TSP au ramblings under the cut
'tis very 432-centric
Employee 432/Timekeeper was the first "Stanley", as in the story was about them originally. Their name was James (Jim being their nickname).
The Narrator became extremely attached to this rendition of his protagonist, however, 432 began to grow tired of the endless restarts. This eventually resulted in their version of the Zending, and when killing themself didn't work, they managed to clip out of bounds (Out of Map Ending) in a last ditch effort to escape the Parable.
The Narrator felt disheartened - and almost betrayed - by 432's actions, and, as a punishment of sorts, he embedded them into the Game to prevent them from ever having a chance at escape again.
However, 432 quickly began to find ways around the limitations the Game had set upon them, learning how to alter its coding to their will. As a side effect, though, their memory began to deteriorate, and memories of their past identity began to fade away. Eventually, 432 forgot their own name, leaving nothing but the numbered nametag pinned to their shirt to identify them by.
During this time, the Narrator took on a new protagonist by the name of Stanley. 432 immediately turned their attention to him, and, having been struck with a plan to help them both escape the Game, began to directly conspire against the Narrator.
It began with simple requests for the current time, requests that Stanley continuously ignored. 432 persisted, however, and eventually, Stanley let up and began to communicate with them. Over every restart, the connection between the two grew, their conversations growing more personal, and 432 beginning to observe him within the Parable.
This all eventually culminated in 432 removing the door in the Skip Button ending in a failed attempt to rid of the Narrator temporarily so they could talk with Stanley in private about their plan. This failed, causing the Narrator to become wary of 432's actions in the Parable, although he was not exactly aware that they were the culprit. Discouraged, 432 quietly retreated to the Epilogue, a deeper area of the ending that the Narrator could not access.
Following Stanley's collection of the Stanlurines, 432 noticed Narrator's intent to put his story to rest. Knowing that this would end up trapping them all inside of the Game forever in complete silence, 432 managed to lead Stanley to the Epilogue, where they convinced him to help them "keep the wheel turning", per se. They then activated the achievement machine as a final "jab" at the Narrator, hoping that he would finally be fed up with their antics enough to completely delete them - and perhaps the disobedient Stanley - from the game.
When Stanley activated the once-broken machine, the culprit of all of the interference with the Parable became clear to the Narrator, and he was furious. It was only when 432 appeared in the Parable to observe Stanley once again that the Narrator confronted them, beginning to berate them about their unwanted involvement in his story. This lead the two into a long argument that eventually resulted in the Narrator breaking down and admitting everything, including the REAL reason that he'd trapped 432 in the Game - he didn't want to be alone.
Everything suddenly began to make sense to 432 at this moment, and they felt a wave of guilt wash over them. They began to apologize for everything, but the Narrator stopped them, and simply asked them for one thing - to promise to never leave him alone.
432 accepted this promise, and with it, their new role in the story - the Timekeeper that would forever keep the wheels of the Parable turning.
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