Hi Crow! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day 💌 and I love your art OMGG
I just had to ask, is it possible to get some more MOTM!Rayman? 👀 Like, do you have any fun facts, relationships, lore, or art you'd like to share? (I may be absolutely obsessed with this guy 😇)
I'm so sorry about answering this so late hello!! But I do got lore for him, just recently updated too due to obligatory changes. As of relationships? That's gonna probably be for a different post. For now, I shall catch you all up on what is UP with MOTM!Rayman.
Prepare yourself for lore dump below, I'm not kidding. All this information, though, is bound for change. Not everything is final! It's still a WIP as MOTM itself is ongoing.
Rayman used to be a Star, he was the Head of the Department of Magic, which was long decommissioned since he was fired. The reasoning for his firing was because of a misconstrued/exaggerrated narration of his actions/behavior thanks to Bugs Bunny. For context, despite being a casual Head of the Dept. of Magic, he is a known fighter too that has a wonderful dynamic when fighting with the Sonic Team. People labelled them the wonder duo for their flawless fighting chemistry during the war.
(I feel that I owe @isaacz MAJOR credit he helped me improve on Ray's base design and now I'm happier with his shape and design. Love ya pookie)
These are his common outfits! From left to right: the first is how you'll usually see him. It's how he looks during his resistance leader arc. The second is his star outfit, heavily inspired off of Captain Laserhawk Rayman. In fact, 60% of this writing for MOTM!Rayman is inspired off of CLH Ray! The third outfit is a rendition of his base games' iconic outfit to fit more into the universe. Then the last for casual and fun, or for whenever he's out for an occasion.
INTERMISSION OVER— back to lore.
So funny enough, ONLY after the war did Sonic and Rayman actually get to properly befriend each other. They shared humor, similar personality, almost. It didn't last long, though, because of one of their missions. Whether or not they befriended each other immediately or a few years after the war is still up in the air cause I still need a direct timeline of things.
During this, there was already a set plan of action of how they're going to cleanse this surge of searcher attacks. But the district that Rayman lives in, that he technically runs and owns, got breached by Rabbid Searchers(information relayed by one of his friends, Barbara who is a warrior, and yes... Rabbids, THE Rabbids. They co-exist with him in this universe. Who knows if there's two certain Rabbids that'll inevitably make an appearance.) They got scoldings from Mickey through comms to not diverge from the plan, but Rayman loves his people way too much to listen. His relationship with Mickey right from the start was turbulent due to Mickey's mistrust and lack of respect for magic, when him and his kind thrive off of magic.
So he departs and leaves his position as soon as Globox turns tail (he is a father of 600 kids im not kidding) and runs back home, while Barbara replaces his position to assist in the on-field battle.
// gore/violence depictions
Things go dark quickly, they arrived to their district and people have already been massacred, buildings crushed and just so much disaster painting left and right, and in the end they could only salvage so little of their people before they were forced out of their district for a safer homing, which is unfortunately one of the areas neglected by WishUpon.
He knew he was gonna be in trouble for diverting from the plan, and a few hours or a day after, he gets a call from Mickey to come to a meeting, a very important one, and this is the meeting that doomed not only his position as a star but also the department of magic itself. The department of magic was the last standing beacon of hope for toons who had magic, and made such an impact on lessening the hatred/mistreatment on magic toons and giving them the life they deserve in toontown.
But Bugs spoke, and threaded the strings in Mickey's head, telling him that Rayman has always been unstable and difficult to work with, and even exaggerrates the way Rayman doesnt talk nicely about Mickey on his own time or with Sonic and Felix. He makes it sound 10 times worse, just so Mickey and Oswald make the final call of firing him and decommissioning the dept of magic.
He tries to look for some assistance from Sonic in arguing against them because he keeps getting talked over by Bugs, but, knowing that Sonic is barely able to keep his team from getting decommissioned as well, he doesnt. Speak. He NEEDS to protect his people.
And it hurts that Rayman knows why. He respects it, but it hurts that he turns away from such a desperate time.
After Rayman left the building, Mickey demanded everyone to sign a contract to never speak of Rayman again, to never associate, to never mention him, to forget him. And since those years, not a single influential public trace of Rayman was seen ever.
But underground he works quietly, he works hard, he builds a resistance throughout the years consisting of people that feel mistreated or not given justice by the stars/wishupon, toons with or without magic.
Now! In terms of personality, this depends on what timeframe.
When it comes to Star!Rayman, he is a FIREBALL of joy and whimsy. He was a social powerhouse who speaks his mind and heart in what he believes in. He had a talent for stage performance both dancing and singing, and cracking a few jokes which makes him a WONDERFUL entertainer, and possibly close friends with Kinger around the time when he was still Head of the Dept. of Entertainment! He was a charmer, a flirt through humor, and he knew how to filter himself when needed (not when hes with friends, though!)
If we're talking resistance arc, he is.. more reserved. He spends a lot of his time in the bar and gets into fights. The downside of speaking his heart and mind out is that he also tends to get into fights, he is very stubborn when it comes to what he believes in and WILL fight for it, so itll take a bit of knocking some sense into him; which is why Globox is usually seen next to him.
// alcohol/drug mention, death mentions
Globox is a seriously significant part of his life. When I tell you he's the one keeping him at bay, it's not exaggeration. He's the one that keeps Rayman from wasting himself way on bottles and resorting to potential overdose that he's found himself considering time to time.
Outside of his episodes/drunken state though, hes an okay guy. He still tries to express positivity and apologizes for anything hes done wrong if hes reminded, hes just unfortunately turned into a sad disaster due to the losses hes had. Speaking of losses, he has mad insecurity and great fear of abandonment. Countless times hes watched people and friends die before him, he watched his mom Betilla and the other pixies leave, promising to come back only to never hear from them for YEARS. This quality of his makes it so unfortunate for him because *he gets easily attached*, and despite the continuous loop of getting hurt and throan down the cliff of grief and abandonment, he still chooses to love, he has SO much love to give.
As long as Globox is around, he'll be okay.
But in later developments, Rayman has gained new companions, one (or three, per se) of the most significant ones being... the warner siblings! This is a story for another time if you wish to know, but what you DO need to know is that they become important to him, and soon enough he sees them as his own kids in the present time of the comic and cares greatly for them, that they make such a huge part of his life and make significant difference to the way he lives life.
Now for little fun facts:
- He technically has arms! He gets to choose whether the gravity of his limbs are present or not. You get to see him play with this a lot whenever he's in combat! So whatever works conveniently for him is up to you to know if his limbs are quote unquote there or not. I can make a demonstration of this in the future when I feel like it!
- When hes drunk, he starts losing control of gravity of his limbs: his hands and feet are found dropped to the floor
That's about as much as I can share for now. Like I promised, I'll be making a visual graph of his relationships, so tune in for that! I'm happy people are interested in Ray! He's a huge comfort for me.