okokok THIS one i had a VERY fun time with bc i started looking into minecraft lore and theories surrounding vex and boy oh boy this gave me Plenty Of Fodder for:
Aquafinity
Aquafinity used to be an Allay.
He trusted the wrong people when he was a fresh-faced new Player, and was rewarded with having a piece of his soul ripped away from him in a woodland mansion- becoming a Vex bound by those who had the Totem his soul was irreversibly chained to.
He doesn’t actually know how long he was stuck there, subject to experiments on soul magic and used as one of many expendable enforcers for the Illagers and Players that ran the mansion. For a bit after he lost that part of himself, everything was a blur. He’s unsure how long it took for the world to come back into focus- he feels like it was anywhere between two days and ten years, and it sometimes felt like both. All he knows for sure is it was a time heavily tainted by hate for himself: hate for the fact that he was an Allay, hate for the fact that he was now a Vex, hate for the fact he had to be anything other than human that attracted this kind of punishment for it. That hateful daze ended when the mansion was finally raided- and it was absolute chaos when that happened. It was a huge raiding party- one that fully intended on not leaving a single Illager alive, and one that seemed to have the manpower to ensure it. He remembers fighting, and then suddenly no longer fighting as the will to do so vanished in an instant, and he was abruptly being carted out of the mansion with rushed assurances and hurried handling by those he’d just been fighting.
At the end of it, the mansion was burned to the ground, most of the Vexes and Allays rescued, and all of the Illagers gone and the guilty Players “taken care of”. He honestly didn’t care to know what that meant, because now that he was away from them there was only one thing he was focused on: his Totem. The raiders weren’t able to recover everyone’s Totems in the ruckus, and he’d been unfortunate enough that he wasn’t one of the safe ones.
He and a few other unfortunate ones went back to the mansion’s site as soon as they could, and spent days, weeks, months, looking through the rubble for themselves.
Some of them got lucky.
Some of them found theirs.
Aqua was not one of them.
He didn’t know if it burned up with the mansion or if that was even possible. Had it been destroyed some other way? Was that how Totem destroying worked? Or maybe it had been used up in the fight, that piece of his soul forever gone to ensure that someone else lived again. He wasn’t sure how either would affect him, if he’d feel some difference or if it would slowly come back to him or if nothing would change at all. He still didn’t feel like he used to, before the mansion, and as the search stretched out it became more obvious that what was put in the Totem never came back to him in any sort of sense. But he also wasn’t being summoned anymore- not after that sudden snap in the big fight- so nobody could have his Totem or else he’d have been summoned back already. Had he really just… fully lost that part of himself? Maybe it was just dispersed, or misplaced elsewhere, or… or something, and he could find it again. Somehow.
Years passed, and he traveled around, looking for any information he could get on what exactly had been done to him, and to find any leads on how he could locate his Totem again. While his Totem did take priority, though, he wanted to make absolutely certain he didn’t repeat the same mistakes he made in the past, so he took it on himself to study the people everywhere he went, too. He learned how to read expressions, body language, vocal tones. He learned what looks mean trouble was about to hit, and when to get out of dodge. He learned that he’s actually quite good at using his words to convince people to help him out, and he learned that he’s quite good at quickly establishing a positive relationship with someone. Names, faces, preferences, any small details- he remembers them easily, and noted that folks like it when you remember those kinds of things about them as quickly as he could.
He wasn’t really able to forget the weird gap in his being, the space where Something Used To Be, but there were times when he noticed it less, and then later, even less.
Eventually, he all but gave up and accepted it had been destroyed that day. He couldn’t find anything, and all hope that he would had been slowly drained out of him by dead end after dead end after dead end.
He finally picked an area and started poking around to see if it’d be a good place to try settling, and ended up being included in a batch area invite to a beach party hosted by some big name someone. Seemed like an innocent enough thing, and it’d be an alright chance for him to be able to people-watch and see if the folks here were of a decent sort or not. He’d been able to experience a few big events like this when he was traveling around, and felt like he knew what to expect from these sorts of things. So he went.
And really, it ended up a lot more innocent of a thing than he thought it’d be- it really was just genuinely a party where people actually seemed to have fun, not boring things where people just stood around in fancy clothes and made themselves sound important, this was games and music and laughter and fireworks and… and he liked it. Everyone was smiling, everyone was happy.
For the first time in a long time, he felt ok to just let himself go for a bit and relax. He made his way around the beach, working his way through the people and through conversations, joining in on some games and festivities, and decided that overall, it wasn’t bad. He could stay here, at least for a bit, at least until the hole in the fabric of his being wore on him too much and he could no longer ignore the search again. He could stay here.
The thought was made significantly more concrete when one of the folks he’d made friendly with that night, Tyratone, offered for the two to stick together. He wasn’t as surprised as he felt like he should’ve been- he’d learned that she’d been living alone and had kind of felt like an outsider at the party, and after he’d talked to her she ended up joining him in some of the games and such and she’d seemed to be properly enjoying herself. She wanted company, and he’d proved that he was alright for it.
And y’know? She hadn’t been bad company either, and he was looking to stay anyway. Why not.
He was unfamiliar with the area, and Tyr had pretty well stayed to herself for a while so she was also somewhat unfamiliar, and so they wandered around the area for a couple months, looking around. Aqua would frequently scout out ahead while Tyr gathered materials and food, and on one such scouting, he ran into two others- Razormane and Firemite. They were on their own, wandering just like he and Tyr were. Razor seemed fairly guarded, but something about Fire’s immediate cheeriness piqued Aqua’s curiosity- he was fronting, and Aqua half-wondered if he might have found somewhat of a kindred spirit. He offered for the two to join- after all, he and Tyr were wandering, just the same as them. They could wander together.
He sort of regretted that decision, after a while. It wasn't that he was wrong, it was just… When it had been just him and Tyr, decisions were made with just the two of them. More people meant more opinions, and once the other two joined, it seemed like Razor’s opinion became the most popular. It seemed like his own ideas were heard less and less.
When they found a place to base, Aqua had gone out to investigate the surrounding folks, or at least the ones he could find. Establishing relationships was simple to him now, and he did it well. And as time went on, he kept those relationships up, getting some trades secured and getting started on mapping the area out. He carried an arrow from Tyr’s inventory so he'd be able to find his way back easier: a faint imprint still there from his days before the mansion.
Only problem was, that felt like that was all he could do. Razor somehow ended up being the unofficially appointed leader of the group, and Aqua felt like he had a lot less say in what happened than he did when it was just him and Tyr. He'd come back and the inside of the base was renovated, or that the rest of them had all gone out mob grinding, or maybe he'd be outvoted in what they should trade for next, or-
It bothered him to no end.
It especially bothered him because smooth-talking, he had read in a library once, was a common trait for Allays and Vexes. Subconsciously imbuing magic into their speech to make them more agreeable was something almost stereotypical- and he didn't like the thought that he was doing it. That he hadn't figured out how to read people and how to talk to people all on his own, that he'd had his Vex magic to thank for it.
He especially didn't like the thought of it now, because really- this was just him getting used for what he was again. He was only with the others to be a Vex for them, to work his magic with words, and that stupid ability of his, the innate ability to always find someone as long as he had an item of theirs, that he'd always had as long as he could remember, so he could make good maps.
What else was he even there for? The others were nice, yes, and maybe they weren't intentionally taking advantage of him, but it still felt like he'd just walked himself back into another mansion where he was only seen for what he as a Vex could do, not what he as Aquafinity could do. He'd tried to settle, to try to forget, but he continually just felt slapped in the face with the reminder that he wasn't worth anything. Only his Vex magic was wanted.
He was tempted, a few times, to really try exercising that magic, to make them listen, but he knew he’d never forgive himself if he did.So he didn't let himself say anything. Really, it wasn't like they were even doing anything near the level of the mansion, and he did like them a lot. Tyr, mostly, but Fire was a close second. Razor was quiet and they were nice to each other, but the two weren't spending much time together. There were a lot of good days, honestly, days where they had fun and where they had interesting conversations and where they enjoyed being together. It was just small things here and there, things small enough that he could pretend they weren’t piling up on top of each other to make something too big to ignore. So he stayed, reasoning that if it got too bad, he could always resume his search again. He hadn't intended to stay here forever, anyway.
Story idea
His story!!! starts out!!! with him being mid conversation w fire or someone in the base and just suddenly. disappearing.
entirely.
they all start poking around because that's very unusual, and cannot find him. firemite can't hear/sense him anywhere close by, maybe it's some vex magic thing? tyr pales a bit and says something about a totem, he told her about a totem a while back, before they'd met the other two.
she tells them everything she'd been told one evening by a particularly panicked aqua that had woken from a nightmare, which was. well. everything. mostly he was paranoid that this exactly was going to happen, and if it did, he wanted someone to know to look for him. she doesn't know where The Mansion was exactly, but he'd told her the vague whereabouts of it.
This becomes a Big Rescue Mission.
They're able to get help from some of the folks around to go with, and they go outpost raiding wheeee \o/ basically til they find out where aqua is
here it gets kinda vague on the details of what exactly was going on and what happens with the rescue, but they are successful :V
Aqua looks like absolute crap
He's finally got his totem back, I know he personally fights to get it back but not quite sure on deets of it. everybody's emotional (this is kinda a healing point for razor, because look, he didn't lose someone this time), they all express how much they worried about him and how glad they are to have found him, etc etc, n he mumbles something about yeah you wouldn't be able to stay on good terms with everyone without me right n everyone's like. huh?
no man they care about him and they have this Whole Conversation where things get properly aired out
tyr reminds him of the fact that she became his friend bc he offered her a drink at a server event, she'd been sat off by herself and he went up and offered a friendly face and nice socializing and they'd started hanging out after that, like. he's her friend before he's a vex.
i'm also imagining a moment where razor mentions that yeah it didn't matter if he didn't do anything for them but hanging out with em they'd wanna keep him around, they enjoy the friendship and his humor and everything
(this catches tyratone's attention)
so yEAH it's a biG huge ThingTM!!!! it's a Very Very Big Healing Point for aqua, and afterwards the group is very certain to make sure they're not talking over him and that they're giving his suggestions plenty of consideration and like!! making sure he doesn't feel left out!!! they care about him!!!!
His hels
So fun fact he gets two helsmits! Gee, bill
His second hels' story is very intertwined with razor's so i'll hold off on posting all the details about him til razor's post n i'll post abt em both together buT!!!! suffice to say he is a snobbish guy that is obsessed with getting people to listen to him and pay attention to him and think he's very important, and because he's also part vex, he's very good at that :V he becomes h!razor's sponsor in the coliseum as part of Hey Look At Me I'm Important
His FIRST hels is quite older!! He spawned in when aqua was in the mansion, coming from his hatred of his own self and of the fact that he wasn't "normal", so this first hels is a plain human!
he's got a very 'bad things happen to people who deserve it' kinda deal bc. how could he cope otherwise. he eventually visits with the order of fortune for a blessing (an order and goddess thought of by good friend @doyouknowthemossinman) and something about it piques his interest! something about it bugs him in a way that won't leave him alone!
eventually he ends up joining the order :V they're like all cats too so i thought it'd be funny to have one (1) token human in the midst
(ft. moss's cinder and ash!!)
his hels i think actualizes because of the order of fortune n like. Bad things happen sometimes n it's ok to accept that and sometimes u have bad luck but it can always be balanced out w good luck later or y'know smth along those lines
aaaaaaaaaaa i've been picking at the minecraft crew (Tyratone, Firemite, Aquafinity, Razormane) and their helsmets for so long and i've finally written down all my thoughts on them!!!
some of this stuff does change from what i'd previously written bUT i like this much better SO STARTING WITH:
Tyratone
Tyratone is just a regular person. She’s an elf, sure, but like. She can see slightly better than Full Humans could, and it’s easier to stay on top of powdered snow, but that’s really all she’s got over “regular” folk. And honestly, that was pretty fine for her up until recently. She had a little treehouse in a jungle, and it wasn’t anything particularly great, but she liked it!
An event ended up changing things a bit for her, in a good way (…mostly. Somewhat, maybe). It was a beach-themed party hosted by some of the big names on the server (one of the rare times on the anarchy server that pvp was essentially disallowed, so she was comfortable hanging around), and she was sitting off to the side on a beach chair by herself, watching folks having fun. Night had fallen, and the beach was lit up well enough that it was safe and folks were having a blast setting off fireworks and dancing and playing games and all kinds of things, and she was quietly taking it all in. And then one person materialized from the crowd, came over to her, and offered a drink. After that, they sat and talked a while, and ended up joining other folks running around and playing games, enjoying the fireworks and festivities til the event ended.
They both had so much fun that they ended up sticking together afterwards, and a new friend was made: Aquafinity!
They wandered kinda a bit nomadically for a little while, trying to find a good spot for a new base, and eventually Aqua ended up meeting another couple of folks that were looking for a spot to stay, and who were willing to join up with a group. Safety in numbers and all that. Aqua introduced Firemite and Razormane to Tyr, and thus the quartet was made.
And it’s great! They were able to make a neat little underground base together, and now she’s not alone, and everyone is nice, and it’s great. It’s great.
It’s just that… she’s never felt so useless before.
Firemite is amazing at mining- he brings in the most materials from a caving trip out of any of them, and he’s always eerily good at sensing nearby threats. Razormane is the best out of all of them with a sword and is fantastic at pvp and keeping them all safe. Aquafinity is able to establish good communications with those around them, even scoring a few good trades here and there between groups, and he’s the best mapper they’ve got because he’s always able to find his way back home without a fuss.
Tyratone… can’t really do any of that. Sure, she technically could, but her sight doesn’t hold a candle to Fire’s hearing, which might as well be better sight honestly, and her pvp skills are godawful, and she’s too socially awkward to trust herself to try negotiating and she got lost one too many times trying to map places out before. What can she even do? She has a small indoor farm that she collects by hand (she doesn’t know redstone- tried learning once and it went disastrously), and she has a family of cats she takes care of, and while it’s nice it’s not really helpful. She can try tagging along with one of the guys when they go to do something, and the company’s always good, but she never really feels like she’s contributing, and it really weighs on her. She likes her friends, and she would do anything in the world to be able to feel like she’s not dragging them down.
She would do anything in the world to not feel like they may decide at any time that she’s more deadweight than she’s worth.
Story idea:
I'm thinking for her! She tries to do something really really not smart to try to prove herself. Maybe she tries going to the deep dark, since she knows it's something that Firemite stays away from! And if Fire can't do it, maybe she can be useful and that can be the thing she does! She can go in the deep dark! This would of course go terribly wrong, possibly resulting in her getting infected with sculk because i reblogged a poll about characters getting infected a while ago and i want to do something with that idea. Because this can also!!! Go into Fire's story as well!!!! But her takeaway from the whole thing would, i think, be that she doesn't really have to prove herself. The group's gonna stay with her regardless, so the only person she was having to convince the whole time was herself, and she's gotta accept that she is enough as she is, and she doesn't have to try to be someone else or be better than someone else.
But i defo wanna play around with that idea because i am, at my core, someone that loves throwing angst onto my ocs, and sculk infection is a perfect way for there to be lots of angst for all four ocs in this crew :V
Debating on whether i'd want her to come out of it perfectly ok, or if she permanently has sculk in her system (possibly leaning on one of the sculk-related origins out there? possibly making up my own stuff for it) :3c i think it'd be very fun to explore either way
Her helsmet
Eventually, all of her self-esteem stuff gets to her enough that she spawns a hels counterpart- one that is super useful, and one that will do whatever she needs to in order to stay useful. Will it put her in danger? Hey, if she goes down, at least she goes down doing something. She doesn’t stay still, and she can’t hardly rest- unless in resting she’s helping someone for a job, of course. But she’s gotta be doing, constantly, all the time, or else she’s useless. Slow down and enjoy life? Nah, she’s got places to be, and too much to do.
She knows the lava lakes of hels like the back of her hand and can traverse them easily. After all, she’s a Strider. Makes it real easy for her to get around, and ironically enough, traversing lava lakes is safer than walking on land to get anywhere. She’s had to outrun ghasts a few times, but they’re really the only threat out here! So she has a job running around resource gathering for folks- and over time slowly ends up taking on more things, too: helping someone set up shop for the day, running errands for another, heck, sometimes she plays messenger. As long as she gets paid and knows that she’s putting in her effort to be worth the time she’s taking up by simply existing.
(ft. @doyouknowthemossinman's eight!)
She’s not against making friends doing so- as a matter of fact, making friends helps! The more people that she’s friendly with are the more people that have a higher opinion of her and are more likely to recommend her to anyone else that may need her help. Friendship establishes trustworthiness, too, which makes it even more likely that whoever she’s recommended to would actually choose her for the job.
She keeps the name Tyratone, as she views herself as the better Tyratone of the two, since she’s at least pulling her weight.
And it's the guy!!!!! my guy!!!! i'm shaking him like a ragdoll!!!!! raugh!!!!
Razormane
Razormane’s existence has been… well, it’s been.
As part Blaze, he was more comfortable in the Nether than in the Overworld, and the Nether always felt like home to him. But… there was something about the Overworld that he was too intrigued by to stay in the warmth of the Nether. Rain in particular fascinated him. He loved it, loved the concept of it, loved how muted it made everything, loved the sound of it. Of course, he couldn’t ever let it touch him, or else it’d sting something awful, but that fact may honestly have made it even more appealing to him.
There were also so many more variants of Players up in the Overworld- not many that weren’t naturally fire-resistant hung around in the Nether very often, so it was usually just the same few types of folks around down there. But up here? There was so much diversity, so many more people to see, so much more civilization. And ease of travel? Please. He’d take horseback riding up a mountain over slowly chugging through lava lakes any day.
He also has dreams, and occasionally, visions. He doesn’t really know what to make of them, but they always center around him. Sometimes they’re harmless, sometimes they’re terrifying, but they always, always feel real. He can feel temperature, feel pain, feel hunger, feel textures of touch. He’s heard other people talk about dreams they’ve had, but all of them usually have some sort of variance. Some sort of change of protagonist. All of his are clearly himself. Sometimes he’s not a Blazeborn, but that’s the only difference he’s ever noticed. He hasn’t really talked to anybody about them, because he’s not sure what anybody else would think about it. Sometimes they’re dreams, sometimes it’s a passing moment when he’s awake- he blinks and suddenly thinks he’d been somewhere else, doing something else.
It’s weird, but he doesn’t really know what to make of it, nor of the common faces that pop up in these weird dreams that he’s never seen before in his life.
Putting that aside, Razor wasn’t a particularly solitary sort- he may be introverted, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want company. Solo style just wasn’t for him, he soon found. Too much alone time weighed on him after a while, so he sought out groups. He bounced around for a bit, liking some people but not really finding his people, until he finally joined a group of five others. He clicked with them, and it was instant. They pulled out humor in him he didn’t even realize he had, and they were an unstoppable force when it came to PvP. Nobody messed with them.
Or, at least, it seemed like they were unstoppable. That perception came crashing down one day when they were attacked while out traveling, by a bigger group that took delight in absolutely trouncing his crew. He was the first one killed, thoroughly outmatched by his opponent.
It was a messy respawn- their base had to have been raided, because their beds were gone and Razor found himself back in the Nether. He ran back to the Overworld as fast as he could, but nobody was waiting for him at world spawn, and when he got back to their base, it was absolutely wrecked. No beds, no chests, and rooms were mined out to even get anything stashed in the walls and floors. And it was empty. He tried messaging the others, but didn’t get any responses. He stayed there, for a little bit, a tad lost. Nobody ever showed back up, and nobody ever messaged him back. He didn’t know what happened. He started back to world spawn, hoping maybe he’d run into someone on their way back to the base.
He made it all the way back without running into any familiar faces.
He stayed alone for a bit, after that.
He took time to really hone his combat skills, mostly on mobs, since he didn’t stick around a lot of other players. He didn’t keep one singular base, instead traveling around, choosing not to put roots down.
Of course, the solitary confinement started to get to him again.
He almost begrudgingly joined another group, this one bigger than the last, after one of the members invited him when they met in a town. This group was nice, they had fun, and they- more importantly- provided some good PvP training. He learned they were fairly lax, as well. They didn’t care as much about reputation as his previous crew had. They didn’t care to establish themselves as a Force to be reckoned with, garnering attention. They just simply lived, and had fun doing it. He was careful not to let himself get attached, though. Who knew what might happen to trigger them all disappearing again? He trained hard, to the point where it was what the group knew him for, to make sure that should his new group fall under attack, he wouldn’t be the reason they’d vanish.
And then one day, his world up-ended.
He was out by himself, gathering miscellaneous supplies while taking a bit of alone time (the large group did get to be too much at times), and it started raining on him. He ran for a nearby cave for shelter and ran into someone else that had taken shelter- someone familiar. It took him several minutes to place where he recognized him from; they’d been talking and introducing themselves to each other since they were stuck together for a bit when it hit him. He recognized him from his dreams. This new person who introduced himself with a name he’d already heard before- Firemite- was one of the recurring people in his weird vision dreams.
Razor went caving with him for a bit, half-wondering if he was in another dream. But he wasn’t- it lasted way too long to be one of his visions, and his visions usually were disjointed with that he’d been doing, and this made too much sense.
When they left the cave- the rain having let up- Razor went ahead and invited Fire to join in his group, since he’d learned Fire was currently alone. Fire agreed, and Razor introduced him to everyone else. And it stayed that way for a couple months, until the inevitable happened, and the group split.
There wasn’t any big fight, there wasn’t any sort of drama between members; everybody just kinda decided they wanted to do other things, and as they realized enough of them wanted to, they all figured it would be better to just split before anything did happen.
Most folks went off by themselves, but Razor stuck with Fire. The reason he gave was that it’d be better to be with someone than alone, but really, he was curious about why Fire was one of the recurring faces he’d seen before he ever even met him. It also raised questions about other recurring faces- were they actually real people, too? Would he eventually meet them as well?
The answer turned out to be yes, and much sooner than Razor could’ve guessed.
Only a couple weeks later, another face showed up- Aquafinity, alone on a scouting trip. Upon finding the two, he offered for them to join up, to which Razor readily agreed, and the two became three, then four as Aqua introduced them to his current teammate: the third face, Tyratone.
She was the last of the three that Razor regularly saw, and now that he was with them- well. Now what? He supposed he’d just stick with them and try to protect them as best he could. Wasn’t like he was going to get any answers from his disjointed vision dreams.
The unfortunate thing about him having seen these people before, and therefore deciding they must be important and that they should be protected, was that he got very attached to them all very quickly, which was something he wanted to avoid. He didn’t want a repeat of the first group, and the feeling that that left him with afterwards that even tainted the last group’s parting. So he continues training, and tries to mentally prepare himself for when the inevitable happens again, and remind himself that nothing lasts forever, no matter how important these people may be or how long he’s able to put it off by protecting them.
Story idea
so his story i've got bouncing around in my brain is in direct homage to my teenager self and all of the stories she was cooking up, cringe and all <3 his visions and dreams are flashes of other worlds he's in, and for that moment, he is experiencing that world's razor's life! this does mean he experiences some... not great things through these as well tho. one of the stories i'd originally written with him involved him and tyratone and herobrine, and while i'm never posting those original writings here, i am pulling from it for this razor's story!
this is going to take a lot of explanation oh boy
in the original, he and tyr were people pulled into the game (ala sword art online) and herobrine is a ghosty entity that has attached itself to the game's code and has gotten very quirky over the years. he goes after the two players because he can. in summation, this results in tyratone dying, razor's character avatar losing his right arm (this was written before you could use your left in-game for literally anything), and a big grand battle at the end of it in which tyratone sticks around as a ghost and is able to take herobrine's place as the resident attached to the code and send razor back home. unbeknownst to the both of them tho herobrine is still around, just very scattered and sequestered away amongst coding, slowly pulling himself back together as time passes.
i haven't figured out exactly how, but i do think razor's visions leave very trace effects on the worlds he's viewing. not enough to change how their stories go, but enough that a being that has a bit of meta knowledge and shenaniganry, i.e. herobrine, may realize that something is going on. of course this doesn't happen til after that razor and tyr's story is over, because i don't want it to change things there, but herobrine pokes around with how these weird blips messed with the code of the game, and how these weird blips pulled on things and stretched on things, ever so slightly. He's able to eventually figure out how to follow those blips back.
And so razor, who's had visions of this guy with white eyes killing tyratone and taking his arm off, gets to meet herobrine in person when he shenanigans his way to the source of the weird blips that he was feeling :)
however ☝️ this is not a world in which razor and tyr are alone just the two of them. nor is this a world in which minecraft is simply a computer game. here, herobrine loses access to any sort of code, meaning he is simply a soul.
and firemite has, at this point, gotten himself considerably more comfortable with the fact that he is a warden. and, well. wardens and souls do not get along much do they.
i honestly feel like this story is probably the last one of the four to take place :V it may be a sort of culmination of everybody's efforts that get rid of the threat in some form or other, because i don't quite have this ending fully figured out yet. i'm toying with fire trying to absorb this lost soul, or maybe they try to figure out a way to harness razor's universe-hopping abilities to send him back, or some culmination of both!
nobody dies in this one, and razor gets to keep his friends and talk to them about his visions and such :V
essentially The Universe, who said I love you because you are love, does what it can to bring these four together in any world that they coexist, because they are meant to be together. They balance each other, and they perfect each other, and they teach each other how to love others, and how to love themselves. If Razor had not had the visions he'd had, they would have stayed separated in this world, and would not have faced the challenges they faced that helped them to grow in the way that they did.
...or something along those lines!
His hels
Razormane's helsmit is a coliseum fighter that is honestly content to stay in the lower brackets. He may be skilled enough to move up, but he doesn't care to try, because that means looking for a sponsor, and that means putting in more effort and for why. They're all just gonna be names on a wall at the end of everything at best, unless you're the Champion, which haha he knows he's not anywhere near good enough to try for that.
This is where Aqua's helsmit comes in, and where even as helsmits, two of the four still manage to find each other.
I've mentioned before that Aqua's hels decides he needs to be a sponsor for a fighter in the arena- gather more renown for himself, because if you're a sponsor, then you must be someone important. He comes in at a bad time, because there isn't really anybody looking for a sponsor at the moment, but he's pointed towards someone that has the skills to move up, but doesn't have the drive to do so yet. Maybe having a sponsor will give him the push he needs.
Player aqua feels inadequate to razor in particular, since razor's sorta ended up the group's unofficial leader. So his hels taking an almost authoritative position (or atl that's how he interprets it) over razor's hels? 👌
Well, so we have our depressed fighter who's skilled but doesn't see the point in anything because why bother when it will mean nothing in the end, and then he gets a sponsorship, and oh shoot, now I like. Actually Need To Try. this guy's giving me money to try. i'm now obligated to try, even if i still think he's wasting his money in the end.
aqua inadvertently ends up forcing razor to see how much people like him and how much he can brighten people's days, and isn't that really all that matters is that even if we've limited time, we enjoy the time we have? (If people like you they bet more money on you and we can make more money on your appearances in tournaments and bc I'm your sponsor more people will know my name and see what a great job I've done bringing you up from the pit you were content to lie down and die in but you don't need to know that)
Ironically, aqua ends up getting razor to see that even small things can be important, and maybe his existence isn't something that should be allowed to be brushed off in the end. Maybe people do pay more attention to aqua after that, but razor does, too. He enjoys what he does now, and it's thanks to aqua. He thinks he might want to see aqua succeed at what he's doing, too. (He's not an idiot, of course it would be about money. But motive doesn't change the fact of what he's done, because now he can see that he's not wasting time, he's providing a service that makes others' time enjoyable, and maybe he'll even be remembered when he's gone. Maybe he can make aqua actually believe that, too.)
And then aqua suddenly starts changing, and starts showing signs of the universe's unrelenting unfairness faster than razor feels like he's seen in others, and it becomes more apparent that aqua's time is a lot closer than either of them thought it would be, and razor has to face what actually spawned him in the first place
And razor chooses to carve aqua's name, and he becomes his own
at that point, I think he decides that it's ok if he takes on his own name, to differentiate himself, because his own time matters too. he's not just a shadow of Player razor anymore. he may be doomed to go back, but he's going to make a difference before he does. his name in the coliseum is raze, bc when he first started it was suggested to him since razormane was a bit long and y'know raze sounds kinda cool, like. you're all fire, you raze your opponents to the ground, yeah? he went along with it bc it didn't matter. now tho? he takes that name on as his own. he names himself Raze, and makes sure aqua is remembered when the universe takes him, and makes sure to take time to be with the people around him.
Firemite has been on his own for a while. He would find people, and they’d like him, but whether at first or after time passed, they’d be too uncomfortable with his sculk and how much they liked him stopped mattering. People would outright leave, or start finding reasons to back out of conversations, would stop looking at him, anything and everything. Which, considering how sculk works and what Full, Real Wardens are, makes sense, he supposes, but it doesn’t help it hurt any less whenever it happens. He tries to offset it by being as cheerful and friendly as he can possibly be, to try to put off any unease people might have.
Half of his face looks like sculk to the point where his entire right eye is a teal-flecked abyss? No problem, he just covers it with his hair! He shaves his horns down as far as he can before it gets too grating and starts hurting, and has worked for years to suppress any instinctual sculk-y noises that he can. So nobody has to worry about being around him! It’s hardly like he’s any sort of Warden at all! It’s just a little sculk on him, don’t mind the awkwardly still-obvious horns and the noises that still slip out sometimes. He hardly even gets mad at anybody, he’s so kind and friendly and happy, he wouldn’t hurt a fly! He’s not going to infect anybody, don’t worry!
Folks tolerate him enough to interact with him, but nobody ever stays.
Razormane’s the first that’s stuck with him this long. Firemite expects it’s because of Razor’s more closed-off nature- he tends to be pretty good about minding his own business. Which is good, because he’s yet to voice any questions about Fire’s origins and Fire doesn’t intend on bringing it up unless he absolutely has to.
They found each other by way of happening to book it to the same cave during a sudden downpour. Razor can’t be out in the rain for long- it irritates his skin too much- and Fire just didn’t want to deal with being wet at all, really. The two ended up caving together for a bit, and at the end of it, Razor invited Fire to join the group he was with.
Always the forced optimist, Fire accepted, and the next couple months were a rarity, spent in company of folks that really brought out Fire’s happiness- jokes and laughter were common amongst everyone there, even pulling the quiet Razor into it.
And then one day, they’d apparently had their fill. Some of them wanted to go wander, some of them wanted to settle down in different places, some wanted a change of scenery. Nothing happened, everybody ended up deciding to leave on their own and nobody left on bad terms. But Fire couldn’t help but feel like he’d been found out. Like he’d overstayed his welcome, and nobody wanted to stay around a Warden for fear of infection.
Razor was the only one of the group of ten that apparently decided he had nowhere better to be, and stuck with Fire because “two would survive better than one, right?”
They were on their own for a couple weeks, before running into Aquafinity when he was apparently out scouting, and he invited them to join up. Razor didn’t seem to have any issues with it, and Fire, despite his personal misgivings, made himself the friendly optimist once again and cheerfully accepted.
Once the group of four settles down, he does what he can to contribute. Mining is his specialty- navigating through darkness is second-nature to him, and he’s able to “see” further ahead by the sounds of himself and of mobs than others can actually see, and he quickly establishes himself as the underground resource grinder. Besides, being underground means he’s hiding himself from the others, and he doesn’t have to suppress anything when he’s by himself. He just… has to make sure he’s back in his restrained mindset whenever he returns to the surface.If he can help it, though, he stays away from the deep dark. He can hear so much more down there, and he can feel so much there, to the point that it’s overwhelming. He’s been stranded once before, fighting against all of his instincts that wanted him to stay and guard and hunt and kill, that it took him literal hours to mentally untangle himself from it and get out. He shudders to think what would happen if he got stuck in one again, and what would happen if any of the other three came looking for him and found him stuck like that, let alone if he lost the fight and attacked. There’d be no denying what he is then, how un-human he really is, how much of a monster he knows he can really be. They’d look at him and speak about him with the same fear he’s seen and heard in so many others, and he’ll be alone again.
Story idea
obv his story's gonna be confronting that warden part of himself and deciding whether that's who he wants to be or not! if i go with the idea i had for tyr's story, which i think i will, then having her get infected bc she tried going into the deep dark and things went horribly wrong, he's gonna have to face everything sculk about himself through it.
Of course the obvious question is can he do anything about it? i think a very fun answer would be yes, but only by infecting her with his own sculk and overpowering the other stuff, which. would still leave her infected. but it's ok haha he can keep it at bay so she doesn't get taken over by it because its his sculk and hes its warden and he can just. keep her from becoming a full on warden isn't that fun and not at all messed up haha. other possibilities include yes he can, because all sculk is the same but in order to do so he has to embrace the warden and sculk aspects of himself, even if it scares the others off. which now that i type that out i think i do like that better.
and!!! at the end of it? hey, his friends are still his friends! they still think he's cool! he didn't scare anybody off this time! it's another self-love story, he has to learn to accept all of himself as himself! think kinda like celeste :V
he also has to, which would be a more over-time breaking habits kinda thing, once all the big hubbub is over with, learn to not suppress emotions anymore and be ok with not presenting himself as such a happy-go-lucky guy all the time. it's ok to be sad sometimes. or mad. it doesn't define him.
which all of his newfound self-assuredness would come into play later on in the more razor-centric story too i think :3c
His hels
He has a hels counterpart, and it’s an old one. His hels sticks to himself, but very much doesn’t want to. He wants friends, he wants companions, but feels like he scares them all away. He’s much more obviously Warden in appearance than Fire himself is, having barely any unmarked skin showing. What little there is disappears entirely whenever he gets worked up in any fashion. Both of his hels’ eyes are sculked, and he’s extremely territorial around his neighborhood. He will shriek and he will roar and he will make you think he’s going to devour your soul right out of your body and then he’s going to go home and cry about how scary he made himself seem because he’s lost another chance at a friend.
He’s a very lonely sort.
And he’s exactly the picture that Firemite has built up in his head of how people must see him and what he doesn’t want to be seen as- how much more monster than person he’s sure folks think he is, and all of the negative feelings that come from it. He wants to be happy and friendly and go-lucky and welcoming, and his hels is none of it. His hels is everything he’s afraid to be.
This hels does eventually get taken by the universe, once Firemite starts accepting himself as himself, fully and truly and wholly.
Something I hadn't thought of before actually, which is kinda why it's taken me so long to answer; I was waiting to see if anything would just OccurTM to me. Never did! But I'm in a car for the next two hours sO I'm answering anyway lol
Void Born (is it sad that I just. Forgot about VB until I saw another ask abt her and went 'oh right she is a Minecraft oc isn't she;;;;; sorry Plum ily I promise,,,) rly likes Blossom Berry Jelly :V (it's a thing specific to the Better End mod, which the Aberrant SMP that she's from uses!) Gelatin, while not rare, isn't necessarily common, so she likes the treat when she can make some! And share it with Jekyll whenever she first gets a chance to, ofc
Tyratone likes cookies!!
Aquafinity doesn't have a particularly favorite food, but he does have a least favorite- golden apples. He had them too much of them in the mansion as a forced excuse for healing.
Razormane, I don't think, has a favorite actually. He'll eat whatever.
Firemite likes a good mushroom stew I feel like :V
(Bonus: Aron's favorite food is a good steak, something established when Sectorbrine was set in minecraft, and it's stuck with her even after technically being removed from that setting)
