clover iiRL

#clover's reflection = clover kin-related posts

#clover's daydream = clover note posts

#clover's epiphany = clover analysis posts

#clover's curse = vent/personal posts

#clover's grotto = image/art posts

#clover's reprise = ask response posts

1. clover's genesis

clover, as with the other inanimate insanity contestants (excluding bot), was generated by mephone's subconscious for the exclusive purpose of competing in his show. it is unclear when this was, as in, whether she and the other ii3 newbies were brought into existence at the same time as everyone else; in any event, she is technically younger than mephone in terms of how long she has existed, regardless of whether or not she was created to be mentally older than him. granted, mephone's mental age is itself up for debate, so we cannot say with certainty how old clover is relative to him or anyone else.

we can assume that, like the other generated contestants, clover originated as an idea in mephone's head and was subsequently put down on paper. it is unknown what mephone wrote down about clover, in terms of a short epithet or just notes on her character; it was almost certainly related to her luck, perhaps something to do with how her luck comes at others' expense (or, for all i know, he just wrote "mary sue" on her paper and left it at that).

considering the way that the unvitational committee members are the embodiment of mephone's self-hatred and self-doubt, is there something about mephone connected to clover? i'm not a mephone expert, so it's hard for me personally to say... but if we imagine clover's epithet having more to do with her individual privilege and less to do with others' pain on account of it, perhaps clover was made with the intention of being a truly happy person who always got what they wanted automatically: quite unlike mephone himself. maybe he could get vicarious joy through her good fortune and positive attitude? in any event, though, mephone, serving as a god of sorts, is essentially giving clover a special blessing and special, preferential, treatment, regardless of whether as a contestant he connects very much with her or not (and indeed he doesn't; bot, instead, is his favorite).

anyway, along with her peers, clover has little to no genuine memories of anything before inanimate insanity; we have no reason to think she or any of the other ii3 newbies auditioned, considering how they're all described by cabby as unwilling volunteers. clover displays no knowledge of the show having existed before the season starts, not knowing what she's being deemed a fan of, which adds credence to the notion that she never auditioned in the way ii1 and ii2 contestants did. we can presume, then, that there probably aren't alternate/failed versions of clover walking around...

so where was clover before the competition? what was she doing, if anything? we really have no way of knowing; perhaps she was already on the island, perhaps not. my guess is that she was lucky enough to run into mephone by chance: this is all just speculation, though.

2. clover's abilities

clover has a couple of special abilities up her sleeve. first and foremost, clover is lucky; this is obvious, but what exactly does her luck entail, as a gift and as a curse?

well, what is luck? put simply, to be lucky is to have improbable positive events happen to oneself with some (abnormal) frequency. it can be a situational attribute, in that one gets lucky in some circumstance, or ascribed as a more central characteristic, in that one is a lucky person in general for whatever reason. the latter description applies to clover, and the reason for her luck is that she was created to possess it; she was "born lucky" in a very literal sense.

but how does clover's luck work? well, what sort of positive events does clover's luck bring about for her? what is it that the luck does? clover's luck, in one way or another, pulls the strings of clover's environment to make her situation more favorable for her specifically. this can include making her win challenges, or making her peers more agreeable with and nicer to her. or, well, does it make these things happen, or does it just make them more likely? that'll be touched on soon; but anyway, clover's luck also works to keep her safe from harm and works to grant her wishes, bringing in elements of necessity and desire. clover's luck, apparently, serves both.

here is where we get, i think, to the crux of the issue... i believe that clover's luck "wants" clover to be happy, and assumes this always means the first thing she thinks of: this, inevitably, would be things regarding her safety/security in her wellbeing, in her community, and in her competition. these are desires so primal they either are or verge on being necessities in the mind: they're the id, our instincts, the want to feel good. these are clover's automatic, unconscious thoughts... in any given situation, part of her is whispering, i want to be safe; i want to be happy; i want to be loved; i want to be successful; and it is that part of her which clover's luck listens to by default, as no other part of her is contradicting it. clover is so used to things going her way that she doesn't question any of the processes underlying her winning streak; again, it all happens automatically, by default, and the same applies to the negative consequences her luck has on other people. clover's luck, if left to its own devices, will always be "willing" (forgive me for personifying it) to harm others in service of fulfilling clover's wants and needs.

the reason why i have to define clover's luck in this way is because i have to explain why it's capable of harming people when clover obviously doesn't want that to happen, and why she's able to override it when she consciously makes an effort to do so. what clover wants/needs isn't for others to get hurt; it's instead for clover herself not to get hurt, which ends up getting others hurt because clover isn't taking them into consideration. she isn't putting a mental emphasis on wanting them to be spared as well, so her luck pulls no punches. but, as will be discussed later, clover learns how to reign in her luck and use it purposefully: on the face of things it appears as though she learns how to "turn it off" completely, but i think that instead she merely knows how to be less passive in receiving the good her luck provides. so long as a desire opposed to her luck's modus operandi is actively brought to the forefront of clover's mind, she can oppose this default, and her luck can bring about an outcome that's not immediately or obviously favorable to her.

also worth noting is that this is all reasonable enough when it comes to affecting non-living things, as those don't have free will to contend with: but when living things, particularly sentient objects, are involved? it becomes a little more complicated. as we'll see later, clover fully attributes others' kindness towards her to her luck, fully stripping them of all agency. however, as luck as a concept works off of probability, i think clover's luck does too: that her luck just makes it more likely for things to happen in a certain way, or more specifically in this case, makes it more likely for clover's peers to like her and treat her well. this is an important distinction to make when you consider nickel later. clover is just a genuinely endearing, pleasant person to be around, and without that, her luck might not be able to do the job of getting folks to be friendly with her all the time, as they indeed are: this is excluding nickel, as he can be rather mean to her, but i think he's the exception that proves the rule.

in summary, then, clover's luck can read her most basal, unconscious needs and desires and greatly improve the likelihood that events fulfilling these needs and desires should come to pass, even at the expense of others; this is her luck's first priority, but it can be overridden by clover actively choosing to want something else to happen instead.

but how? how does her luck do all of this? the mystery is compounded if you read clover's ability to effortlessly rejuvenate ecosystems as an extension of her luck, which we have no particular reason to think it isn't; in this case her luck would be making it more likely that positive meteorological changes should occur, as in an increase in rainfall, as well as subsequent ecological changes, as in the flourishing of local flora. how does clover's luck manipulate the world around her?

first we have clover's butterfly companions: cordelia, catalina, cassandra, and jake. on a few occasions we see them leading people (such as nickel) towards favorable outcomes, and one of them caused the bridge to fall over and crush most of the contestants, in line with clover's wish. as will be discussed more later on, clover's butterflies seem to be a manifestation of her luck itself, and thus carry out some of the tasks required to keep clover comfortable. as it is, these butterflies make clover immensely happy (she finds them cute, she is easily distracted by them, and she can be bribed with them, among other things), so the correlation between them and her wellbeing is supported. the butterflies obviously cannot do things like manipulate the weather or prevent votes from loading; so, even if they contribute to clover's luck, they don't do so entirely on their own. if anything, the butterflies are more like conduits of the small-scale, tactile lucky breaks clover receives.

to get more into speculative territory, i propose that clover's luck is an extension of the generative capacity mephone used to make clover herself: mephone had the power to make somebody with this other power, and i can't help but think that they're linked. perhaps it's as simple as mephone's imagination willing clover's luck into existence somehow; however, i believe it's more likely that clover's luck ability stemmed directly from mephone's creation ability, which itself came from the shimmer energy within him. the energy must have the capacity to change the environment at large to be able to generate and regenerate things such as objects, people, and portals: i believe this extends, then, to an ability to affect the likelihood of certain events occurring. from a narrative standpoint this would make sense, as one could imagine mephone unconsciously using this to raise tension on his show: assuming inanimate insanity isn't "staged", as it were, the drama would likely only get so intense when led along by something.

overall, including mephone's object generation, this ability is one of passively (or actively) altering environments and events in accordance with one's unconscious (or conscious) desires. i believe mephone has this more general ability, and passed it onto clover: he wanted to create a lucky character, and that came to be through his ability being granted to her.

and all of this is in line with what we know about clover's luck, in that she can pass it on to other people: in nickel's case, she qualified the boon as one that would last as long as he lived, but for clover herself, mephone would've created her with luck from the beginning, and so it would last with her... or with her body, at least. notably, clover's luck seems to be inextricably tied to her four-leaf-clover body, as she doesn't retain her luck while in test tube's body: this is fitting enough, considering how a four-leaf-clover is a lucky charm, but it raises questions. if clover lost a leaf, thereby no longer being four-leaved, would she no longer be lucky? and does mephone's definition of who clover is, which must involve her luck, define clover herself or her body? is clover defined by her body? is clover defined by her luck? is clover beholden to both? (there's something awfully transgender about this; we will return to it later.)

aside from being lucky (i.e., able to alter environments and events in accordance with her desires), clover is able to speak butterfly language, as evidenced by her knowing her butterfly friends' names: according to her, she didn't name them, and instead they introduced themselves to her. relatedly, clover has the ability to tell her butterflies apart, while to others they seem indistinguishable from one another: cordelia bobs down a little as she flies, catalina flies a few inches higher than the others, cassandra breathes a bit too loudly, and jake's wingbeats are slower than the girls'. perhaps clover is particularly perceptive, or she's just this observant in a lepidopterological context (which wouldn't surprise me).

3. clover's personality/development

our introduction to clover is very telling: when her luck causes only her out of the "fans" to be revealed to the "favorites", she smilingly assumes she's won the competition. this immediately presents us with her naïve, unassuming self-centeredness: despite declaring herself the automatic winner of an entire season of inanimate insanity, her childlike demeanor and pleasant surprise at the idea of having won make her out as unpretentious and charming. she seems sweet; perhaps a bit lacking in wisdom and worldliness, but definitely not egotistical or selfish.

i must, for the sake of clarity, distinguish self-centeredness from egotism and selfishness: clover is beset with the former, not the latter two. when one is self-centered, one cannot see beyond one's own perspective, which is inevitably self-serving in some way just by nature of one's self-preserving instinct. this is different from egotism, in that an egotistical person values their perspective above others, and different from selfishness, in that a selfish person consciously and willingly acts in a self-serving way even at another's expense. clover, by my interpretation, is merely self-centered, which has more to do with a difficulty in empathy than anything else.

i will hereby split clover's arc into three eras: innocence, guilt, and redemption.

clover's innocence era, which lasts from her introduction in ii3-1 up until box's accident in ii3-5, sees her with her naïveté on full display. in ii3-1, she cannot connect the dots between the competition show she's on and whatever it is she's supposed to be a fan of, and thus she asks about the latter, simultaneously showing off her inquisitiveness and her difficulty linking certain connected ideas; the last of these is important in its relevance to cause and effect, which will be returned to later.

clover is often seen in a state of mild surprise, and when she is, she is holding one or both of her bottom two leaves with one or both of her hands (when using a single hand, she uses either the right or the left, so that does not clearly indicate handedness); this contributes to her childlike impression, communicating her curiosity and wonderment with the world around her. she is unequivocally adorable on account of this connection to childhood, a fact bolstered by her voice, which is soft and light during the innocence era, especially at the beginning.

after the mishap with her team-assigning paint bomb in ii3-1, clover is shown to be on the pink team: and, interestingly, the team's members all seem particularly excited to have her as a teammate, despite seemingly not really knowing her at all. not only does clover come off as endearing to the viewers, but also to her fellow contestants. cabby immediately takes interest with clover's seemingly inexplicable good fortune, beginning to write the file on her which she later brings up.

in this era, notably, clover is free of practically all anxieties: she has taken for granted the fact that bad things don't happen to her very often, and so is able to (funnily enough given its absurd specificity) fall off of cliffs on a handful of occasions without finding the prospect or experience especially scary.

clover asks once more about being called a "fan" in ii3-2; she has no particular reason to be caught up on this point, to not let it be and let it go, and yet it just doesn't sit right with her. it seems to actively bother her to be called something without knowing what it means and what it's referring to: reading into this a little, perhaps clover has some self-consciousness and likes to know what others really think of her. what is it that she's being called a fan of? and is this a good thing to be? clover shows off a level of shyness or politeness in this moment as well, raising her hand instead of asking her question outright.

a lot of the clover we see is a spacey clover, perhaps an adhd-riddled clover (which would be fitting, and might be intentional, considering how the adhd symbol is a butterfly): we find clover, on many occasions, distracted by something, staring off into space, wandering off, or otherwise not paying attention. our first major instance of this is when a butterfly draws her away from the team name discussion in ii3-2. interestingly, she only gets distracted after cabby temporarily leaves the group, before that seeming to be paying rapt attention to the task at hand. she seems perfectly content to have cabby lead, and ultimately ends up rather aimless without this leadership. clover "blames" her having been distracted on the cuteness of the butterfly, and ends up contributing nothing to this challenge on its account. put a pin in this, considering how her team ends up losing.

clover is uncomfortable with losing in ii3-2; she's not accustomed to the feeling. more specifically, and more interestingly, she says the feeling is entirely new to her, which would suggest that she had never lost anything before in her entire life: but given what we now know from ii2, this should not be surprising, as clover's life began not long before ii3's first episode if not immediately before it. what else would she have been able to lose? in any event, we get a rare instance of clover's worry here: despite having cabby's butterfly bribe to distract her, clover seems nervous about the votes, and only lets her attention be taken with the butterfly once it's (supposedly) clear that none of the votes are for her. it's interesting that clover was worried about this to begin with: since it's shocking enough to her that she should lose at all, i suppose in this moment she feels she can no longer take her good fortune for granted. she goes back to her default carefree state midway through the vote count, her attention contentedly fixed on the butterfly, taking things for granted once more: theoretically the other half of the votes could've been for her, but given her absence in the first half, she assumes there are no votes for her at all. she continues to be happily distracted even as fan is eliminated; granted, she didn't know him very well, but i think it's telling that she doesn't feel bad for voting for him and seemingly won't miss him now that he's gone.

ii3-3 presents us with the notion that clover is, theoretically, very sensitive: she faints upon seeing mephone's apparently horrendous photo. this is interesting, as clover seems to be unaffected by a lot of other things, as we will see more of shortly.

here we get the beginning of nickel's dynamic with clover. he's frustrated by how lucky she seems to be, questioning how exactly she gets things to go her way all the time; he's so consumed with spite that he spends the entire challenge of ii3-3 targeting clover specifically, even when doing so would presumably be and proves to be a waste of time and energy. he proceeds to make multiple attempts to screw clover over, to get her in a compromising position such that he could take a photo of her. in this way, nickel's aim isn't entirely divorced from the challenge at hand, but in its illogicality is clearly fueled more by resentment than anything productive.

conveniently for nickel, at some point clover wanders off during cabby's presentation, letting him get her alone. nickel sets up a trip wire for her, which she is blown over by a gust of wind; he puts out banana peels for her to slip on, but she merely steps on them; he, correctly assuming she must be especially naïve, puts up a sign telling her to walk off of a cliff, and she blithely obeys, but nickel is prevented from getting an embarrassing photo of her as a butterfly swoops in and takes up most of the frame. clover comes off as a little dim or ditzy, not only for unquestioningly listening to a sign telling her to walk off of a cliff, and not only for singing a silly song about not needing to look where she's going, but for seemingly not connecting the dots regarding nickel's sabotage. as we later see, clover knew nickel was following her, and she learns nickel was specifically trying to get an embarrassing photo of her, but given her neutral-to-positive reaction to this, she seemingly doesn't realize or doesn't mind that he had been plotting to endanger her for that purpose. clover is so blind to nickel's resentment towards her, in fact, that she had been under the impression he was merely "a little admirer". she finds the whole turn of events amusing, apparently unbothered by it all.

we see cabby now with a dedicated file on clover, presumably having made it between the first episode and this one; she describes clover as a "sweet girl" who is easily distracted, and seems to think she probably ended up in a meadow somewhere after wandering off (she gets cut off in the middle of the word that i presume is "meadow"). clover ends up reunited with her team by the end of the challenge, but seems as distracted as ever when her team's safety is announced; apparently she is not surprised by the positive result.

our first solid example of clover's difficulties with empathy comes in ii3-4, in which clover, now accompanied by four butterflies, is carried to the finish line in the challenge; she lightheartedly tells the struggling cabby to "hang in there" as she herself easily passes her, something which, from anyone else, might come off as an insensitive jab. luckily(!) enough for clover, cabby isn't especially bothered, but she very well could have been, and clover seems ignorant to this fact. we have no indication that clover would want to be mean to anyone, never mind a teammate, and yet she says something which could come off as mean under slightly different circumstances.

ii3-5 marks the end of clover's innocence era and the beginning of her guilt era, which lasts from the end of this episode until ii3-8: before it gets there, though, the narrative has to take a few steps.

firstly, through nickel, the episode reminds us of a side-effect of clover's luck: in service of protecting her, clover's luck can get other people hurt. in nickel's case (in the episode prior) this is comedic, and arguably deserved, when he gets crushed by the falling safe that was "meant" for clover; however, nickel extrapolates from this single incident that clover's luck will harm everybody and thereby cause their demise, saying so quite seriously. put a pin in this.

secondly, clover's luck is established by cabby as a genuine supernatural ability, and called "luck" outright: after having studied clover, cabby determines that this pattern of good fortune is no mere coincidence, and that clover is meaningfully lucky. notably, as we've seen before, clover shows how she's taken her luck for granted, not realizing just how often things go her way. unlike cabby, she doesn't believe she has this gift of luck: instead, clover thinks that "a positive attitude can will anything into existence" (note the analysis of clover's luck in the above section), and that everyone would be "doomed" in absence of such an outlook. the implication here is that (clover believes that) others bring about their own suffering by being pessimistic or cynical. clover's mention of "doom" without positivity is reminiscent of nickel's mention of "demise" with luck, and one is reminded of how he himself is pessimistic and cynical.

lastly, we get a thorough reminder of how clover wants the people around her to be happy, and how she might not always succeed at making them so. she puts an effort into mediating between cabby and test tube when they disagree about whether to utilize clover's apparent luck in the challenge. this involves forcibly, though cartoonishly, turning test tube's frown into a smile by rotating it; this means that when test tube is frowning she appears to be smiling, but also vice versa, causing clover to rotate test tube's mouth once more so her genuine smile looks like one. when the fight becomes more serious, clover doesn't pick a side, saying she values both sides' points of view, but chides them, perhaps a bit condescendingly, for their egos, which she seems to identify as the real cause of the argument. clover seems to be deeply uncomfortable with people being unhappy in her presence, saying she needs test tube and cabby to smile. she then speaks to test tube in a baby voice when reaching out to flip her frown upside down, which most definitely comes off as condescending regardless of whether she intends it to, especially since she only ever really uses this baby voice when talking to or about one of the butterflies. test tube doesn't take it well, slapping away clover's hands and yelling at her: this is the first instance so far of a non-nickel individual expressing upset towards clover, so while she generally makes others happy, there are exceptions to this (luck-based) rule.

thus we come to the proper end of clover's innocence era, which is defined by clover's luck sparing her, oblivious, from a flying hammer's blow, by having box get caught in the crossfire. clover gasps in shock as box is hit by the implement and sent careening down the side of the hill, only to burst into flames... in the aftermath, clover appears horrified and guilty as she is reminded of the hammer's original trajectory towards her head: as she later says, the hammer was "meant" for her. nickel uses this tragedy as proof for his thesis regarding clover and her luck, blaming her for what happened to box, reiterating his notion of universal demise by demonstrating how clover's luck hurts everyone around her.

"maybe cabby was right... i do have a gift... but if so, i never considered the effect it could have... on others. that hammer was meant for me. (gasps) maybe it's a curse?!"

only now that clover's luck has had a tangible negative impact on someone else, she believes in it as its own supernatural ability; it is this impact on others that solidifies her luck in her mind as more than just a nebulous sequence of serendipities. thus, in practically the same breath as her declaration that her luck is a gift, she posits that it is instead a curse. no matter what good her luck does her, she is unable to regard it as a positive thing if it has this profoundly negative effect on other people: at the same time, in calling her luck a curse, clover expresses her feeling of being burdened with it. at the same time she truly realizes she has luck, clover learns to think of this luck as a unilaterally bad thing, and as something that defines her, thereby cocooning her sense of self in guilt. this only makes more sense when you consider how she, like the other inanimate insanity contestants, was created based off a small handful of tropes and traits, and that she was likely defined almost entirely by her luck in this creation process. clover's whole identity has been being happy and fortunate, regardless of whether or not she's attributed this to herself or to an otherworldly power: now she's been made to think her entire self exists at the expense of others, that she, by definition, makes other people sad and hurt.

this causes clover to try to "stay away from everyone and everything [she] know[s] and love[s]", in order to protect them all from her: out of fear of hurting others, clover isolates herself from them, thinking her potential or actual negative impact on them far outweighs any positive impact. she resigns herself to isolate forever, even if she's clearly unhappy with this, as she values everyone else's wellbeing over her own joy. however, people such as "bow" like clover and want her to be happy, which would involve spending time with her: "bow" tries to do this throughout ii3-6, and uses the challenge specifically for the purpose of cheering clover up. this is an inverted version of what nickel did in ii3-2, in that "bow" is technically wasting challenge time like nickel did, but now for clover's sake instead of against it (cabby notes how "bow" is doing the challenge incorrectly; given how this is in favor of clover, perhaps her luck is affecting people's motivations once again). the cheer factory, which comprises of "bow" and goo, is seemingly only formed because of clover, which is interesting considering how the two continue to use the title: they seemingly become closer over the shared interest of making clover happy. in any event, "bow" declares clover their favorite customer, to clover's discomfort, and with goo sets off to try to get clover out of her funk. this proves difficult.

we get the intersection between nickel's clover-sabotage and "bow's" clover-support when nickel tries to make clover laugh for the challenge, only to fail miserably. perhaps clover's luck is purposefully keeping her down in the dumps, such that it's less likely she'd laugh and lose the challenge for her team: either way, though, she's pretty miserable, and nickel faceplanting into a pie isn't enough to make clover laugh, even though she's very easy to amuse in most circumstances. frustrated, nickel yells at her and calls her an "awful box killer", even though the present situation has no direct connection to what happened with box (who, notably, wasn't actually killed)... nickel will continue to be hung up on the accident. perhaps meant to remind us of this accident, something else aimed at or "meant for" clover reaches the wrong target, sparing clover but harming someone else: tea kettle folds the funny note from earlier in the episode into a paper plane and attempts to fly it towards clover such that clover would read it, laugh, and lose the challenge, but "bow" catches it, unfolds it, and brings it back for tea kettle to read, causing her to laugh and lose instead.

to return to "bow's" attempts to cheer clover up, "bow" expresses "her" fondness for clover once more by saying how sweet she is: "bow", as far as we can tell, likes clover on "her" own terms and of "her" own volition. clover, however, feels she doesn't deserve to be treated so kindly, to be granted sympathy and comfort; she appears guilty when called sweet, as if she doesn't think it's an accurate description. clover ultimately convinces "bow" to stop giving her special treatment, saying she'd be happiest if "bow" helped worked towards winning the challenge. it's unclear how much of this is really genuine, as in, clover might just be saying whatever she feels is necessary to get "bow" to stop trying to cheer her up; or, she might be doing so for this reason as well as because it would actually make her feel better (as in, less guilty) if "bow" did something productively positive instead of something pointlessly so. "bow" listens to clover, but seems concerned or sad for her.

after the challenge is won, clover thanks goo and "bow" for the distraction from her luck; she appears to be thanking them for cheering her up, so presumably goo did more to this effect off-screen. this is interesting, considering how moments prior she felt guilty about the whole thing: seemingly, to clover, this is less of an issue now that the win has been secured and her special treatment proves not to have been a liability. in any event, she certainly appreciates the cheer factory's efforts, as they took at least some of her immediate attention away from her luck and her guilt regarding it. clover finally laughs as she now regards the cheer factory.

ii3-7 starts out with a brief note on each character's aura color according to candle, which cabby thinks are accurate according to their meaning: clover's is orange. there are two routes one could go with interpreting this, the first being simply looking at what orange represents as a color, and the second being looking at a more aura-specific reading. according to verywell mind, the color orange is associated with "optimism, confidence, enthusiasm, warmth, and agreeableness", but also "superficiality, arrogance, or pride", and has a connection to "cold weather, melancholy, and even death" on account of the changing and falling of autumn leaves. all of this is fitting for clover in one way or another, from her cheerful personality to her self-centeredness and taken-for-granted privilege all the way to her association with pain and demise. it is also, interestingly, the color of fire...

according to ASCEND get lifted, keywords for an orange aura, or more specifically a healthy one, include "creative, expressive, productive, action-oriented, changeable, driven, ambitious, motivated, positive, enthusiastic, outgoing, zest for life, energetic, inspiring, uplifting, relatable, joyful, sociable, warm, confident, daring, excitable, determined, brave, vital, original, & present", which all apply to innocence-era clover fairly well. the orange aura is associated with the sacral chakra, and "a weakened sacral chakra will show up as a faded, dull, and murky orange aura. your aura may reflect your lack of whimsy and fun," which seems very fitting for guilt-era clover. the show is likely ignoring the notable sexual aspect of an orange aura which, admittedly, can only tangentially be related to clover in its association with pleasure and desire in a general sense.

also in this episode, clover gets put on a team with nickel; despite nickel yelling at her and coming off as antagonistic overall in previous interactions, clover can't and/or doesn't acknowledge the sarcasm in his "excitement" with being paired with her. she apparently doesn't mind the team change (even though it means getting split up from "bow"); she seems excited to be on the same team as nickel, actually, and greets him accordingly, with a playful laugh to boot. clover ostensibly considers nickel a friend, even if he very obviously doesn't reciprocate the feeling, finding her an enemy instead.

even though she is in her guilt era, clover maintains some of the silliness and childishness she had before: we can see this well when she proposes, with a goofy smile and shrug, a "mile high pie" for mephone to eat, something so ridiculous that everyone else is put in shock upon hearing it. it turns out this is exactly what mephone wants (likely another lucky break on clover's part for guessing it), and the entire challenge ends up revolving around clover's sheepish suggestion. her cheerfulness also persists when she joins her team for a group "hoo-ray"; clearly, the doom and gloom of guilt-era clover are not omnipresent. it seems as though clover generally speaking is cheerful by default, with her guilt only edging in sometimes; alternatively, or in addition to this, this guilt might have partially subsided by now, it having been a couple challenges since box's luck-induced accident.

to continue the trend of falling from great heights, clover ends up flying off of the platform she was using to contribute to the towering dessert and hurtles towards the ground, only to be caught by a puffed-up goo. notably, as part of the cheer factory, goo must have some level of fondness for clover, so it isn't in the least surprising that he should come to her aid. however, instead of thinking to thank him, she immediately apologizes. interestingly, she believes that her luck has compelled him to save her, and that it hasn't been out of any genuine desire on his part to do so: perhaps he wasn't "meant" to save her, or, in other words, perhaps she doesn't deserve to have been saved.

this suggests that clover believes others' stances towards her, including their desire to keep her at a baseline level of safety and happiness, are a result of her luck and not their independent thought; she doubts goo's free will and, implicitly, the free will of anyone who has ever shown her basic kindness. to complicate things even further, clover suggests that goo (among others) doesn't even have the free will to realize he lacks free will. in other words, then, clover believes others are tricked into thinking they want to be kind or even just decent to her, and that their apparent desire to do so is erroneous. candle confirms this, but it's unclear how meaningful that confirmation is. and in the end, all of this just makes goo uncomfortable, after he did something he had no reason to doubt his motives for.

at the beginning of ii3-8, clover happily expresses a wish in passing, that she would earn an award; then, prompted by silver spoon wishing she weren't lucky, clover says she shares his wish. it is this latter wish of ridding clover's luck that comes true on account of this same luck, producing a fascinating paradox for her luck to parse through. in any event, we see clover's guilt once more cutting through her typical joyful demeanor: worth noting, though, is that even when clover's guilt isn't on her own mind, it's always on nickel's. it quickly passes her by once more when she invites nickel to stand next to her for the group photo, but nickel, stubborn as ever, holds her to her crimes.

the luck's solution to the above paradox is rather complicated: it first involves a tower crushing, and thereby killing, clover and (most of) the other contestants, and second having mephone recover everyone in a rush such that they've switched bodies. clover ends up in test tube's body, which is, like most others, not lucky. clover-as-test-tube realizes that she now lacks her luck when she accidentally speaks over mephone, something which wouldn't happen before; in response to this, she is overjoyed. balloon-as-goo doesn't understand this at first, but clover-as-test-tube makes this abundantly clear:

"you all don't understand... i'm not upset... i'm free! (laughs) without my luck, i can't hurt anyone anymore!"

for better or for worse, clover attributes all of the harm she causes to her luck; granted, it's not like she's done much to hurt others herself, but the point still stands that it could be dangerous for clover to relinquish all agency and ownership of her actions, be they good or bad.

either way, clover is now truly, truly happy, in a way she hasn't been since box's accident and the start of her guilt era. clover spends a lot of the episode exploring her new luckless self in test tube's body, and finding the experience positively jubilant, with only minor apology over not being able to do things she otherwise would (like easily blow out a candle). outside of her lucky body, clover is noticeably clumsy, which makes sense considering how she likely would have relied on her luck to grant her grace; but she is happy in this, as happy as a child toddling around in a world totally new to them.

when you discount the fact that clover was mistakenly recovered afterwards (or even when you don't, to be frank), the fulfillment of her wish is actually quite disturbing, as it implies that clover would rather be dead than alive as her lucky self; this is how great and profound her guilt is. she is so much happier after having her life taken from her; she is herself again only after death and rebirth into a "heaven" where she can no longer hurt anyone, where she is the innocent instead of the guilty. for her luck to have killed her, some part of clover must've wanted to die.

clover rejoices in the concept of perfect equality, of people being evenly matched; she finds beauty in this, a beauty she fails to find in her luck. the-floor-as-paintbrush offers the important perspective that luck can't be ridden of, but perhaps it can be equally distributed among people by those who have it to begin with. this sets off nickel who thinks that good fortune always causes others' misfortune and who, in his subsequent interaction with clover, realizes the day's deaths and mixed-up recoveries were all the fault of her wish to be luckless. he yells at her, accusing her of "cosplaying the less fortunate" and being a "privileged murderer": by a certain logic, neither of these accusations are entirely false, but they are certainly the least generous way of interpreting things.

candle-as-silver-spoon has a more generous point of view, making the important observation that clover didn't actively want any of this to happen: but clover agrees with nickel, saying it doesn't matter what her motives were if she, in trying to prevent harm, caused the greatest harm of all. clover, at this point, feels that hurting and even killing others is intrinsic to who she is, as she manages to do so even when explicitly trying not to. feeling horribly guilty, she runs off in tears, leaving behind a regretful nickel.

the next time we see clover-as-test-tube, it's when test-tube-as-clover has a conversation with "bow" on the beach; clover, bearing witness to this dialogue, is touched by test tube's offer to help "bow" be "herself". notably, "bow" had previously called one's ability to be in one's true body a kind of luck, with test tube thus granting "her" that privilege.

clover (now in her own body again) has a very fascinating elimination, marking the start of her redemption era. clearly, in the time since test tube's interaction with "bow" and now, she has done a fair bit of reflection, and goes into her elimination with an air of wisdom she has never displayed before. her voice has been gradually changing throughout the season and now, in this era, it's solidly a lot deeper than it was in the innocence era.

clover's teammates, feeling as though the game was torturing her, take pity and unanimously vote for her; they clearly like and care about clover, and at the same time they feel bad for voting her out. however, clover's luck prevents the votes from loading at first, trying to protect her place in the game; anyone's automatic thought would be of wanting to stay, after all. but clover, maturely, announces that she allows her elimination to happen. thus the votes go through, making her the next eliminated contestant of the season. before clover goes, though, goo apologizes to her, and nickel also does so in spirit; at this point his perspective on her has radically changed, likely out of guilt alone, such that he doesn't think that there's anything wrong with her herself anymore. instead, he doubles down on vilifying clover's luck for the sake of protecting her: but clover gently counters this, saying the only fault in her luck and its gift of good fortune is that it thus far had only given it to her.

"but today... a friend in my place made me realize... the luck doesn't have to be all mine."

clover, having finally realized it is an option at all, makes the conscious choice to share her luck with nickel. clover does so inspired by test tube's interaction with "bow", likely thinking of how test tube chooses to to help "bow" get something "she" doesn't and/or can't have on "her" own or automatically: a body and life that's "hers". likewise, nickel is a very cynical and pessimistic person, so it's important that clover should choose to bear her positivity onto him, someone who fails to generate that on his own. she thus grants him luck, which i would assume is 1/4 as powerful as hers, for the rest of his life; i say 1/4 because nickel ends up being joined by a single butterfly, distinct from clover's, while clover has four.

anyway, clover realizes that her guilt over hurting others and getting worse precludes her from helping others and getting better, as in her guilt over being lucky she fails to recognize the potentially transformative power of her luck. nickel, partly out of preemptive grief over losing clover in her looming departure, lashes out and prevents clover from bearing her "curse" upon anyone else, which would've included the rest of their team. clover seems to find it cute that he still thinks the luck is a curse, and assures him that "one day [he] too will learn to share the wealth". this confirms that learning to distribute her gift to other people is the lesson she has learned over the course of having this gift.

before nickel can respond, clover leaves with the aid of her four butterfly companions. they lift her up in the air as she bids everyone an "until next time" in a smiling, sing-songy voice; she seems to expect to see them again. as she departs, everyone except for nickel looks up at her fondly: nickel, meanwhile, is face-down on the ground, crying. even if he'd never admit it, nickel is clearly very strongly attached to clover; one has to wonder if, in some sense, he truly was some kind of admirer of hers, and if his spite and resentment regarding her luck was just jealous admiration...

clover neither heads to indefinite island nor hotel OJ; instead, she travels all over the place with cordelia, catalina, cassandra, and jake, her butterfly friends. her aim at this point is to continue finding places to take her gift; "now [she's] looking for others who are a little less extraordinary out there who could use some luck".

during her interview with brybee, we learn some little tidbits about clover, the meaningful ones of which i'll list here. she thinks of herself as being friends with box, and hopes to find a way to repair their relationship; the main thing she wishes were different about her luck is that it would be evenly distributed amongst everyone, with a secondary wish being that it wouldn't kill people; clover had fun in ii3-3's photo challenge with nickel; she appreciates nickel for helping her discover her true calling; clover's favorite memory from the show was stargazing with "bow" and goo, with test tube and cabby identifying constellations for them.

interestingly, clover is fond of animals who look like her in some way: butterflies, when stylized, are nearly clover-shaped, and some jellyfish, specifically moon jellies, have a clover shape at their center. this relates back to how some part of clover is always at least a little self-centered, even now that she's taking others into account more regularly.

aside from her more minor appearances near the end of the season, this is the last we see of clover; most of my clover notes henceforth thus have more to do with nickel's luck than clover herself, so i will be referencing these sparingly.

like clover's done, nickel believes his luck is manipulating other people into being friendlier and more agreeable with him; he resents it for this reason, and also for taking credit for all of his victories (though, really, he is the one deciding that everything is his luck's doing). when he does give it a chance, at his team's behest, he does so only in self-serving, tactical ways for the sake of challenges. all the while, he still doesn't like how everything is apparently a result of his luck and not him himself; he begins to more seriously doubt not only his performance in the competition, but also his relationship to balloon. nickel is less concerned about the harmful consequences of his luck on others and more so about the toll it takes on his ego and sense of self. he proceeds to die and lose his luck not long after, apparently having completely squandered it.

clover and nickel reunite in ii3-15, in which they work together to solve the mystery of blueberry's "murder". clover is taking a break from a personal project of hers to engage with the game once more, specifically to engage in this challenge: she's always wanted to be a detective, and somehow knew from afar that this challenge would involve some sleuthing. clover, with help from her luck, is able to convince mephone to let her participate, and she also has him generate a deerstalker cap for her. she's paired up with nickel for the challenge: she seems thrilled, while he's in some distress.

blaming her luck more than clover herself, nickel accuses her of being the indirect cause of blueberry's "death", saying that her luck wanted to help her rejoin: he thus continues to hold his negative perspective on luck. clover learns from him that he did not make much good out of his luck at all, and reminds him of her encouragement to "share the wealth", which he very much did not do.

the clover we see now, redemption-era clover, is much more grounded than innocence- or guilt-era clover. she had already done some soul-searching around the time of her elimination, but she has clearly done more while out and about; thanks to this, both we and clover now understand that nobody and nothing, including luck or the lack thereof, can truly make anyone do anything. everyone has free will, even if they are in constant relationship with the forces surrounding them. this includes nickel, and clover says "we all have agency in our lives" when talking to him (using the less antagonistic "we" instead of "you"), countering his belief that he's doomed to forever be sarcastic, sour, cynical, and, above all, unlikeable. he can grow! he can change! he already has to some extent, but he keeps taking steps back out of fear and denial... like clover, he needs to own his impact on other people.

clover ends up giving nickel a free, impromptu therapy session, implying some interest in psychology on her end as well as an interest in mystery-solving: though perhaps the two are linked. clover helps him through his backwards understanding of the suitcase-balloon situation, and gets him to realize that suitcase's rebellion against him was his fault and not balloon's. clover re-emphasizes that agency and free will are central to all of his issues, but nickel denies he has either, saying he's only opening up to her because of her luck: clover counters this, saying luck isn't the only thing at play. luck, apparently, needs non-zero odds to work off of: it can only make nickel open up if there's a chance, or in other words there's a desire, to do so.

when they find a word-search puzzle, clover assumes it's a coded message and thinks she's a natural at detective work, which she attributes to the hat; this seems to be an ironic play on nickel's logic, in which she thinks she's a good detective (she's not) because of something outside of her control (even if she was, it would be because of something internal). she and nickel find bot's name in the puzzle (indeed, the word search was bot's), and they thus assume bot must be the killer, which they proclaim confidently at the challenge's end. at first this might seem strange: both of them are friends with bot, so why would they accuse them? either way the two are more proud of their "discovery" than angry towards bot, so it seems there's no ill-will about the supposed murder anyway. this would imply that both nickel and clover have, to some extent, gotten over the notion of clover as box's murderer. ultimately, blueberry himself wins the challenge and clover departs, to return again to vote for the season's winner.

in ii3-16, we learn that clover, with her luck, revitalized the ecosystem of tyler bombard's home: this is likely the project she had been working on between her elimination and the murder mystery challenge.

we see clover again in the last two episodes of the season, taking part in the finale jury. clover has a relatively unique perspective on cabby among the contestants, appreciating her efforts to apologize and change but not finding these efforts as strictly or urgently necessary as they might be for other people (like nickel). so on some level she's in support of cabby; but then she also finds silver spoon's performance impressive. and death, at this point, is decidedly not as serious for clover as it had been; she finds balloon's popping amusing, suggesting that perhaps he's the finalist she values the least (though we'll come back to this shortly).

either way, when the jury is forced to make a unanimous vote, clover sits sadly in the corner with box as her fellow members incessantly argue amongst themselves. clover isn't fond of argument, as we know, regardless of whether or not it gives anyone a near-death experience. at the same time, she likely is aware of the fact that the jury will never agree on a winner, and thus that it's both pointless and painful to make them try.

given what's about to happen next, though, clover needs to be out of the picture: the unvitational committee regards her, mephone, the floor, and candle as the most powerful beings around, or at least those who would interfere most with their plan. thus a zoetrope-projected "butterfly" flutters by, catching clover's attention and lifting her spirits. she runs after it, and is subsequently disarmed; it is unclear, though, what this disarming entails. after all is said and done, though, clover seems perfectly fine, so apparently it wasn't anything particularly serious (by her standards, at least).

before the vote, clover, for whatever reason, thinks silver spoon might be referring to her when he discusses someone whom he should've listened to more; she seems happy about the "shout-out". at this point it's a bit up in the air who clover would vote for...

...and she votes for balloon.

though she has good reason to vote for silver spoon, and even better reason to vote for cabby, why wouldn't clover vote for the one person who represents necessary transformation, second chances, and self-improvement more than anyone else? clover, by believing in nickel, must also believe in balloon; for one to be true, the other has to be. clover barely interacts with balloon at all, so it's questionable how much she relates to or cares about him in a personal sense, but in terms of what he represents, he's exactly the sort of person clover would be voting for. she places all of her faith in the idea of balloon.

ultimately it's cabby who wins, with balloon a close second; for her pick not to have won suggests that clover consciously desired for the most deserving finalist to win the competition, similar to how she let her elimination votes load in.

clover enjoys cabby's party, taking the time to chat with life ring and, to a lesser extent, tea kettle; she also enjoys cabby's library, but for all the wrong reasons, using it as a place to play tag with yin-yang. clearly, after all is said and done, clover still retains her playful spirit.

to briefly go over clover's brief appearance in the ii2 finale, she continues to be her childlike self, even if she's more worldly now: she doesn't seem nearly as disturbed by the latest goings-on as most other people, which wouldn't be surprising, as she has a track record of not being concerned by serious things (but only when she's not being overly concerned by them, of course). she has a bit of fun escaping mephone via the race, and later she can be found talking to blueberry: an optimist and a pessimist, brought together by the apocalypse.

this is all of clover's coverage up until the start of ii4, which will be analyzed separately.

as a late addendum to the part on clover's aura color: it is unlikely that animationepic had the color meanings of the original gilbert baker pride flag in mind when assigning the contestants their colors, but clover's seemed fitting enough, so i will briefly mention it. in the flag, orange stands for healing: this is very poignant considering how clover discovers the positive transformational power of her luck and her own optimism. when you think of healing as overcoming past struggles and hardships, and how clover believes in others' ability to do so (namely nickel and, by extension, balloon), the connection becomes even more profound. clover, like a butterfly, is all about metamorphosis...

clover's journey can be read as a metamorphosis, a coming-of-age story, of growing up without losing the parts of childhood that make life worth living: as her voice deepens, so does her understanding of the world. clover from the outset possesses a unique blend of whimsy and wonder which is lacked by most other people; her naïveté is ruptured by the realization that she can hurt people, and her innocent demeanor threatens to disappear entirely when she believes she's a wholly bad person, causing her to want to stop living her life. when she truly realizes the positive effect she can have on other people, though, she is able to strengthen her whimsical, wonderful spirit and make the world a better place through her philanthropic philosophy of trust, faith, and altruism.

it's interesting to view clover through the lens of her relationships, because while she's friendly with practically everyone, she doesn't seem especially bonded to anyone. the people she's closest to include bot and goo, but i don't get the impression that clover is best friends with them in the same way that they're best friends with each other. there's also nickel, but the relationship is messy, especially with him now using her as a therapist: and anyway, at this point, though it's obvious without a shadow of a doubt that he is emotionally attached to clover, would he ever admit to being her friend, or to being her "little admirer"? though clover certainly enjoys his presence and sees good in him, it's unclear just how invested she is in their relationship aside from getting passive enjoyment from it. overall, despite being endearing and friendly, clover comes off as being a little detached from the rest of the world.

perhaps she's closest to her butterflies.

4. clover's symbolism

this section will cover two things: what clover's luck seems to be an allegory for, and what imagery and themes are connected to her.

first of all, it is not hard to deduce that luck generally in ii3 is an allegory for societal privilege (clover's epithet is, point blank, "the privileged"); for clover specifically, though, i think it is an allegory for white privilege. the main reason for this line of thinking is that clover's luck is inextricably tied to her body and, presumably, its appearance: when she isn't in her own skin, clover isn't favored by the world anymore, and when someone else is in her skin (namely test tube), they benefit. clover was "born lucky" in a literal sense, but also in an allegorical sense, in that she has always had it easy on account of factors she has no control over. clover's guilt over her luck is also reminiscent of white guilt, in which a white person spends all of their time and energy beating themselves up over being privileged instead of spending that same time, energy, and resources on making things more equitable and fair for everyone else.

it is genuinely unfair that clover is treated consistently well by the world when nobody else is, but this privilege is bad in its exclusivity, not in the comforts it provides. it would be great if everyone were spared from injury and death, in such a way that mercy granted to one party (such as clover) doesn't sacrifice the wellbeing of another party (such as box). in any event, clover can't help being privileged, and it does her no good to throw a pity party about it, even if she has genuine reason to be disturbed and upset by the effect she has on others; the more productive thing for her to do is make the most of the power she does have and try to use it to make the world a better place for everyone else. clover's ability to grant her luck to others is clearly quite limited, but she can help people in other ways too, so long as she believes she can. it's a lesson in how the people favored by a system can use their power within that system to defy it; privileged people aren't the sole saviors of the downtrodden, but they can and should utilize their unique opportunity to help others.

to return to the point of clover's luck being tied to her body, both are wrapped up in her identity at large too, as clover's luck is her gimmick of sorts and we can probably assume it was one of if not the only characteristics mephone used to define her before her creation. so who is clover when she's not in her body? is she herself? i suppose this goes to a greater question of object show identity: technically, if she were in some other body, she wouldn't be "clover" anymore, would she? anyway, the relationship between clover and her body is reminiscent of that of the transgender experience, particularly in how free clover feels when she's in a different body; this isn't to say that clover is necessarily transgender in some way (though she may very well be), as clover ends up returning to her luck/identity/body with an accepting, albeit more nuanced, view of it. she doesn't ultimately prefer a different body.

perhaps, instead, this concept is, more generally, the broadening of one's horizons to explore whether one's identity fits the body one inhabits, as well as the abilities inherent to that body. there are concepts besides transgenderism which could fit this; as per the above discussion of clover's luck as white privilege, clover's happiness in test tube's body might be an unintentional fetishization of (symbolically) ethnic physical features, which is poignant for these two characters specifically as they're both coded to be jewish, test tube more than clover (test tube for her nasal voice and use of phrase "mazel tov", and clover for her love of maztah ball soup). anyway, while it's perfectly valid for clover to want to channel her (symbolic) ethnicity in response to her (symbolic) whiteness, the former doesn't counter the latter in the way clover would want on account of her white guilt; with this guilt out of the way, clover can accept her (symbolically) goyishe-appearing body and make the most of it for the purpose of supporting fellow minority groups, including fellow jews.

with this in mind, what does it mean for clover to share her luck with nickel? nickel, notably, is yet another character who is arguably coded as a jew (he picks up yiddishisms from the obviously jew-coded tea kettle); similarly to test tube, i imagine nickel (symbolically) has more ethnically jewish physical features than clover, contributing to his lack of luck regardless of whether or not he's (symbolically) white. in any event, unlike her body-swap with test tube, clover is not literally giving nickel a (symbolically) goyishe-appearing body or granting (symbolic) whiteness to him; so what is she doing? there are different ways one could interpret this, but i imagine clover is (symbolically) giving nickel some material resource, which may or may not include literal "wealth" as she described it, and which would thus help nickel fare well in the world.

(note: my equating clover's luck with whiteness doesn't preclude anyone from interpreting clover as non-white! this is just my interpretation, which is inevitably heavily based in my personal experience as a white jew who has benefitted from appearing goyishe.)

to return to transgenderism, luck more broadly (as in, not just referring to clover's luck) can also be an allegory for being cisgender, or having access to gender-affirming care when one isn't: this is a sort of luck possessed not only by clover, and which is only lacked by bot. it is test tube's choice to pass this kind of luck onto bot that inspires clover to pass her kind of luck onto nickel.

clover's butterflies symbolize transgenderism very well, as per their transformation from larva to imago through metamorphosis: staying the same individual, but changing bodies to better fit themselves. bot, who is a friend of clover's, connects to butterfly imagery very strongly because of this, inspiring their new appearance. and more on transformation, balloon connects to clover's butterflies as well for this reason, in that a caterpillar must be given a chance to grow and change for it to become its best self as a butterfly; this is, obviously, in connection with his own character arc and the way in which nickel has historically blinded himself to it. to connect this back to clover's luck, it seems the butterflies represent fulfilled desires/dreams/wishes, especially regarding how one is treated or viewed, which lines up with how nickel's luck brings him social outcomes he'd been secretly longing for.

on a different note (perhaps related to her symbolic/coded judaism), clover is imbued with some divine imagery; the most on-the-nose example of this is how clover is referred to as "the green goddess" by tyler bombard on account of her restoring the vitality of his home's ecosystem. indeed, like a god, clover is able to manipulate the world around her and pull the strings of fate in accordance with her will. this is all fitting when you view mephone as a god of sorts, having passed along part of his powers to one of his creations.

there is also an association between clover's luck and fire: box is set ablaze somehow after "he" tumbles down the hill, and cabby's file on "bow" burns up when test-tube-as-clover doesn't want "bow" to read it (interestingly, both involve characters who are misidentified for a long time, and who directly suffer on account of the fire involved). what to make of this symbolically? well, clover herself, especially in her connections to nature and growth, represents life; fire, in its heat and light, can help sustain life just as well as it can destroy it. this brings to mind the sun, the great ball of fire on which all life relies, even though it has just as much of a capacity to render all life moot: this gift/curse dichotomy fits very well with clover's luck, which helps one being and hurts another in one fell swoop. perhaps, then, clover's luck is metaphorically equivalent to the sun, and clover is just an entity who channels it, as a plant channels sunlight: or, instead, this "sun" is rather the sphere of shimmer energy contained within mephone. it can give off heat and light much like the sun, so it feels very fitting.

thus, with mephone as a stand-in for the biblical god (fittingly, as her creator), clover passively uses a kind of proverbial photosynthetic prophecy to channel the sun-adjacent shimmer energy within him for the purpose of fueling her luck. this luck, embodied by clover's day-flying butterflies, helps incite growth and change, both physical and mental.

finally, it must be noted that the last words spoken to mephone before he returns to ii2 are "good luck".