New BRC AU/headcanon/fan fic idea/etc., also kind of a sequel to my "Rise and Devil Theory possible connections" post from a while back.
So in the Jet Set Radio games, there's a gang called Poison Jam. People have already pointed out a couple of similarities between them and Devil Theory, mainly design-wise. In JSR Future, they're led by Cube, who eventually joins the protags' group.
So then if we're already pointing out parallels between Poison Jam and Devil Theory, here's a neat idea: Rise being the secret leader of Devil Theory! It'd be another possibility of how she'd be allowed on Pyramid Island without getting hassled by them.
More rambling under the cut!
Now getting into a few more probable specifics about how this could work:
Though first, regardless of how she's the leader, she never reveals the truth to anyone. She's still got a reputation to maintain! Maybe Tryce or someone else on BRC figures things out and tries to accuse her, but she just replies, "That's a very dangerous accusation to make." Meanwhile whoever accuses her starts feeling like they're being watched... 😈
After DT gets kicked out of Mataan and get settled on Pyramid Island, they start getting sick of Rise as their leader. Maybe they blame her for losing to DJ Cyber (since they got kicked out of Mataan, they probably lost to FUTURISM), and getting sent to the island. So they're trying to figure out how to oust her from the crew, though Rise is aware of this and keeping an eye on them.
Alternatively, Rise is the one upset at DT for losing and getting them all shuffled onto the island. So she's looking for ways to cut her losses with them and join a whole new crew by herself.
It could also be both sides being mad at each other for the loss. :P
So either way, BRC comes along and Rise tests them. Once they impress her enough, she cuts her losses with her old crew and joins BRC!
Whether or not Rise is aware of DT's dealings with the cops could also factor into this, like what I mentioned at the end of that other post. She could be the one who encouraged them to use the police to help get rid of their competition in the first place!
But then either A: she has a change of heart after joining BRC and stops doing that, or B: DT take the whole thing too far, including the deal with Faux to help him, so then she just stops because of that.
Also, another idea! DT start making deals with the cops and Faux without telling Rise at all. When she finds out, that's around the time BRC show up on the island. She's angry that her own crew went behind her back like this, so then this leads to her testing and then joining BRC.
Actually, speaking of Faux: When Devil Theory get beat by DJ Cyber and FUTURISM then sent to the island, they stage a mutiny and kick Rise out of their crew, blaming her for it. Meanwhile, they start making deals with Faux, who in turn directs them to rat other writers to the police. Faux basically makes himself their new leader, or at least makes them think that. He either wants them as his own crew because he wants to fight against DJ Cyber and FUTURISM, or otherwise he just wants to trick DT and wipe them out easier when he starts his All City King plan.
In this scenario, Rise could be on the island with them because she's trying to figure out some sort of revenge against them for kicking her out (possibly why she "helps" BRC and eventually joins them instead). Otherwise, maybe she finds out about DT's dealings with Faux and the cops, and is mainly keeping an eye on them moreso out of worry. They kicked her out, but she still cares about whether or not they get hurt. Or maybe it's more like a "waiting for the future drama with popcorn ready" situation where she wants to see how bad their karma will get, lol
Bonus scenario: Rise says in the game when she joins BRC, "I will allow ya crew to join me." Maybe, she means BRC joining her... and the rest of Devil Theory. She could very well still see herself as DT's leader even after joining BRC. And in turn, DT still see her as their leader, possibly why the DT member in the post game is actually willing to give BRC a chance to beat his score and make him join.
So then she shows up at the BRC hideout with the rest of Devil Theory in tow!
Tryce: "I'm sorry, what the hell is going on here?"
Rise: "Don't worry, they're all housetrained."
Tryce: "That is not what I'm asking here and you know it."
Rise: "Look, they'll behave if I tell them to behave, and we're genuinely here to join with BRC from now on. So don't worry about it, yeah?"
(also probably Rise x Devil Theory polyamory in this scenario, maybe, lol)
Escher headcanons 👐 any spare Escher headcanons for a poor starving Escher fan?
YESSS get ready folks, it’s time for… the Escher Hour!! \o/
For some characters, I have more thoughts about them than others. Escher is one of those characters. I feel it’s because there’s just so much room to think about and develop him more than what the game gives us.
Meaning, this post is gonna be LONG lol...
(Also please let me know if anything sounds awkward or doesn't make sense, I went over all of this like 5 times to fix stuff up and I Am Tired :u )
Starting off with his real name (mentioned in my headcanon names post a while back): Matthias Conrad Escher! So he has the same initials as M. C. Escher, his parents knew what they were doing, lol. As an adult he doesn’t mind it nearly as much as when he was a kid. He insists on everyone calling him Escher, not Matthias or any nicknames (with one specific exception, we’ll get to that near the end, hee hee).
A brief(ish) history before/during his time on the force:
Was in an archery club as a student before moving on to guns. In general he has amazing aim with pretty much any kind of long range weapon. Do not challenge this man to a game of darts, you will lose, lol
He’s not really a friendly guy. Not mean but also not exactly introverted, just… not that outgoing. The type of person who doesn’t befriend people himself, but gets befriended by others. If that makes sense?
As a kid, he was very into stories (novels, comics, movies, etc) about heroes with simple beginnings who go on to make a big impact and save the world! Though nowadays he gets annoyed by most stories like that because he realized it had a bad influence on him. More on that in a bit...
Joined the police because he genuinely thought he could do good and help protect people that way. Over time he becomes jaded due to witnessing some of the things his “fellow officers” were doing, especially going overboard with even small “crimes”. Escher either ends up threatened by said officers to keep things quiet, or otherwise if he does report someone, it just ends up getting swept under the rug while Escher is the one being reprimanded for being “too nosy”. Even if it never goes anywhere, he still makes reports on the hope that something will change.
Despite all of that, the main reason he sticks around on the force is because, in his mind, “If there’s even only one ‘good cop’ in the NAPD, it might as well be me.” The other officers know Escher is a “stickler” about rules, trying to be fair and respectful even to criminals, etc. So at least when he’s around, most of them will behave themselves. Thus, he figures if he quits, things will just get worse. Not to mention, he hopes he can influence and inspire his fellow officers to actually be better people and to be more genuine “good cops”, and make a change for the better from within the NAPD itself!
Remember those stories I mentioned that he liked as a kid? Yeah, subconsciously he was trying to be the cool and awesome hero he always wanted to be. Looking back on his mentality like this, present day Escher very much understands that he was being an idealistic idiot. :u
Though, it also didn’t help that there were in fact a few cops who were convinced by Escher to start being better about their activities, and even showing mercy and respect towards criminals. These guys were very far and few in-between though, compared to the number of cops who approved of more extreme measures (like the walking tanks) for any crime, no matter how small. Those cops either bought into Berlage’s “slippery slope” argument, or otherwise they knew they were corrupt but didn’t care as long as they can say they’re the “good guys”.
The NAPD probably would have just killed him and cover it up as an accident, but Escher proves to be a good fighter and survivor. And even during a few attempts, he makes it clear he is one very stubborn bastard when it comes to actually dying. He will only die when he feels like it, lol. So the force gives up on it after a certain point, and decides to just keep an eye on Escher and make sure he doesn’t quit (since it would mean he potentially ends up more actively fighting against them if he’s not on the force anymore).
He is gay, but realized/accepted it fairly late in his life, maybe somewhere in his 30s or 40s.
Unfortunately, his wife at the time was not happy when he came out to her. Lots of fighting, screaming, and a very messy divorce, with her taking almost everything he had. At the least it also meant he never saw her again after that, which he’s very thankful for.
He used to smoke. Obviously once he got his cyberhead later in life, he couldn’t do that anymore. He still keeps his old lighter with him though, mostly out of sentimentality. It’s a very nice zippo lighter!
Likes whiskey, mostly for the “warming throat” feeling it gives after drinking it. But by the time the game starts, he doesn’t drink much anymore.
Also note that by the events of the game, Escher is somewhere around late 50s or early 60s in age.
Some further info on Escher’s cybernetics, all of which happened after his divorce but before the events of the game. It’s not just the cyberhead!
Escher getting his cyberhead was due to an on-duty injury, where he was shot in the head. The official records state it was caused by a criminal he and other officers were tracking, but in reality it was from a fellow sniper who he “snitched” on. That guy ended up with a slap on the wrist like most of the other cops Escher reported, but he was still pissed at Escher about it. Escher himself doesn’t learn the truth about what happened until after the events of the game (more on that later).
That being said, enough of his throat/voicebox/etc is left in tact, such that he’s still able to speak “normally” (i.e. not through a speaker like most other cyberheads). Hence why in game, he’s the only cyberhead that doesn’t have a filter-thing on his voice clips.
On that note, of course most of his brain is also miraculously intact, but the shot still puts him in a coma. So his superiors make the decision for him to get him set up with a cyberhead.
During the procedure for getting his mind copied over into his future cyberhead, they also opened him up and gave him cybernetic lungs! The police force found out he had cancer from his smoking and decided to fix him up. How nice of them, right?!
Except, they did it without asking him first (again, the coma). Not to mention since then a lot of the higher-ups use it to almost bully Escher, saying he “owes the force” for being saved, both in terms of the cyberhead and the cyber lungs. Escher hates this, but again, he’s stubbornly stuck in his “might as well be the only good cop/if I leave no one else will be able to fix the force for the better” mentality at this point, so he’s still an officer. Also, while he hates to admit it, he does end up feeling like he “owes” the NAPD for being willing to save him, even after all his “snitching” and whatnot.
But combined with everything else going on, it still at least adds onto Escher’s doubts about how much “good” the NAPD is actually doing…
Besides all that, cybernetic organs (other than cyberheads, which replace an entire head including the brain) aren’t as great as cyberheads and limbs, and especially compared to the efficiency of there organic counterparts. Escher makes sure to get regular maintenance on his cyber lungs, but even then they can still malfunction on occasion. Sometimes it gets so bad, he wishes they had just left him with his cancer-ridden organic lungs.
He gets his arms fully replaced with cybernetic arms as well, though definitely not willingly. He suffered another on-duty injury. This one he knows was caused by his fellow officers, but it was ruled as an accident. Escher has doubts on how much of an “accident” it really was, and has been trying to find solid evidence to the contrary. He’s hoping it might actually be enough to finally turn things around with the force like he wants.
Anyways, truthfully his arms weren’t that badly damaged, but he was pressured by his higher-ups to get the cyber arms. They were convinced it would affect his aim as a sniper, which he took as an insult, but still agreed to the cybernetics just to get those assholes off his back.
Lastly, he also got part of his legs severely injured, this time being a genuine accident compared to the head and arms incidents. Both legs injured below the knees, enough to warrant amputation. His higher-ups also tried to pressure him into going for fully cybernetic legs, as a complete replacement for what’s left of his legs. This time he stands his ground and refuses. He opts for non-cybernetic prosthetics instead, especially since he at least still has his knees. Paid for them himself, so that his superiors couldn't say he "owes" them for this too.
As a note, I like to think the world of New Amsterdam has regular prosthetics like what we have irl, but also cybernetics which are basically more advanced prosthetics with fancier technology. Like, wires and sensors connected to the body’s nerves, so that it’s not too different from the original organic parts. It still takes a bit of physical therapy to get used to though, and of course regular maintenance and repairs to make sure it stays operational.
Next, headcanons of him during and right after the game, mostly what happened to him after being knocked out.
By the point of the game’s events, Escher is having especially strong doubts about the force. His investigation about the incident leading to his arm replacement keeps hitting dead ends, even though he knows there should be something to prove what actually happened. He’s also finally starting to have suspicions about the incident that led to his cyberhead as well. His investigations for that also lead to dead ends, but he finds enough clues and evidence to make him realize it wasn’t just an accident. Unfortunately for him, it’s still not enough to force a serious investigation into it all.
He considers quitting, but again, idealistic idiot! If he quits now, what happened to him could just happen again to someone else, so he’s determined to do something good from within before he gives up completely. It's a bit of sunken cost fallacy, in a way, but where Escher refuses to acknowledge how deep the ship has sunk by this point.
Even besides that, he’s heard about a new NAPD project that will lead to better crime prediction, and ideally less wasting time with harassing writers and other small time “criminals”. He’s hoping maybe this project is finally what the city really needs to stay safe, what the NAPD needs to be less corrupt, and maybe even what he needs to somehow find proof of what happened to him and finally getting proper justice.
*insert meme of your choice here that has a “What could possibly go wrong!” and/or “Image preceding worst possible outcome” vibe* :P
The way I see it, most officers are willingly following orders from Project Algo without question. Once Faux-as-Project-Algo starts ramping things up, I think the officers are encouraged to go to extremes with their actions against criminals. Which they do so as a combination of “orders are orders”, and genuine glee over finally getting to punish “criminals” in the way they always wanted to. Basically, the way I see it, the NAPD was always corrupt behind the scenes, Faux just made it worse by encouraging them to be way more blatant and public about it.
An aside: I mean, they have the tube system and turrets already set up throughout the city, not to mention plenty of attack helicopters and walking tanks ready for immediate deployment. You don’t have that kind of firepower at the ready unless you’re fucking looking forward to finding an excuse to start some carnage. Just saying!!
Back to Project Algo’s influence on the NAPD: A few officers have doubts, and these unfortunate souls are taken over by Algo/Faux and forced to do his bidding.
Guess which group of cops Escher is in, especially after he questioned Berlage about the “suspects” at Brink Terminal. And with his history of questioning and reporting his fellow officers over “trivial” matters before now, of course he’d be the first on the chopping block when it comes to testing out certain aspects of Project Algo.
After getting knocked out at BRC’s hideout, they check and confirm that he’s not dead. His cyberhead sorta shorted out from the impact and is effectively in sleep mode. But now they gotta figure out what to do with him before he wakes up!! Their solution: Put Escher on a bus. Literally in this case, they find a bus in Brink Terminal that’s heading far out of the city, get him on it (by stuffing him into the luggage compartment while no one’s looking, lol), and let it take care of him for them!
He wakes up far outside New Amsterdam, at which point Project Algo has lost its control over him. The project did not have good enough signal/network connection to keep controlling him from that far of a distance. Also he scares the poor bus driver and passengers by accident when they discover him in the luggage compartment. :P
Escher sorts things out and manages to get on a bus heading back into the city. He spends time on that return trip thinking over everything that happened to him leading up to this point: him trying to be a “good cop” but not making much of a difference; his injuries which led to his cybernetic parts and being told he now “owes” the force for “saving” him; and then him expressing his doubts and concerns over and over again, only to be scolded and have everything swept under the rug, no matter how serious of a violation it was. He wants to be a “good cop”, but now he’s realizing how much of an idealistic idiot he’s been for trying to make change from the inside out. Letting himself be a doormat because he desperately wanted to believe he could make a real difference, that the NAPD could do good like they claimed to, that he could be a hero if he just stuck around and did as much as he could, etc.
And then this time, being sent to capture “armed suspects” that weren’t armed at all, plus getting taken over by Project Algo for trying to be reasonable about BRC and other writers? This whole this is really just the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.
By the time he arrives back in the city, the main plot of the game is already done. So thankfully he’s not taken over by Project Algo again. But yeah, he’s thought about what he’s been through, what he put himself through due to a selfish sense of justice and heroics, and finally understands he’s been wasting his time trying to clean up a system that keeps dirtying itself up anyways. Not everything can be fixed easily, if at all, like in a story.
Now more post game headcanons!!
His outlook on everything that happened to him before now can be more or less summed up as: “They say, ‘the only good cop is either an ex-cop or a dead cop’. I never took that phrase seriously until I almost became a dead cop. And frankly, I’m still mad at myself for not seeing the truth sooner.”
So suffice to say, he quits the force, and becomes a private detective! He still wants to be a force of good in some way, but at least now he realizes he has to do that himself, outside of the NAPD. Occasionally the cases he takes on are against the NAPD too, so even after quitting he still gets on their bad side.
And of course, he's not completely jaded to the point where he thinks being good is pointless. He just has more realistic expectations on how to do good in the world. He's still frustrated with himself for not doing this earlier, especially for not quitting the force sooner, but better late than never I guess!
He tries to keep any hard boiled monologues in his head, especially since it could mean tipping off someone about what he’s doing. :P
His detective office is actually the living room of his apartment. He’s kind of hoping to upgrade to an actual office at some point, but for now it works well enough for keeping his files organized and as a space for meeting with clients.
Escher has a small collection of drinky birds going in one corner of his office, lol
He likes jazz, blues, and lounge music. He’s got a record player and a collection of records in his office too!
He doesn’t like watching TV, so he doesn’t have one in his apartment. He prefers listening to his records, the radio, and even podcasts sometimes. Otherwise he’s occasionally checking online for recent news and possible leads.
In terms of other hobbies… this guy actually doesn’t have much going on. Though he’ll sometimes check out random books from the local library to read, from novels to biographies to textbooks. The way he sees it, you never know when a random piece of info from a book you only read once could end up useful later on. And even if it doesn’t, he finds it kind of fun to read something new!
That being said, he at first avoids any fantasy or sci-fi novels about heroes going on big journeys and saving the world and stuff, because… well, you probably know why by now. He gets over it eventually, but he doesn’t get quite as much enjoyment out of them than when he was a kid. Not to mention, he revisits some of his childhood favorites occasionally, and they make him cringe sometimes. A lot of the time. For the most part, it's from him realizing how terrible they really were (be it because of poor writing, or things like racism, misogyny, etc).
Escher is saving up money to go full-cyber! Since the only major organic part of him left is his torso and part of his legs, he figures, why the hell not at this rate. Not to mention, his cyber lungs are still Not Good, despite making sure to get upgrades and updates over the years. It’s to the point where he’ll need to get them full replaced in the future anyways. So going full-cyber would be a huge improvement over continuing to deal with the cyber lungs!
In the meantime, he did at least modify his cyberhead so that his neck is part of it too. So now he has the voice filter thing! He always hated how before then, his voice made him stick out too much among other cyberheads. Back to his enjoyment of whiskey mentioned waaay earlier, this change means he doesn’t get the warm throat feeling from drinking anymore. Then again, by now he’s pretty much quit drinking completely, so it’s not that big of a loss in his eyes.
As a private detective, he held onto his sniper rifle but took it apart and converted it into a crossbow. Meant more for defense than anything else, especially since he has bolts for causing smokescreens, loud noises, bursts of paint, etc.
Escher is now on good terms with BRC even after the knock out. He understands they were just trying to protect themselves, especially with him being controlled by Project Algo at the time.
He also works with BRC and other writers to warn them about any police activity, such as to be on the look out for both police traps and actually dangerous criminals (like, suspected murderers and anything else along those lines), exchange information and rumors, etc.
For my “Red as a separate person from Felix” headcanons/story, Escher is eventually “convinced” to take on Red as an apprentice of sorts. Red actually manages to do a good job, all things considered!
And finally, ending things off with my patented Shipping Nonsense, lol
Sometime after the end of the game, he decides to give dating a try. He thinks it won’t really go anywhere, but at least he can attempt to be more social with others. He ends up speaking with Cinco, the five ball DOT EXE member, and going on a few dates. Cinco doesn’t deny he’s with DOT EXE when Escher asks about it, but asks Escher to not make a big deal of it (which Escher respects).
But then Escher at one point admits he was a former sniper for the NAPD. Which unfortunately leads to both of them worrying that he might have been the one who killed Eight Ball. He got taken over by Project Algo after all, he could have been control to handle Eight Ball before going after BRC...
They both break things off because of that. Escher is disappointed but realizes he should have expected his past to keep causing him problems. Meanwhile Cinco is outright devastated. He’s scared of the idea that Escher was the one to kill Eight Ball, but also still hoping that’s not the case because he ended up falling for Escher pretty hard. D:
Eventually, Neun (nine ball DOT EXE member) steps in because he’s “tired of Cinco’s whining” (i.e. wants to help his friend). He speaks to Escher privately and admits that he knows, with certainty, that Escher was not the one who offed Eight Ball. Neun looked into that personally, almost right after Eight Ball’s body was discovered, and managed to track down the real killer via hacking certain parts of the NAPD’s system. Of course, he was careful to make sure Project Algo didn’t detect what he was doing (thankfully Faux was too busy putting his All City King plan into motion to notice). Neun even admits he also “took care of” the killer himself. He hands over records and files to Escher to prove he’s telling the truth.
Through those files, Escher finds out the person who killed Eight Ball was a sniper who was not being controlled by Project Algo, but still followed the order without questioning why an unarmed writer needed to die. Also, plot twist, Neun had found additional info about the guy in the NAPD’s records and elsewhere, and it turned out to be the same sniper who shot Escher in the head way back when! So, things coming full circle and all of that.
Neun makes Escher swear not to tell anyone about him “handling” the real killer sniper himself. In exchange, the two of them go to Cinco with the rest of the info, explaining it as them working together to investigate things further and find out about who really killed Eight Ball. They cover up what Neun did by saying the sniper was eventually killed in a separate incident later on while Project Algo was still active.
So with Escher now in the clear, he and Cinco are back to dating!! Genuine old man yaoi, cyborg version, lol (Cinco is also in his 60s, so I’m serious about the old man part okay)
Cinco calls him “Mattie” as a nickname, but Cinco is the only one allowed to do this. Everyone else is required to address him as Escher. :P
Cinco is really affectionate with Escher, also very cuddly! You’d think Escher would be annoyed by physical affection like that, but he really doesn’t mind. Actually he’s touch-starved, but either doesn’t realize it or doesn’t what to admit to it, lol
Escher isn’t one to laugh much (and even before getting a cyberhead, he didn’t smile much either), but he does enjoy Cinco’s puns and joke. Not outright belly laughing, but definitely a chuckle, y’know?
That’s about it! Thank you for sending in an ask, I really appreciate getting a chance to ramble about my headcanons. Feel free to check out my other rambles in my BRC headcanons tag! :D
Random DOT EXE idea/AU/??? that came to me in a weird dream last night: The crew is actually a hive mind! Basically someone uploaded their mind to a huge server (or rather, servers in a whole server room) hidden somewhere in New Amsterdam, and the DOT EXE members are remote controlled robots piloted by the person in the server.
(Note that this is not “canon” to my main set of headcanons. This is just a fun "what if" idea! Feel free to take it and do whatever you want with it. :P )
One of the Oldheads mentions that DOT EXE are about as old as her, so we know that the crew has been around for a while, if not every member being the same age. So let’s say there was a predecessor crew for DOT EXE, of all full-flesh people. Over time, most of the crew members quit being writers (either they get bored of it, or they got arrested too many times for their liking, etc.), leaving just one member who still wants to be a writer and breakdancer.
This one guy is heartbroken and lonely from all his friends giving up on the crew, not to mention he can already feel his age catching up to him. He learns about cyberheads and cybernetics and all, so he decides to go full-cyber. But in a way that he can effectively be part of a crew again!
Hence the mind upload to the server, and creating robots in the form of the DOT EXE bodies for him to pilot remotely. Much like a puppeteer with puppets, he even acts each one with slightly different personalities. More specifically, he makes each of them act at least a little similar to each of his old crew mates, making it seem like they all came back to go full-cyber with him together. This way, no one suspects that they’re all just the same person (especially so that he doesn’t end up with the police tracing them back to him)!
The one closest to his original personality is actually the cue ball member. The original guy was not very good at being a writer (he was a lot better at breakdancing), but he still stuck to it to be able to hang out and have fun with his friends. Eight Ball is of course based off the original crew’s leader.
So then what about Eight Ball dying during the game? Well, not much different from a toy breaking. Just fix it or get a new one!
The DOT EXE server guy found getting shot kinda lousy (truthfully a bit traumatizing, but he’ll insist he’s fine with it), but ultimately he “survived” since his actual mind is safe and sound in his server. Of course, the DOT EXE server guy has been keeping up the illusion that DOT EXE are individual humans (full-cyber humans, but still). So he can’t just fix the Eight Ball body back up, since other people are gonna freak out that someone who “died” came back to life! Still, this would explain why the cue ball member seems so casual about Eight Ball dying in the postgame, y’know?
As for Eight Ball appearing in Red’s dream after his death, I imagine that’s not actually Eight Ball like I’ve seen some people headcanon. Red learned about DOT EXE being able to read signals and all, and after seeing Eight Ball dead, his mind just combined the two memories/thoughts into “Yo, someone shot me, check the signals and figure out who did it”.
Bonus: If you get the DOT EXE server guy to fall in love with you (either by getting close to just one of the “crew members”, or otherwise somehow talking to him directly in his server), you would technically have both 1 boyfriend and 5 of them! 6 if you count Eight Ball (maybe he’ll just replace Eight Ball with a new number). Potentially 8 if you also count the unused 10-ball and 14-ball textures from the games as off-screen extra members, lol
Emphasis on very long, there's a lot of them listed here. Not just romantic ships, but also friendships, rivalries, and even exes!! Some of these I only did a little blurb about, others have a paragraph in their own right, lol
Like I mentioned last night, I want to write at least some oneshots of some of these (especially some of the romantic ships, you can probably guess which ones 😈), but I don't know where to start since I have given myself Too Many Options. :u
So if there's a particular one you want me to ramble about, feel free to send in an ask! If anything I encourage it, since I'm hoping it'll help push me in the right direction to eventually write some fics about these. One relationship per ask please, and note that some of these I'll have a lot more to say than others!
Friendships:
In general, I think in each crew, the crew members get along with each other well enough to call each other friends. Probably the only exception is Veronica of FUTURISM, given I made her the one teammate that the rest don’t like. :u
Bel, Mesh, and Shine are the kind of people who try to be friends with everyone, or at the very least make a conscious effort to get along with everyone in the Bomb Rush Crew!
Mesh & Cueball in particular as friends is one I wanna point out here! Cueball starts out being suspicious of Mesh, because he doesn’t realize Mesh is just being nice. Poor Cueball has no friends outside of DOT EXE, and even then he didn’t get along with them better until after Eight Ball’s death and Cueball leaving that crew to join BRC. Him and Mesh eventually become pretty good friends, and that leads to him getting along better with the rest of the crew too!
Eventually Mesh and Cueball also become friends with Sai too! Sai being my Devil Theory OC who joins BRC. He was kinda in the same situation as Cueball, being suspicious about people being nice to him, but they win him over eventually. :P
Rise, Shine, and Rave in particular end up being a trio of besties~
And the “Core 5” members (Tryce, Bel, Felix, Vinyl, and Solace) are besties too!!
I’ve mentioned this in the past, but all 4 Devil Theory members were friends for a long time before forming their crew, and still remain best friends!
Rivals:
Daishō vs. Tryce, mostly the former trolling the latter, such as specifically putting graffiti over Tryce’s own pieces. Tryce tries to not let it get to him, emphasis on “tries”.
Sai vs. Red, as a friendly rivalry where they fight each other in sparring matches. Note, Red is a separate person from Felix in my headcanons after the events of the game (I’ve changed how Red exists in my headcanons since the last time I talked about him; long story short they find a writer’s cyberhead mind that’s in need of a new cyberhead, and Felix had been rebuilding the Red cyberhead for himself as a replacement for his old mask, so…)
Rietveld vs. Nunchaku (Nunchaku being another Devil Theory OC, she’s a trans butch lesbian!), this one is kind of a one-sided thing on Rietveld’s part. Basically at one point Bel has a crush on Nunchaku, while Rietveld had a crush on Bel, and thus thinking a rivalry is gonna happen. But thankfully for Rietveld, Nunchaku turns Bel down (Nunchaku is more into other butches). The “rivalry” basically fizzles out after that, especially once Rietveld was finally able to ask Bel out. :P
Okay, so now getting into the romantic ships, I'm breaking them up into 3 sections, one with just canon characters, the second with canon characters paired with one of my OCs, and the last being canon x OC with the OCs in this case being ones I haven't even drawn yet, lol...
Romantic (Only canon characters):
DJ Cybr x Felix; Cylix, Cyber Kings, whatever you want to call it! I like to think both of them keep shuffling their feet on it for a long while, with flirting from DJ going over Felix’s head sometimes, and one being convinced the other just wants to be friends, etc.
Bel x Rietveld (inspired by some of @supraandhergoreshia's doodles of them, like this, and this, and also this one, and this really cute one ;u; )
Shine x Coil (inspired by some of @monkiinart's art of them together, such as this, and this one, also especially this one ahh)
Mesh x Solace (inspired by KOMAP's art of them!! Like this, and this, and this! There's more doodles of these two on KOMAP's Xitter too :> )
Romantic (Canon x OC):
Rise x Sai (Devil Theory spring palette), fake dating turned into real dating oh no, lol
Bō (Devil Theory winter palette) x Cueball, computer nerds dating each other, though also as Cueball puts it, “Nerd boyfriend? Jock boyfriend?? Pfft,” *gesturing towards Bō* “Get yourself a man who can do both!!”
Vinyl x Nunchaku (Devil Theory summer palette), butch lesbians together!!
Daishō (Devil Theory autumn palette) x Vela (Eclipse spring palette), or rather Hiro x Sara (i.e. their respective real names), since each of them don’t know the other is a writer… yet
Quatorze (14-ball DOT EXE) x Jūrō (10-ball DOT EXE), though that’s a given since they’re a married couple. Together and still in love, even after going full-cyber!!
Escher x Cinco, old man yaoi basically lol. And I do mean actually old man, Cinco is in his 60s, and I imagine Escher is either around the same or in his 50s at the very least.
Nyx (FUTURISM spring palette) x Aquila (Eclipse summer palette), as discussed in a previous post of mine!
Veronica x Faux, but they weren’t actually dating, she just had a major crush on him. She swears she’s over him after the whole Project Algo thing, but nah, she’s lying, #1 Faux stan right here lmao
Romantic (With OCs that I haven’t even drawn/talked about publicly yet, lmao...):
Rave x Cuervo, he’s a former member of the Umbra Apex crew I made a long while ago
Red x Cress, I’m not even sure how much I can say about this character without spoiling for future potential fics. Red meets them under very unusual circumstances, I’ll say that much.
Lyra (Eclipse autumn palette) x Cherry, an OC who works in New Amsterdam as a tattoo artist. I actually have a few ideas for “new NPCs” for the game to add additional features and minigames, Cherry being one of them.
Michael (Franks autumn palette) x Monica, OC who runs this sort of skate/stunt park for writers in Millennium Mall. She’s also one of the “new NPCs” I mentioned before. Her skate park would basically be a minigame area for getting high scores in exchange for stuff you can display at the hideout. Also-also she’s Tryce’s aunt :P
Exes:
Rise and Faux, absolute disaster of a relationship, not even in a fun way. My version of Faux makes for a horrendously selfish boyfriend, lmao. After the relationship finally ended, Faux referred to Rise as “an egotistical uppity bitch”, and Rise still refers to Faux as “the most insufferable white boy I’ve ever had the displeasure of dating”.
Sai and Daishō, they dated back in secondary school (i.e. roughly high school), because they figured they love each other platonically as best friends, so why not romantically? Unfortunately, things get awkward real fast for two reasons: First, Daishō realizes he’s definitely straight (Sai in comparison is bi), and second, despite the previous point Daishō actually forced himself to keep up the relationship because he really didn’t want to break Sai’s heart. The truth came out eventually and they managed to talk things out and go back to being best friends. Which is probably a miracle that they were able to stay as friends at all, considered what happened and how awkward things got for them for a while there.
Tryce and Bel, the idea being that they tried dating when they were younger (they were not friends previously, so this was something arranged via a dating app or something), but then Bel realizes she’s a lesbian and they have an amicable break up and stay friends afterwards. They only went on one or two dates at that point, and found they got along but just not in a romantic way (and also, again, Bel is a lesbian). So then, this is a far less awkward version of Sai and Daishō’s temporary romantic relationship. :u
Other:
Twoson (2-ball DOT EXE) + Fourside (4-ball DOT EXE) will flip flop on what exactly their relationship is, and give different answers every time either of them is asked. Best friends, friends with benefits, romantic, queerplatonic, etc. They definitely have a deep relationship and care about each other, with Fourside in particular being very protective of Twoson if things get ugly. Still, neither of them likes putting any particular label/definition to what’s going on between them.
To the BRC fandom! Or at least my followers and other fans browsing the tag who like my headcanon ramblings.
Lately I have been having Too Many BRC Thoughts that boil down to wanting to write fan fics for my ships, but not knowing where to start. I think for now I want to do a big post just listing them (also not just romantic ships, also bits about friendships and rivalries and even exes).
If I do that, would anyone be willing to send in an ask about a particular one from the list? Basically like, "This one ship sounds neat! What sort of ideas/headcanons do you have for this particular ship?" I'm thinking maybe it would help if I could ramble about a ship, and get more ideas/planning for the eventual fic writing, though there's so many ships I don't know where to start. Hence the asking!
Though, even if no one is interested in sending asks, I'll still probably make the big ship list. But, I'll do it tomorrow, right now I think I'll just head to bed. e_e;
Out of all the characters in BRC, who's the one to get scared the easiest? Besides solace and (going off of assumption) queball and bo
Hmm, I'm not sure if Cueball would be one of the easiest to scare. Then again, I can totally see him being all like, "What, me? Scared? Yeah right LOL" and then 5 seconds later he's running away screaming in terror. :P
I would rate him as braver than Bō at least. With Bō he mainly just can't handle horror movies/games/media (also like, mean pranks that are about scaring people, fake spiders and stuff), but is fine otherwise.
Funnily enough, I don't think Solace is actually that easy to scare! Or rather, he doesn't show it as obviously as other people would (y'know, like screaming and looking scared). This is the guy who wasn't all that freaked out by being tied to a fence by Eclipse, not to mention him standing up to Faux in a walking tank for Felix's sake. So I just get that kind of impression of him, y'know?
And besides those three... maybe Bel and Shine too, though I imagine they're just in the same boat as Bō in that they get scared easily from horror media and mean pranks. :u
Edit: From a suggestion by @fauxridium, Tryce is also easily scared but tries to play it cool. Kind of a similar situation as Cueball in a way, lol
Alr!!! Crews general music tastes??? I know damn well eclipse loves Beyonce
Oh boy, music!! This is gonna be a fun one to get into, at least imo.
So to start off, I like to think that in general they all like the kind of music genres that pop up in the game’s music track already. Also, we know DJ Cyber made the mixtapes besides the one for the hideout (that one being made by Tryce), so bonus headcanon: at least a few of them made suggestions to DJ Cyber for songs to include on those mixtapes.
Now moving on to some specifics!
BRC:
It depends on which individual member you ask, they probably have the most varied tastes between them? Again, besides the game’s existing genres.
There is a small subset who are into Vocaloid/vocal synth songs, mainly thanks to Bel introducing it to them. Also J-pop, again from Bel introducing it to others.
Other than that, not gonna go into further detail, especially since I’d have to think on it a lot more. :u
Actually, before I move on, a bonus headcanon: both Vinyl and DJ Cyber have probably the largest range of music tastes, and are both very knowledgeable about music. They can tell you the name of a song from the first couple of notes/lyrics, knowing when songs were release, explain differences between genres of music and which one is a subgenre/derived from/evolved from what other music genre, at least a brief history of bands/musicians/singers/etc.
One time they competed against each other in a music-focused quiz game (not like, an actual game show or anything like that, it was an informal thing at a party with the other writers). Vinyl just barely won in the end, and she still lords that over DJ Cyber every now and then, lol
The Franks
Tryce mentions at one point in the game that they blast electrofunk music. Some people might think that's something made up for the game, but it is in fact an actual music genre! So I like to think that's their main favorite, along with related genres like funk in general and breakbeat.
I like to think the Flesh Prince got into these particular genres thanks to listening to old CDs and mixtapes his parents had. Not that the Prince will ever admit it to them. :P
Eclipse
Definitely Beyoncé like you said, lol. Also other R&B/hip hop/pop/dance artists in the same vein as Beyoncé: Missy Elliott, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Shakira, Janelle Monáe, Lil Kim, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Lizzo, Chapelle Roan, etc.
Okay that list ended up longer than I meant it to be, but you probably get the idea, lol
Cassiopeia (leader, the winter palette for the crew) also has a fondness for orchestra music. Mostly when she's relaxing at home, it helps her unwind after a long day of either working at her shop or being out and about as a writer.
DOT EXE
Old school EDM (especially older disco, techno, and house) in general. Which is perhaps cliche/stereotypical since they're all cyberheads/full-cyber, but whatever lol
Twoson and Fourside also have their Weird Music Tastes that I mentioned back in the big DOT EXE post I made. And then Cueball in particular really likes video game soundtracks, and is a big fan of chiptune music in general.
Devil Theory
Hip hop and rap and related genres! And because of their love of anime, various Japanese songs that have served as anime openings/endings. :P
Sai also introduces the others to reggaetón too! And other Spanish genres related to that. Nunchaku and Bō don't speak Spanish, but they do still understand most of what's in those songs too. Besides, sometimes it's about enjoy the music and the beat, even if you can't understand the words!
Okay, also, I am going to give extra attention to my DT OCs specifically, with some extra particulars for each:
Sai likes salsa music, especially to sing along with, but like I mentioned in my big Devil Theory post, he never sings in front of other people. (Rise is the only exception, hee hee)
Nunchaku likes rock and metal music! And almost every subgenre for these two you can think of, like punk rock and nu metal.
Bō likes old school EDM/disco stuff, though in contrast to most other people, he especially likes EDM songs with a slow tempo. Bit of a contradiction since most people associate EDM with fast tempos and beats.
Daishō likes listening to horror media soundtracks, because of course he does, lol
FUTURISM
EDM in general, I would think. In contrast to DOT EXE, I imagine they're largely into newer songs and subgenres in that giant genre!
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I would give personal favorites for some of the genres mentioned here, but man, that'd make this post way too long. Hell, EDM in general covers so many subgenres.
Actually, I think I can at least link some playlists I've made? Just 3 (for now?), because I have like 20 something playlists for different music, a bunch of them being for OCs I haven't talked about publicly. But I digress. :P
A playlist of reggaetón songs specifically. Okay actually tbh I think a few of these are of a different but still kinda related genre. If you can't tell by the name, I was planning at some point to pick like 5 favorites from this and make an actual mixtape to mod into BRC. I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna get back to that. :u
A playlist of mostly salsa songs, though like with the previous playlist, I think some of these are actually a different-but-related genre.
A playlist of EDM songs, mostly my favorites from a particular set of music channels! And it covers a lot of different subgenres: house, trap, drum & bass, even a few electro swing songs in there too.
Since devil theory is into anime, what types of genres do they usually watch????
Oh boy, this is gonna be a fun one to talk about :D
Well, for the most part. Also a bit long!
But first, something that’s probably not needed, but just in case: A disclaimer that some of the series mentioned here might not have aged well in terms of like… depictions of minorities or handling certain serious topics in questionable ways. I know a lot of the stuff I loved as a kid had problems like that.
*gestures towards Cardcaptor Sakura which has at least 3 different child/student x adult/teacher relationships, including the protagonist’s own parents for fuck’s sake!!*
Long story short, some of the mentioned series here are ones I have watched myself at some point in my life! I still love some of these for the good parts, but I’m not gonna make excuses for the bad parts (if what I just said about Cardcaptor Sakura doesn’t already make that clear). Again, this kind of thing is probably obvious for most people? But it’s also probably a good idea to state the obvious anyways.
So yeah, now that the disclaimer is established, onto anime talk!! Also a bit of manga talk here and there, since there’s overlap with different series. :u
Reiterating from my big Devil Theory post, all four of them had a little anime-manga club going during their school days (Nunchaku was an honorary member since she still lived in the US during this time). Adding more to this headcanon/idea, they kinda-sorta still have the club going, but it’s really just the four of them hanging out and watching/reading/talking about anime-manga stuff together like friends anyways. Also debates on stuff like power levels, which characters would win in a crossover battle (a la Death Battle), arguments over why a certain manga series does or did not deserve to have an anime adaptation, etc. :P
Also each of them have been bullied for this particular interest to some extent and at some point in their lives. Even with anime and manga being more “acceptable” these days, their first instinct is to still keep quiet about it, and hide any merch they have from anyone who notices. It takes each of them a while to actually open up about the topic to their own partners, let alone any friends outside of their own little circle. They get there eventually!
Moving on to the specific topic of favorite genres, in general they’ll at least check out the popular stuff together. Astro Boy, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, YuYu Hakusho, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Hunter x Hunter, Full Metal Alchemist, Mob Psycho 100, My Hero Academia, Delicious in Dungeon, Odd Taxi, also various anime movies like the Studio Ghibli films, so on and so forth. You probably get the point! Dragon Ball and its sequels is probably the big one they all remember starting off with. Each of them also have preferences for other stuff they’ll watch/read on their own!
Just as a reminder of who’s who, I’ll put in parentheses which OC corresponds to which DT palette, and a little blurb about them.
For specific favorites for Sai (spring palette, guy with anger problems who gets it sorted out eventually), his favorites are pretty straightforward: as long as it has awesome fights, he’ll watch it! He’ll suffer through a show with a crappy plot if it at least has excellent animation for the fight scenes. Like basically “we saved the budget for the fight scenes and cheaped out on everything else” levels of blegh. Same with manga, it better at minimum have cool art and fight scenes or it ain’t worth it in his opinion. Also he was absolutely inspired to get into art because of those fight scenes, and thus he now works as a freelance artist!
For Nunchaku (summer palette, butch lesbian with high gremlin energy), she really likes sports manga. Admittedly I don’t know a whole lot about this genre of anime/manga myself, but from snippets I’ve seen, I know it can get wild sometimes! Because of the period of her life where her parents forced her to do as many sports as possible, she knows a decent amount about a lot of different sports. She likes to see how the series she reads/watches compare to the real thing, and enjoys when things get really ridiculous.
Also a big fan of the early seasons of Pokemon, Digimon, and Yugioh. Those were her big intros to anime besides Dragon Ball. The later seasons of those three, eh, not so much. She doesn’t hate them but doesn’t love them either, y’know?
In addition to that, she also keeps an eye out for good wlw/yuri series. Nunchaku mostly checks out series made by (or at least written by) actual lesbians, bi women etc. But even then she has a very small pool of stuff she particularly loves, and is also frustrated with how little butch x butch stuff there is.
For Bō (winter palette, blond hair and weightlifting tech guy), he will check out anything involving mecha or cool technology, though he doesn’t always like them (Neon Genesis Evangelion is probably a big one that he regrets watching at all). At the least, if he likes the designs of the mecha/robots featured in the series, he’ll still buy figures or kits of them.
With series he’ll check out on his own that he actually likes, it’s mostly gay manga (i.e. stuff that tends to get labeled as "bara" in Western anime fandoms, even though the term itself is not generally seen as a positive in Japan. At least from what I’ve researched, it probably varies). Of course he enjoys them because Gay, but also because they tend to feature characters with similar body types as him who aren’t meant to be jokes in some way. Which, probably says a lot, doesn’t it? :(
So then besides those two genres and the big popular series he’ll check out with his friends, he’s more into gaming. Like, they all play video games and have their favorites, but Bō is the only one who would call himself a gamer. He has suffered through a lot of horrible video game adaptations of various series, lol…
And finally Daishō (autumn palette, leader of Devil Theory and sometimes basically roleplays as an anime villain while in costume lol), with his love of horror movies, he is also of course a big fan of horror anime and manga! Though whether he genuinely loves what he reads or not kinda depends, due to… sorta complicated feelings.
Okay so, the idea is, for a long while (including even into adulthood), he would check out particularly gruesome and gorey series, even if it got to a point of making him feel genuinely ill. Like, I’m talking about stuff with no deep story or themes to them, no cathartic or at least bittersweet endings. They were mostly if not completely just for the shock value of truly horrific things happening to the characters, who never survived in these series.
And a lot of the time, he read them just to laugh at the characters for being stupid, thinking they deserve the suffering. This also applies to non-anime/non-manga series too. He’d check out the stuff even big slasher fans would want to avoid, if that gives a better idea of what he was seeking.
After sorting out some personal issues (a lot of issues actually, including his big guilt about almost getting his friends and himself killed due to the deal with Faux), he comes to realize he only bothered with that particular subset of horror as a form of self-harm. Again, the big guilt about the Faux deal going wrong, though also guilt about feeling like he’s not doing enough for his friends, that his problems aren’t as bad as other people’s, and so on. Made himself suffer through horror content he can’t stand himself as a sort of subconscious punishment.
Once he works through those feelings, he stops reading/watching stuff like that. He even throws out and burns a lot of the books/DVDs/etc that he collected from that horror subset. After that, he still enjoys horror stuff of course! But he actually respects his own limits and doesn’t force himself to watch/read stuff he knows will just make him feel terrible or ill. He’s a big fan of Junji Ito stuff, plus other stuff in the same vein.
And, I think that about covers it! I was expecting to namedrop a few more series than this, but eh. :P
