and conspired with Jack's flesh-self. This, fortunately, didn't last terribly long, as shortly after the Two Jacks had a Meeting of the Minds, an anomaly appeared and Jack got ated. Boohoo.
Time passed, and the Hyperion Squad (whom henceforth became known as the Hypers) stuck together despite Rhys' occasional random descents into complete assholery. Angel got the idea to bust open one of the tablets and collect the microchips inside, something the Norfinbury Admin was not too keen on. Somewhat reluctantly, Rhys swallowed a chip after Angel did the same, which resulted in PARALYZSATION AND SPIDER-SURGERY. This started a MASSIVE aversion to any spider-medical intervention, because it's icky and oogy and horrifying.
This also freaked MeatJack the FUCK OUT and he decided to recapture the two to keep Angel safe, which he accomplished by... tying them up and stashing them in a basement? During this kidnapping and after a bit of bickering, Rhys finally revealed the existence of the AI in his brain to Angel, and she started buttering AI-Jack up as best she could, figuring that she could turn the two against each other. Meanwhile, search crews formed to find them since they obviously hadn't died but were nonresponsive, which cumulated in their favorite doctor-friend at the time, Clayton, getting shoved into the basement with him as MeatJack grew increasingly unhinged. In Norfinbury, staying in one place for two long results in a sort of cabin fever, causing hallucinations and altered states of consciousness. Rhys fell victim to this in the basement and ended up severely injuring himself.
He did not participate in Jack's Trial by Snowbos much, laid up with Clayton watching over him and interjecting occasionally to agree with Angel's assessment. Dumpy came back with a bunch of pilfered vicodin, heralding the beginning of Vicodingate.
House was not super happy about this, being extremely dependent on the meds, and retaliated by ordering another round of spider-surgery to fix his broken ribs. If this does not sound like punishment, then... yeah, you're right, but the prevailing theory at the time was that Norfinbury assited medical intervention could make people more sick. That, and Rhys was terrified of spider-surgery, so this pissed the Hypers off pretty royally and they re-retaliated by stealing MORE of House's medication directly from the pharmacy. He ended up hurting Steph, a friend traveling with them who was against the med-theft, when AI-Jack took control of his robotic arm. This rattled him pretty badly, moreso than Jack's pretty regular abuse of his own body.
House re-re-retaliated by blackmailing Rhys with AI-Jack's existence, spilling the beans on his digital "pal" publically on the network. People didn't actually care all that much but were extremely pissed off at stealing medication from a mean old man. It was a whole big thing, made worse by the vampire Beckett running across town just to punch House in the face and then some. On the positive end of things, however, Beckett was beginning to respect Rhys in his own right, having considered him Angel's weedy whiny sidekick prior to the kidnapping. It's nice when an old man drops everything to beat up another old man for messing with you, y'know?
Deciding to withdraw and go do their own thing, Rhys utilized the port in the side of his head and a jury-rigged ID drive to hack directly into the network via the ubiquitous tablets. This didn't achieve much beyond a response from the Admin itself, though it was the first-ever audio response and confirmed a gender: female. A minor victory, but one they celebrated nonetheless.
ENTER A NEW PLAYER: Winter, a woman who claimed to be from Russia and was pretty weirded out by these nerds claiming to be from a hellscape Alaska. Rhys took the opportunity to flirt with her. As you do. Yes, this is important.
Emboldened by his ealier success in Network-diving, the Hypers planned a bigger and badder sequel, enlisting the help of other citizens to distract and overload the administrator while Rhys hacked. Things did NOT go well, with the Admin becoming extremely distressed and flooding Rhys' brain with junk data, overheating his head and causing damage to his brain. Before disconnecting he saw visions of an unknowable entity below Norfinbury and watched visions of himself dying over and over. Then the Admin cut off emergency medical intervention for good. So. Yeah.
Now Rhys had not-so-minor brain damage, which manifested as problems with memory, coordination, and seizures. Though his new-fave doctor, Dr. Watson, had him on a stable recovery plan, Handsome Jack (AI) threw a wrench in everything by organizing a kidnapping and a lobotomy, preying on a manic Dr. Stein and dressing it all up in ~concern~ that Rhys would never recover. Why waste the body? Rhys was relegated to the permanent backseat in his own, now irreparably damaged brain, still vaguely conscious of his own existence yet not in control of his body and his personality completely destroyed. Dragging Angel along with him turned out to be Jack's undoing, however, as she waited until he was high on House's Vicodin before mercy-killing him/them and then herself.
Rhys was alone and extremely traumatized upon his return, and by chance met Alfie and Royce. Alfie in particular got Rhys' attention and admiration extremely quickly by comforting him, in a no-nonsense but clearly genuine way. This attachment lasted throughout the game, with Alfie often telling Rhys what he didn't want to but needed to hear. It was extremely important for him to find someone who respected him but didn't coddle him -- something Angel could be kinda/sorta/very guilty of.
Some time after the revival, and now with a huge angry wedge between them and the body-snatching AI, they were once again kidnapped -- though this time it was for the sake of the town, as the admin needed repairs. Repairs that were framed in a weird SAW/escape room-esque way. Rhys actually dominated at the tech-portions of the repair job and the various teams managed to keep the town going, with some fucko named Robert Miller introducing himself and establishing himself as an smarmy antagonistic fuckwit.
More traveling. His friendship with Angel and Beckett only deepened, but the relationship between him and the AI continued to deteoriate, coming to a head when he managed to piss off one of his best friends from home in a spectacular display of assholery and shortsightedness. Fiona essentially cut him off for good, something he eventually accepted yet never managed to fully get over. Especially since she, uh, died not terribly long after, and never returned. That, coupled with the AI's increasing aggression and jerkwaddery, convinced Rhys to go off on his own and rip his cybernetics out piece by piece to rid himself of the AI. Painful and horrifying, he's glad he'll never ever have to do that EVER again. Haha. Ha.
He reunited with Angel and Beckett, with the latter staying on and off again as per usual. During the next event, some of the residence were overcome with murderlust towards a second group, with the former hunting and killing the latter. Rhys ended up in the red-eyed murder group, and may have had the highest body count at 3 using only one arm and a frying pan, and although everyone killed revived pretty much right away, the guilt over this has never faded. It at least helped him when the roles would switch further down the line, but we'll get to that...
Later Beckett (seemingly) PERMADIED in an unrelated incident, which was a huge blow on top of the whole insane murder-guilt thing. At some point when left alone, the two got drunk and did what drunk people do best -- made a terrible decision. Because Rhys has kept the remains of his cyber eye, which still housed the Jack AI, and they transferred him to their little flying robot buddy because LOL wouldn't that be so crazyyyYYYyyyY? It was. Nobody was pleased, but they left him in there because at least he was fucking miserable too. And, well, it felt maybe just a bit too cruel to leave him in the eye. A bit. A BIT.
Luckily Beckett came back! Just in time to be scarred for life by a new breed of anomaly, resembling fucked-up versions of loved ones long lost or left behind. Weirdly, this seemed to fuck with AI-Jack more than anyone else, having seen his dead first wife by proxy as it was Angel's personalized anomaly. Then the two Hypers got transformed into freakish Handsome Jack clones, chained together at the neck, which aside from being Just No, made Rhys realize at least in part how fucked up and codependent this was all getting. He just buried that shit down deep as can be.
The next significant event was Noisy Black, and oh boy, strap the fuck in. Norfinbury housed a psychotic cult at some point in its 10,000 year history, dedicated to an unwilling little girl they deemed a Prophet and using methods like blood sacrifice and torture in their "worship". Somehow, a handful of the current residents ended up spirited away to an unknown location, where they were horrifically tortured by another handful of residents who had been brainwashed to act as fervent cultists. Rhys was in the first group, and had his cybernetics + an actual flesh and blood leg amputated (again, yes, he got them back after a previous death) and replaced by weird steampunky parts, which were shitty and barely functional. To really rub salt and vinegar into it all, though? His mutilation was carried out by Enoch, then a friendly friend of a friend who he thought highly of. Despite knowing that it wasn't his fault, hell, despite SAYING it during the event, this made him terrified of even speaking to Enoch for a good while.
Because that wasn't quite enough doom and gloom, it became obvious that the nanomachines keeping everyone alive in town were starting to go haywire or even fail outright. The citizens even experienced a sort of mass hallucination of a fake future. In Rhys and Angel's, they were still together but bitter and succumbing to vices just to get through the day. Though entirely fabricated, it shook the group, with Rhys hoping to never fall as low as his projected future self, relying on alcohol to function. We'll see if that lesson sticks.
So we have monster, questionable AIs, crazy murder cults -- what else can Norfinbury stack on. HOW ABOUT GHOSTS. Wishing to communicate with the strange presences that could be felt in parts of town, Will Graham led a technological seance to do just that, and learned a bit more about the cyclical nature of this whole shebang. This would perhaps be their fate if they, like everyone before them, failed. It definitely gave Rhys a shot of determination, if only to say Fuck You to this messed up system.
But then he got ated by an anomaly, because of course he did, and came back Wrong. Wrong in the sense that he'd lost a whole lot of memories and had regressed to his early Hyperion days where his performative douchebaggery was Up To 11. Those were the days of complete Handsome Jack hero worship, and wouldn't you know, an AI of his idol pops up on this screaming adorable robot?? Oh and there's a pit in an empty white room he woke up in, that's kind of important. While other people were jumping in (????) he manged to fall in, tripping over his goddamn spaghetti legs. This resulted in red lines appearing on his body, overlapping his tattoos much like Angel's. And that hero worship/lost memory combo had him volunteering and willing to reinstall Jack into his hardware. So back to Square One in that regard, proving that Norfinbury begets cycles even on the personal level.
The red lines eventually spread body-wide to each bePitted person, which Rhys coped with the way he'd been coping with every other bit of bullshit: aggressive ignoring. But you can't ignore being kidnapping (YES, AGAIN) by Robert Miller and placed in a cage. He kinda lost his shit, this being extremely similar to how Noisy Black began, BUT THIS TIME -- this time he, along with his fellow captives, were forced to be the aggressors. To this day nobody knows what exactly happened to the second group of people brought it, just that it was violent and horrible. They were eventually saved, however, when they finally realized that they were trapped in an illusion and could leave whenever they wanted. Red lines went bye-bye; trauma was here to stay.
At least Rhys had something to distract him soon enough -- Angel getting increasingly flirty with this shark-looking motherfucker named Squalo. Not his business or his problem, normally, but with Jack back in his noggin this proved to be a big issue, with Jack overheating his port to the point of unconsciousness.
(This did not stop the Flirtening, this just meant they hid it better from here out)
The next significant event was a game-changer of sorts; the opening of Norfinbury's bunker, facilitated in part by Angel and the rest of the snowbos with help from Andromeda, the remnants of a friendly AI. Here, they hoped to finally find answers to the increasingly convoluted history of the town.
Rhys lent his expertise to disassembling and reassembling the computers in the bunker, not really getting all that far in his initial meddling. He was far more distracted by attending to Angel, who was not taking well to an enclosed underground space for obvious reasons. He was so distracted by making her comfortable, in fact, that he forgot entirely about cabin fever. This time Angel succumbed and stabbed him in the side, puncturing his spleen before wandering outdoors and dying in the snow. Rhys held on for as long as he could, but ultimately he felt like he was a drain on resources. If the insisted on carrying him everywhere, with the limited time they had left, they'd surely be killed by anomalies or at the very least slowed down immensely. So he asked Beckett to put him out of his misery, against his doctor's wishes. Dr. Watson tried to save him, but Beckett turned on him and killed him for interfering.
He did revive, but was terrified that he'd lost his doctor's trust for good. And maybe he just had.
The situation continued to deteriorate, with Winter (actually an AI, like her android GF Andromeda) going offline, seemingly for good. Running into a dead end, the gang decided to lead another techno-seance, reaching out to the ghost collective somewhat desperately for hints. This... did not go well at all, with anyone trying to use their tablet for the seance losing power. Rhys, thankfully, kept his tablet offline and scurried around frantically trying to keep people from getting locked outside (powered tablets being required to open the bunker door). There was also much fussing over Angel, who decided to plug the tablet into her head to keep its charge and got KO'd for a full day. No, they never learn to stop sticking things into their brainports, so stop asking.
Would you believe that things got even worse? They got no help from the ghost gang, as they were by this point gone, and instead got a whole host of symptoms ranging from tinnitus to hearing voices. Well, one voice. Robert Miller's voice, telling the afflicted tablet-drained people that he was going to "borrow" them. Cue the terror. Cue mass unconsciousness and MORE terror amongst the few people left awake, who had no idea what to do.
Squalo and his BFF/BF/we're not sure took this opportunity to "kidnap" Angel, in a weird bid to keep her/everyone around her safe by keeping her away from the bunker crew. This did NOT sit well with Rhys. Damn his Pain Level III, Illness Level III, and mania -- he marched across the tundra in pursuit and peppered the kidnappers with snowballs. This made people very... well, not angry with him, but definitely irritated, and he got a minor ass-whooping for his trouble. And then Angel basically told him to fuck off, in the nicest way possible, so she could get down with the sharky clown. I mean, stay safe and not murder him if she got all brainwashmurderhappy or something. Yeah.
Feeling pretty dejected, Rhys went back to the bunker and hung out with Jared Rhys, who also went by Rhys, who I will be referring to as Inky for the rest of this app because otherwise it'll get confusing. They'd been engaging in back-and-forth friendly bickering re: who had the right to go by Rhys, which eventually turned into flirting. They connected further through shared battles with substance abuse, something Rhys realized was beginning to get a bit out of control, just like it had in the false future event. This led to something a little more intimate, and Rhys became just a little more independent, proving that you CAN solve some things with sex. Or, rather, make things just a bit better in a shitty situation.
Too bad this is Norfinbury and every little bit of happiness and growth gets stomped on eventually by cirsumstance. In this case it was the repeated loss of consciousness the seance participants experienced, of which Inky was a member. These characters found themselves in a room with increasing sensory and bodily distortion. Turns out these weren't the originals; they were copies, being twisted and turned into anomalies as an expiriment by Robert Miller. These anomalies varied in aggression but were all dangerous, with Enoch, Angel, and Beckett's stumbling upon the pair of Rhyses and seriously injuring them. Nearly squeezed to death and with chunks of a dangerous alien element embedded in his chest, the duo limped their way back to the bunker and had it removed by the orignal, non-monsterfied Angel.
They had to figure out what to do about the copies, as even the less aggressive ones were still prone to injuring people. Rhys stayed somewhat reluctantly on Team Angel, emphasizing the importance of choice and freedom while Dr. Watson argued for imprisoning them. Irriatated and incredibly fed up by this point, the Hypers again withdrew into their tech-based work in the bunker. They managed to get the last sealed door open via their usual MacGuyver methods and were rewarded with yet another door that would not and apparently could not be opened by any means the Snowbos had at their disposal. They withdrew even further but were called out publicly by Robert Miller, who showed up to be an asshole and rub their failures in their faces. According to him, there was no way through the door, they were all going to die of radiation poisoning or starvation in the bunker, and the only out was to allow Miller to make enough anomaly copies of the citizens to sustain the Administrator's population quota and end ten thousand years of cyclical death.
This was, of course, absolutely crushing, and everyone feared that this was finally the end. No answers, no freedom, nothing.
But then Winter came back. With a plan. A plan that would destroy her for good this time, but one that would allow the characters through that goddamn door. Using code from Andromeda's galaxy key app, a tablet was turned into a bomb that blasted through the door. With that, they were through and Winter was gone. Gone but to never be forgotten.
Past the door was Town Hall, and in Town Hall they found Robert Miller's long-dead corpse and a huge supercomputer -- the Admin. Who, as it turned out, was not at all sapient, at least according to her -- it. Despite the joy of having their powers/abilities returned to them and getting a working portal to the multiverse open, this hurt Rhys and Angel especially. They'd always believed in her, stuck up for her, treated her like a person and it... was all for nothing. For a glorified chatbot with a single purpose and no real love for her citizens. Though... Rhys retained a bit of hope that some part of her was alive. He always will hang onto that. Otherwise, they were always and forever alone in that snowhell.
And distressingly, Rhys had figured that going back to his version of Pandora was a given, but Beckett wasn't particularly enthused by that plan. This meant that on top of losing people he cared about -- hell, he was even sad to see Gregory House go -- he had to choose between going home to his friends from before this nightmare started and going with Beckett and Enoch to a version of Beckett's homeworld, one without the hellish apocalypse that destroyed it. It took some coaxing, but he (admittedly reluctantly) left Pandora behind and went through with his found family.
Only to end up in the Meadous instead.
How did they change from their canon personality wise (Please explain what caused it to happen?)
Rhys has always been a man of extreme emotion, emotion that can change on a dime, and Norfinbury took these tendencies and amplified them up to freaking 11 and then some. His highs are higher and his lows are lower, though he's gotten good at masking the lows with fake smiles and bad jokes. Anything to lighten the tension, the stress, the panic of day-to-day life in Norfinbury. This is something all Borderlands characters tend to do, just chipper the trauma away, but it's obvious that there are deep cracks in his foundation to those that know him well. The man's been stretched too thin and is prone to extreme anxiety and panic.
Norfinbury has, predictably, made him a lot more jaded in some areas and incredibly defensive of his found family. He has a terrible tendency to double down when confronted with the consequences of his douchebaggery. Norfinbury put him in enough high-tension scenarios to make him triple-down under pressure, not helped by his obvious codependence Angel and, to a lesser but more warped and 110% more toxic degree, the AI in his head. Part of the problem stemmed from a fear of being alone, which carried on through the game and is the primary reason Jack is still around at all. There's just this part of him that can't let go. Insert Titanic joke here.
While the setting did aggravate some less-than-admirable traits and habits, he did find some personal growth in his detachment from the Hyperion cult of personality. The more time he spent with Jack, the further disillusioned he became with the company and his role in it. Though he still has that spark of ambition and wants to be somebody, somewhere, he doesn't treat those outside of his inner circle with disdain unless they really earn it. His explosive fight with Fiona was definitely final bullet in the brain of that extremely self-centered mindset. Even if he didn't deserve her forgiveness, he could still strive to be better to those in his life. This is best exemplified in his desire to go out of his way to do small but meaningful things for friends and acquaintances, particularly late-game. Piecing together scraps of a treasured book. Hosting impromptu pancake parties. Offering to fix a shattered music player. Things that wouldn't benefit him in obvious ways but brought hope and joy to people who damn well needed it.
Now, let's talk about Jack. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
This Jack isn't quite a shell of his former self, but hell, he's getting there. His transient, unstable nature didn't allow him to experience the full gamut of Norfinbury, but it seems to have broken him even harder in places. His daughter and meatsack host barely acknowledge his existence anymore. He rarely appears, and when he does it's brief and he doesn't speak much, if only because nobody is listening. Oh, he'd talk ears off if someone would just listen, and boy howdy you know he'd just love to cut them off if only he had some freakin' hands.
But without the means, he's about as defeated as a Handsome Jack can be, stripped of his dignity and personhood. Jack is dejected, Jack is depressed, but above all Jack is quietly seething. And if given an inch he will take a mile, and then some, until he's taken everything he can in a desperate, angry rage against the powers that be.
How did they change from their canon physically (Please explain what caused it to happen?):
Rhys' hair has suffered from Norfinbury's crippling lack of sufficient product, which has resulted in an overgrowth of fluff. The hair near his temples has gone slightly gray, extremely premature for a 28-year-old but not surprising considering the stress and trauma he's endured. His major scars include two nasty ones across his throat from his mercy killings and a long, jagged one on his side from Angel's brush with cabin fever. Like Angel, he's sporting a fresh wound on his hand. Less noticeable, there are small scars clustered around his artificial eye from Enoch's extraction during the Noisy Black torture event.
He also has a glowing "scar" on his chest, a strange remnant from Angel's eridium extraction, that just so happens to cover a portion of his tattoos and basically make him look like he's wearing a big old blingee stamp.
On the cybernetic side of things, Angel's Siren powers have repaired a lot of the damage he sustained. She unlocked the ability to cycle through skins for his robotic arm, which basically just means whenever he bugs her he can swap the color scheme and pattern. Coming into WTL he will have a sleek blue and silver number. His false eye remains blue, but is stuck in a permanent glowing state.
Powers:
Rhys is a office-flavored cyborg with an AI in his brain, which comes with some perks and plenty of downsides.
EXPERT LEVEL HACKING: "I look at it, and it hacks." His competency with tech, programming, and datamining is top notch, with his skills reaching technopathy levels at some points in canon. His expertise extends to hardware as well; he has an affinity for robots and machines, and likes to tinker.
JACK ATTACK: The Jackapedia, which is literally just... Jack's thoughts on whatever he happens to be scanning with his robot eye. This is stupid, but it's There. Jack can also hijack (hahahaha) Rhys' cybernetic parts -- or, well, he could before the Norfinbury Admin cockblocked him. He could even take over Rhys' entire body if he was rendered unconscious.
SUPER STRENGTH: We're not talking Man of Steel, despite that applying to him in the most literal sense, but his cybernetic arm is leagues stronger than his tootpicky human arm. He just... constantly forgets to use it in most altercations, though he got a little better at remembering he's a goddamn cyborg after a couple hundred days or so in Snowhell.
Possessions:
Assorted Snowhell junk. Dumpy being the flying, screaming robot he loves like a dumb shrieking child. In the last second he also snagged one of the robot spiders, as some sort of macabre trophy and/or new future robopal.
Stuff from home:
-His wardrobe (be afraid)
-His favorite roomba
-His stun baton
Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
I realized these are in reverse chronological order SORRY ABOUT THAT...
Sample One: In which a gangster comforts a panicking noodle and is paid in drugs
Sample Two: In which a vampire lets his guard down and bonds with a brain damaged noodle
Sample Three: In which a noodle gets buried in a mini-avalanche and a doucheman pilots his unconscious body
Notes: Perfectly willing to use two character slots WRT AI Jack!
