Hiya friend! What do you like about og!Cale and your headcanons for him (+Alveru too)? (Sorry for this ask I just want to read more about og!Cale like his personality, abilities, etc I just miss him when I tried and didn't not find much info about him)
The following is a mixture of canon characterization notes for og!Cale and Alver alongside headcanons and conjectures. The headcanons and conjectures are all marked as such and they are based on the limited information we have about the canon dispositions of these characters. We focused mainly on the TBOAH timeline, referencing the LCF timeline in places to support a supposition made.
We apologize for the delay in replying, we were trying to provide you with as detailed an explanation as possible. We eventually realized that we were taking too long to answer so this isn't as detailed an answer as we would like to give you but we hope this helps you get an idea of his personality. If we have time, we'll try to provide a more detailed resource for their characterizations.
It is observed by Ron that Cale acted like Ohn when he was younger, before he started to act like trash. Extrapolating from that, it is likely that from a young age until around the age of ten, Cale was a precocious and cautious child who is protective of his loved ones. In the specific scene where Ohn reminded Ron of Cale, she was in the middle of receiving her favorite candies because she was worried about her loved ones.Specifically, she was hiding her own worries and fears by acting mature, she struggled specifically because of her own perceptiveness. It is reasonable to extrapolate that as a child, Cale tended to worry about others a lot and he was too perceptive for his own good. It’s also reasonable to assume that Cale may have spent time seeking comfort for servants like Ron.
Due to the nature of nobility in the timeline that the Rowoon Kingdom is loosely based upon, it is also likely that Cale was primarily raised by servants and nannies. There is nothing to back this up in canon aside from Ron being the only character to reflect on Cale’s childhood years. Since there is no mentioned nanny in the current LCF timeline it is likely that Cale chased away the nanny during his trash years (or that the nanny theory is false). If it is true that Cale chased away his own nanny (nannies are frequently something like a surrogate mother to small children), then there is a likelihood that either a) there was an issue with the nanny, possibly related to the vassal families because Cale shows a leeriness toward them when he warned Bassen against showing weakness toward them. Or b) Cale has even more mommy issues than just Jour and Violan and there’s potentially a third mother-figure in his life that he lost. If he chose to chase her away to preserve his trash act, that could result in abandonment issues. There’s also a possibility that she passed away.
While Cale is shown to be a precocious and compassionate child prior to his father’s remarriage, but there is a sharp shift in his behavior afterward. While it is possible that Cale resented his step-family, it feels unlikely in conjunction with his other’s actions. The following has some conjecture to fill the gaps but the majority is based entirely on canon facts. From the bits we get in canon it paints the picture that Cale was worried that Bassen would be too weak to endure the pressure of the vassal family placed upon him, especially as he doesn’t have any Henituse blood in him, and strictly told Bassen to assert himself as a part of the family. However, when it became clear that Bassen would be unable to do so, Cale took drastic measures into his own hands. We speculate that Deruth’s remarriage to Violan happened when Cale was at least ten years old (because 8 years later, Lilly is seven years old) and shortly after Cale began to act like trash. His purpose in acting like a lout was to redirect all negative attention away from his step family (Violan, Bassen, and Lilly) and become a lightning rod for the criticism of the vassal families. He was so successful in this endeavor that at some point, the rest of the family needed to fight against those who would rather he be disowned or at least disinherited.
We speculate that Cale’s reasons for taking such drastic measures to protect his step family might lie in those two years between Jour’s death and Violan’s marriage. Deruth is canonically described as a “buffoon” by Jour (in a loving way) and within LCF canon, he has shown himself to be a bit dense when it comes to politics. Deruth excels in economics but he doesn’t appear to have a tactical mind (from what we have seen of him in canon thus far). He was also shown to have been very distraught by Jour’s sudden death (reasonably so). While we would not go so far as to accuse Deruth of being neglectful of Cale during those two years, it is possible that he trusted the wrong people. If he were to entrust Cale’s education to a seemingly loyal vassal family who had the desire to use Cale rather than teach him, it could result in Cale’s mistrust for his father’s ability to protect his step family from the vassal family. This aspect is purely speculation but it would explain Cale’s rather dramatic decision to take matters into his own hands. This is also another potential juncture in his timeline that could explain the missing nanny, if she was sent away or fired by vassals, he could feel an even stronger desire to protect those that he perceived as “weak” (such as Bassen) in order not to lose them.
For whatever reason, Cale chose the dramatic path of pretending to be trash for eight years straight. A foolish decision of a child carried into early adulthood. At the age of fifteen, he started to drink heavily and get into bar fights. In one of his thoughts while drinking, kim!Cale reflected that Cale’s body had a high alcohol tolerance but his face flushed quickly. This leads to the supposition that despite all of his “drunken” antics, Cale was only faking because of his alcohol tolerance. A strong alcohol tolerance can often also relate to tolerance against medicine and drugs, so it is possible that Cale has a certain level of endurance against being drugged or poisoned. While Cale was “drunk”, he would frequently pick fights at bars but it is noted that while he would destroy furniture and bottles, he never hit anyone. And the only people he would pick fights with would be gangsters and other lowlives. Cale is shown to have a disdain for people like that, possibly out of an internal sense of justice or simply because he finds them annoying.
In one such bar fight, Cale picks on a suspicious vagrant from Harris Village. He bullies Choi Han on multiple occasions before Choi Han cracks and beats the shit out of Cale, leaving him with a noticeable scar and significant injuries. It isn’t stated outright whether Cale would normally shit-talk people like Choi Han, the survivor of a horrific tragedy, in such horrible ways but we have some speculation as to why he did it. To be clear, we do not endorse any of the things that Cale said to Choi Han. One of the reasons that canon directs us to believe Cale had such a volatile reaction to Choi Han is the mention of “Harris Village”. His mother’s sudden death was after a visit to Harris Village. Cale was only eight at the time and his understanding of the situation was that his perfectly healthy mother left to visit the village and then came back at death’s door. Since Jour died from cracking her own plate, there wouldn’t be any clear understanding of how she died for Cale to latch onto. Considering Cale’s disdain for gangsters, it’s possible that he believed his mother was attacked in the village and died from her injuries. Since no one in the village helped her, to his knowledge, it’s possible that he wrote off the entire village as “bad people”. That said, Cale is 18 years old when he picks a fight with Choi Han and in the 10 years since Jour died, he should have reconsidered the situation. We offer a secondary explanation for Cale’s behavior toward Choi Han. While we believe that a portion of it was because Cale’s trauma was triggered, we speculate that the upcoming nobles meeting had a lot to do with it.
In the LCF timeline, kim!Cale spent a few days in Cale’s body while pretending to be a lout (badly) before Deruth told Cale that he would be going to the capital as the heir apparent, in Bassen’s place. As Cale is still acting like trash at the age of 18, it is likely that Cale wants Bassen to be the heir to the Henituse family and he is purposefully attempting to get disinherited. Since Deruth was so quick to change his mind, literally giving Cale the role of heir after a very short amount of time spent behaving well after literal years of misbehavior, it is very likely that Deruth wanted to send Cale to the capital the entire time. As stated before, Cale is a perceptive person so it is very possible that he knew that Deruth still wanted to send him instead of Bassen so Cale was searching for something to do that would force his father to give up on him, or at bare minimum clear the path for Bassen, thus when the violent and traumatized Choi Han crossed his path, he was a convenient entity. If Cale got beat up bad enough, he wouldn’t be able to travel to the capital. And as a fringe bonus, due to his issues with Harris Village, he would probably feel justified in his cruel words. As an addition, we have a headcanon that Bassen was caught up in the terror attack on the capital and he was either injured or killed. Either would result in Cale being really fucked up with guilt over sending Bassen to the capital.
After successfully getting his ass handed to him, Cale would wake up to learn that Ron and Vicross had left with Choi Han. While it is unclear whether Cale had any attachment at all to Vicross (the few times Vicross mentions information about the young master prior to his possession, Vicross’s accounts are distant as though they didn’t interact much and he didn’t have any interest in interacting with Cale before Cale was possessed by Kim Roksu), it is clear that there is some sort of relationship between Ron and Cale. Ron is shown to have been one of the servants responsible for caring for Cale as he grew up and one of the few characters who never show fear to Cale, only suppressed amusement. It’s clear that Ron has some attachment to Cale, with the number of times in LCF that he thinks fondly about Cale pre-possession, and he appears to be one of the few characters to show any actual suspicion about Cale’s sudden change in behavior when Kim Roksu possessed his body. He’s also the only character we see rationalize the change by comparing the similarities between Kim Roksu’s personality and Cale’s personality (recognizing that Cale has always had a compassionate side, even while he was trash). While it is also clear that Ron prefers kim!Cale to og!Cale, there’s definitely a bond there. Ron’s sudden disappearance from Cale’s life was likely a blow. Although, it is debatable whether he would resent Ron for this or not.
It is noted by Ron that Cale was never aggressive toward his family, even when he was drunk as hell. And the manhwa even provides us with an image of Cale sitting next to his siblings peacefully. So while Cale’s behavior was definitely cruel, aggressive, and trashy, he was never abusive to his siblings or parents. It’s also stated that Cale never defied his father directly and that Cale comforted Deruth after Jour’s death.
We can definitely speculate that Cale’s behavior is significantly more extreme than kim!Cale’s. Whenever kim!Cale would do something rude and trashy, people would heave a sigh of relief because it lacked the extreme measures that Cale would go to. From this information, we speculate that Cale yelled a lot more than kim!Cale and broke things more often, especially since people flinched away from him so much. We also speculate that Cale has superb aim because while he threw things at people a lot, he never hit them. This shows that he has enough control to avoid hitting them, even when intoxicated.
Further speculation about Cale’s influences at a young age. Cale is described as “elegant” multiple times during his brief appearances in canon. While it is likely that this description is meant to allude to his nobility, there aren’t many other noble characters who are described as elegant. Since Jour died when he was still very young and her personality from the diary is bouncy and playful, it is unlikely her influence. Since Deruth is never described as elegant, rather as a “buffoon”, it’s also unlikely to be his influence. This leaves three candidates for Cale’s elegance: Ron, Violan, and the potential nanny that we speculated about existing. Ron is graceful but we lean toward Violan in this case because of one other piece of slim evidence. Kim!Cale’s clothes throughout the LCF manhwa are excessive and fashionable, but everything we know about Kim Roksu directs to an interest in simple and black clothes. Whenever he chooses his own clothes, such as when he was investigating the capital before the terror attack and when he chose his uniform as a commander, kim!Cale always leaned toward “simple and black”. However he has an extensive wardrobe of beautiful clothes. We speculate that those clothes belonged to Cale (obviously) and kim!Cale is merely wearing what the servants dress him in. We see something like this happen in the early chapters, with kim!Cale privately disapproving of the loud clothes but surmising that he could pull it off because of Cale’s handsome face. Moving into our speculations regarding Violan, she has a passion for the arts and fashion is an art. She’s also an ex-merchant so she would know the value of fine fabrics and fine clothes. In the flashback we see of eight year old Cale, he does not appear to have any sort of excessive tastes in fashion. Thus, we are of the opinion that Cale was influenced by Violan in both elegance and fashion due to her close proximity to him growing up. Violan is shown to be the only person in the household that is remotely strict to Cale (and even that is pushing it) by insisting that kim!Cale has an entourage for his own safety. As the only parental figure left in his life who is willing to tell him “no”, we think that Violan would have a specific impact on him. All of that said, it is also possible that Cale was influenced elsewhere or merely had innate elegance, we just find that this explanation creates a lot of room for Cale to bond with his step family and grow attached to them, thus making the tragedy of losing them all the worse. Also it’s just a more compelling explanation to us than “he’s just elegant, don’t question it” lol.
On the note of speculated relationships, we speculate that Cale’s relationship with Eric was stronger when they were younger and became strained when Cale began to act like trash. Eric, being a bullheaded person, never gave up on “fixing” Cale’s misbehavior which led to Cale distancing himself further. We headcanon that the pair of them got into funny little antics together, because of Cale’s precocious nature and Eric’s strong personality. Perhaps they studied together. We also speculate that Cale had some sort of frenemy relationship with Neo Tolz, simply because Neo seemed to have a personally beef with Cale when he attempted to pick a fight with kim!Cale. On that note, we believe that Cale would have had a largely negative feeling toward Raon because his only knowledge of the tragic baby dragon was that he had a mana explosion and murdered a bunch of people relatively close to his own territory, perhaps crossing the border depending on how long it took Choi Han to subdue him. And on a purely speculative note with no canon basis, we have a headcanon that Cale would sneak into Lilly’s nursery and play with her when she was a baby/toddler. Purely because it would be really cute and we love Cale treasuring his baby sister. It’s possible that Cale helped with Lilly’s sword training, since he was in good shape when Kim Roksu possessed his body. We like to headcanon that he also helped Bassen with his studies sometimes, albeit behind a mask of strictness.
(On a side note, Cale appears to have a lot of pride in being a Henituse from the few scenes we see him in and he seems concerned about the family he left behind in order to save the world)
An unspecified amount of time later, Cale was the only survivor of the Henituse territory being destroyed and joined the army in order to fight against the White Star and avenge his family.
Recruited as a soldier, joins the army with the intent to get revenge against the White Star. He said he just wants to leave a scratch on the WS, or he can’t die in peace.
Fought in a war for twenty years, in enough battles to get a body covered in scars.
During the great battle in puzzle city, where the fallen nation’s survivors banded together, he almost died after hearing the White Star mention that Choi Han’s time was warped.
He then made a deal with the god of death, to switch with a person who could save his family and territory. By rewinding time back to Choi Han’s meeting with Cale. His other condition was to find out the truth about his mother’s death, and be reunited with her (i think)
HC: His options to make an impact in any other way probably seemed realistically limited. A little suicidal. He would have been reckless, wanting to fight in the vanguard for the most part. Choosing jobs that can bring him closer to the Generals and other people in power in the White Star’s army to kill them. He would want to kill as many of the enemy as possible, partially because he may not know who exactly killed his family. Anyone in that Army could’ve been one of the people responsible.
HC: Revenge, Existential Crisis, Survivor’s guilt, Suicidal feelings/thoughts, love for his family and territory, wanting justice, loyalty. Extreme anger. Hopelessness, trying to find hope.
HC: Not sure about this one. We don’t know who he was close to during the war. But he does mention Alver, Choi Han, Rosalyn, and Lark. Doesn’t mean he came into contact with them much if at all, or spoke to them and such. They may have lead him during battles at some points. He could have taken direct orders, but I feel like a commander lower on the food chain would be leading him since he was a foot soldier.
HC: Cale was only living at that point to get revenge, it is what kept him alive, and prevented him from falling into despair and ending everything. He has survivor’s guilt, and couldn’t just die for several reasons. Avenging the family, trying to make sure their deaths aren’t meaningless etc;
(We'll try to add more detail later, such as his relationships with his coworkers, bosses, and Choi Jungsoo. Alongside the characterization we see of him in canon. We weren't able to get to this. This section is largely incomplete. However, we do recommend reading the side story "Team Leader has become Trash!" or anything written by @asterefflores for a good idea on how to characterize Heniroksu properly.)
Jour Henituse (reincarnation):
The reincarnation of Cale’s mother Jour. She has no memory of her previous life and currently lives in an orphanage. She calls Cale her uncle.
Headcanon: Cale has a lot of issues raising his own mother as a daughter in an unfamiliar world. He loves her and cares about her but damn, fate is fucked up. He finds comfort in having her nearby though, as the only family that he has left. And it's an interesting experience for him to get to know his mother for the first time. She died when he was only eight years old so he really didn't know her very well back then. Now he's able to get to know her and love her like a daughter. It's a strange and awkward relationship but it's the only familial one he has left.
HC: Cale as KRS is a hard worker but hates it. He doesn’t want to work the night shift. He is always threatening to quit to keep people in line. He wants to be the CEO of the company so he doesn’t have to work so hard. He talks about drinking at work. People find his smile strange. His elegance strange. They say he radiates class. He has a nickname ‘i want to quit kim rok soo.’ He was supplied with information about KRS and records of his memories i think lmao he also inherited all of KRS’ abilities. He works on building a relationship with his reincarnated mother
Ascended to king after Zed Crossman was killed in puzzle city. Made sure the Roan Kingdom survived for twenty whole years through a worldwide war. Worked with fallen Kingdoms, gathered them to fight in a great battle toward the very end. It is implied he was the brain behind the army. He raised people like Choi Han to be heroes. Recruited soldiers from across the Roan Kingdom. There is also information about Robbit, that after Alver died in the war in TBOAH original timeline, Robbit was the one to take over. If Alver died, it was before time was reset.
HC: Alver wants to win the war. Period. Liberate the freaking kingdom, defeat the white star, recover all the lost areas, protect his people and ensure as many survive as possible, and drive the enemy out of his kingdom, defeat them, and live. Because Alver is someone who has a very strong will to live. This should never be underestimated or ignored. He is the opposite of suicidal. In the case of if Tasha died during the war, he would be even more determined to win it. In this aspect, he and og!Cale are alike. Alver can survive any amount of pain, not undamaged, or unbroken, but he will go on. He won’t stop fighting until there is nothing left to fight for or he is dead and this is what makes him truly terrifying when combined with his intelligence and how far he is willing to go. He is an excellent leader because he never stops moving forward. He knows how to inspire people, raise them up as heroes, and is an extremely powerful orator. He’s one bad bitch.
HC & Canon?: Died in a battle of puzzle city early on in the war? Which makes it seem like there were two puzzle city battles. I haven’t been able to figure out what happened there to this day.
HC: I imagine she and Shawn were by Alver’s side for a majority of everything. Likely both Commander Shawn and Tasha were commanders, leading the dark elves, and other races alike. Or, she could have died, and this is something I contemplate a lot unfortunately. How many people actually survived this war? Anyway –
The Eastern lands were among the first to be attacked and burnt to the ground, this is why the Roan Kingdom was desperately trying to recover the eastern areas of the Kingdom.
HC: if any of the northeastern nobles survived, I imagine they went into hiding or fought like Cale, or did what a lot of people in war do, evacuate the mothereffing country. But where would they go when all their neighbors were being conquered, defeated and subjugated, some sacrificed most likely? It’s uncertain.
((We will attempt to finish this overview of characterization for both og!Cale and Alver when we have the time to do so! We apologize for the incomplete notes provided.))
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