insane-racoon

The Happiness Surgery (HS) of the Research Society of Happy Smiles (RSHS) is a major plot point of the Planarcadia story so far - so I wanted to look a bit into it and theorize as to what is going on here. Note: Anything that is not covered in the main Trailblaze Mission I will provide a reference for.

What We Know:

Pioneered by the RSHS

Is done via a "needle, long and thin" going into the brain and erasing the sense of pain (Bequea's Happiness Report)

Process afterwards takes approximately a month before full effectiveness (Happiness Surgery Notice)

Likely has something to do with the anterior cingulate cortex (Medical Record: Fulwish *I'll cover this in more depth later*)

Fulwish:

Fulwish's backstory is a tragic one. She lost her family to the Herald of Death and fell into a suicidal depression because of it. However, she says that she was saved by the Mutual Aid Society (MAS) and that due to MAS she found happiness again. From there she reportedly founded RSHS and became a media tycoon, pushing for happiness and Elation across Planarcadia. However, there's a few small bits missing. How did she become a media tycoon?

In the readable Person of the Year in Elation: Fulwish, it is stated that Fulwish was introduced by the MAS to a show called Please Be Happy. Please Be Happy is a reality TV show that was produced by Seafield TV Station and was on the brink of cancellation due to a scandal. This scandal is actually covered in the side quest A Bouquet for the Blessed. The quest reveals the story of Bequea who also lost her family to the Herald of Death and became depressed afterwards. The show was meant to showcase her recovery, but instead it faced difficulty because she simply wasn't recovering with the methods used by the show. This lead to the show fabricating her "happiness test" results, which was then revealed and caused major controversy. However, Fulwish and her newly discovered happiness turned the show around, leading to major success and even promotion by the IPC.

Fulwish then went from the show to buy the TV Station and rebrand it to Fulwish TV and produce a variety of successful content as well as rebranding the MAS to the RSHS. 

In short, Fulwish had a sudden bout of happiness that rocketed her to success and crowned her as the head of the media in Planarcadia. But her happiness didn't just come from nowhere.

In her speech in the Trailblaze Mission, she says that it was brought by the MAS and the happiness she saw there, even in people that were broken. While I don't doubt that, there is more to the story. The readable Medical Record: Fulwish shows a medical checkup done by the Cranial Neurology Department of some medical facility. The record shows that Fulwish came in with the complaint of "an inability to describe negative feedback received by the self, and an inability to actively express the pain perceived by the self. Meanwhile, the patient exhibits hallucinatory symptoms, described as the ability to sense the inner desires of others." The doctors then proceeded to perform an Electroencephalogram (ECG) (cerebral lobe structural imaging) to scan Fulwish's brain and found no "foreign bodies or visible damage". They did note there was also "mild non-pathological tissue growth detected at the Synesthesia implant site." with an unknown cause. While we don't know where the implant site is, it can be presumed to be somewhere near either the auditory or language processing sections of the brain. A few of these sections are near to another section mentioned later in the report, and as shown in reports of patients with brain tumors, pressure on the brain can lead to all sorts of weirdness.  The report continues with the Wishpower detection that was done and found "low-frequency undetectable imagery" in the anterior cingulate cortex that "hasn't significantly affected the cranial nerves". The anterior cingulate cortex is a portion of the brain that is responsible for attention, rewards-allocation, decision making, and most important for this, emotion. With this area specifically being affected by wishpower, it is a reasonable conclusion that this is what is causing the abnormalities in Fulwish's behavior. Additionally, it appears that the doctors also tested the empathetic abilities of Fulwish, and found that they were successful in "describ[ing] the desires of others." However, she experiences "intense hallucinations and loses all rationality [...] appears to fall under hypnotic or telepathic phenomena."

Theories:

In a previous post I suggested two possibilities: mara and mask fragments. However, a new theory has occurred to me while doing research on Fulwish. What if it is a combination of Elation and Abundance through wishpower? 

Fulwish stated that she was saved by the MAS who had a desire to save themselves and be happy and was also found to have wishpower localized in her emotional center of the brain along with some other notable growth possibly nearby. So, what if through wishing to be healed enough, Fulwish created enough wishpower to use the abundance (or create some form of it) to heal herself? 

I'm sure some of you are thinking that there is now way only one person could generate that much wishpower, and I agree. But Fulwish was not only with the other members of the MAS, but she also soon after joined the Please Be Happy show, which could have potentially generated a good amount of wishpower through her fame and the audience's support. That certainly could have developed something that would have an effect on a person's brain. Of course, there would be a price, which seems to be the state that Fulwish found herself in with empathetic hallucinations that sent her into a logicless haze when used. 

But how would this be transferred to others? Well I think it was an experimental process designed to use the faith of the person being changed along with some other materials. We know from Bequea's Happiness Report that the surgery is not always entirely successful and can leave a person feeling incredibly numb. Additionally, in the Happiness Surgery Report, they discuss cutting off friends and family as doubt can convince you to not get the surgery (or perhaps, potentially screw the surgery up?). Regardless, that piece of advice is straight from How to Cult 101.

SPOILERS FOR LIVESTREAM AND PLANARCADIA AHEAD!!!

I love the 4.2 livestream (even though my phone died and didn't wake me up in time to watch it when it first aired) and there's a lot to go into here. I won't be covering the end collab thing here and this isn't really a bunch of fully fledged theories, just me talking out loud.

Beyond all of the numbers and changes (Buffs to Firefly, Welt, Seele, and Huohuo, currency wars and divergent universe sharing points) there's a lot of character and lore things I want to go into

First: Blade

These two shots specifically really interest me. In one, we see Blade and Dan Heng (in his Imibitor Lunae form) together, both holding onto blades sword and blade appears to be collapsing while glowing (particularly interesting due to the fact that the red glow in this series of clips seems to be connected to the Happy Smiles institute). In the other we have Blade being impaled by a tentacle (presumably controlled by Fulwish). Now I do have these images out of order (don't ask me ask my computer) and the second one comes first, so they could be a part of the same battle or even cutscene, but it is fascinating. 

Blade's splash art for his new form includes a red flower (I believe it's a spider lily but I'm not 100%) emerging from his chest. This could be related to how he appears to be just straight up impaled at some point this next patch.

There's also a lot going on with how Dan Heng appears to be trying to help(?) Blade or is at least trying to do something related to him that isn't outright killing him. My mind goes to the conversation during 4.1 where Blade and Dan Heng discussed the Abundance in Planarcadia. Blade specifically mentioned that he had "been feeling restless", which is likely not a good sign. Additionally, the exact words of Yao Guang's prediction are: "Dragons clash in the wilderness their ichor dark and yellow." 

There are several ways to interpret this, and while I have a lot of theories regarding it, the only thing I'm going to mention here is that since Dan Heng is seen in his Imbibitor Luanae form, it could be related to the prediction.

Second: Silver Wolf

Silver wolf is undoubtedly the star of this livestream, and while the fact that they kept calling her "the alpha wolf" makes me want to throw myself off of a cliff, there is a lot of cool stuff.

Let's start with the smoking gun: she's an emanator of ELATION?????

She is a confirmed emanator of elation and also has a backstory fitting of a dystopia litRPG YA novel. I can see the synopsis now.

"On Punklorde, your level is decided at birth. Locked. No change. No level ups. 

But Silver Wolf is different. 

Born as an illegal orphan, she was not assigned a chip at birth, making her able to not only level up, but become extraordinarily powerful."

Ok, maybe the synopsis isn't great but you get the gist.

Additionally, we get two images of Silver Wolf. 

This one, which seems to have Silver Wolf in a wolf form standing in ruins of a city is interesting. It shows a question mark for a level as well, which calls back to how she is able to level up, unlike everyone else in Punklorde. 

This second image shows Silver Wolf competing with another figure at arcade games. While normally assuming this second figure is Aha would just be speculation, the livestream specifically calls it "an elation-like figure." 

So not only does the livestream tell us that Silver Wolf is an emanator of Elation, it implies that Silver Wolf was raised by Aha in some capacity, which is wild.

But the idea of Silver Wolf being close to Aha actually explains a lot about her character. It explains her mentality when it comes to hacking and life and more specifically the quote "A game's a game and that's all there is to it" (I cannot find where she said this but she did (trust) and i think it's at the end of the thing with her trying to get the cartridge from Herta)

Essentially, she views life like a game and her abilities like hacking, likely because she was raised to, at least in a sense.

Third: Evanescia

At the end of the 4.1 story we found out that Evanescia is not only connected to the Abundance, but the Ambrosial Arbor as well and that the tree in the Phantasmoon courtyard is also connected to the Ambrosial Arbor, courtesy of Yao Guang. However, in this livestream we were told that Evanescia is an elixir seeker, like those on the Xianzhou. Additionally, we were told that she is breaking several of the perceived rules of the Phantasmoon games by not only participating as a referee and a supplicant, but also that she has competed in multiple games, including this one. Also, in the 4.1 story, she told us that she thinks the Elation and the Abundance pair well together.

All of these pieces of evidence piece together to make it seem as though Evanescia is very familiar with both the paths of Elation and the Abundance, and is potentially far more powerful than we think.

She calls herself the "Panarch Elwood, the embodiment of 'instant' and 'eternity'." Now as we've discovered with the path of Elation, there is the Aha Instant that occurs during combat, a sort of psuedo-intervention by Aha THEMSELVES. While the Abundance itself is not necessarily associated with eternity as much as it is the absence of death, the Permanence, which we know to have been absorbed by the Abundance, is. Again, my mind goes back to Dan Heng in his IL form in the image in Blade's section. Are we going to find out what happened to Long? Are we discovering how Aeons fall? (A thought that occurred - Does Aha giving up their Aeonhood count as death, and if so, is there a possibility that the other fallen Aeons have done something similar?)

Regardless, Evanescia is definitely a wrench in how the Phantasmoon Games might turn out and potentially has the answers to some questions we've been asking for awhile.

Fourth: Aha

Now, given that we are in Planarcadia, it is only natural that Aha would show up eventually. THEY are first shown in the beginning with the 'detectives' discussing the Phantasmoon games and telling them to write it a certain way. Now here's a random thought: What if Elio also has a connection to the Elation in some way? Aha appears to be a self-aware Aeon, and was introduced to us as such in the Simulated Universe. THEY have also just taken over the livestream in a sense, given that the codes this livestream are very self-aware. THEY seem to delight in making things turn out a certain way, or knowing how they do, and ensuring that it is the way THEY want. 

THEY seem to have a lot of plans for the future that we mortal plebs are not privy to and I'm honestly genuinely curious to see how this will turn out.

Fifth: Cat Cakes!!!!

Guys they're giving us cat cake gacha

And i'm so fucking excited!!!!!!

We're gonna be like Aventurine with our babies

ALSO

FUCKING AKIVILI JUMPSCARE

We have *some* form of a design for Akivili now which is really really really cool!!!!!

Sixth: Fulwish

This woman. 

I want to throw her out of her office window LEGO movie style

AND I MIGHT GET TO

There was a shot of her wearing the tentacle mask and wielding tentacles (ripping of stranger things much?) so it's legal for me to attack her in broad daylight

I have a theory about the mask of sorts - we know that there's a good portion of Abundance in Planarcadia and that the Happiness Surgery is a thing

I'm curious as to whether it has something potentially to do with mara. The thing with the mara struck is that not only do they not die, they also seem to not feel pain. SO if they are infecting everyone with a low level of mara and using wishpower to keep it at bay or something similar, it could be what is happening with the Happiness surgery

Originally I thought that they were perhaps implanting part of the mask into the people, but then I remembered that it was implied they got the mask recently and the surgery has been happening for years. So unless they didn't get the mask recently and were just trying to get another, then I don't think this idea works.

Final Thoughts:

The livestream was great and chock full of random lore drops and really cool rewards and peeks into the future! I'm super excited for the 30 free pulls we're getting for the anniversary, along with the new banners and the new areas and story!!!