hi jacklings, i know its been a while and i sent a post to u some time ago i wanna check in on you after your ipad giltched out or somethin. i hope your doing ok, and still daring too!
You always made my day with your posts :)
AW thank you you’re so kind 🥹 I’m doing okay! I’ve had to reset my iPad which means I’ve lost all my old procreate drawings, but I’m working on new things slowly in the background!! <3
GHOST RIDER DMC AU. BECAUSE IM EXCITED FOR SEASON 2 AND WHY NOT AT THIS POINT.
Behold the project that has been singlehandedly keeping me sane through finals prep. Yall know the dealio at this point its dissertation time. I'm gonna give you some background lore and then my topsy turvy upside downy machinations. I'm gonna start with Johnny and Danny then getting to Robbie, Gabe and Lisa.
Disclaimer disclaimer HUGE disclaimer I got into this series by watching the netflix show and all the game information I am spewing here came from a lot of research and not firsthand experience playing. I am working through a few lets plays now I just really didn't want to wait to post this in case I lose my motivation lol. This is gonna be a mishmash of lore from both the game and show because HOLY SHIT TWO CAKES.
BACKGROUND LORE:
In Devil May Cry, demons are, generally speaking, fucking assholes. They are selfish, possessive, power hungry and cruel. Because they can get stronger by literally drinking the blood of other demons they've slain, they fucking LOVE to fight. Human blood can also be used to improve strength but it has to be treated with magic first. Which is a whole nother can of worms. Their entire system is so based on power that it's a feature in the games where if Dante beats a demon into submission (the wiki's word not mine) it will turn into a weapon he can use, which are called devil arms. Agni and Rudra turned into swords after he beat them and basically begged to be used (YKINMK but whatever dudes). The specifics for how this happens varies between games, but it also seems to be a function that if a demons magical essence is strong enough it resists destruction and manifests as a weapon, which is how you can get devil arms that don't necessarily result from waving a white flag.
Demons are from the hell (woagh who could have seen that one coming) which looks. Like a place of honor for sure.
Gotta give DMC credit. Yeah this looks like a place I would lose all hope and humanity in. Hell is pretty fractured with lots of different players wanting control. The biggest of the big bads is King Mundus, who wants to take over earth and rule it. Because. He's bad. Bros a bad dude. Also I highly doubt hell is fun to hang out in. Look at it. It’s like an MC Escher painting threw up in there. There’s also one screenshot that has like. A crumbling statue in a lake of blood but I hit my image limit so it’s getting exiled. Sad.
In DMC, a demon is classified as anything composed of energy originating from hell. Because of this, they don't really have any defining biological restrictions the way most living things do. The demon is magical essence, the form is just a shell. Their forms are highly variable and can technically be anything, but usually relate to their personality and emotional or mental state. This also means that physics only applies as much as they want it to apply? Kind of? The magic system is based off vibes broski this series is very unserious and you are NOT supposed to understand how this shit works.
While demons can DISGUISE themselves as humans, they cant become humans. Selected demons can be sent on missions for reconnoissance and to influence the human world (crime lords businessmen and politicians). They usually slip through the cracks that form between Earth and Hell. Humans can become demons via different methods of corruption and ritual. This process is used by some cults and by head hanchos of the demon world to increase their armies (common cannon-fodder in the game). Exposure to hells environment in the games can turn humans into demons because of exposure to 'the sheer malice' of it. The evil is so bad all you gotta do is hang out there to be forever changed. Apparently hell is a Waffle House.
Demons are inherently evil, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable of choosing to be good through great amounts of effort. Theres speculation from Dante that when a demon is motivated by something good and unselfish (ex: protecting a loved one) it seems to make them stronger (can a devil cry. its the title everyone cheer everyone clap).
The GREATEST example of a demon choosing to be good was the demon knight Sparda, who betrayed hell because he started to hate the tyranny Mundus constantly exercised. Loving humans kind of came later. Hate is easier for demons. But bro was an entire UNIT this guy singlehandedly held back hells forces. Im giving him a friend for reasons you will see later but yeah, canonically held back all of hell for a pretty significant amount of time. Based of him.
Heaven doesn't really seem to be a thing?? There are creatures that LOOK like angels but aren't, they're just weird robots inhabited by demonic energy and human souls smashed together and thrown into a blender called Angelos. Either that or demons who look like angels, either because they're one of the VERY RARE kinda alright ones or they're trying to fool humans for the sake of gaining power. The only time actual Angels are mentioned is in the 2013 reboot. Apparently this game was not good and is not technically considered part of the present canon timeline so we are IGNORING IT.
JOHNNY AND DANNY:
Johnny and Danny are basically just doing the kind of shit Dante does in your average DMC game. This is. The goofy zone. Where they get stabbed in the chest with their own swords at least once a year and use it as an opportunity to aura farm. Or where the Lightning Demon Witch Nevan turns into an electric guitar that they absolutely shred on for no apparent reason (this a real scene in Devil May Cry 3. When I said these games are unserious I mean UNSERIOUS). This is where one of the devil arms is a motorcycle that splits in half with wheels that function like the business end of a chainsaw (DMC 5. Yes I’m serious). This shit is so stupid it swings back around into being absolutely fucking incredible and I love it for that.
Johnny and Danny are both half demons. Danny having his sister Barbara means potential Virgil standin? I support womens rights and womens wrongs and it would give me half a plot so fuck yeah were rolling with that. Easiest decision I have ever made.
Johnny's mother was a demon Knight who followed in Sparda’s betrayal of hell and Mundus. She loved Barton Blaze but that doesn't really mean she was able to stick around. Johnny is STELLAR in the circus. Being built ford tough means doing if you get hurt doing a stunt and walk it off the crowd goes CRAZY. It earns him a sense of drama and showmenship. Barton gets cancer, because smoking is bad for you, Johnny does something stupid and tries to make a deal with a demon to save his life. The demon shows up and goes ‘Holy shit. Holy shit. Oh fuck. What? What are you DOING? Mundus is gonna kill me’ and fucks off back to hell to report he's discovered one of THE TRAITOR DEMONS SPAWN. You know, snich behavior. The ensuing demon attack is where Johnny starts to figure out what exactly is going on and ultimately spurs on his demon killing crusade.
The Demon Knight Sparda himself took a little longer to fall for anyone, which makes Johnny a bit older than Danny (something he never stops fucking talking about). Danny and Barbara were born as fraternal twins and lived in relative peace with their mother for a while. Both were told about their heratige but hey thats pretty easy to ignore when the only other person you have to play fight with has the same super abilities as you. It was only a matter of time before Sparda was overwhelmed by the collective forces of hell wanting to take Earth over. On their 18th birthday, the forces of hell track the twins and their mother to the small house on the edge of the woods where they live and light it on fire. Their mother dies, and Danny sees his sister dragged away by attacking demons, which causes him to assume she's dead. It forces him to confront his heritage and eventually accept his abilities and use them to help people.
Barbara survives the descent into hell and also assumes that Danny is dead. Growing up in hell would fuck up just about anybody and she develops a more calculated personality, chasing after her fathers power. When she discovers Danny is alive she simply adopts this fact into her plan instead of it changing her worldview. If she wants to be able to protect him then she needs all the power she can summon by any means necessary. 'By Any Means Nessecary' often including mass human casualties. Danny is Not Down For This which results in frequent confrontations between the two. They love each other, but they can never stop fighting because of how they view the world.
Danny and Johnny eventually meet while fighting a particularly bad demon invasion and ultimately decide it's a better idea to stick together for now until they annoy each other to death. Or stab each other. Really both are equally likely outcomes.
OKAY. DEVIL TRIGGER FORMS. HERES THE DEAL. When a half demon is in extreme danger or has enough energy they can activate something called a devil trigger, which allows them to shift into a demonic form. This can be a partial transformation either on accident (usually a result of panic) or on purpose (a result of practice). These forms are large, fast, durable and incredibly deadly. It's the Get Hit Hard and Then Hit Harder build.
Johnny and Dannys devil triggers are fairly close to the Sin Devil trigger (like. a perfected version of the devil trigger in the games. Idk if I'm gonna make second pokemon evolutions for these dudes) designs in DMC 5 because I Think Those Look Coolest. Devil Trigger forms are Lorge; usually cited as between 7-8 ft tall but yk what thats not good enough for me I have the kind of greed they talked about in the bible. I know what I'm about its my au and I make the rules. They're 13-15 ft tall because I want it to be enough that its SCARY being that big, especially if its their first time using devil trigger. I can only imagine that means their wingspan is also absolutely massive. 30 ft across at least. Overall, probably terrifying to run into.
Johnnys design is focused on being very over the top and showy; extra spines, huge wings, built in thigh highs he's got the whole shebang. The circus background is on display here. His fighting style is kind of all over the place, which is why I gave him a sword. It sort of forces him to focus his attacks instead of running around going after every demon he sees. I want their weapons to enhance and balance out their wielder, in a way.
Danny has a lot less frills in comparison. I wanted him to feel just a little bit bulkier. While Johnny is on his 'the best defense is a good offense' method, Danny is a bit more well rounded. I don't want to call him stable, because no one in this fucking story is stable, but he's a bit more measured than Johnny. His flail weapon forces him to be more unpredictable and chaotic when fighting to round him out. I also am not entirely happy with the flail design it feels a little basic. I may revisit it and improve it later.
Barbara is all speed all the time. Fuckging. Running with scissors build. Her weapon is not a devil arm, I gave her Yamato because I think she should be on some weeb shit. Yamato is a katana that is so sharp it can cut through dimensions, and was wielded by Sparda (her father) before he was killed. Yamato is. Technically a part of Sparda that he made into a weapon? I was corrected in the discord so more research is to be done before I can personally confirm anything 😅
Strong emotions can activate devil trigger form and emotions experienced while in that form are extremely heightened. It basically cranks every single emotion up to eleven with an emphasis on anger, sadness and the desire to protect loved ones. I imagine in these forms they sound similar to that sort of growling clicking noise you hear at the end of the Resident Evil Teaser trailer. It's unnerving to be around. Like those recreations of what a T-Rex would realistically sound like. The best I can compare it to in my head is the sounds the Muto makes in the 2014 Godzilla movie.
LISA: Alright this is where we lock in this is where it gets a little more serious because I'm stealing from the animated series now. I'm getting to Robbie and Gabe next but first we've gotta cover the girlboss ever. I love Lisa. Unfortunately for Lisa, this is not a good thing. Lisa is having a bad time.
She was still born and raised in Hillrock Heights and her life is fairly normal (yk. for living in Hillrock) up until about her junior year. In this universe, Hillrock kind of is the way it is because there's a relatively large fissure to hell very close to it. Humans are still contributing by making decisions out of greed and/or desperation, of course, but the high concentration of demons actively inciting violence sure as shit isn't helping.
Lisa finds out about the existence of demons the hard way.
After her little sister absolutely BEGS Lisa for a ride to a late night movie theater trip with her friends (on a school night, scandalous in their parents eyes) Lisa agrees on the condition that she be out on the sidewalk ready for pickup right after the movie is over. So they execute their plan, sneak out, Lisa drops her off and swings back around about an hour and a half later. Her sister is not on the sidewalk. Alright fine, common Laurie shananagains. She texts her. No reply. Calls her. Nothing. Calls her FRIENDS. Still nothing. Lisa starts getting worried.
She gets out of the car, intending to ask the theater staff if they've seen her sister anywhere, and gets distracted when she sees her sisters phone laying broken in the entrance of an alleyway. Lisa rushes in and sees her sister actively being eaten by what looks like a creature straight out of the angrier parts of the bible.
She grabs a metal rod from a collapsing, neglected fire escape in a shamble off in the corner and manages to catch the demon by surprise, effectively beating the shit out of it until it dies. She calls an ambulance for Laurie but it's too late.
Nobody believes her when she explains what she saw, of course, they all think she's crazy after finding her sister mutilated by some tweaker on bath salts. She gets on meds. The meds don't work she still swears she's seeing demons out of the corner of her eye EVERYWHERE (She's not wrong. She's been exposed to demonic energy she can see flickers of them now and they see HER. They wont leave her alone, they know she cant fight back without looking like a crazy person. It's fun for them). Loses all her friends because she wont fucking stop talking about demons. Gains a reputation as 'The Girl Who Just Lost it Entirely'. Drops out of school about a month later. Her parents sort of give up and send her to a mental institution until she figures out how to pretend to be normal again.
Eventually she is approached by someone who believes her. They introduce themselves as a Dark Realm Command (DARCOM) agent. Having the ability to know who's a demon and who isn't even with their sophisticated ability to hide is an incredible skill to have on their side. They offer her an opportunity to kill demons for the government. Her parents are honestly kind of happy for the opportunity to get her off their hands. They love her but they haven't been able to properly grieve their other daughter while trying to stop this one from falling apart. Lisa joins DARCOM with no resistance from them. If she can stop what happened to her sister from happening to anyone else then its worth it (she can live with herself. it was her fault. if she just said no then none of this would have happened).
I stole Lady's design from the DMC animated show on netflix (you should watch it its good I like it season 2 looks BALLER) because I'm down horrendous for women in tactical gear.
I'd imagine the training is some RE4 prologue level of intense stuff. She's got a team she can bond with, because holy shit these people know what she's talking about and they believe her, and that helps encourage her beyond just the self blame. These people are tough but fair and she can appreciate that. And they appreciate that she can SEE these guys. Lisas ability to get the drop on demons is incredibly useful.
ROBBIE AND GABE:
Alright, here we go. Alberto is a demon. More than that he's a very high ranking demon who has been around for a LONG time. Long enough to choose not to join Sparda in his betrayal of Mundus. He's been Gleefully causing chaos in hell and across the world with his brother for centuries. Eventually, King Mundus sends him up for the purpose of doing reconnoissance, causing problems more discreetly, getting involved with human government and disrupting, yk the usual evil guy stuff. And then he meets Julianna and its just that Danny Devito gif 'oh my god, I get it'. Yes, I am pulling an Omniman here because in the brief glimpses we've gotten of mamma Reyes I think she is fully capable of this.
They try to run, hiding in plain sight in Hillrock Heights, and they have Robbie. Hiding works for a while. And its nice! Pretending to be human is difficult. Alberto joins a boxing club, occasionally scuffles with some lesser demons when he's feeling antsy, its not perfect but its enough to keep him feeling relatively okay. Alberto's found the love of his life and its worth it for her. She's not scared of him, she stands up to him, she loves him and their son. She's amazing. He's just Ken (not really but I believe in Albertos wife guy potential here).
Eventually Eli comes off a 10 year long demon coke bender and is like 'wait lmao wheres my brother. I miss that dude lemme find him so we can go do some murder together'. Gets up to Earth and is. Absolutely appalled. What the fuck is this. What have you done to my brother he's not himself anymore. Fuck you. Eli tries to kill Julianna and Robbie in the hopes of snapping Alberto out of... whatever THIS is, but Alberto absolutely refuses to let it happen. The two duke it out, Julianna uses the opportunity to get away after her husband screams that she needs to escape while Eli is distracted. Alberto dies. All Robbie remembers is seeing their house on fire.
Julianna rebounds later, half because she's lonely and half because she needs cover, and has Gabe. Unfortunately having a kid who is half demon prior to your second kid kind of messes with your body. It results in her dying in childbirth and Gabe having his canon mental and physical disabilities. the Reyes brothers get shipped back to the closest orphanage available, which just so happens to be Hillrock, and life goes on.
Eli requests to be sent up for recon, he hates it but hey, worth it if it means he can kill the bitch and subsequent bitch spawn that stole his brother from him. Gets his drug empire going (lets be so for real he relies almost entirely on the organization of his underlings that man is not organized enough for this) and finds one good thing about the human world; cars. Gets himself a very very cool looking dodge charger in glossy black and its the one thing in his life that he really loves outside of murder.
Robbie.... struggles. A lot. Like I said, demons love to fight its enrichment for them they literally drink each others blood to gain strength it is a BIOLOGICAL THING. Kid Robbie is very Strong very Fast and has crazy endurance and he USES IT to protect Gabe (and because he Wants To and has terrible impulse control because he's SIX) on a FREQUENT BASIS. The problem is, if you keep breaking other kid's arms and legs and ribs and ALMOST break someones neck the adults in charge of you probably wont let you stay with the only important person in your life. Robbie puts a cap on it as soon as he realizes the kind of consequences his actions could have. Unfortunately this means Robbie is even MORE anxious and fidgety than baseline. He's deemed his main natural outlet for energy as something completely unacceptable and its wearing on him. The intrusive violent thoughts are basically constant and he feels so guilty about it All The Time. Much like in canon, Gabe is Robbies tether to his humanity.
It's a few years after graduation. Robbie is about 20 and still street racing, winning extra money for Gabe's meds and trying to fill the adrenaline void that fighting would give him. Substitute enrichment. Takes the charger for illegal street racing, as you do. Gets caught by Eli's goons dressed up as cops. Gets shot. Gets lit on fire. Has a bad time. Imagine his surprise when he wakes up about 2 hours later laying in that alley completely fine other than his clothes being burnt as fuck and shot through with holes (the healing factor is Healing Factoring). He walks home in a daze trying to figure out what exactly happened.
However, this is not without its consequences. DARCOM is monitoring high levels of demonic activity and Hillrock qualifies as a point of interest. Robbie actually sort of USING his abilities to heal after a life of 'if I ignore it then it doesn't exist' has caused a burst of demonic energy that they can pinpoint, track, and use to identify him. They send a squad. This squad includes Lisa. Meanwhile, Eli finds out that the guy they burned to death is back up and working at Canelo's like nothing happened and his last name just so happens to be Reyes. Eli gets his own squad. Johnny and Danny arrive in town to investigate the growing demon presence that could turn into a full on invasion if they don't take care of it. Robbie is about to have. A really weird day.
Robbie notices he's being followed by unmarked vans and hey, he's not stupid. That means it's time to get the hell out of dodge. Robbie and Gabe are trying to get away from the DARCOM squad that subsequently ambushes their house and Lisa eventually corners them. Robbie is in the middle of begging her not to shoot them while also contemplating 'can I get to that gun before she fires?? I woke up fine after getting shot. That was probably just a weird dream though. What if the bullet hit Gabe? This fucking sucks I wish I could fight her' until he suddenly recognizes her. Like "Please just let us go I don't know whats going on- wait. Holy shit you're the chick that went crazy. You sat behind me in English class," I kinda hoped you might try to stick a pencil in my neck so I could fight you.
Robbie is internally facepalming because oh yeah. Great method to get the crazy person with a gun pointed at you to back off man. Meanwhile Lisa is actually kind of having a crisis because she's getting nothing from him. No flickers of something inhuman beneath the surface he just looks kind of terrified. And holy shit looking at him outside of a briefing room she REMEMBERS this guy. He was quiet and kinda reserved but seemed like an okay dude overall. He was nice to her after her sister died, offered her a bottle of water once when she broke down crying in the school parking lot. He didn't talk to her much after that, its not like he was trying to manipulate her it was just... Nice of him. Very much so not the usual demon-in-disguise profile she's gotten used to going after over the years. Also. His brother. Demons don't take care of people like that, it doesn't WORK like that. And the signature they got only indicated one very very powerful demon, so Gabe is for sure human.
Did DARCOM send her to kill a person? It's enough doubt for her to lie to command about getting him cornered. Unfortunately being cornered makes a great opportunity for demons to start jumping in to attack. Lisa defends the two the best she can, convinced that she can explain to command that this is just some kind of mistake. Meanwhile Robbie is grabbing Gabe and sneaking away because yeah, she lied about finding him, that doesn't make her TRUSTWORTHY. Also, SHES NOTORIOUSLY CRAZY. Fleeing leaves him open to attack.
A demon gets the jump on him and Robbie does his best to fight back with just his fists and actually does pretty well until the creature starts targeting Gabe. Robbie gets between the two of them and uses his arm to block the attack, knowing it would get shredded in the process. This causes his arm to change into its devil trigger form (oh yeah baby. Im pulling a Nero DMC4 here).
Lisa finishes off the demon only to see Robbie, looking absolutely horrified, and staring at a limb that looks more like it belongs on a dragon than a person. Robbie is very much so trying to hide his arm from Gabe, while also trying to tell Lisa that he REALLY has NO IDEA WHATS GOING ON. The crazy part is that Lisa is kind of inclined to believe him, because she's still getting no flickers from him despite the obviously demonic arm. She's trying to mentally break the problem into very simple sections; He's got FAMILY. He has a demon arm. This seems like a recent development. He does not seem to enjoy this fact. He's (badly) trying to hide it from Gabe. Gabe trusts him implicitly with his safety. THERES NOTHING IN HER TRAINING THAT PREPARED HER FOR THIS SITUATION. Speaking of Gabe, she really REALLY does not want a repeat of 'Yeah I watched my sibling die in an alleyway', she can admit that didn't work out so hot for her. Its enough to convince Lisa to continue getting these guys away from immediate danger until she can figure out his deal enough to explain to DARCOM whats happening. She's killed a lot of demons for them at this point, they'll listen to her, right?
On Robbies side of things he's reasoning that Something is Happening. To him. Specifically. Which is a situation HIS training (raising Gabe) did not prepare him for. He had heard through the grapevine Lisa was rambling about demons before dropping out around the middle of junior year. Maybe she wasn't crazy. Maybe she was RIGHT. Maybe she's the only person who can tell him whats happening and more importantly how to FIX IT. Like it or not he figures he's gotta stick to her like glue if he wants even a tiny chance at getting life back to normal for himself and Gabe.
For Robbies devil trigger my main thing is that I wanted him to be just. So fucking weird. Genuinely kind of unsettling to look at. Johnny and Danny have the World of Warcraft Rule Of Cool thing going because I like that for them. I didn't want that for Robbie. I made him almost painfully thin because he's not getting his demon blood >:( he's not getting his nutrients >:( he's malnourished >:( go do some cannibalism post haste dude I can see your ribs and theres too many of them. I stole a lot of design inspo from probably my favorite portrayal of demons which is Diablo IV. Very cool very menacing I like I like.
He did end up looking a little pathetic in comparison to the other guys but I think ultimately it works. To quote @cicada-candy 'He's got too many limbs and he doesn't know what to do with any of them' (I was absolutely cackling). His tail likes wrapping around people important to him so he can kind of corral them closer. It's a thing he's not really aware he's doing until Gabe points it out while stuck behind a 100 lb wall of tail. Trying to not do it feels like trying to hold back a yawn, and the usual attempts to stop result in failure. Mostly he just tries not to think about it (the usual problem solving method).
The bottom right is some scenario I'm cooking where Gabe is in a protected location elsewhere and Robbie and Lisa are on some mission or other. They get overwhelmed by enemies and have to escape and they have to get away FAST so Robbie kind of just. Scoops Lisa up without thinking about it. And it's just the WORST for both of them. From Lisas perspective, one second she's on the ground and then next she is in the air being held in place by a VERY large creature. And from Robbies perspective he regrets this the instant he does it because oh god if he so much as twitches wrong his claws could cut her to ribbons or he could drop her or he could squeeze just a little too hard and break all of her ribs and its really hard to keep his hands still because she wont stop squirming around. It's an experience. A bad one.
RANDOM STORY BITS AND BOBS IM SPINNING IN MY BRAIN UNTIL THEY FINISH COOKING (broken up into chunks):
CHUNK 1:
I do also think that his first time drinking demon blood is. An experience. I don't think it's really intentional. He's just kind of splattered with it and gets the mad urge to lick it off his hands. Which is ridiculous, but it's like watching from someone else's perspective as his hand gets closer to his face until he gets a taste and WOAH. Is this what drugs feel like??? He could fight an army he could run a hundred miles he could throw a car he could rob a bank and get Gabe literally anything he wants he could ask Canelo for a raise he could tell Lisa she's amazing at killing demons he could dig into whats left of that demon corpse in front of him get more of this really really really good shit - NO HEY DO NOT DO THAT. Demon blood is a necessary thing for him to get stronger and he is DEFICIENT but that also means he has literally none of the tolerance for it built up that Johnny and Danny have. It's like someone whose been on a no carb diet for their entire life eating 5 tins of brownies in the span of a second (the Ryan Gosling 'YOU NEED CARBS' speech from Fall Guy is a fixture in my conciseness now whenever I'm studying and my brain gets sluggish btw).
I also have this really funny mental image of yet another time he tries and fails to not get just a little taste and he is Visibly not acting normal. Lisa is trying to figure out whats going on, keeping her arm in front of her to create distance. Unfortunately for her she also has demon blood all over her, and her hand is right in front of his face. So he licks it. Because inhibition is Not A Thing right now. Lisa probably punches him about it. This is horrendously embarrassing for him later.
CHUNK 2:
I'm not sure when I want the gang to meet Johnny and Danny but I know I want it to take a while. I want Robbie to activate his full devil trigger form before he gets the chance to really understand his situation because I love to torment him. It's a little bit like the magical girl au in that way. You meet your elders, the people who are supposed to guide you with the unique knowledge they've gained through life, and it turns out they're both absolute MESSES who are constantly at each others throats. Not very confidence inspiring.
Basically, both Johnny and Danny are trying to pretend to be semi functional adults in an effort to impress Robbie and it is REALLY not working. Especially because these are like. Grown men. They're both about in their 40's by now. Danny's culinary education doesn't extend past pasta and Johnny CONCEPTUALLY knows what taxes are but that doesn't mean he pays them.
CHUNK 3:
LISA!!! Okay you remember me talking about devil arms earlier right? I hope so. I wanted an excuse to give Lisa a huge fuckoff gun (because I love the Requiem from RE9) and found a method. Im thinking she manages to do the majority of damage in fighting a relatively high ranking demon, and because said demon is too proud to technically die to a human, they turn into a weapon to secure their soul. A weapon that specifically consumes demon blood because that means they can slowly regain their power back and return to their original form some day.
Behold. Big fuckoff gun.
I decided to name it 'Wrath' because I'm soooooo creative.
Anyway. Lisa is not a fan. She's not interested in using demonic magic for her own gain, she's walking the line close enough by helping Robbie out. Besides it only holds one bullet at a time, what use is that? And then the stupid thing starts following her. Literally everywhere she goes its just trailing on the ground right behind her. Stealth is no longer an option with it fucking clattering about 5 ft behind her at all times. Using her jetpack to get into the air? Literally just flies up with her. It's ANNOYING. One time she woke up with it resting on her pillow directly in front of her face. Fine, she can carry it around. That doesn't mean she's gotta use it.
Until she finds herself in a DIRE situation. She's out of ammo and there is a really REALLY big guy right in front of her. So she figures it's worth a shot to try this dumbass thing out. Not only does the demons head turn into a fine red mist, so does most of its torso. All decorating the wall behind where its legs are still standing, like they're trying to figure out the creature they belong to is dead. Alright. Okay. She's starting to see the appeal.
Because Lisa isn't as strong or as fast she has to make up for it with battle strategy. Wrath sort of balances her out because it's just 'hey, what if I gave you a pocket rocket launcher'? Wrath needs the blood of at least 15 dead demons that it wasn't used to kill in order to make one bullet, so it's not an automatic win button. But holy shit when it's good to go its good to go. Im not sure if it negatively effects her, this demon probably has enough self preservation to know to reign it in if it wants to continue being used. However. Consider. Lady, the character I'm basing Lisa off, of has one red eye and one green eye. The eye Lisa uses to aim gets a little fucked up. Yet another reason she can never go back to her old team. Consider. I am considering. Hm.
CHUNK 4:
Robbies first time using devil trigger. I want it to be AWFUL. In game theres just kind of a magic FWOOSH and boom devil trigger form but IDK if I wanna stick with that. There are a few options that I'm kicking around.
Devil trigger is excruciatingly painful the first couple times. Every molecule in his body is changing and he can feel it. It's a flood of pain and then existence in a body that is completely alien to him until he figures out how to calm down enough to maybe turn back.
He's aware that something is happening but it doesen't hurt. He can feel that stuff is changing and rearranging and shifting and its WEIRD but it's not necessarily painful. The lack of pain does not make it any less frightening.
He doesn't even notice it happen. He's in the middle of a fight with some very large demons who seem to suddenly get smaller. He figures it's some weird energy expenditure thing, whatever, none of this shit makes sense to him anyway. He eventually beats them, which is fucking AWESOME and he's feeling kind of great about it actually. Until he tries to find Gabe and Lisa and realizes they are. Small. Like really small. Like one of Gabe's larger action figures. And it's really only then that he realizes something substantial has happened to him.
All are such fun options. Option one is fun because hell yeah, pain. Option three is fun because it leaves room for the abject terror to grow as he realizes just how fucked he is. Option 2 is a nice middle ground where he can go what the fuck is happening and also still be surprised by what exactly changed. Is it more fun for him to know the tail is there because he felt it extend from his spine, or to be surprised and completely unprepared to discover he has one? Decisions decisions. Maybe the idea that it could happen without him feeling it is a source of fear all on its own?? I am open to suggestions here people.
I do have this fun thought that he wants to reach out to Gabe, just as a way to ground himself, but the closer his hand gets (his weird, scaly hand with claws almost as big as Gabe's forearm) the more he realizes there is a very real risk of accidentally hurting him, which puts his mental downwards spiral into high gear lol. It's really fun because I think that out of all the words Robbie would ever use to describe himself, 'large' has never been among them.
CHUNK 5:
I have this really particular scene in my head that I want to make a comic for later. Basically Lisa and Robbie have been captured by DARCOM (Robbie because they're following through with the mission and Lisa because they think she's swapped sides or being mind controlled). Gabe is being transported in a separate vehicle because he's not really perceived as a threat.
They're both restrained with chains and cuffs on their hands in the back of a transport truck thats about the size of a train car if it had pug proportions (tall as usual but shorter longways). Robbie is spiraling. He doesn't know whats going to happen and he doesn't know where Gabe is and Lisa is trying to figure out some plan to escape but nothing has worked so far and the fear is rapidly progressing into a panic attack. His devil trigger is activating.
The problem is there is NO ROOM IN HERE for that to happen right now. Lisa is effectively stuck in place and theres nothing she can do but get as low to the ground as she can while trying to talk Robbie down before realizing it's really not going to work. So he's kind of stuck being hunched over her and WAY to close for comfort for both of them. This ends up working out for them in the end though, because Robbie literally outgrew the restraints which ultimately allows them to escape. Me when I put my faves in a box thats too small for them and shake it around.
I have. The comic so clear in my mind. They're both so terrified and have no option but to work with each other. I will eternally be putting them in the weirdest fucking situations it is the highest form of enrichment for me.
CHUNK 6 (warning for unhealthy relationships with food):
Robbie is not normal about food even on a GOOD day. Poverty and resource guarding (that is DEFINITELY enhanced because of his weird half demon brain chemistry) means his relationship with food is complicated. It's about to get more complicated. Complicated-er.
Activating his devil trigger has effectively kickstarted his demonic metabolism, which means he's got a lot of eating to catch up with. The bad news is that because he needs to consume demonic blood to get stronger, he needs to eat other demons. The WORSE news is that a lot of the demons coming after him right now are vaguely human shaped. Accidentally occasionally licking blood because he cant stop himself anymore is one thing (still bad), eating human-shaped bodies to get it in the quantities that he needs is a complete other. Robbie is refusing to eat. He's getting slower and weaker and its getting to the point that its starting to effect him while he's not even in devil trigger.
Johnny and Danny keep trying to nudge corpses at him after fights, trying to get him to take a bite but he's REALLY not going for it. He only relents when Lisa finally notices whats happening, grabs a demon corpse by the leg, drags it over and says something to the effect of 'You need to eat because Gabe needs you to be strong'. It's a dirty move but it's effective. He kinda hates her for it but he really really does feel better afterwards (he hates that even more).
CHUNK 7:
Also, I want Gabe to be more involved than I have him now. He deserves some agency he deserves some angst he deserves to kill a little. I'm thinking that maybe he has an affinity for magic because hey coming from the same lady who birthed a half demon just kinda does that... maybe? I know I don't want it to be easy magic, it should be something that has a cost (human perception effects what kind of magic they can cast maybe? the rules for magic are fast and loose and seem like their only restriction is the mind that wields it). Maybe operating off of some kind of blood magic principle? He has to use his own blood in order to cast magic, which puts a limit on how much he can do it and also gives Robbie a reason to disapprove. I want to develop it more but I think theres potential there.
I also think its fun from multiple directions to have Robbies companions become more magical/influenced as time goes on. Because it makes them and their situation more interesting and also he can ✨blame himself for it✨. The 'you're a poison' of it all. Delightful.
Oh hey also height chart so you can see aforementioned biblical greed.
I know what I'm about and I'm not gonna pretend to be better than I am. I ran out of shame when Felipe Smith saw my art of his very serious comic character as a bright pink lamia boy in a magical girl uniform. Fuck it we BALL.
Alright thats all Ive got for now. I'll probably return with more later if I can figure out where I want to drag these guys. Probably have some more art/lore/comic stuff cooked up for yall soon because yayyyyy one week summer vacation next week wooooo.
my brain has randomly forgotten my ipad password (even though ive swore I’ve put in the right one and it keeps rejecting it) and despite trying everything I know my ipad is now in an 8 hour lock so. it looks like I’m gonna be losing all of my procreate art + custom brushes that I’ll need to pay for again as well as the zarathos redesign i was actively working on :) actively crashing out.
marvel drawing johnny with short hair in the newer comics was such a fumble and while I see it situationally I can only ever imagine him in my head with grown out hair and it makes me happy to see a lot of people on here draw him with even just slightly grown out hair no matter what point in time in his lore he’s from
Hi! ive been following your posts, and spawnrider became my OTP in like a second. If u dont mind, I wanna ask, what do u think of them? how would they meet and whats their dynamic like? Let me know if youre interested :)
FIRST OF ALL. I just want to say thank you so much because this is definitely one of my favourite ships of all time and I’m glad I’m able to make other people love it in the same way i do CRIES. but second of all let me get into the brain rot yapping (sorry for the dump ahead)
johnny and al at their core are two very different individuals, but at the same time also very similar. I think because of those similarities, particularly their deals with the devil which were both made in same nature (love), they offer each other an emotional vulnerability that they couldn’t receive from anyone else, because no one could truly understand what they’ve been except each other. al’s deal got him turned into a hellspawn. johnny’s deal got him turned into a ghost rider — and at the end of the day, it was both their bleeding hearts that put them in these positions in the first place.
and building off from their similarities, most of their similarities as people *actually* come from their negative traits. both al and johnny are very stubborn, they both have anger issues, and they both tend to run away from their problems or try and deal with them by avoiding them entirely or coping through unhealthy means — which i *also* think would turn them into hypocrites. they’re the type of people to call out that same behaviour in others while denying it in themselves, and while I definitely think their relationship would start with a lot of conflict, I think them being similar also gives them the chance to grow from each other. to come to terms with the parts of themselves that they don’t want to in the company of someone who wouldn’t judge them for it the same way an outsider would.
two negatives make a positive, or whatever they say in maths. and I think something similar can be applied to al and johnny. they can avoid their problems and negative behaviours around other people, but they can’t avoid it around each other, and I think that forces them to confront it through one another. and I think the realisation of how similar they are too would help give them that grounds for relatability.
i think for both of them, johnny is the person that helps ground al’s struggle with retaining his humanity while al is the person that helps johnny come to terms with the darkness (the ghost rider) inside him. no matter the hardships johnny goes through, his bleeding heart and overwhelming care for other people is something that sticks with him. al *does* care for people, we’ve seen it in the comics and spawn animated show — but he struggles with expressing it as easily as johnny does, and often loses himself in the rage and power that comes with being a hellspawn.
johnny despises the ghost rider. he tries to bury it deep inside him and hide it from the world while clinging to the specs of what remains in his normal life, but al doesn’t have that same luxury. unlike johnny, he can’t physically *hide* what he is from the world, which helps him come to terms with his reality and power far faster than johnny does. johnny doesn’t have to hide what he is around al. al already *knows* what being a monster is like. there’s nothing about the ghost rider that could scare him, or frighten him away — and I think that sense of *security* of being able to be himself around al would be something johnny would cling to like a lifeline, because he doesn’t have that anywhere else.
and I think al being able to come to terms with his reality as hard as he does would be something in al that johnny wants in himself and frightens him at the same time. he’s afraid of accepting the ghost rider because of how destructive and "evil" if is, but i also think being able to accept it slowly overtime would help johnny get to the same point where his morality gets to steer more control over the ghost rider *and* zarathos. because zarathos feeds off of johnny’s fear, his hatred and self loathing. if he loses that, then he doesn’t have that same negativity fuelling his power and hold over johnny anymore.
i think at the end of it all, johnny and al’s overall dynamic would start with a lot of negativity and conflict, but overtime, when they’re able to learn more about each other and their shared circumstances, they’d slowly bleed into a more raw, messy, vulnerable and emotional dynamic that would also help them learn even more about themselves. they’re a light and darkness that keeps each other stable and allows them to accept both of those things within themselves, because neither can exist without the other.
the world might be an awful place, but as long as they have each other, it makes it just a little less bad and worth fighting for. :)
as for how they meet? ghost rider and spawn dabble in very similar plots and storylines, as well as the type of people they hunt, so I’m sure fate would easily make them encounter each other through the path of at least one sinner.
I like the idea of Johnny looking like Noble and Danny looking like Naomi -- something about the first Ghost Riders in the family to not carry the last name Kale resembling the first and last Ghost Riders to have it seems like a nice homage
janainaart
yousharknotpass
theartofmadeline
dededos
