tell me more about the hollow knight! i mean the character, but also the game if you want. gush about what drew you to them, or how you'd like to develop them in rp
well first of all, hollow knight is a game I am VERY bad at and. that’s it. that’s the story.
nah but hk as a whole is... so wistful and sombre as a game? it has a really great atmosphere of you poking around in the ruins of this great inevitable tragedy that happened long ago, and the hollow knight is... really key to all of that, but in this understated way. most of the living characters have never even heard of them. even a bug whose specialty is researching history and old relics lives right near a statue of them and has no idea who they are. they’re one of the final bosses of the game, and their situation is so critical to everything that’s going on, but outside of a few people In The Loop because they’ve been there the whole time, they’ve just... been erased
you can walk right past their resting place five minutes into the game, without knowing it. their memorial statue states that due to their sacrifice, hallownest stands eternal... but the entire kingdom is an empty shell long since fallen to ruin, littered by infected and corpses
it’s just. already a few layers of tragedy, and then the actual story behind it is like 5000 more!! You Know Me, characters raised to fulfill a sacrificial role or specific purpose and going to it... somewhat willingly, or because it’s all they know? and the idea that if the rulers had been just a trace colder and more distant and completely awful, perhaps things wouldn’t have gotten worse? only a thousand lives thrown away, and not tens of thousands, maybe... just. I Die!!!
they also end up infected and... at least conscious enough to act on their own, briefly and harrowingly, so I’d like to think they they know just how utterly they’ve failed, and in those fleeting moments are trying to correct it in the only way they can think of, by helping their replacement
as an anxious perfectionist who was often nonfunctional from fear of failure I also. have a lot to pull from for my headcanons of how they act (or. don’t), so I guess they also strike a chord in me for that reason??
as for how I’d like to develop them!! first of all, give them a slightly happier existence so jot that down,
but just... idk, for them to experience having people around them, and true trust and acknowledgement of them as a person, so they can form an identity of their own and actually act on what they think and feel!! but of course I also want to explore just how ingrained that purpose and what they were raised to is, and have that. conflict with the people around them, potentially...
those are just some beginner thoughts, I’m Just Getting Started with them as a character I want to write, so!