#so i dont just want to take away their role as minor villains | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

katewaliss · 4 years

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! write with me or fight with me!

you either die by my sword or the most painful head canons imaginable! *merida vc* choose yer fate

just kidding!

hey there gaymers, i am crissy! i am 22, live in pst, go by she/her pronouns and honestly would very much like a distraction from life -- preferably in the form of 1x1 and rp in general. i am currently doing online school plus trying/failing at adulting, being a crazy pink haired college student living on microwave dimsum with my crazy fluffy demon cat, but that still leaves me with a lot of time and what better way to spend that time then crying and dying, am i right, boys?

so without further ado ( adieu? idk gusundheit ) here are a list of discomboblulated plot things that have been floating around in my head that i might be fun to do ( plot fragments, ideas, ocs, fcs i like, settings, genres etc )! i’d prefer a message if u liked any of these in the inbox or dm form, my tumblr ims are open and my discord user is mr. worldwide#2918 ( pitbull supremacy ) but if ur shy i will message u and be annoying!

lastly: i prefer hcing in the dms to replies, however i will do replies/ask memes slowly, i don’t really like making blogs and prefer google docs/discord and i ask ( gently and respectfully ) that minors do not interact.

thank u and happy hunger games! xx

COLLEGE TOTALLY SPIES -- i was really obsessed with this picture right here and i thought that the picture would be a good premise for a little four person group based on totally spies. i was thinking that these three college students/young adults some friends maybe not some enemies or just on completely different ends of the social agenda get bonded together when they accidentally end up roped in a top secret spy organization that is fronted by a record store. the details and flesh of the plot i think would be cute to figure out all together maybe in a google doc or a big discord so we can make the rp to perfect world building specifications. right now i have two spots open!

my friend lexi over at comradc has taken the cool goth asian girl and is using lyrica okano

i am playing the freckly backwards hat lesbian in the red polo named aj mccallis and i think im using diana silvers ( not sure might switch to tati rodriguez )

we also have the cute blond girl w the dyed hair who is giving me kind of like sydney sweeney energies, blonde girl maybe like lalisa manoban/jinsoul,

and we have the rad black girl with the bandids who i would only accept black fcs for for such as diamond white, ryan destiny, salem mitchell,

i’d prefer if this stayed kind of sapphic and female and enby friendly. we can def make make npcs and characters but i’d prefer if the characters looked like they do in the picture ( minus the white girls who can be racebent as long as there are vibes ) mostly bc i want the poc people to stay the correct poc! but yeah! if u like this message me specifically!!!!! seperately and hit me w a role ud like maybe an fc an idea anything < 3 im working on a google doc and discord sever

- i really want to play a himbo skater boy evan mock like its my dream i know nothing abt him other than he probably goes by something like mouth or juice or tris or dex or dante but !!!! he has buzzed hair he buzzes designs into, does stick n pokes, hates cops, will kiss anyone, likes to mosh at house shows, smokes a lot and sounds like crush from finding nemo, probably ur parents worst nightmare if im honest rodrick heffley energy -- adopt him for any plot

- i also really am obsessed with simay barlas who is my mascot rn -- i want to play her in some sort of dark academia setting with like gossip girl blair waldorf energies lu from elite and have her be really mean and cold and pretentious and play the cello and probably have secrets and be uptight idk the name mallory is resonating hard w me ( we could even do a gossip girl the secret history type group if people liked that )

-ok i also really really want to play streak aka silas montgomery who is like very like sidekick best friend to the golden boy main character, does a kick ass goat impression, class clown, relentlessly hits on like the most difficult person in school, does crazy things for laughs and attention, just wants to make people happy, only wears hawaiian shirts, finger guns, is going nowhere in life, his dad is probably the dean at whatever prestigious school also he is very very depressed and drinks often! love u! a I Feel Like Im The Worst So I Always Act Like Im The Best electra heart baby PINTEREST

also yes his hair is pink reg verse he did it on a dare but hp verse he did a potion wrong and it never came out

SOMEONE DO A LADY HANNIBAL WILL GRAHAM RP KILLING EVE RP W ME! i made this will graham adjacent gal for a genderbent hannigram rp her name is bisexual disaster enida johnson and sometimes goes by needy or will bc her middle name is willamena! has basically all the will things wears flannels is a mess but has a bunch of cats instead of dogs in her woods log cabin and im using crystal reed bc it fits perfect in my head idk if u like her hmu hit me w a lady hannibal PINTEREST

other stuff

ok i really want to do a princess and knight plot but with knight zendaya and princess anya taylor joy ???? ALKHALKSHALK LITERALLY HELLO literally modern or like dnd style i do not care but know i love dnd! we could make it like them goin on some skyrim quests like hi

speaking of dnd and skyrim if anyone wants to do like anything based in dnd stuff or skyrim stuff i am DOWN

jennifers body plot!!!! maybe set in college!!!!! sounds spicy i will do a f/f or m/m version leggo leggo

UNTIL DAWN UNTIL DAWN!!!! i wanted to do a little like 6 person or mumu until dawn thing where everyone either makes new characters or characters based on the existing six! i made a girl adjacent josh character named riley PINTEREST who i love very much ( fc might change im thinking maybe medallion rahimi ) pls hmu if ur down

i looooooove breakfast at tiffanys!!!! like i really love breakfast at tiffanys we love a call girl broody author ship and i want to play a mishti rahman holly golightly type character so so bad

pygmalion plot!!! basically like an author and the main character of their book comes to life and the book character is probably from a different period of time or realm so doesnt know how to do modern 2020 stuff like microwaves and the tv! and then maybe they get sucked into the characters book world thats written by the author and have to navigate that! enchanted! w the kdrama! energy!

GOSSIP GIRL PLOT ENERGIES

any sort of the secret history murder society until dawn ahs horror type setting i am on a kick rn

i still really want a deaf sailor and siren plot bc that is so spicy or even like anything involving sirens like maybe one thats like vegetarian and doesnt like to eat humans so it ariel rescues one and keeps it safe!! or like only men are susceptible to the sirens song but aha! i am a woman! Romance!

anything in the realm of percy jackson i love mythology lets go i kind of want a echo narcisuss plot and i want it to hurt me so bad

i will do harry potter stuff but only if its completely removed from the current canon like years in the future no existing families also maybe beauxbatons salem and drumstrang plots bc thats what matters

iiiiiiiii really like anime so i will do anything kakegurui, soul eater, ohshc

i kind of like grew up on the hunger games so i will gladly take any hunger games plots like young effie and haymitch is spicy or like a career tribute and one of the weaker poorer distracts enemies to lovers leggo

i have a kind of oc that had their parents die in a factory gas leak that was the governments fault and it turned them into a vigilante assasin that is slowly picking off bootlicker government people one by one pretending to be one of them until bam! gets attached to the rich asshole son or daughter of the head hauncho or one of the higher ups ... drama

rich little celebrity fussy wussy being held captive by the mafia and the tired stoic mafia guard but they fall in love

i kind of like any plot that involves one person that is really loud or angry or dramatic or whiny and the other one is kind of sweet and gentle or does not talk much idk make brain happy

speaking of!

no nonsense law student studying abroad in a european country and an artist there falls in love w them and is all romantic and gush and is like ur my muse!!! and they are like Go awAy and they explore the city together and themelseves its nice!

i want to be an avan jogia super villain idk why i need to but i do

not to be a disney adult bc i am not but anastasia princesses dont kiss kitchen boys

rival cheer captians? best friends brother? pop princess celebrity singer and like antiestablishment really angry rockstar in a publicity relationship? broody detective and sunshiney diner person that works at the diner they eat at everyday?

idk i will think of more hmu these can all be made f/f or m/m if they arent

#1x1 #1x1 rp #1x1 roleplay #plots #this is so long and messy and weird idk it repeats a lot hit me up im emabrrassed already

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druid-for-hire · 5 years

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UNSWAYED PT. III

(pt i) (pt ii) (pt iii) (you are here) (pt iv) (pt. v) (epilogue) (askblog)

this one’s got some revisions/retcons/refinings and new content. there will be some minor rehashing. this edition is more on the drama eurydice goes through on the path to find orpheus, orpheus’ deterioration in the Beyond, little bit of persephone and even littler bit hermes, finding orpheus, and finally getting to leave

thank you @supercantaloupe, @sonyalone, @unholy-boi, @s-aint-elmo, @ferretteeth for helping author this & help out w ideas and all!! sasha, u esp.

ok.

sits down and rests my old creaking bones in a rocking chair by the hearth and lights a pipe

gather round kids. this one might be a little long

one note:

on the same night that orpheus falls, persephone, when she finally composes herself enough, marches up to hades. the fury is still present in the vitriol with which she speaks. “you can’t have done that,” she says. “you can’t have just thrown him away. he didn’t sign any papers. you can’t make him work.”

“there were no papers,” he agrees, “but prisoners do not get papers.”

ok jumping back to kind-of-present

it’s taking a while to find orpheus. (too much of a while)

in between work and searching for him, both of which already take up so much of her time, eurydice... makes her attempts to craft a new guitar. hades took orpheus’. he’s going to either want it back or want a new one, and right now, she doesn’t think she can manage the first. it’s going to be important to their escape, she thinks, because she isn’t planning on staying in hadestown forever

but she’s not skilled, and making a real, good, balanced guitar is incredibly hard. she’s not trained. it never comes out good enough, never remotely close to a properly tuned instrument, much less the guitar that seemed to fit perfectly around orpheus' hands. and she doesn’t have a lot of time

so as it turns out, stealing back the original is the more feasible option

problem being: it’s a trophy. hades didn’t smash it, but it’s locked away with his other little “victories,” and he’ll notice it missing eventually

(those other trophies are other relics from other daring humans he’s had to deal with in the past. no one has come as close as orpheus)

but she does have more buffer time than usual because it's also a reminder of the martyr and the fact that his marriage is in the shitter so it's been put out of sight (and out of mind), so she's got a few days or more before he'd notice it's gone

as she keeps searching for orpheus, telling her story and getting help and word of her spreading...

eurydice stirs the town as the ladle stirs in the pot; out of all the feelings her story wakes, the most dominant—and most important—is the anger.

and for the first time, somewhere in some could-be-anywhere part of Hadestown, someone says no.

the age-old, unmoving, immovable hadestown, begins to... change. there’s persephone’s crack in the wall, and then there are others, and then they join, and then there’s unrest, and then there’s the threat of riot.

(which i know i already established but shhh im reiterating my point for this:)

unholy-boi: hades was at least formerly hands on enough to give orders, to scrape down new souls, to preach about the wall

now he locks himself in his office, head in his hands, unable to handle the idea that he’s losing control, and every MOMENT he spends locked away he loses control more, but he needs to think, he needs to think, he needs to think--

The fates are at his door, they sing horrible music, things he doesn’t want to hear, lies and twisted truths to manipulate the king. except he’s not being manipulated at all. this is all him, he knows it--this is just him and his paranoia and the workers' rage beginning to boil on his doorstep.

the god is hidden away in his office and hardly lets anyone in. he isolates himself and Persephone barely even visits this winter anyway.

he wonders if the martyr boy really did fail.

(no, he tells himself--he did fail, because his goal was to get him and his lover out, and now both of them are damned here forever. all of this? an unfortunate side effect.)

hades... was very nearly swayed by orpheus, but took his “obligation” to a city (that he’s already lost) over the slightly breaking voice of orpheus, and the rumors. however when he sent orpheus away, things only got worse. but how could he just crawl to pull orpheus back now? would that not be sacrificing his iron will? his grip of steel? how can he turn to go back if he’s already made his decision? moreover- how can he trust bringing orpheus back will fix anything at all?

a lamenting reprise from hades with orpheus’ guitar would be cool. i don’t know if it’d be in character or appropriate to the story but. its been a fun thing ive been tossing between my hands

it probably starts when he accidentally kicks it over--there’s a trophy room, but he hasn’t cleared a space for the guitar yet. he kicks it over, and when it hits the ground the strings hum Menacingly at him

after the song he puts it away--out of sight, out of mind

show them a crack.

and they’ll tear down the wall.

besides the immediate danger orpheus is in and his voice failing being drives to find him as soon as possible, eurydice also has to worry about the fact that persephone won’t be there to help her soon. the hadestown debacle happens on the onset of proper spring

persephone, for once, is grateful that hades keeps her late. it means she can help the lovers. for so many weeks she sends that boy’s voice on a wind straight for Eurydice to keep her going

but later is not never, and to the surface one day she goes, and bitter with the absence of his wife Hades drives them all to work harder

which strains Eurydice for time and energy even more

things are harder when she’s gone, as always—eurydice has less time to track him down, and without persephone’s sing-sing wind, pinpointing him is more difficult.

Hermes is there at the station to greets her when she returns to end the winter

“how is he doing?” “not well.”

“you think they’ll make it?” “i don’t know.”

hermes asks her, “how long?” how long will orpheus last? how long will it take for them to find each other and leave? how long will it take until hades finally snaps? persephone can’t answer any of them

(hermes knows, of course. but he has a role to play)

the summer roars to life on top, but persephone can’t stop thinking about the lovers underground. she knows that orpheus won’t make it through the summer. she sneaks down below for two weeks in june and in that time, a hurricane devastates the surface without her to control it.

the sing-sing wind returns with a straining melody and eurydice wonders. she’s grateful, but she wonders

and... one day it doesn’t. she feels the breeze, but there’s nothing on it.

nothing.

i’ve fucking had enough, eurydice decides. i’m stealing that fucking guitar, hades be damned.

in the sleeping hours of hadestown she sneaks her way up to the palace, dodging searchlights and finding havens, already at an advantage because she’s scoured Hadestown so long and made allies in so many places

and when she makes it up to the palace, the... the guards, the hounds, all of them are... either missing or intoxicated to shit. which is odd, she thinks, but doesn’t question it

she makes it to the trophy room (after a Lot of searching, because she doesn’t have a map)

she walks in and marvels in awe at all the trophies

she wonders about the histories behind all of them

to be honest, she doesnt know that this is where the guitar is, but it’s a pretty good guess (and the right one)

and then there’s a sound at the doorway. eurydice freezes. there’s nowhere for her to hide

she turns, and... it’s persephone in the doorway. persephone, who should not be here.

they lock eyes for a moment, and then she points at a locked case in the back of the room and keeps on walking. whistling loudly. a very “nope, nothing here at all” move

... well, works for her

eurydice breaks off the padlock, gets the guitar, and flees

musing on kampê for unswayed because i really dont want her to just be a two dimensional villain:

- homegirl is bitter. she used to rule the underground. she was the queen of the dark, and every god and titan knew her name, and hades did fear her too.

until. well.

and now she’s practically half-forgotten—a footnote. she hates it. hades and persephone are both her younger and yet they came into her realm, and she was shunted aside to this dismal little hole, and she has to answer to him and she fucking hates it. no mortal up Top or even in hadestown remembers her name. if an old dragon like her has no place out there... if she can’t make herself known in the outside world anymore, then she’ll fucking sear herself into the minds of the people she has, in the only way she knows how

(it should also be noted that homegirl is. unstable. i think kampê sort of violently switches between abhorrently vicious to weirdly sweet and manipulative and anywhere in between depending on the day/time/situation)

(also, she wasn’t always deaf. but being even older than the world, than hades and persephone, things... happen)

also, part of how she keeps everyone here is 1) working them to death and 2) telling them that they’re needed here, and that hadestown is an oasis of stability outside the chaos up Top

orpheus is not doing well.

orpheus forgets.

orpheus wears down.

(orpheus gets sick.)

whoops! That’s An Issue. but still he works, because no one can rest long, and the coal dust and ash and smoke and stifling heat do him zero favors

his focus drifts; he loses track of eurydice, of his songs. the work is first and foremost

you ever get worked so hard and pushed past your physical limit that u get like, spots in your vision and want to throw up? yeah thts orpheus

orpheus doesn’t stop sneaking off every day to the spot at the edge of the Beyond. he doesn’t sing out for help anymore, but... he sits, because he knows that it’s important. this place, where he sang out for a lover he doesn’t remember anymore with songs he no longer has

(cue Flowers but for orpheus, in quiet & faltering breathy lines)

he’s “forgotten a little thing called spring”

kampê still comes after him to drag him back to work. sometimes it’s wordless; sometimes she yanks him to his feet by the straps of his overalls, sometimes all she needs to do is put a hand on his shoulder and he’ll get up and shuffle back into the mines and smokestacks

other times she asks why he’s still doing this, why he’s still out there. other times she tells him that there’s no need to come out here anymore. he shouldn’t have in the first place. out there--it’s no better than here.

the times when she yells--few and far between, because fetching him is hardly much of a chore anymore--he winces, since it’s not like she has the finest grasp on volume control, being deaf

the scene we see is her sing-speaking some fucked up reprise of hey little songbird, beckoning him to come back and taunting him; i didn’t write this one out but i imagine there’s some fun things to be had with the “vipers and vultures” line

and orpheus sing/saying, in this cracked, hoarse voice, “I wanna lie down forever”

he’s. so tired

(also singing his voice, long since shredded, sorta finally collapses in this one and i don’t imagine him having another sung line after that)

the canary in the coal mine isn’t dead yet but he will be

eurydice goes into overdrive after she steals orpheus’ guitar back

(she strums a few notes on it, and it hums warmly of sunlight in her hands. her chest fills with something indescribable. god, she missed this)

she takes more risks. sneaks out farther and strays out farther. skips out on work, keeps cutting close, nearly gets caught more often than she did before

eventually. finally. finally, she finds him, almost unrecognizable in the crowd masses, but she catches him alone

and she calls out to him, her arm outstretched, “come home with me.”

so i’m going w the “recognize her right away one” and following what i wrote in the first post

BUT: the callback to “come home with me i” with orpheus’ forgetting in “come home with me” “who are you?” is Too Fucking Good and I ended up writing my own lyrics to a “Come Home With Me III”

i’ll post it somewhere. i’d link the google drive link here directly but then tumblr would nerf this post off of the hadestown tag.

you can play off of that if you want, toy around with it as a sort of small canon divergence to this au, but for the main one i’m rolling with what i already did in the first post... it’s unfinished btw there’s this small section i’m stuck on but i didn’t wanna delay this post anymore for something so minor

eurydice sees how much the beyond has ground him into the dirt—his eyes are sagging and half-lidded, dulled and shadowed and barely focused on her, miserable but too exhausted to feel

she sees this plenty in the ver. w/ Come Home With Me III before he remembers her, and for a moment in the other version before his eyes light up with recognition and suddenly it’s like some of the soot has sloughed off of him with the way his whole face lights up

also she shoves his guitar at him and he’s !!

it’s. horribly out of tune though. he’s tuning it while they talk a little

but either way: the steam whistle blows, the signal to get back to work, and orpheus is immediately lowkey fearful and trying to get back before kampê catches them

eurydie is completely “oh hell to the fuck no i JUST got you back after MONTHS of searching you are NOT leaving”

orpheus is just afraid of what kampê’ll do if she sees them together, he doesn’t plan on leaving her -- he doesn’t hand her back the guitar, after all

again, kampê isn’t the most stable

then uhhh Whoops they spend too long there and she catches them, a la Papers

cue panic

cue tousling w/ eurydice and somehow getting kampê still enough (probably w pinning) to try and listen to Orpheus and she's just waiting to kick his ass because no music is ever gonna sway her, boy

(the dogs get placated by a few chords plucked out)

he can't sing, but he plays

and the other workers listen, and are moved

they are moved by eurydice's act of coming here after him

by listening to orpheus sing of love

by listening to orpheus forget, and deteriorate

by having spent months listen to their love last and finally succeed with eurydice's arrival, this stalwart notion of hope

they didn’t ignore it. everybody knows the walls have ears

and they join by accompanying orpheus' song with the heavy metal sounds of the factories

they stomp, they clang, they turn grinding gears that crash and pound, in synchrony

(where the little wheel squeals and the big wheel groans)

it’s a percussive song that they make

more than a simple tune, a steady beat, more than just the music of machinery

it shakes the entire Beyond with the force of the determination of a thousand weary souls, of the hopeless regaining hope for the first time in centuries

Forced through the percussive force of the entire Beyond, implicit in its rhythm and shake, is the old song. all of this old and rusted metal, all of this harsh machinery, all of it singularly resonant in the notion of la, la la la, la la la

kampê feels it all through her feet and it rumbles in her chest, it shakes her to her very core and rattles her down to her bones, twists in her gut and forces in her fear and awe, and awe and wonder, and... something else

eurydice feels her loosen under her grip and backs off from pinning her and she still doesn’t move

at some point she lurches forward with her fist raised--orpheus doesn’t stop playing but he does shut his eyes, thinking oh god this is it, and eurydice rushes forward to pull her back

but she just... punches her fist into the ground by his feet

she feels everything not only through her feet but up her arm, more directly to her chest, to her heart, to her head

at last, swayed, feeling far more of something other than fear or anxiety or anger than she ever has in a long time...

she lets them all go

ok ngl there’s some blank spots here. i’m blanking here. idk how to transition

but

it's an entire exodus out from this tiny secluded part of Hadestown

The Great Beyond empties itself out and Kampê is left behind

the move is headed by Orpheus & Eurydice and the mood is very similar to the exodus from Egypt by the jewish folk in the movie Prince of Egypt

including the dark lighting, teal against the warm orange-yellow of their torches (lamps in this case), the wind, the craggy rock, everyone together, overall just the general tone

so during this walk from the Beyond to central hadestown with orpheus & eurydice more or less alone at the front is when Promises happens

it’s. a hell of a lot sadder here, but also a lot softer and more tender

orpheus’ lines are spoken like with Come Home With Me I / II coz he ain’t singin’ anymore. he can’t

and that’s the thing, he can’t sing anymore.

all those things he said in wedding song, all his promises--that his voice would convince the world to give them everything they need

orpheus... doesn't have that anymore, or at least not nearly as strong, or traditionally lovely as it used to be

his voice was cut into pieces from the nasty shit air in the places he was sent to work

all he has is his guitar, and while he’s good at it, his real strength is in his poetry--it’s his voice and his words that makes the rivers and the trees and birds sing along

the people of the Beyond may have been inspired to percussion by his guitar, but they were more swayed by the notion of their love that was built up over the past few months ever since he got banished

so like. to walk with eurydice and be by her side for as long as he lives, is really all he can really promise her at that point anyway

it's not even that he doesn't have anything and broke the promise that he’d sing them all they needed. he can’t even do that anymore

the voice that charmed her, that said he’d provide for her, is gone

would she love him now, he wonders, if the great poet can no longer sing

and many thanks to @sonyalone for contributing this:

he offers his devotion to her. the only thing he has that’s worth anything, the only thing he can do. and when he does hes so afraid that he'll see in her eyes the understanding disappointment, the pity and "i suppose so" that he fears, but he finally raises his head and he cries because her eyes are shining with joy and love and hope. thats all she ever wanted from him. she just wants to be with him, voice or no, amenities or no, and hes never felt so loved

he weeps, and she weeps--from grief and relief and love--and they hold each other close

sheltering under each other

and they have never been more secure in their love

he walked the whole length of the railroad into hell for her, he survived in the pit for her, she scoured the underworld for him, she came for him and she's keeping him

and the return of all these workers startles everyone in central hadestown and a lot of the work gets stalled out

which, of course, draws hades’ attention.

tune in next time for more on this shit ✌️

(pt i) (pt ii) (pt iii) (you are here) (pt iv) (pt. v) (epilogue) (askblog)

#hadestown #hadestown au #hadestown fanart #unswayed au #hadestown musical #my art #my work #look i KNOW the guitar is too small but also I don't care #edit 6/26/19: forgot to include some stuff re: the face-off with Kampe and Promises

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hey-hamlet · 5 years

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BNHA AU Ideas: Lab-brat

also on AO3

TL;DR:

Age 7, Izuku is taken from the family he knows to become a human labrat for the league of villains.

Age 13, he escapes.

izuku is a lil quirkless kid, born to an absent dad and a really great mum

like hisashi? he vanished when it came out izuku was quirkless. little did they know, he was actually trying to do right by them by doing that

because when izuku turns 6 hisashi's boss finds out about his quirkless son. dr tsubasa has new nomu fodder

hisashi tries to stop them but he doesnt want his son to suffer this alone if they kill him, so he gives in, they take izuku on his 7th birthday. bakugo is angry because no one will tell him what happened to izuku, because no one knows. inko moves in with the bakugos

now, they've never made a nomu from a quirkless kid before, but afo has given quirks to quirkless people before, and they didn't have any negative effects, which he's interested in. so they ask izuku if hed like a quirk and izuku says yes please! because he doesnt know hes been kidnapped, because his dad is there

afo is honestly just very interested in where this is going, he doesnt ever expect to really use izuku as a nomu, more a lab rat than anything. plus, the kid is cute and plays well with tomura so he might be useful

he asks izuku what type of quirk he'd like and izuku rambles about quirks for a little bit happily and tsubasa is Very Interested because if, like he thinks, the extra quirks dont break this kid's brain, hes going to have one very helpful labrat

also yes in this au shigiraki calls him "lab-brat"

so izuku eventually comes to the end of his quirk ramble and says "something minor but that can be used creatively"

so afo gives him a hardening quirk that can be used on a meter square of skin at a time

afo tells him it might hurt a bit but izuku says hes brave! so he takes it without crying and afo tells him hes very strong

izuku asks when hes going to see his mum. afo smiles and hisashi has a bad feeling

"your mum didn't want you anymore, she asked your dad to take care of you because he didn't like that you were quirkless. i didn't think that was fair so i told your father he could bring you to stay here."

and izuku is upset but his mum was never very supportive of him,,, she was nice? but other than that she just kinda exsisted. afo tells him its ok, sometime people are very mean without meaning to be and izuku is allowed to stay with dr tsubasa and his father so izuku cheers up a little

the doctor says hes going to work as his lab assistant as homeschooling and izuku is very excited to study quirks!! hisashi feels kinda bad bc he didn't want his son to be a villain but he's in awe of afo's ability to lie his actual ass off and his son is happy now so it's all good

basically: they know izuku has a hero complex a mile wide, so instead of breaking him, they play into it

anyway, extra quirks don't seem to degrade his mental function, afo tells izuku his quirks are from villains, trades and donations,,, which,,, he's not really lying ab that

izuku is priceless as a living growing experiment so they are very kind to him and pretty fond of him, he ends up getting a lot of healing quirks to compliment his role as lab-brat/nurse

so he has a much less powerful rewind quirk than eri, its like only 3 times normal speed in reverse, activated by choice

he has a pyrokinesis quirk (he got it for his birthday, he wanted to match his dad)

a feathered wing quirk (requested by dr tsubasa bc it would he "practical" (aka dude has issues))

he no longer has the hardening quirk, it went to an "employee"

also has a night vision quirk, a disinfection quirk, a jump quirk and a mild resistance quirk

most of the quirks he has a helpful ones, but ones that couldn't be used on nomu bc they needed an actual strategy to use. he had an emitter with mind mutation qualities at one point? so hes kinda a mismatch of a fluffy, glowing, lanky green child

v e r y smart, also very pale! because he's been outside very rarely

hes been told hes doing contract work for the heroics commission

so he does quirk testing (hes given the quirk for a bit and mucks around with it, then gives it back) and analysis

hes always thought something was wrong? because his big brother tomura hates heroes and ways always upset, his dad and tsubasa looked sad sometimes and sensei got hurt really badly one day and he had to help fix him

(he almost threw up bc afo had n o f a c e and izuku had to touch him, tsubasa couldn't convince izuku afo was alive until he had his eyes back)

and bc izuku is a soft boy he just wants to save them! so age 13 he goes to the part of the lab hes not allowed to bc its too "dangerous"

and

its filled

with what once

were people

he runs

afo isnt surpirsed exactly, he was expecting this and had a tracker implanted in the kid. but he thinks this could be interesting, new data to collect. the chip can read his vitals/location etc. so they dont need him by their side to collect data on him

so he just tells tsubasa and hisashi to let him go, afo will collect him if he gets too hurt. shigiraki is sad bc his mariokart buddy is gone but the labbrat with be back soon, because heroes are terrible

so they move the lab just incase, but dont really expect izuku to sell them out

so izuku is on his own in a city he doesnt know

hes not treated very well by strangers because hes very "mutant" looking, and has no money to his name. he doesnt trust police, he doesnt trust most heroes

a lot of the heroes he did analysis on turned out to be shady at best and hes nervous they'll throw him back to sensei

then he remembers nezu

nezu was a labrat, just like him.

and he thinks he might have a hope

so izuku knows the heroes that work at UA

he knows they are all good people too. heroics teaching pays well, but not as well as patrolling can, so they must value the kids over fame. however, he also knows rocking up in front of them asking to see nezu is a terrible idea

but its the only one he has

so, before he does all this he gets nezu's email and explains that he needs to talk to him, knowing nezu wont respond but at least he'll know of izuku if this stupid idea works, so he becomes a hero chaser

mics fight? shows up, heals mic and tells him he needs to talk to nezu then he runs away bc the police are coming

midnight? blocks a knife with his wing and heals her wounds, telling her he really needs to talk to nezu

aizawa? finds him bleeding in an alley and sits with him for an hour while he heals his wounds, tells him he really needs to talk to nezu

so at this point, nezu is very intrigued mostly because mic, midnight and aizawa have no idea what this kid's quirk is, and they have described him as looking different each time

so when the alarm goes off at UA before school starts hes not particularly alarmed, and he asks everyone to wait before responding

hes rewarded when he sees a sheepish izuku knocking on his window

anyway, izuku isnt doing too hot. in fact, afo was a few days away from picking him up because he was starving, cold and in pain

nezu opens the window and the first thing out of izuku’s mouth is "i was a labrat too" and nezu is Very Very Interested

izuku spills all he can and its clear to nezu that even though izuku thinks hes been treated well? he hasn't been

so nezu asks izuku if he has anywhere to go. which he doesnt, because his mum "gave him away" nezu asks if he'd be ok if he stayed with some of the teachers and izuku says "no i dont want to be a bother, ill find somewhere!" and aizawa walks in and says "lol nope come with me"

so hes just turned 14 fyi, aizawa is teaching some 3rd years and after they graduate hes getting a new class of first years (which hes going to expell all of them.)

so anyway, izuku tells them ab his quirks and nezu has a bad feeling so he calls all might and allmight has the worst feeling bc fuck its afo the bastard isn’t dead

#bnha au #labbrat au #midoriya izuku #principal nezu #izuku #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #AFO #hisashi midoriya #shigaraki tomura #dr tsubasa #midoriya #yamada hizashi #present mic

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veliseraptor · 5 years

Note

okay first of all im so glad you're talking about your ex-villain project!! i have been thinking about it for like a really long time & kind of wanted to ask about it but i was too nervous. if you ever publish it i will definitely read it, this is 100% my jam & i would die for all of your ocs. for the ask meme (it was REALLY hard to narrow down so you dont have to answer all if you don't want to) could we have 11, 16, 19, 26, 32, & 35 for all?

Friend, I will always love to talk about this project, it’s exciting and definitely easier than, you know, actually writing it. My OCs would definitely not die for you, I am afraid, except for maybe Yazdan. He might do it under the right circumstances. Nobody else, though.

Putting this under a cut because it got long…

How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?

Kazem: Oh, Kazem thinks he’s hot stuff. He’s prone to thinking he’s the smartest person in the room, which, unfortunately, he often is - at least in terms of knowledge and cleverness. And he knows this about himself, and is distinctly proud of it. He’s not so great on the common sense front, though.

Israt: She doesn’t necessarily see herself as intelligent - it’s not a part of her personality self-definition, anyway. She’s smart enough, as far as she’s concerned, but it’s not a defining characteristic, for her.

Yazdan: I’ve talked a little about how he struggles with seeing himself as uneducated, and how he’s very self-conscious about that. He’s smart enough but he doesn’t think of himself as particularly intelligent.

Jaleh: She’s fought hard for her education, and she thinks of herself as certainly clever, though she’s aware of the holes in her education. But she’s fairly confident in her intelligence just the same. It’s not the thing she values most about herself, though.

What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?

Kazem: Right now? Not much. It’s not like he has a lot of options for gainful employment. Yazdan is basically his sponsor helping keep him alive, though he keeps pushing Kazem to look for something to do, which he isn’t.

He’s not happy with it. He’s bored, and miserable, but he doesn’t really see a way out of it, either, when most people would hardly want to hire him (and might just want to kill him). Also, feeling sorry for himself is a full time job.

Israt: I referred to this in another ask, but she’s an Outrider who makes her living scouting the borders of the empire - not actively a soldier, but more of a scout and skirmisher. She deals a lot with the reality of the tension along the borders, particularly the western border with the Rome expy.

She likes it, more or less. It keeps her away from her home and family, it requires more work from her body than her brain so she can disengage from thinking too much, it takes her to interesting places, and there’s a certain glamour that lets her pick up most people she wants to. And she appreciates not having to stay in any place very long.

Yazdan: Professional heroism, more or less. Well, technically he’s in the employ of the empress (again, more or less), and there is an element of the spy to what he does, but mostly he puts out brush fires and is a demonstration of power to their neighbors.

He’s not totally pleased with this situation - it makes him feel a little dirty and used, sometimes. But he also feels like it’s what he needs to be doing, because someone does, and he’s the only person who seems willing to volunteer - especially after his role in Kazem’s fall raised his profile astronomically.

Jaleh: This is another “I could tell you but she’d have to kill you” question.

What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now?

Kazem: Kazem’s older brother was pretty horrifically abusive, his parents did nothing about it, and at a relatively young age Kazem ended up killing him.

That’s…not the source of all his issues, necessarily, but it did found a lot of disillusionment with people in general, how they behave, and the prospects for people looking after him - it very much developed for him a sense of “I have to take care of myself because no one else is going to do it.” And the drive to accumulate as much power as possible so he’s never that vulnerable again.

Israt: Her sister’s death was a big one. Prior to that, Israt had a fair amount of freedom, or at least decided she did (her family didn’t appreciate it, but she still took it). After that…the world was a lot less safe, a lot less sure, and she had a lot more responsibility and a lot less belief in the fairness and justice of the universe. That’s kind of her breaking point when “minor disaster human” became “major disaster human.”

Yazdan: This is one where I don’t actually feel like I can answer it because of spoilers, but I can say that he feels like a fraud a lot of the time - in some ways his deepest disillusionment is in himself.

Jaleh: I also can’t say much here because of spoilers, but she had a hard life growing up and doesn’t expect much from other people - much help, much love, much affection. She’s very self-sufficient and her view of the world is pretty bleak. She thinks most people are fundamentally hypocrites who are just out for their own gain.

She’s very “every person for themselves,” which contributes a lot to her ruthlessness.

What does your character’s home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance?

I have the fancast here for appearance. When it comes to home…Kazem and Israt both don’t have a permanent one, and Jaleh’s is another one that I don’t want to answer in detail. Yazdan is also relatively itinerant, though he does technically have his own home adjacent to the palace. He doesn’t spend a lot of time there, though, as a rule, because he’s kind of uncomfortable with it.

How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively?

Kazem: By turns either aggressively or with despair. When Kazem is stressed it’s either “take it out on everyone else” or “turn it inward and depression retreat away from the world.” There’s really not much of a middle ground. At least, that’s how it goes when he can’t control the stressful situation - if he can figure out how to white-knuckle control it and turn it to his advantage somehow then that’s fine.

Israt: Israt prefers to avoid stressful situations overall, though she’s really in the wrong job for it, and she actually is pretty good at crisis management - better than she gives herself credit for. She has a pretty level head when things go to shit around her. It’s when things are fine that she starts running into trouble.

Yazdan: Also tends to handle stress fairly well, because he needs to a lot of the time. It’s also why he spends a lot of time tired, though. (Tired and not showing it.) He is in a nearly constant state of low-key anxiety, though, which is maybe why he can “handle” it - he’s just sort of used to that being a state of being.

Jaleh: Thrives under stress. Adrenaline just gets her mind going, and when other people are buckling she takes a substantial amount of pride in her ability to knuckle down and keep going. Pressure just makes her better at whatever she’s doing. And she’s a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, in her own way.

Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures?

Kazem: Poorly. Kazem is a perfectionist, and his ability to “roll with the punches” is roughly nil. He flips out about it every time, and doesn’t cope well with sudden changes in plan. He tends to both blame himself for not doing everything right and also everyone else in the vicinity for getting in the way. He is both the only competent person in the room and also solely responsible for things going wrong.

Kazem has, as you may have gathered, Issues.

Israt: She doesn’t rationalize errors - she just expects them. And tends to just let them happen and then move on by them while pretending they don’t bother her. It’s not that they don’t bother her, she’s just kind of “well, shit happens, the world is nasty and things go wrong all the time, so…” and keep on moving.

That’s her solution in most cases. Keep moving - the problems come when you stop.

Yazdan: Also poorly, though a little better than Kazem, and he tends to hold himself solely responsible. He doesn’t collapse in the same way, though - he’s more inclined to double down and try harder, though not always by actually changing course so much as just “well if I did this same thing but better it would have worked.”

Jaleh: Probably handles them the best of the four of them - though she tends to blame other people for her mistakes a lot. Also has the “I’m the only competent one in the room” thing, but that just means that when things go wrong it’s not her fault. She does adjust course more easily, though, and is more flexible about changing plans or accounting for the unexpected and adapting for it.

#anonymous #conversating #the ex villain project #sometimes i write things

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luminous777 · 6 years

Text

Introducing a Major Character Mid-show: Oscar Pine vs Maria Calavera

So before you keep reading know this know some of what I am about to say might make some of you angry. This post is how I feel new characters should be introduced to a major cast after a significant amount of time has passed when the major cast has been viewed as whole for a good deal of time, in this case adding Oscar and Maria into the RWBYJNR + Q gang.

I am going to be separating this into categories based on characteristics I feel are important when introducing new characters as best I can and how Oscar and Maria fall into them. Note due to nature of some categories they may mix together as to not repeat certain things.

Unique Character Traits

A character should have major traits about identity clearly defined and different than other characters in the existing group. Otherwise a feeling of "we have you already" or "really we are doing this again

Oscar: One of my big issues with Oscar comes from this. Oscar is a big mash up of Ruby and Jaune's early characters. Socially awkward being basic. One from Ruby being a person younger than everyone else being put into the fray because they possess a special unique ability, bonus points because it was Ozpin that put them into it. Jaune his weapon isn't a fancy mechshift weapon that is fancy but rather an old one passed down from one person to another. Here is a big combo one: Oscar had dreams of being more than a farm hand from there he went onto go fight Grimm and villains despite not knowing aura, semblances, and he had zero combat experience, however, (due to his special power) he was basically a prodigy and he learned skills extremely fast enough to take on Leo, who was a headmaster with barely a month of training.Maybe the idea that Oscar has no identity of his own is on purpose because of the whole he is slowly being lobotomized thing but who knows.

Maria is a sassy Grandma, she is old admits it but she doesn't take shit from anyone and can command control of a situation. One could make an argument that she is a mash up of characters, Qrow and Nora or Qrow and Yang but at the same time she is very different. She is a broken Ace she was the best there was but she lost her eyes and her confidence and gave up, and now she is old and even if she wanted to be active she can’t, more on that later. She is funny light hearted character like Nora but in a completely different way one is goofy and silly the other is snarky and sassy. While the sass and snark could be similar to Yang along with broken Ace they are a flipped coin in the broken Ace way, Maria said so herself. They both lost the source of their power eyes and fist, but Yang didn’t give up where Maria did.

Role

In a similar vain of “we have you already” a character should have pseudo unique role or purpose that doesn’t step on the toes of another character.

Maria has a perfect unique role that no one else does and in reality they couldn’t do in a better way, Ruby’s silver eyes teacher. She was someone with silver eyes but doesn’t have them anymore. However she still knows how to use them. Maria is old and partially blind she will not be in any battles in the future taking the spotlight of the RWBYJNR gang we have known for so long and want to see how their powers, techniques and specialties have grow. Examples are Weiss’s summoning, Yang’s fighting without relying on her semblance as a crutch, Jaune’s new semblance and his and Ruby’s strategies and tactics have improved since the beginning. She has no active role in Grimm fighting but she does have a vast wealth of knowledge on their abilities, she knew what the apathy were, what they did and how dangerous they could be but she didn’t whip out fighting techniques to beat them no she wanted to warn the girls and then she taught Ruby how to use her powers. She is inactive in combat but is a wealth of knowledge

Then there is Oscar who at this point like in a fan letter to Bryan Cranston a line read “i don’t know what your role will be”. At this point all he has served as is an Ozpin delivery system. But now that Oz is having a pity party and running away from confrontation. Oscar has shown no signs of being able to access the Osma collective conscious, I thought he did at the end of vol 6 and hoping that would help his character but no it was just Ozpin telling him what to do. The idea of put him in a team with JNR is weak and pointless because 2 reasons. 1 why do they need teams the entire gang is working as a larger unit not two separate teams so having a RWBY JNPR at this point makes no sense.

Focus and Development

In a show or any work characters need to develop and grow and they to share focus to show this, minor hot take Blake has had far too much of this at this point and now that Adam is dead lets take the spot light off her for awhile. Now we have a large cast so they need to share focus and share development time and evolve their characters. Weiss has already grow from stuck up tsundere elitist to down to earth kind girl but the climax of her arc is just about to come.

Oscar is a character you would see in the beginning of a show but introduced late game. Every other character has grown in some way and had some focus on who they were or their past. Oscar’s past was actually Osma’s past not his own. The only way I see with his current character from his dialogue is him accepting that he is going to be Osma and admittedly that could be cool if done right, but I know thats not what Oscar fans want.

Maria won’t develop, she is old an her role is teacher, she isn’t going to change and evolve heck her “development if you want to call it that is deciding to help teach Ruby and the new generation as best she can.

So these are my thoughts Maria was a far better done late game character introduction than the farmboy. My opinions may differ from yours butI feel my points are very valid in both the praise and criticisms department. One last bit don’t pull the “potential” BS on this post because guess what just as much as good potential he could have it could be shitty potential too or even wasted potential so please none of that

#rwby #ruby rose #weiss schnee #Blake Belladonna #yang xiao long #Jaune Arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #maria calavera #Oscar Pine #qrow branwen #character study

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tumblunni · 6 years

Text

okay to talk about EXACTLY HOW i would handle giving charon a big good boss fight and also sympathetic backstory and redemption and all that jazz

there are approximately ten million words beneath the cut, and also ten million raspberries in my shampoo, and these charon thoughts are just as sweet as that

alright so ALREADY i kinda did feel like he was sort of a friendly enemy when i first played the game?? like his Thing of being the constantly never fightable dude actually was kind of sympathetic in a way. it always just felt like he was Chilling Out and not giving much of a shit about being evil and also had nothing personal against you the player. he doesnt follow any of cyrus’s big philosophy and he’s clearly only here for the money and really phoning it in, and that kinda makes him not your enemy at all, even though he’s on the team youre fighting. Like I always found it a good establishing moment that in the Valley Windworks when they first introduce “hey this time there’s two galactic teammates here” and all, CHARON IS STANDING DIRECTLY IN EYELINE OF YOU RUINING EVERYONE’S PLANS. he’s just standing there! and of course he’ll never do anything to warn mars about you, the game just isnt programmed that way. but it fits really well with his character if you think of it as an intentional thing? just imagine this random gramps sitting there drinking tea while all his teammates actually Care About Things and Use Effort. He’s always criticizing team galactic’s plan too and like WHY IS HE DOING THAT TO YOU if not because Nintendo Wants Him To Be My Best Friend ok. Like he doesn’t fuckin trust anyone on his team so why would he spill the beans about his big secret plans he has to make money off of this villain plan and then bail before they actually do all the dumb shit with legendaries and such. Yes ok its PROBABLY just because its a videogame and they need to exposit stuff to the player that the character is probably just thinking and not saying out loud. But wouldnt it be so much better this way!!!! Also even when you finally face off against him personally in the postgame for his actual dumb money plan he’s still like ‘lol fourth wall breaking time im gonna not have a boss battle cos if you beat cyrus’s ass i aint got no chance’. Dammit nintend i still wanted to fight him but thats endearing so i cant stay mad at u! And he has several lines during it with stuff like “i like seeing children trying so hard BUT YOURE TOO LATE” and “youth like you can live in idealism but for me its all about the money”. Like man u remember that time i had a big angry rant about how his manga version was super OOC cos they didnt just choose to make him eviler but made him murder a child? like the only time anything involving children is mentioned in canon its him being mildly more polite to children!!! MILDLY FRIENDLY! LET ME HAVE THIS...

okay so YEAH the first big change would be just giving him more screentime and more fleshed out character in these early scenes. Make him a full on friendly character who is technically on the opposite side but has no beef with you and no loyalty to the greater plan of his team. So he’s just comically like “oh hi again! yeah lol today’s plan sucks huh?” and makes idle conversation while the main character villain admin of the day is actually doing important plot stuff. like have him along for everyone’s scenes not just mars at the start, dissappear for hours until the very end. And yes definately keep the thing of the game constantly lampshading that he’s a new character for the third version of the game, and everyone in the team thinks he’s useless and forgets he’s even there. it was annoying in the original game cos he actually didnt get any love from the writers themselves, but yknow you could give him an expanded role and rewrite that stuff to be more like “oh poor guy he’s the underdog”, yknow? am i the only one who felt inherantly sorry for him?? i mean he’s a tiny grandpa!!! and he looks so sad on his official art!! Oh oh and also add the additional running jokes and expanded characterization he had in his very brief anime appearance, which was honestly the only well written part of the entire team galactic arc. It fleshed out a bit of his relationship with jupiter who never really appeared alongside him in the game except to say “im not teaming up with you” at the end. Having the context that she finds him annoying cos she’s very serious and also very dedicated to cyrus so she hates this opportunistic bastard pretending to be dedicated when its an obvious lie. And also she thinks his laugh is obnoxious XD Oh also I liked how they expanded upon that one scene of Saturn being sarcastic at gramps and made it into an actual thing that him and charon most often work together and have a mutually sassy dynamic. I found it humanizing that anime saturn is very serious but can comically overreact to very minor teasing from this grandpa! I thought that was better than the games where he’s just serious or the manga where he was 100% changed to be 100% silly and kinda stole charon’s personality for reasons i will never understand.

ANYWAY! IN SUMMARY! show scenes of charon being endearing by being not really interested in the big evilness, being underdog-y by always failing at his smaller evilnesses and getting disrespected, and also maybe drop in some more interpersonal relationships between the admins to hint that charon does indeed have some friendship going on even if he’s a tsundere bitch who’d never admit it. Also maybe the other thing from the anime where they made him a cool computer guy? cos srsly it was lazy that the games just said “he’s the science” and never clarified wtf he actually does at his job. cos cyrus is already a science boss??? he kinda already did most of the big sciencey plans?? why does he need this man if its not for mechanical or legendary pokemon stuff OK HEY MAYBE COMPUTERS! also its funny to imagine him being a memey blogger but sun and moon actually made faba canonically that so i dont think you could improve on him. TAKE NOTES FROM BEAN MAN, NINTENDO

Also maybe you could hint at the rotom backstory before it actually happens? like could just show some mild implications that he is sad, cos the ‘friendly enemy’ thing would already be decent foreshadowing for him potentially having a soft spot. “Wah i am an emotionless evil money man” says local villain, while gossipping with Dawn about his coworkers and sharing lemon squares. But like I mean i don’t really want him to be LITERALLY that, i still like him being grumpy and guarded about his secret good heart. I’m just saying “friendly” as in.. sort of a disconnect between what he says his personality is and how he actually acts. The stuff he actually says is very grumpy but like.. hey he’s saying stuff to you when he doesnt need to, and nobody else on this team is casually talking to you as if youre not an enemy. Like he’s SUBCONCIOUSLY friendly and doesnt realise it? He’d never SAY “i am lonely hello please talk to me” but he’d sure as hell walk over to you and talk to you anyway. About grumpy things! Grumpily! And maybe express occasional compliments in a sort of “haha im surrounded by idiots you’re way more down to earth than all these adults who act more like children”. Cos in that fourth wall breaking moment he has, he respects that you’re a badass and decides thats why he’s not gonna have a boss fight. “You’d just kick my ass, so lol fight these grunts instead while i run away and do my evil plan” That is the kind of sympathetic charon i want!! He’s doing a douchey thing by breaking the script of how boss battles work and making everyone else fight you instead even though he knows that they’ll lose. But he’s also likeable because breaking the script of boss battles is unexpected and comedic! And he’s also accidentally being complimentary to you so its like SIMULTANEOUS JERK AND NICE AT THE SAME TIME. Thats the good stuff!! That quality grumplegramp content!!! if he got redeemed and just 100% changed his personality to lose all the sass and sneakyness then that’d be boring yo...

OKAY WHERE WAS I? Okay hey once you’ve established that, maybe now you have a basis for the sad foreshadowing!! Like you could have one scene where he’s suddenly NOT friendly, he’s not just grumpy in the funny sort of way but actually seems cold and stoic and actually does something useful to the team’s mission or whatever. Sort of a ‘whoa what’s wrong with him today’ thing and it could be subtle cos on the first playthrough you’d just think he was being a jerk cos he’s a jerk and all. but maybe it happens on a scene of team galactic doing some evil plan in eterna forest/other place that’d potentially relate to the rotom sidequest. like he’s just really fuckin depressed to be reminded of his one big failure in life. OH maybe it could actually be at the unnamed junkyard thats mentioned in his backstory but doesnt actually feature as an area in the original game? It could make sense that it’d be part of their plan cos team galactic attacks various energy sources and other technology related places to find the stuff they need to make the big world erasure machine. could just be simply them robbing some old generator parts after their attempt to take the whole power plant failed.

Oh and also maybe add a lil something to his last scene at the galactic lab? Cos like.. what we already have in the game has potential to be a moment where he did a good thing but no its not. Like when you look at it, hey he kinda helped you out here by being all “hey lol saturn the kid is here, bye im not stopping u, feel free to take the lake trio”. Even if saturn is the one who actually SAID feel free to take the lake trio and actually had a good hint at redemptiveness moment and all. Please never take that away, that was good, you just coulda had both of them do it, yknow? And we dont wanna make charon go full good guy all of a sudden when he hasnt even finished his characetr arc, so instead make it more of a moment where its like “im a bad guy but this is going too far”. Like maybe ACTUALLY HAVE A PAYOFF for the foreshadowing that he has no loyalty to cyrus and is blatantly plotting to betray him at some point. He never actually did!! He only tries to capitalize on cyrus already being defeated in an entirely optional sidequest that fails at delivering a proper payoff.

So hey! My idea! Add some complexity here by making it clear that charon is evil in a more petty and mundane way and not in a.. like.. actually dangerous way. Once things start getting actually dangerous he starts chickening out! Like he’s a jerk who does mean things to get money but he’s just MEAN and not friggin murderous or worldending. Give him a moment of “oh shit cyrus was actually serious oh god how do i get off of this train”. Like it seemed that he never really believed that team galactic would ever truly create a new world, and he certainly didnt give a shit about it, he just thought he found an easy opportunity for a paycheck in some dumbass’s deluded plan that’d never really work. But OOPS i guess it actually is happening, oh fuck! Give him a bit of a crisis where he realizes what he actually helped this man do, but not like a full on “everything ive ever done is bad and i dont wanna be evil anymore”. Not YET! Just friggin.. “oh fuck i cant spend money if the universe doesnt exist and also i am dead”. “PLEASE HELP ME CHILD, CYRUS IS GONNA TAKE AWAY THE MONEY!!” xD It’d be fitting for his character and a good light moment of comic relief after the emotional and dark stuff happening around this section of the game. Like he already kinda does that by having that scene of saturn snarking at him, but it could be even more funny! Move the first him and saturn bickering scene to earlier on and have this be like a satisfying scene of saturn actually winning? cos in the anime it was always charon being smug and making fun of him while saturn gets all grumpy about it, now it could be the reverse with smug charon having a breakdown and realising his whole money plan is in shambles and its his own fault.

Also maybe it could have additional payoff with Charon actually helping you take down cyrus? Again, not actually because he’s switched sides but because he's still evil but evil for different reasons than cyrus. That good ‘reluctant teamup with minor goofy villain to take down big actually scary villain’ thing. With the added bonus that the minor goofy villain is objectively a worse person than the scary villain and the scary villain is still redeemable, as opposed to in the manga where they used this same trope in the form of “cyrus is good now and we’re making charon the big scary villain to prove how good cyrus is cos charon is worse”. That was dumb. It was especially dumb cos WHY ON EARTH would you pick charon for this??? like they still had moments of him being comedic and wimpy yet at the same time wanted us to believe he was legitimately threatening? ANYWAY my idea for this is that charon’s computer skills could pay off and it could be something like “oh i always put a failsafe kill switch in my computer just in case i need to grab the money and run”. Like him being a paranoid untrusting selfish asshole was actually the reason he was able to save the day! Also it would explain why cyrus’s machine only fails and summons giratina in platinum version. the manga actually did say that charon sabotaged the machine so thats one actually good thing that came from it! Congrats u filled one plothole while making twenty more XD

OH and perhaps this same section could also foreshadow the rotom thing? like I was thinking about how he could actually choose to give up and let you take the lake trio and have it still be 100% in character. It could be an extension of his “shit, i didnt think things would get this serious, please save me from the consequences of my own actions!” moment. Cos I think that any normal dumb greedy money man would still be horrified at the idea of mutilating a thousand year old majestic unicorn of mythology and then flushing it down the toilet when it outlives its uselessness. Like he doesnt do it because he wants to help you save the day or anything, just cos the idea of killing the lake trio is just too evil for even him. It could be kind of a meaningful moment about how cyrus is doing all this for good reasons yet they caused him to do these actions that are even more evil than the actual dude with evil motives. And maybe you could establish this through a scene of him and cyrus inetracting, which could also help amp up how intimidating cyrus is, in preparation for the big climax? Have charon trying to wimp out of “disposing of the useless specimens”, but cyrus is having none of it. Like it could start off funny with him making up loads of other excuses cos there’s no way he’d admit he’s having Feelings and all. “Wait but let me have them! if theyre useless to you then i can just sell them right?? ha ha thats the only reason im saying this, lol you know me i’d never be swayed by any sentiment” But cyrus sees through it instantly and gets right up in his face like fuckin Raw Cold Fury, no you are NOT going to disobey me. He is PISSED OFF because the only reason he kept this useless senile old bat around is because he’s the only one in this group who isn’t a simpering moron at the mercy of their pitiful heart. If you can’t even do that, then what’s the use of you? So everything charon tries fails and all he accomplishes is getting fired on the spot for even TALKING ABOUT defying his boss. And cyrus just orders saturn to dispose of the lake trio instead. Saturn of course is smarter and says nothing in defiance, but then the both of them work together to let you take the pokemon and just act like they failed to stop you rather than doing it on purpose. And its kind of an uncharacteristically quiet and intense moment between these dudes that are usually at each other’s throats with funny banter. They’re united for a moment but for very different reasons. Charon knew that cyrus wasnt a good guy from the very beginning and he just underestimated him, and is now feeling in over his head and worried this could be the end. And saturn always thought cyrus was good but is starting to struggle with doubts. And maybe charon actually tries to warn saturn about it? Like “hey i knew this all along but i never told you but HEY CYRUS MIGHT ACTUALLY KILL US ALL” and saturn starts on his usual speech about cyrus being the greatest but he starts to question it and AAAAA! but ultimately this moment isnt the moment where he makes the right choice, and he does end up going back to cyrus and continuing the plan. and also charon is on the edge of actually doing something good and trying to stop cyrus’s big ol doom time (albiet for selfish reasons of No Money In The New World) but he also wimps out from this chance and instead decides to grab as much cash as he can and run the fuck away, as if its even possible to outrun the destruction of a whole dimension. but at least him and saturn agreed on the lake trio rescue operation, thus their moment of almost-redemption helped the player even if they didnt actually turn good. AND then you’d have the surprise moment of charon actually stepping up at the last minute and doing his thing to sabotage the machine and all. which again doesnt really solve the whole thing and doesnt really make him turn good but at least it downgrades the threat from ‘cyrus actually succeeds in destroying the world’ to ‘okay we just need to deal with a slight case of poke-hell and one collossal centipede’. Srsly man sinnoh’s plot has the highest stakes cos in platinum you straight up actually fail and cyrus actually would have destroyed the world if not for giratina! Oh and also a random note is that i think it’d be funny if charon helped you out while still running away? like you just learn about the machine sabotage being his responsibility cos it flashes his goofy hacker logo from the anime or something. Maybe instead he hacks your Poketch and is like HEY HELLO IM GONNA SPLODE THE THING BUT NOT COS IM A GOOD GUY, BTW I AM A SAFE DISTANCE AWAY PLEASE DONT LET CYRUS KNOW I DID THIS

SO YEAH! whatever! whether or not we get that added bit of teamup with charon in the climax, we’ve still given him a bit more screentime so the player actually remembers him and actually cares about doing his optional sidequest in the postgame. so him not having a boss fight would be less of a letdown and all. But having the teamup plot would be a good opportunity to turn the wifi event into not a wifi event! maybe during his panic charon drops the key to his secret lab and thats how you get it? cos really it makes no sense at all that the magic wifi gods can just hand you something you’d have no idea existed and never have an opportunity to get. none of the other wifi items are literally a thing owned by a significant character that needs to be teleported out of his pocket by plot magic! Also it sucks that a chunk of important backstory would be hidden in a wifi event so if they still wanted rotom’s alt forms to be a wifi event then JUST make it the ability to get the forms and not the charony diary bit. Cos it makes no sense that the ENTIRE REASON CHARON EXISTS is to introduce the rotom form event yet you’d have no clue he was connected to rotom until after youve already finished the event. It gave no damn indication you had to take the key to this particular dude’s lab in team galactic!! ANd click on an otherwise unmarked wall!! Put the diary somewhere else and hey there’s a Charon Clue(tm) and now you can actually find the damn event, there you go, fixed. Also annoying cos nothing in the event tells you you have to go somewhere entirely different to catch the one rotom in the game, and click another unmarked piece of scenery that only has a staticky screen to indicate rotom if you happen to be playing at night. Seriously this is why serebii.net was such a lifesaver!!

Okay so WOOP there we go, here we are at a point where the player has seen more of charon and had oppotunities to grow to like him as a character and be suspicious that maybe he could have some sympatheticness. And if he drops an Importante Key Itemme right before the end of the game then thats a hint that postgame stuff exists involving him, and at least one clue where to find it! All the rotom diary stuff would play out exactly the same except that its less of a hell to find, lol.

BUT THEN the big difference in Stark Mountain is that now you have the full context of charon’s backstory and the game actually reacts to you having that knowledge. Like maybe if you dont do that step first then either charon never appears at stark mountain until you do, or you get an abbrieviated version of the quest without the redemption plot? I was thinking actually maybe make it one of those daily repeatable quests, to avoid the player doing the quests out of order and permenantly losing the chance to redeem gramps. Like if you dont see the rotom diary then instead of a big actual quest you just get some five minute “oh we’ve seen team galactic sneaking around stark mountain, defeat them for Some Money Or Something hey thats weird that they were only stealing money hey yknow who’s all about the money? charon! maybe go follow up on his Importante Key Itemme to continue the plot.”

SO THEN once you return Emboldened By The Knowledge Of Good Gramps, you get the proper thing. And... it would actually play out totally the same as in vanilla platinum. Charon doesn’t have a boss fight, all his minions leave him and say he sucks, he gets anticlimactically taken out by someone else in a cutscene, and his last moment is someone making a crack about him being so frail and useless that the hot volcano breeze could knock him over.

BUT THAT ISNT THE END

Its just a fake out that its gonna have the same funny ending as every other charon appearance, and the same lack of him being remotely threatening.

cos NOW WE FINALLY GIVE THE MAN A GODDAMN BOSS FIGHT

and yknow how i said i hate the manga where he’s all super evil and owns three legendaries and kills a guy? okay take away all that stuff but KEEP THE MOMENT OF GRANDPA GETTING TO DO SOMETHING BADASS FOR THE ONLY TIME EVER

Maybe he surprises everybody by actually not being down for the count! And by now he’s just SO pissed off from a whole game’s worth of failing and being disrespected that he does something desperate and stupid at the last minute. If he was meant to be the dude who invented the red chain, maybe he could use it to control heatran even if looker took away the magma stone? like i feel it’d be in character for charon to secretly steal a prototype red chain for himself during the whole “oh fuck my boss is legit destroying the world i need to get out of here” thing. Grab some stuff to sell now your last paycheck is dissappearing into an ominous void, lol. He didnt expect to actually be using it, and if the actually completed red chain puts enough stress on its weilder to make them cry blood then this thing must be even more risky to use! so its a really huge holy shit moment of tiny gramps actually doing something intimidating! and his boss fight could actually be using heatran and actually having heatran get to goddamn appear in this sidequest. it was soooo underwhelming to have to return thru the dungeon a second time to actually see heatran, this time without any story stuff to break up the long walk...

also this entire thing could be a great climax to his character arc and sort of a moment of “okay THIS was actually his motivation all along!” Cos I always felt like Charon’s real motive was low self confidence? Like he’s always on about money but he seems to focus more on SUCCESS instead. Fame and success. “Ha ha i am the greatest scientist and i want people actually aknowledge me” is a thing he repeatedly brings up and also that other characters directly demonstrate in how they act towards him. It just feels like he thinks he can buy that with money if he’s failed his whole life in earning it. And the old “acts egotistical because he actually hates himself” character archetype would work really well as a sympathetic interpretation of his character. It would be like how he’s ‘subconciously friendly’. The thing he actually does (being boastful) is because of a different reason (not believing his own lies and being super insecure about his self worth), but he keeps it so well hidden that not even he realises that its really what he feels. Similar to how he acts grumpy because of a different reason, because he actually DOES want friends and he’s just guarding his emotions under a million walls cos he’s scared of being hurt again. And scared of how he knows he’s a weak willed person who might betray his friends again for his desperation for money. Which is really a desperation to feel valid as a human being, which is really just ‘i want friends’ again under another coat of paint. So depressingly he caused his own problems because of the same character trait that was once a positive in his life! I think he works well when interpreted from that angle, he’s like a dark subversion of a pokemon professor or of your classic ash ketchum figure. Like “the power of friendship” is what turned him evil, and also turned him into a guy who acted awful to his friends. And it could add to this thematic thing if “loving pokemon” was also referenced throughout his plot in a negative sense?

That’s actually one other good thing about the manga, they removed his greedy grumpyness (bad) but replaced it with the same motive as the villain of the 2nd movie (weird flex but okay). Aka “a guy who collects legendary pokemon just as trophies and has forgotten how to treat them like genuine friends”. Even if that wouldnt be his main character concept in this hypothetical rewritten game, it could still be a secondary trait that’s used to suppliment the main emotional arc. Like instead of just saying “money money money” you could flesh out more scenes of him actually talking about HOW he’s gonna get the money and what he’s gonna use it for. Via collecting all the rare pokemon, and to collect more rare pokemon. Which will somehow (in his twisted cynical perception of how the world works) make him a person of value and get people to respect him. It could also tie together pretty much every scene he already has! Cos his backstory is finding this pokemon friend... who was a rare unknown species. And maybe as a kid he decided to become a scientist initially just out of excitement to learn more about his new friend and show them to the world! But then the realities of the difficulties in being respected as a scientist gradually wore him down and he became more cynical, more obsessed with recognition, more believing that the only way to get it was by being an asshole and he’d just get taken advantage of if he kept being soft. And he started to forget why he really wanted that fame in the first place, and instead it just became an obsession, a vain hope that he’d hate himself less if he accomplished his life’s dream. When really from the player’s perspective its obvious that even if he succeeded he’d still be depressed when he realized how he’d lost everything in the process. And it’d be a more realistic sort of way he could have turned from a good kid to an asshole gramps. There wasnt any single day he suddenly made the decision to change, it was just a gradual wearing down of his morals over the years. he became more obsessed and more cynical that normal moral ways of doing things would never get him what he wanted. he started making small sacrifices to his personal sense of morality, and eventually reached the point where he’d completely abandoned it all without even noticing the gradual change. And somewhere along the way he forgot that he started this because of his pokemon friend, and discarded it as “not good enough” in favor of this vain quest to acquire a million other rarer pokemon and just friggin put them on a shelf to boast about them and feel less empty inside. And then also his redemption was a gradual change too? After he reached that point of completely betraying his own sense of goodness, he gradually got sadder and more tired with living this way. By the time you see him ingame he’s not remotely happy with being evil and he’s just a poor dude who’s deluded that being evil is the only way to escape the sadness rather than the cause of it. And thats why his whole ‘oops im accidentally subconciously befriending my coworkers and also the enemy’ thing kinda set him on the road to eventual redemption, cos its the first bit of small upliftingness he’s had in ages. sorta recharges his Ability To Care and he starts realizing what he’s doing and feeling regret. But yeah throughout the main game he never actually acts on his doubts and just repeatedly misses the chance to get redeemed and makes you Kinda Frustrated, similar to zuko or peridot’s redemptive arc? And ultimately reuniting him with his old best friend and showing him that its not too late to fix what he broke = the actual catalyst for his changes to fully stick and he completely switches to the good side.

BUT ANYWAY thats why he needs a boss fight first!

Something like 50-70 years worth of self hate and frustration from devoting himself to a super incorrect way of defeating that self hate, and sacrificing EVERYTHING for the sake of it, and being disrespected the entire time, and being terrified that you’re getting old and running out of time, and almost dying to some guy’s weird void plan, and losing the only thing you had left aka the team galactic job and a few maybe sorta kinda friends you had, and now being disrespected AGAIN by those same people you thought were friends (but never actually admitted it to them) and then also bitchslapped by a frog?? Also this place is real fuckin sweaty?? Yeah stark mountain is a great climactic point for his entire frustrations to boil over and be a bigger eruption than the actual volcano!

Thus we have Grand Dad Gets Serious And Has An Actually Interesting Boss Fight!

but also grand dad is being emotionally open and whoops accidentally might be tearing down those walls he built up around his big ol soft as fuck heart

like the battle would possibly be more ‘you talk him down into giving up, realizing he was wrong, quitting being evil, and going home to his friend that he misses so much. and finally realizing that thats actually the only way he could ever really defeat the self hate that drove him this far in the first place. also he’s not worthless and his friends always believed he was the awesome dude he always wanted to be’. Yknow, rather than actually defeating him and all. I mean you still do that but i think it’d be a case like with the giratina fight where even if you lose or run away you get the same result, just slightly altered text? Just as long as you come here with rotom in your party your victory was already a foregone conclusion. you just get a really cool boss fight as your reward, yknow? cos seriously I WAS WAITING THE WHOLE GAME FOR THAT DAMN BOSS FIGHT!!!

obligatory link again to the cool song i think is a great summary of all of my headcanons for this man’s character arc and would also be badass backing music for a hypothetical boss fight:

youtube

context: it makes more sense if you imagine it as his own internal thoughts of all the stuff he’s been running away from accepting in his own feelings. and/or what he THINKS that the player and rotom would be saying to him, so he’s shocked into speechlessness by the fact that they actually do think he deserves a second chance and has the potential to be good.

actually that could be a really good ending to the fight!!!

like when you get through to him and convince him to stand down, he cowers in fear thinking he’s gonna get the karmic payback for everything he’s ever done. and he tries to run away from reuniting with rotom. half of him is scared that his friend hates him and the other half is.. well..

i think it would be thematically appropriate to end it with a hug

just an image of this lil toy robot pokemon hugging this scared old man, and he’s just so empty and doesnt know what to say. its the last thing he ever expected. and then his shock turns into pain and sadness, as he was really the most scared that his friend actually would forgive him. that everything he ever did really was all for nothing, and he should have done this years ago and saved all that lost time. he’s so scared because he thinks he doesnt deserve forgiveness and he doesnt know what to do now its happening. so he just lets out all those tears he’s never cried over all these years, and the scene ends with him desperately hugging his best friend and never wanting to let go ever again

And then that’d be the big moment that was really the turning point for him, though of course that wouldnt be the end of his redemption and if there was any further postgame content you could show various scenes of him atoning throughout that. or just some images in the second credits scene after you beat the postgame stuff. i’d kinda like if there was some moment of him apologising to the rest of team galactic and joining them in their attempts to rebuild the team into something good. and maybe an extra postgame segment where this redeemified team goes on some bigger quest to try and rescue cyrus from the distortion world and heal his pain too. i think you could get a lot of good scenes out of a redeemed charon being along for the ride! like you’d obviously have cyrus being skeptical that this dude really has changed so much, and probably an extension of that earlier scene where he’s pissed off that the one guy he thought agreed with him about emotions being foolish is actually being the most emotional of everyone. but i think because of that they could also have scenes of relating together and actually starting to form a friendship in the end? like i can see charon feeling guilty for never trying to reach out to cyrus before, and also believing really strongly that cyrus can be redeemed cos like ‘yo i’m way worse than you and i was able to change, please believe that its a possibility for you too!’ Also cyrus likes machines so i think he’d be happy to meet rotom and become friends. And he has that whole grandpa related backstory so it might help a lot towards healing those scars and reuniting the two of them if he starts forming a friendship with a different gramps? THERES A LOT OF GOOD THEMATIC LINKS BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT TEAM GALACTIC MEMBERS THAT ARE NEVER EXPLORED IN THE ORIGINAL GAME

also in the original version of this plotline it was a fanfic/fangame idea of an alternate universe swap where dawn/lucas/other customizeable protagonist is a galactic grunt instead of the hero. so a lot of the details were different but in that version the protag was literally adopted by whichever galactic admin they picked as their main friendship route. entirely because of self indulgent ‘i wish these guys were my dad/sister/grandpa/whatever’ feels cos sinnoh helped me thru a tough time as a kid. soooo i cant really do that charon grandpa idea where he also renovates the Old Chateau into a ghost pokemon sanctuary and becomes like an actual good pokemon professor. (also rekindles his friendship with prof rowan and agatha from the kanto elite four cos thats just a random headcanon i have) BUT i could still do all that except the part where he adopts u cos canon dawn/lucas already has a mom lol. And i think it’d be more fitting of canonverse protag to adopt Cyrus? Like obv in the canonverse itd probably be the main boss of the team who gets the bigger redemption plot and is canonically the best friend EVEN THO for tumblr user tumblunni in particular it is All Grandpas All The Time. And i like the idea of Cyboy being a survivor of child abuse who tries to become a good dad just like his parents werent. But i also like the idea of dawn’s mom adopting him as her new big brother and him getting to experience a genuine loving family for the first time! I think itd work that way cos cyrus is meant to be 27 even tho he looks older, and i dont think dawn’s mom is that young and also i just see no chemistry between them as any sort of ship. (and headcanon cyrus as asexual anyway) But also the family does still keep in touch with all the other galactic friends!!!

hhhh i wrote So Many Word just about grandpa redemption holy shit i’ll probably die if i try and cover all the other teammates now

ok i will leave it here but just know i also have Deep Headcanons about all of them, even if charon gets the most. somedaayayyyay i will share with you more!!

#commander charon #why. why am i like this #okay apparantly i have used that exact tag like 15 times already on this blog and im betting most of them were also about charon #please love charon

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isaacathom · 7 years

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ok further ideas for the light/dark thing. so for the two kingdoms, initially they were One kingdom with slightly different cultures developing over time. there were only Maidens of Light, but the roles they were asked to perform varied. as there was no darkness, that wasnt part of it. but like, the gods they were asked to worship changed depending on region, and slowly stuff developed to be sorta diverse.

then, at some point, the part of the kingdom that would become the Dark Kingdom asked for autonomy/independence, so that they could fully practice their own variant beliefs without being required to practice conflicting ones as well. the rest of the kingdom took this poorly, and there was a minor civil war.

the end result is that one specific Maiden used Dark Magic (a complete perversion of what the Maidens are supposed to be doing) and chucked it into the center of the city that the Independents wanted as their capital, killing a good number of people (including the Maiden herself, which was always her plan) and anyone who could have witnessed her do it, and worming its way into the earth to taint it and its people. The Maidens who had been in the city at the time were mildly shielded from the darkness (in the sense that it didnt KILL them, for the most part) but it perverted their magics as well. hence, Maidens of Dark.

this act was blamed on the Independents (since noone could confirm how it started, and the new dark-touched appearances of the Maidens seemed to support this idea), and the maidens of Light that still remained (in the og kingdom, anyway) created a magic line across the kingdom and said ‘yall stay the fuck on that side’ and thus was independence gained, but with a nice chunk of violent retribution.

So the Dark Maidens were created, outside of their will. and they, being largely blamed for the growing darkness, were charged with dealing with it. but, of course, these maidens hadnt cast this magic, and it took many years and even generations for a Dark Maiden to properly master the darker magics and successfully repel the darkness. because thats not what the magic is designed to do. both Light and Dark are designed to propagate, not to hold themselves back. Light can vanquish Dark, Dark can vanquish Light, but Dark cannot vanquish Dark. what the maidens could do, eventually, is just halt its progression. a perversion of the perverted art. its a big issue.

and of course, from the start the Light Kingdom has disliked the Dark Kingdom for wanting independence, and as any people who knew about the real cause of the ~taint~ died out, the general sentiment against them grew stronger.especially as the Dark Maidens failed to contain the darkness and it crept closer to the border. Theyre better at it now, as the few tried and true methods to halt darkness have been taught fiercely to young Maidens, but its too little too late. actually pushing back the darkness is beyond the capabilities of most maidens, even working in concert. they HAVE cleared a small area nearish the border, which is dedicated farm land and guarded nigh 24/7 by Maidens

its greaaat. and naturally, the Villain specifically wants to grab a maiden of Light and prove that the two of them working together can proper cleanse darkness from an area. hence the begging and then the kidnap because fuck mate sometimes you get desperate.

theres also the hypothetical fact that if the darkness were wholly removed it would kill or greviously harm all the Maidens of Dark, since they are, in practical terms, Maidens of Light infected with the darkness, which is whats being removed. and since its generations deep, it cant be just waved off, like its part of them now, hence their increased abilities to manipulate the darkness with each passing generation. but i think the Universe has a place for them, or something. aka i really dont want to kill the Villain she’s a darling and loves her gf and im not fucking with her like that. the closest itd get is a) the Captain tryna fuck up her shit for ‘dishonoring the Maiden’ or smth and b) using up a Buncha life force to cleanse some shit. itd be a slow process, i tell you.

like, clearing away the darkness that creeps across the border is fairly easy, because they do it semi regularly so the tendrils are weak and frail as they wiggle across the land. as you get closer and close to the capital, the darkness gets more and more ingrained, and it takes more and more power to remove it. it would be a Very Long process, involving a LOT of Dark Maidens guarding the perimeter to ensure progress isnt lost while the Light Maiden recovers. itd be far quicker if the whole light kingdom came in but, yknow, its kinda Fuck Shit. maybe they’ll help at the end. it depends. the whole Light Kingdom, after the Hero maims the Captain, basically assumes she’s tainted and essentially decides its a lost cause. the Captain refuses to give up on her because his boner was drowning out everything she said, so he insists on making one more attempt to retrieve her. which goes poorly because he dies. because of her. good going, idiot, next time, ignore your penis. gj, sir.

though i suppose the good ending would be using the Hero as a bargaining tool to force negotiations, which was probably the villain’s end goal. she gave them 2 weeks because she expected theyd reach out to negotiate, but instead they invaded her country and tried to kill her, ending in the Captain’s severe injury and the Fear of God being struck in every witnessing member.

then after the captains death later (when the second attempt to ‘rescue’ the maiden fails spectacularly), which is an escalation, they finally agree to negotiate before shit could get worse. probably involves a group of light maidens working together (headed by the Hero) to do some cleansing with like, a land exchange or smth. and with the kingdom cleansed, the travel ban is opened (aka the dark kingdom had permanently closed borders, essentially because every single neighbouring country refused to let people in.) though idk if there are actually other countries doing anything. leave it to these two to deal with it. the idea to explain that was that like, theres a natural border that means Only the Light Kingdom has to deal with the seeping darkness. ie an ocean or having both kingdoms inside a caldera. good fun. though of course if having an ocean theoretically prevents the spread of darkness then the kingdom would be less fucked because Damn DUde Fish! fish time! though the lack of general vegetation isnt exactly Ideal and you can only eat so many fish before you end up overfishing and running out of resources. which is probably what would have happened. so it was only a temporary fix. i guess that ties into the fact that the darkness slowly spread from the center, since the farms on the outer wouldv esurvived until the darkness claimed them, so it was a sudden jolt downwards (when the darkness Came) and then a slow descent into abject nasty.

nice

#story blogging #wheeeeeeeeeeeee #lotmv

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tumblunni · 6 years

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ALSO TO FIX EXCELLUS

Because tangeants again lol

Recognise that its fuckin stupid and bigoted to expect us to believe someone is a villain INSTANTLY after seeing that they're queer, before they even do anything. Don't spend your entire damn game having the characters go "eww its that disgusting person of ambiguous gender we should kill them because gross" rather than.. Yknow.. "Excellus fuckin murdered those people". Recognise that literally doing this is gonna make your character LESS villainous and MORE sympathetic long before you finally get to goddamn showing them do anything bad except say "ohoho i wanna be a princess". And it'll make bunni REALLY PISSED OFF because nobody wants to feel sad for an asshole murderer yet THAT SADNESS IS FOREVER ENGRAINED IN MY SOUL NOW

Seriously fuckin hell it even made the heroes look less heroic! I felt like Excellus was almost justified in becoming a murdering selfish monster if she spent her entire life being treated that way by both sides in this big good or evil conflict. Why the fuck should she give a shit if she's being degraded? Like FUCKIN OBVIOUSLY murdering people and wanting to conquer a random japanese country as a mad dictator is not a remotely logical reaction to being misgendered. But like they could have changed some stuff and made a perfectly good sympathetic villain who gets manipulated by the bigger bad because of her sad past of being treated like shit and like she feels like this is her only option to be herself. And then maybe you can reignite her hope in the world and her self esteem and moral centre and help her redeem herself and team up with you to take out the real horrible fucks with no sympathetic motives. Instead she's friggin played as THE one who's evil cos she has no sympathetic motive. Like that's her whole Thing, she's supposed to just be selfish and greedy and horrid. Your damn bigotry somehow failed your own story as well as failing all trans people ever!

Or like yknow.. If you want an asshole fuckboi then actually write an asshole fuckboi. Scrubby scrub the trans = bad shit from this plotline and you do indeed have a selfish monster who murders a bunch of innocent people and gets his just desserts. You had a ready made simple character archetype and you were so preoccupied shoving your transphobic screed into your game that you fucked it up!

So yeah i think either make this goofy ohoho trans auntie a good character, make the asshole ohoho bad character a cis man, do both at once, or like even i'm not opposed to having a trans villain exist but like seriously make them a synpathetic villain. If they're the only trans character in the plot its already gonna send a bad message if theyre in the role of "worst most underhanded jerk villain", even if it WASNT also transphobic as fuck. So a sympathic trans villain or adding more LGBT characters so it doesnt seem like this one individual was designed to make a statement on your entire feelings for a minority.

ALSO

like seriously please do not do this stupid thing of mooshing every stereotype together from every LGBT identity and acting like theyre all the same thing?? Like man i fuckin HATE that anime trope that yknow.. The gay man says all this trans stuff cos he's ~just that flambouyant~ Like being a drag queen is what 100% of gay men are, 24/7, and anyone saying theyre a trans woman is just one of those drag queens who's really getting into character. Or just.. I dunno. I cant even wrap my head around what train of logic must have led to that stereotype in the first place! And its so fuckin annoying as a queer person trying to talk about why this is bad queer stereotyping, it just makes me extra sad to straight up not know what pronouns to use for the character so i feel like i'm being just as horrible to them as their creators were. Like man i've only settled on going for "she" for Excellus cos after years of looking into it it does seem like the original japanese was indeed specifically using stereotypes of trans women and not trans men or nonbinary people. Though all languages do seem to call the character male it seems pretty strongly to be a "i believe that trans women are men and can never be women" kind of thing, rathe rthan the character herself calling HERSELF male. She calls herself a woman in both english and japanese, and its just that the english has everyone else use male pronouns for her and added the non-canon "explanation" that she only acts like a trans woman because she has something wrong with her balls. (Ugh!) And in japanese on top of calling herself a woman she also uses feminine (and specifically trans/drag queen coded) variants of "I", and other common speech pattern traits used for negative stereotypes of trans women. Though again we do have other characters calling her a disgusting perverted man instead. Sigh!

Ok ok ALSO BIGGEST FUCKIN FIX! dont draw the character like a horrible distorted cariacature goblin in an entirely different art style to everyone else. Seriously its so annoying how they tried to make you agree with "excellus is disgusting just for acting queer" by LITERALLY DRAWING A DISGUSTING CHARACTER. If you take away the weirdass overdetailed horror movie monster face, there is nothing ugly or even "manly looking" about her! She's just like somebody's perfectly normal chubby aunt or something. You could go out in any street all over the world and see five of her! I hate it cos its almost like psychological manipulation or something? Like i've seen so many lets players who arent bigoted but merely oblivious still agree that excellus is ugly and disgusting and comical because of it, cos all the implications of transphobia/homophobia flew over their heads and all they saw was a character drawn to look monsterous. And just.. This is so common. Its the overwhelming japanese stereotype of trans women. Draw them looking INFINATELY MORE MANLY than the cis male characters. So manly that it really hammers home how "obvious" it is that a man in lipstick or dresses "just looks wrong" and of course there's NO way they could ever pass and ha ha look how deluded they are that they think they look pretty. It's horrid. It really is. Seriously I like to point at Tabitha from Pokemon ORAS for a good counter example, cos he's also an ambiguously transgender character from a game that came out around the same time and by some weird coincidence they look very similar. Except for the literal entire face. The literal entire exact same face, just its drawn hideous and distorted on the one who's supposed to be a negative trans stereotype, and drawn exactly like everyone else on the positive one. And there's not one example in the whole game of anyone calling Tabitha ugly because he looks trans, or even insulting his weight or anything. Same damn character design, just drawn without bias and treated like a human being. I mean seriously right down to them having the small "evil eyes" but with Tabitha he's always drawn with them in a perpetual sort of happy face and then his pose with them looking similar to Excellus is supposed to be a BADASS MOMENT of this comic relief villain showing his worth! And hw literally has red eyes on top of it! His design is even MORE "evil" yet just not drawing it as a stereotype entirely changes the player's perception and he became beloved by many. Whereas with Excellus even the trans people in the audience couldnt relate to her and just felt fuckin sad.

Oh also i guess Excellus is implied to be a trans woman and Tabitha is implied to be a trans man? But i don't think game freak was trying to say anything about trans men being more valid or whatever, cos the first canonical LGBT character of any sort was a trans woman npc in the battle maison. And tabitha being trans isnt really confirmed as clearly as she was. i hope someday theyre able to confirm an LGBT main cast member but until then i will forever hold onto the glimmer of hope that was given to me by Beauty Nova.

Also seriously Tabitha and Excellus both also look EXACTLY LIKE ME IN REAL LIFE so I kinda took Excellus extra hard and latched onto the Tabitha headcanon so much more because it was good healing after all that nonsense. Tho I also did considee nonbinary Tabitha at the time, because his japanese name is a gender neutral one that's merely like 75% female, rather than a 100% feminine one. But then his old RSE design was very masculine so i think maybe a trans man is what they were trying to imply if they did indeed do it on purpose. Anyway i probably would have translated his name as Ashley cos it has the same "technically neutral but more popular with girls" aesthetic while also keeping the same fire pun as Homura. I have no idea how on earth Tabitha is supposed to be a joke, honestly. Tho i meam maybe he's just the one type specialist on the entire poke-earth who doesnt have a joke name?

ANYWAY thank you terrible transphobic stupid manga i read today for reminding me that i love Tabitha. And also the developers love Tabitha. And also all the characters in universe love him, like seriously the only difference between the devon dialogue of him and Shelly is that they mention the other scientists nicknamed him tabitabi. And its so cute how seriously they said it too?? Its like "our boss tabitabi,the most feared and respected genius man".

Lovv dat tabb

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