#harkin aedor

[hoenn-hakase]

I don’t babble about my personal stories very often, but I really wanted to share this for some reason and I’m not sure anyone is interested enough for me to babble directly. But I can’t stop thinking about it. -rolls around whining-

I ended up going through some old notebooks the other day and a specific group has been on my mind. You ever just sit back and think, not on just the plot, but the overall consequences and go “DAAAAAMN I am horrible to my characters D8” Like, in the series I’m working on, there’s a group of seemingly unrelated characters but they all have one very big event of importance to their back story. And while this major connecting plot element explains their individual situations, motivations, and character relations (as well as possibly being a cause in the motivations of other characters), it’s…. not a good thing.

Keeping this vague to stick to the basics. So the main characters involved in this backstory were a group of six who during “The Great War” were part of an experimental military unit after the government had spent several years testing and honing this mysterious Substance they discovered could be used to “improve” their troops. There were already other units of “super soldiers” who had done well and were already in combat, but this group was to be like the next big thing since even with their enhancements, it had only turned the war from a losing battle to even ground. The country needed something to give them an edge to officially turn the tide. Long story short, they discovered some serious dark magic but the experimental unit was fine for two years and proved fruitful to the cause, so they decided to expand on the project. This backfired horribly because the “power source” couldn’t handle being the overload of new members and, being sentient, decided to fulfil it’s new requirement by taking a few “shortcuts” which in turn created a living nightmare for those caught on the wrong side.

Of after these six characters supposedly got their “happily ever after” for escaping the nightmare:

-       Character 1 ended up leading a massive rebellion, creating a civil war in the already broken-by-the-big-war kingdom, and eventually overthrew the government that had forsaken him and others like him. This created something of a power vacuum that lead to the rise of the Big Bad in book One. Since then, Character 1 has become somewhat disfigured by his extensive exposure to the “Substance,” and disillusioned to find that the new tyrant is no better than the last one, his rebellion has instead turned into a resistance movement. Instead of trying to fight back anymore, he’s become the leader of a highly-fortified township that serves as a refuge for those wanting to escape the reign of the Big Bad. Unfortunately, while he can help train those still wanting to fight, he fears his fighting days are over. As the Big Bad has weaponized the Substance in a new way, Character 1 can’t shake the internal fear that coming into direct contact with that stuff wouldn’t kill him, but instead send him back to the hell-state he fought so hard to escape from.

 -       Character 2 and Character 1 stayed friends for some time before events with the Big Bad made it hard to stay in touch. Unlike Character 1 though, 2 doesn’t have a fear of the Substance or of the Big Bad. Having gotten a taste for the power Substance can provide, he’s continued the experimentations on himself for several years before the start of the series and by the time our Protags meet him, he's in WAAAY over his head in his struggle to control the power he's obtained. And yet, he still feels like he’s not strong enough, because as powerful as he is, Character 2 wants to somehow become strong enough to take on Big Bad and all his armies by himself with the possible intention of taking over as he wants to be powerful enough to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. His obsession has caused him to spend a lot of time alone due to people being scared of him and unfortunately, he really SHOULDN’T be left alone as it just leads him to making himself worse.

 -       Character 3 was VERY young when he entered the program, and really only got in due to his father’s connections in the military. He still passed all his preliminaries to see if he’d be suited for the program, and the logic of him going into this unit instead was the promise that it kept him far from the frontlines and guaranteed him to return home safe. Physically, he returned just fine, though his father kept saying he felt that somehow he had returned… wrong. After he went home, he managed to settle down and had a kid before the civil war broke out. As the one leading the rebellion was an old friend of his, Character 3 was more than happy to join in the fight again. And his growing aggression only seemed to continue even after returned home. He had plans, BIG PLANS that didn’t sit well his elders and after being deemed dangerous, he was somewhat sent into exile back to the lands he seemingly belonged to. Years later, no thanks to help from the True Villain of the series, he finally made it back with the delusions of him having some “great destiny” to fulfil and was going to reclaim his birthright by force if need be. He could regain that “happily ever after” if he followed the True Villain’s instructions, leading to him playing up the role of the Big Bad in book 3. …Until his role in the “grand scheme” caused him to be betrayed by one good friend, costed him his entire army and one of his dearest and most loyal companions, and almost lost him his daughter. Not to mention, even after he came to his senses, he’s physically looking to be as bad off as Character 1 now due to being exposed to Substance once again to great extent. While he does want to help the good guys (because damn the foul creature who used and abused him), it’s really hard to accept such help because of how mentally troubled he is. Not very dangerous anymore, but his previous connections with the True Villain have lead to some severe paranoia, and sometimes his explanations just don’t make any sense.

 -       Character 4 and 5 were both able to go home quietly to their individual families and tried to settle down. They both are parents to some of the protags in Book 2, though neither plays a vital role in the main series itself. Character 4 however never truly got over things and spent a rather fruitful, though somewhat lonely, life as he remained distant to his friends and family. He never made contact with the other five ever again, and seems to tense up when they’re mentioned. His strained relations with his son, unfortunately, are a key fact in the entire series’ events as his son is basically the cause of like EVERYTHING after accidentally getting his hands on the power source to the Substance. (Honestly, protag looks at Character 3 after he’s been defeated and realizes they did have a few things in common. It’s enough to make him at least want to sit down and have a talk with the old man about what the heck happened.) While Character 4’s fate by this point is still pending…. It’s probably not good considering he’s either missing, dead, or unknowing being held to the whims of his son; which considering their relationship would not be a good thing.

 -       Character 5 probably got out the best of all of them, as he lived a seemingly normal life with the only major tragedy coming up during the civil war. It was because of that event he cut off ties all together with Characters 1, 2, and 3 (4 had already cut off from them by that point anyway), and he became something of a recluse within his hometown. Not that he avoided people, he still loved company, but he never really could integrate back into their society. Ended up being a stay-at-home dad and claimed he didn’t go out much due to some “injury” he received during the war, although what exactly no one is really certain, but the odd scars on his back serve curiosity well enough to believe him.

 -       Character 6 has me worried because, while she is spoken of often by the others in fond memory or her importance to the war is noted, she’s currently only a backstory character. As in, while she was important for that point in history, she hasn’t shown up in the main story. Which would be great to think she went home, settled down, maybe had a family (maybe is a relation to someone we know in the main story), the fact we don’t know what happened after “happily ever after” gives me the hope that she had no major tragedies to draw her out of hiding. I’m worried though because, as my characters tend to do so, IF she should show up in the series, I’m afraid we’ll find out all kinds of heartsick that’s happened either since then or that she WAS living her life happily until story events came up to bring skeletons out of the closet. Either way, STAY WHERE YOU ARE, GIRL! I LOVE YOU, BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO BE INVOLVED HERE! Seriously though, my brain has been trying to look at some other characters who don’t have a backstory and going “… Is that secretly you? Some twenty years later in the timeline, did I finally finds you?”

I just… damn though. The worst part in thinking about all this though is WE NEVER ACTUALLY SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO THESE GUYS! We get told what happened from Characters 1 and 2, and we find out about Character 3’s involvement even if he doesn’t explain what happened to him directly, but even then it’s more of a summary to what happened. Like I know this happens a lot in series where there’s some major event that happened before the plot that’s constantly alluded to but it’s just sort of bizarre seeing how many different directions the group took from going through the same thing.  Ranging from utterly broken to possibly moved onto to bigger and better things. I just… -rolling around in feels-