|
Post by Archer Zero on May 14, 2013 0:08:54 GMT -5
When you get to a certain point, you tend to have a lot of ideas and characters crammed up in your head. Sometimes, you come up with absolutely brilliant characters and plots... and yet for some reason, aren't able to repeat them. It's varying whether it's a once-in-a-while hit of inspiration of simply just good factors coming into play at a good time. I've pretty much reached that point, so I decided to write some development notes to keep track of what I've done for my characters, and ponder them in my own time. Everyone else can also read it, and hopefully they'll find it informative.
Kenji Chan
Original:
Now then, let's start with my character masterpiece. Believe it or not, when I first created Kenji, I had no intention of him becoming the main character of anything. I had made him at the time as a filler character, a side character at best. He was the son of my former main character, Kell Chan / the Lightbringer, and brother to Sixin / Tenpou Chan, who at the time was my main character. My theme during this time was the passing on of the torch from the older to the younger generation, which prior to this I had done about 2-3 times, and also the forced rapid growth from a child to an adult by hardships. But yeah, Sixin was my main character at the time. I was still RPing with my former RP partner at the time Yukiko, who made Kenji's sister, Anastasia Chan. We made these two characters to simply RP with each other, no plot or anything, sort of like a filler thing. However, as I RPed with Kenji more, I started to get more comfortable using him. I began using him in other threads and plotting with him.
As for where Kenji started becoming powerful to the point where some people say he's godmodding... well, to be honest, it's hard to keep track. I think it came at the point when Atarath had 'devolved' from what I had planned and become the most evil character I have ever created. It gave an in-plot excuse for Kenji to start training harder, becoming more powerful. At the time, he still wasn't an extremist - he was still more or less a hero. But things have happened with Atarath, especially with his sister, that kicked off Kenji's darkening. He went through a lot of hell, despair, and near-insanity and came out a good deal more grim, hardened, and cynical. Some would say almost brutal. He still kept his heroic, kind nature, but he was definitely much darker. Even the ending I had imagined and semi-written for him was very grim and dark, very much a downer ending, with him losing all faith in his ideals and justice. I believe at this point, I went into my hiatus from lack of muse and disappeared, and during my hiatus, KHRPF had its regular member purged and I lost his profile. It'd be a long while before I brought Kenji back.
As for abilities, I'm a fan of Bleach and Kenji reflects that quite well. His signature move, now named 'Divina Oculus', was a combination of Ulquiorra's Cero (particularly the way he fired it) and the Kido spell Byakurai (for the thin but powerful beam). His 'Inanis Ventus' was quite obviously based off the Kuro Getsuga. His 'Lapsis Angelus Vindictum' came from an early Bleach fight, Ichigo vs. Kenpachi, when Zangetsu grips Ichigo's Zanpakuto and adds his power to Ichigo's. Kenji's fighting style itself is based a good deal off Ichigo, particularly when he uses Bankai. Some of the manga's plot I even rather unashamedly ripped off to use in his plot. I'm looking to rework that if I have the chance. Midway through Kenji's plots, I gave him a style change, making him look like Shinomori Aoshi from Rurouni Kenshin and giving him warglaives, the same type that Illidan from the Warcraft games use. At the time, I thought they were cool. Looking back, I cringe from the unoriginality, and just going 'too much' for him.
Current:
Okay, so this Kenji is somewhat different. Most of the characterization was carried forward, except the ending part where he pretty much loses grips with all his ideals. When I first brought him back, I really had no idea what to do with him. I was almost regretting it, as I had no plot, no inspiration for him. But then, inspiration hit me again like a tidal wave. He found out what happened to his family during his 2000 year absence, and as a result, was driven through despair and back - nigh literally, I might add. I began toying with a new theme in my writings: How far can you take an ideal before you lapse from what would be considered 'heroic' to what might be considered 'villainous'? I began with a new plot for him, taking over hell and heaven and forming his own Empire for the sake of justice. And before you ask, NO, it was NOT based on Emperor Matteus. This idea just came out of nowhere for me and I just worked from there.
One of the key things I'm trying to do (with varying levels of success) is try to bring out Kenji's flaws. Yes, Kenji is very gifted: Master martial artist and swordsman, exceptionally intelligent, child prodigy, etc etc. However, his ideals are both his greatest driving force and his greatest weakness: He will stop at nothing to achieve them. Because of this, he is prone to rather self-destructive behavior, believing that his own life is very well worth the cost if it can be used to further his ideals. This was evident even before the timeskip. Look at his most powerful abilities and you can see what I mean: All of them pretty much leave Kenji in a state near-death, and yet he hangs on because there's still much to do. I might explore how this over-usage of powers beyond what his body can handle might do to him. Nothing good, I can tell you that much. There's also Kenji's family. The original Kenji had his family always supporting him: His parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and later on, his wife. This Kenji has lost all that, and it still drives him over the edge. He can never get over the fact that his family is gone because no matter what kind of hell he went though, they always supported him, helped him, made sure he hasn't collapsed from his burdens. He is utterly alone, and to be quite honest, because of that he is clinging to his sanity only barely, driven on by his ideals, which he believes are the only things he has left. The family my former RP partner had created and I wasn't just a convenient plot device: It was also a vital background support for all the characters. Take that away and you will find that they become very unstable. Kenji is no different. And Kenji at the time worried everyone to no end with his constant seeking-out for injustice and corruption and evil. Kenji simply doesn't (or won't) understand how much it pains his family to always see him leave and come back critically injured and/or tired, and how he's always under threat of one day being killed. His whole family, while proud of him, would rather see Kenji settle down in the end, find a decent, respectable job, and raise his family. In a sense, he's both extremely selfish and extremely selfless at the same time.
This is it for Kenji for now. I'll write the next one for Atarath/Matthias later. Check back here occasionally. I might edit some things and add on to it, and make it more of an interesting thing to read and ponder.
|
|
|
Post by Archer Zero on May 14, 2013 1:22:22 GMT -5
Deciding to continue now while I still have a computer.
Atarath/Matthias Teren
Atarath Teren:
When I first created Atarath, I was doing so with a villain in mind, because it had been a while since I created any genuine villains. Atarath was the 'bad seed' of the family, the stain on what was the kind, good family. Logically, there shouldn't have been any reason for him going bad, considering he had been raised well, and as I'll explain later, I more or less had to pull off a rather stupid excuse why he was evil. I couldn't think of anything else.
When I created him, I envisioned him to be a mix between Sousuke Aizen from Bleach, and Shishio Makoto from Rurouni Kenshin. His goals were so cliched that even during that time, I practically cried at how cliched they were (take over the universe, duh). However, things took a MAJOR turn that made him one of the most despicable characters of all time. I was chatting with one of my RP friends, and what started as a joke grew and started to become a serious plot we were gonna try out. It helped that the pieces were already in place beforehand. I won't mention what it is, but suffice to say, it very nearly got me banned had I not deleted Atarath long before out of disgust. I gradually used Atarath less and less, then deleted him. Atarath was the first character I had deleted out of disgust and genuine dislike, and not simply because I was bored and had no muse for him anymore. I even wrote in a rather grisly death for him at the hands of Kenji, who suffered very much, as well as his family, under Atarath. In a sense, he was Kenji's opposite: Both are exceptionally talented young men, yet they decided to use their talents in vastly different directions.
I don't have much to say about Atarath's abilities, mainly because I don't remember much of them. I believe they were just the standard pyromancer stuff, combined with more physical abilities. I did give him a rapier, though, which in retrospect contrasted sharply with Kenji's weapon of choice: His katana.
Matthias Teren
I had decided one day to bring back Atarath Teren, only I wanted to give him more or less a 180 degree turn. I wanted to make him a good guy, yet keep his memories of when he was Atarath and see what he would do. The explanation I had for Atarath (now renamed as Matthias) coming back and being good now stretches the realm of plausible storytelling, what with darkness infecting his soul, coming back in a cyborg body, and whatnot, but honestly, I can't think of anything better. A bit of his history I borrowed from the Megaman X series (which, obviously, I'm a big fan of) but it's more of a homage/tribute than ripping off story ideas.
One of the biggest aspects of Matthias is his guilt. His father had programmed his memories as Atarath into his memory so that he would never be able to forget what he had done in the past, as a sort of restraining bolt. This is a double-edged sword. Thanks to these memories, Matthias now has a constant reminder of how evil he was, and therefore never relapses... but he also never finds forgiveness for himself, constantly blaming himself, thinking that he could have done something to prevent it, that he should've. Because of that, he denies himself any happiness, any positive things that come to him, under a genuine belief that he does not deserve any of it, that he should dedicate his life to the happiness of those he can see while remaining miserable for the rest of his immortal life (his cyborg body gives him ageless and sickless immortality) as penance. Adding on to that is a constant sense of loneliness. It's subtle, but it's there. Matthias really doesn't have any true friends. He allows just about no one to get close to him because he believes he doesnt' deserve their company and they could find much better people than himself. It's subtle, but he's very lonely, and deep down, would just very much like his family back, so he can apologize to them, make amends, and possibly just have the life he could've had. But he knows it isn't possible, and it grieves him to no end.
I had tried to work in a redemption thing for Matthias early on - when he encountered his past self, and after acknowledging his sins and accepting htem as who he is, defeated Atarath. I changed the color of his flames and even gave him a keyblade for it. However, after a while, I found that his personality still conflicted with his characterization. He would still angst about his past despite having supposedly accepted it. Not to mention, it made him a much less interesting character to use. He seemed to flat afterward, one-dimensional. I realized at that point that having him keep his guilt, to not be able to accept it and therefore keep moving to atone it was what made him so interesting. In the end, I did a backspace, removing his keyblade and changing his flames back to normal. I might try another angle for his 'redemption', but I'm going to have to consider my options first.
I made Matthias before the current version of Kenji, but now that both of them have developed this far, the two have become sort of foils to each other: Ironic mirrors of the one another. Before, Kenji was the hero and Atarath is the villain. Now, with their current motivations, it's not too much to say that Kenji is now the villain while Matthias is the hero. They both believe in justice, but while Kenji wishes to spread and enforce justice by conquering the universe, Matthias simply wants to keep the peace - which ironically was what Kenji did before as a hero before crap hit the fan. They are both prodigies and researchers, although Kenji focuses more on magic while Matthias focuses more on technology. Both are calm, cool, and level-headed in their approach to life, and both of them are haunted by specters of the past, specters that won't let them go even until death. Both of them are leaders, yet while Kenji rules his Empire, Matthias himself, although he commands the Void army, is still subordinate to the government of his faction.
As for Matthias's abilities, as you can see, I was very heavily influenced by Zero from the Megaman X/Zero series. This includes Matthias's robotic armor, his Beam Saber and Arm Cannon, and a few of his abilities. One of his former abilities, before I had it removed, was Ryuuenjin, a special Zero move from Megaman X4. Again, I consciously made this idea, and I wasn't ripping anything off this time. I was paying homage/tribute to my first childhood video game badass.
And again, done for now.
|
|
|
Post by Archer Zero on May 17, 2013 10:45:39 GMT -5
Kenji and Matthias Rivalry
As mentioned earlier for Matthias, Kenji and Matthias have sort of become foils of each other. It's quite obvious that there's gonna be a rivalry here, despite me not having implemented... well... any of it yet, in-RP anyway. ._. The basis of this rivalry started off back when Matthias was still Atarath. During that time, Atarath did some pretty horrible things to Kenji - things with his beloved sister, then capturing and more or less brainwashing Kenji into doing horrible things, which nearly caused Kenji to have a psychotic breakdown. Yes, I know it sounds silly the way I'm saying this, but truth is, it's pretty horrible, and Kenji understandably VERY much hates Atarath for it - enough to give him a very brutal first death.
Cut to two thousand years later. Kenji pretty much time-jumped, so all those memories and traumas are pretty recent. Matthias is pretty much a good guy working to atone for his mess as Atarath, and is willing to work as long as it takes - and not to mention, he can't forget a single incident, meaning that he remembers every bit of what he has done to Kenji and his family. This is the current set-up I have for the rivalry.
Now then, I have mentioned earlier that both of them are haunted by specters of the past. This is VERY much the case in this rivalry. Kenji cannot get over that Matthias has changed and is not the same as before. His hatred causes him to be rather irrational (not like Kenji at all), and he sees Matthias as only Atarath, not Matthias. This is evident in a few pieces of writing of mine regarding the Crimson Guard and their interactions - you'll notice that Kenji always calls Matthias 'Atarath' and never his real name. Matthias, on the other hand, is burdened with truckloads of guilt, and arguably has hurt Kenji the most. In fact, earlier in my plots and mind, I had planned them meeting up, with Matthias feeling so guilty he would do absolutely nothing as Kenji basically goes Kratos on him, believing he deserves it. Brutal? Yeah.
Anyways, at this point in time, Kenji and Matthias, as well as Anastasia (Kenji's sister) are on an alliance, but it's very, VERY unstable. I mean, come on - Anastasia is a psychotic wreck who ALSO hates Matthias. Quite honestly, they're working only to deal with a greater threat and ONLY that. They'll be going at each other's throats it's done - well, Mattihas less so. Matthias honestly doesn't believe he can ever earn forgiveness from Kenji or himself (or Anastasia), and he's quite right about the former, who still absolutely hates his guts. As of right now, Matthias is the one who's trying to keep some sanity about the alliance while still bearing down the guilt of his past self.
As for how I want the rivalry to end... well, honestly, I'm not sure how that will end up. I'm currently thinking two scenarios: Kenji accepts Matthias is a changed person and decides to get over it... or there's a duel to the death and only one of them survives out of necessity. I'm leaning towards the latter, but eh. Plenty of time for thought.
|
|
|
Post by Archer Zero on May 26, 2013 2:10:26 GMT -5
War of FateOkay, so to explain how I came up with the War of Fate... really, it just came to me outta nowhere, like some of my better ideas. I had created all three faction leaders - Kenji, Matthias, Anastasia - yet I couldn't really figure out what to do with them. Heck, Anastasia at the time didn't even HAVE her own faction. But then, during one of my frequent wanderings, I had downloaded a new song to my iTouch - Danza no Hana ~Guilty Sky~ - and all of a sudden, everything began taking place in my head. This huge war between the three, how to differentiate them, even Anastasia's own faction: The Dominion of Light. Now then, I've had quite a bit of experience with RTS games, so I know how to differentiate them. I wanted to create unique factions - not just carbon copies of one another - to make things interesting. I pondered how to create the war system for a while, and eventually came up with something as close as a site-wide plot. For more details, here are the links to the Plot and War threads. The separate threads were necessary, or the whole thing was prone to becoming a total clusterf***. War of Fate, Plot/Registration ThreadWar of Fate, War threadUnfortunately, despite the extensive preparations and system I've created, even going so far as to get 'moderators' for the War, the whole thing more or less fell flat on its face. This is probably due to it's cumbersome system and general lack of motivation and effort all around - especially from me, after the inspiration died off. However, the whole war falling apart worked to my advantage. Because no one really participated, I could determine how the war could really 'end' on my own terms. And hence, leading to the creation of the Crimson Guard... which, I might add, also fell flat on its face.
|
|
|
Post by Archer Zero on May 26, 2013 2:41:18 GMT -5
The Four ImmortalsThis was a plot I had in the works for a while, but it's doubtful I'll ever have a chance to put it in place, due to time considerations, as well as my very short attention span / muse. I figured I might as well put it up here for the sake of posterity. Who knows - maybe I'll actually use it someday. When I first came up with the Immortals, there was only one Immortal at the time. I even had a plot concerning the Void Faction with him that Sprow and Cal had participated in. The plot and threads died off, eventually. Still, the idea of the Immortals kept running in my mind, and I thought that one Immortal wasn't that interesting. Four, on the other hand, not only had a lot of symbolism, but gave me a huge amount to work off of. As for who the Immortals are, they were former characters of mine that had good excuse to still be existence after two thousand years (well, one of them was admittedly shoe-horned in, but eh). They are: - Kell Chan, alias 'the Lightbringer' - The Immortal of the Origin, as he was originally known as. Immortal because of his half-demon, half-vampire blood. He can manipulate space and time.
- Kenji Chan (the original one) - Immortal because he came back as a spirit. He can use the 'magic of the universe' (i.e., create suns, planets, comets, that sort of thing).
- Tenpou Chan, alias 'Sixin' or 'The White Magician' - Immortal because of his divine origins. Can use any element in existence with natural mastery.
- Sojiro Asakura - Immortal because he's a demon. Haven't heard of him? Not surprised, considering he was only a filler character that never expanded past a filler character. Controls the underworld and uses 'soul magic' (i.e., manipulation of souls, both living and dead).
Now then, have you noticed that three of the four Immortals share the same last name? It's no coincidence - all four Immortals are related. Kell Chan is the father of Tenpou and Kenji, with Tenpou being adopted long ago. Sojiro was Kenji's former apprentice. In the past, when I was still RPing with my former Rp partner, they were all one family - the Chan family. It sounds like a cheesy name, I know, but the Chan family was known within our plots for being exceptionally talented in many areas - physical, magical, mental, etc. Hence, if you give these guys 2000 years to develop and hone their skills... well, it's quite obvious that they're gonna get extremely powerful. Now then, I wasn't originally sure what their goals are. I had planned at first for them to simply stay as observers, or rather, players of huge chess games, spanning generations and worlds, kingdoms and countries, manipulating them as they see fit, just for fun. They're that powerful - why shouldn't they? In the two thousand years they've been alive, their sense of morals has degraded a lot. All four of them used to be great heroes in the past, and yet now... well, they consider normal people little more than interesting ants. It's hard to really detail how their sense of honor and balance eventually degraded into almost complete indifference to others' lives. But then, I decided to incorporate their ideals back in - that of justice, honor, etc. But I've given it a very dark twist. They simply make experiments to see if justice and honor can actually be perpetuated and spread in the universe, then judge for themselves. If what they find out doesn't suit their needs, then they will obliterate the universe and remake it from scratch. They are powerful enough - and have the powers - to do so. Honestly, if you ask me, I think it's because they lost their women in their lives. Yes, I know this sounds totally ridiculous, but please hear me out. The women these guys were married to were for the most part gently, kind-hearted, and down to earth. The four were dedicated to justice and their ideals, and willing to fight for them, and as such were grim and stern. However, the women kept the men grounded so their ideals wouldn't grow into megalomania like stated above. The women was what kept them as heroes, not monsters. Remove them from the equation, and add two thousand years of ever-growing power and knowledge to the mix, and you get the Four Immortals - dark reflections of what their past selves were like.
|
|
|
Post by Archer Zero on Jun 4, 2013 10:00:11 GMT -5
Conquering of Hell / Coup of Heaven
This is a plot of mine that was created last year, and I've gotten heckled for it quite a lot for copying Emperor Matteus despite not even thinking about him when I did. It died fairly early on, but it was incorporated into Kenji's history anyway.
The offscreen backstory had Kenji going to Hell and conquering it. I always invisaged Hell to be a place filled with beasts or more barbarous sentient creatures, and hence they would have a rather brutal 'survival of the fittest' and 'might is right' kind of mentality. Heaven, on the other hand, is more civilized - though this is NOT a good thing. Instead of the near-beastial line of thinking that Hell follows, I thought of Heaven as more of a constant political battleground, full of immortal Serpahim constantly planning ways to gain more power, making alliances then backstabbing their allies when it's convenient, and having long, long years on their side to put their plans into effect. In a way, it's even deadlier than Hell.
Now then, Kenji can actually get into both Heaven and Hell because his father used to be the Emissary of Heaven (yeah, long story that I'm not gonna go into now) and so he has access to both Heaven and Hell. Now, the throne of Hell is ruled by Satan/Lucifer, the most powerful archangel who had fallen, as the bible and every bit of popular media states. In order to take it, one would have to kill Lucifer/Satan, but judging how long he's held the throne, it's clear no one in Hell has the power to go up against him. Well, I had Kenji did, and win - by the skin of his teeth, admittedly, but he won, and with that, he gained rulership of Hell. That's the background story to the plot.
Moving on. Basically, I introduced the plot as a whole cliche 'war between heaven and hell' thingy. A surprising number of people - a good number were veterans - joined in. I guess they knew that when I make a plot, I would never make anything so straightforward and simple. Unfortunately, it died a bit after the intro thread, but I had everything planned out. The war between Heaven and Hell was rising to a fever pitch, spilling out into the 'mortal' worlds and engulfing the universe in war. Kenji was gathering villains to his side so they could help him in dominating the universe, while Heaven was gathering its own mortal allies in order to counteract this threat. So yeah, huge war scenario.
Eventually, what I had planned was this: The forces of Hell make a huge amount of process in the beginning but eventually reach a stalemate on all fronts with Heaven. Kenji calls the villains back for the meeting... while 'leaking' the information of the meeting's location to the heroes on Heaven's side. This causes both groups to go to the meeting place - the fortress of Kenji's former organization, Yami - and get death-trapped. The death trap probably wasn't gonna work, considering KHRPF's no-killing-others-without-permission policy, but it's the thought that counts.
But anyway, the whole war was just a huge front to kill one particular person: Archangel Michael, the supreme commander of Heaven's forces. It turns out that for months, Kenji and his weapon spirit Tao had been working behind the scenes in Heaven, working with the higher-up angels so that they would gain supporters that would support the union of Heaven and Hell. It wasn't a hard decision - a good deal of Seraphim wanted to take the mortal universe for themselves and rule. The alliance with Hell was definitely a hard pill to swallow, but Kenji and Tao managed to get them to agree to it. Archangel Michael was the biggest obstacle to having this alliance be a success, and once he was out of the picture and Kenji could get as much territory as he could, he got rid of all loose ends. And with that, Kenji ascended the throne of Heaven and united both Heaven and Hell under his rule as the Empire of Eternity, with the realms that had been occupied by Heaven and the territory invaded by Hell as his beginning domain.
This is how Kenji became the Emperor he's now known as today.
|
|
|
Post by Archer Zero on Jul 31, 2013 22:36:39 GMT -5
Magic Nexus
This was a plot I had created a while back but completely lost the muse for. It was inspired a bit by Monster Hunter, which I loved playing at the time. My line of thought was this: What if magic was simply technology that encompassed the universe, and is so vast, that we couldn't understand it? If it was technology, then it must've had a source - creators, knowledge, something! Enter the Magic Nexus. It's a world that housed the source of magic, and thanks to that, magic has absolutely permeated the world, granting the indigenous creatures interesting mutations and power.
There were certain circumstantial rules set in place. For example, magic couldn't be used on that world because with all the residual magic, there was too much potential for it to go out of control. Technology (i.e., computers, electronics, etc) were fried because of the residual magic and power. In short, anyone in this plot had to resort to just blades and their own skills with their body. And they had to go against creatures that could use magic with impunity. Obviously, it was a very harsh place to live or survive in.
I had planned the source of magic to be this giant generator that used and recycled the flows of energy that connected the universe, but the technology was far, far beyond the understanding of even the most advanced civilization at the time. It would have a single guardian, the person who later became Critias Freesia, a character I never used thus far and is in my sig if you want to take a look at him. Ultimately, everyone would believe that such power can never, EVER be used unless they wanted to heavily risk the end of the entire universe. With that, they packed up, left, and quietly erased the data from all the hard drives and possibly memories.
Sadly, it never came into fruition. But who knows? It might show up again soon.
|
|