There's two candidates for me. That being Sawyer Snatch and Ludd Blaster. But just for the fans out there, I'll also throw in Papa Woods.

Sawyer and Ludd have a couple of things in common:

• They appear in most cutscenes with the Lovelies

• They physically interact with the main characters (Sawyer punching Lanks and Ludd shooting Beltboy, plus the Sports King too, plus threatening them in the Gibson Orphanage wow this guy is really trigger happy)

• They seem to know Hart well enough to do things that he wants without being directly commanded to do so, as seen from the examples above, where they did it willingly, followed up by a comment from Hart. Hart gets mad at Lanks after he gets punched by Sawyer, and Ludd is even referred to by name when he shoots Beltboy in the eye, even going as far as to say "you always know what I want."

As a bonus, Ludd also seems to lead his own little group with Biggie and Richie, with him also seemingly having a closer relationship to Richie for mentioning how he got him a new chew toy, while dismissing Biggie's comment on him being hungry and also making fun of his weight seemingly to no consequence.

Of course, I may be a bit biased towards Ludd, no surprise there, but these are all points you have to consider if you want to think about who the second in command is.

But it seems as though I've forgotten to mention one more person.

Papa Woods.

He's gotten some attention around 2021 when XdXeKn released Hart Revamp and Lovely Showdown, picturing him as this silent badass that does not take Joy like the others. While I don't mind headcanons for these characters that weren't given much...well, character in the base game, I feel as though this era made people overestimate Papa's importance.

I've pretty much talked about all there is to him, even in Hopeful. He appears in the last area, he doesn't mutate, he doesn't talk, he's just...kind of there. Which I guess makes sense as to why he's given so much attention during this time, but it feels like Hopeful Papa is a different character to Fanon Papa at this point.

It should also be noted that him and Sawyer appear in the same battle in the Rodriguez Route, but there's no clear indication as to who's in command, if there even is any.

That's about it though, what do you think? Do you have candidates that I haven't mentioned? I've seen people say Biggie might be one. Maybe Craig, Neil, or Dillon. Who knows, maybe there's not even a hierarchy and that there's only some guy that's stronger than the other guys. Let me know your opinions.