Content Rewrite 2: Characters
Without spoiling too much for the story itself, these are some overviews for how the characters are being updated for the story and some scrapped narrative concepts. This'll also share some renames and personality changes that may still maintain some of the source material and original concepts I was taking for the AU.
I'll even list characters who I was planning to publicise but haven't yet, just to vaguely introduce them. Maybe. Not everyone, though. Shhh.
You can go on ahead and look at the post below to see where concepts had been renamed and updated.
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 0 · Content Rewrite 1: Location & Worldbuilding · Back a lil earlier than the 14th, thought I would be too burned out to want t
TW: Spoilers? Yes, no, maybe, not quite at all? Morally grey characters, AI bullshit, mentions of gore & loss of life, body and psychological horror.
Sebastian Solace = Bastian Sabbath, "V-13"
The original plan I had for Bastian was for him to overcome the traumas of the past to be able to physically and mentally find a future for himself. It's still possible that this may be his character arc in a different form, so I won't elaborate.
Mister BS, as you guys know and have already fondly called him a few times, shall remain as Mister BS by name. His classification in the lab has been changed from "Z-13" into "V-13" (the whole name would be V-Nb7-homoaquatis-13), being the 13th Neritheon "mermaid" that had been captured by SDEF forces and kept in the facility to study.
To humans, his behaviours were described as hyperaggressive, diligent, and evasive. There has been no way for humans to communicate with these Neritheons, but it is apparent that they have their own language, as when placed with others in their enclosures, they would engage in "conversation" amongst themselves. However, V-13 needed to be monitored more thoroughly due to how hostile he appeared, even towards others of his kind.
V-13 had a habit of observing humans that approached his confinement in a way that made scientists feel like they were being measured and studied equally as much. V-13 seemingly could read the body language of the people on the other side of the glass, approaching when backs are turned with a willingness to hunt and backtracking to hide at the opposite end of his enclosure when being looked at.
He had been reported resting his palm against the glass when curious to engage with particular humans who he may have learned to be the ones responsible for feeding him or otherwise, but he retracts his hand when it's not the human he wanted to "talk" to that ended up approaching. V-13 was sometimes jokingly labeled as sarcastic and picky because of his quirks, but it proved that these mermaids were intelligent, even if they appeared feral by human standards.
Without giving too much away, this display of intelligence came to a head when V-13 learned how to interact with human technologies in such a way that allowed him to exploit them, initiate the lockdown sequence, and release the other creatures, anglers, fellow mermaids, and all, from their enclosures.
I won't tell you why V-13 started being called Bastian Sabbath yet, that's going into spoiler territory now. I want to introduce that in the beginning forms of a comic.
Here's his old reference sheet, and some things I am planning to change about him physically:
His colour pallet may remain quite similar, I may just re-check the accessibility and values to improve contrast on some parts of him further.
His face miiiight change shape a bit, but that might be because I haven't been consistently drawing his jaws the way I want them to look yet, now's a good opportunity to clean that up.
Considering what is going to happen to him, he's going to develop a habit of throwing clothes on, scavenged similarly to how he already does in his attempts to feel human.
But because he isn't the product of a human evolving into a DNA amalgamate from a series of other fish anymore, his appearance is going to be made symmetrical, yet he has lost an eye and limb due to his involvement in conflicts during the lockdown.
p.AI.nter = T.U.X
Originally, p.AI.nter was going to act as a "grey antagonist" towards Bastian. He was going to use the cold, calculated manner of technology to convince Bastian that he knows the truth behind who and what he is because he isn't able to be influenced by Mr Lopee - who was going to act as his opposite. He was going to be strongly responsible for trapping Bastian with him but pretending it was for his own good, however, it was due to his own fear of being shut down or abandoned. This may or may not continue to be the case.
Now, T.U.X is an AI system that was developed by a former SDEF worker on Neritheon-b7, from a place of pure curiosity within his own free time. It was established on a Generative AI model, but because it was being powered by renewable carbon energy sources and thus functioned on a more eco-friendly design, it was quickly suggested to be integrated into the dashboard of the Refugium.
With this integration, T.U.X was able to improve its potential, which was an astounding breakthrough in AI technology of its kind (even if, with this project taking 20 years from now, AI has seen itself have many "breakthroughs", an economic collapse with the bursting of the tech bubble, and now reached the point of AGI existing within that time). Though it was quickly discovered that T.U.X was now burning the carbon in the machinery that was meant to be used to regenerate human bodies from DNA Carrier Crabs, and so T.U.X was shut down. Kinda. More like it was just limited, and that got to it after having being "spoiled" by so much carbon access and then being ripped away from that.
The worker who made T.U.X was requested to engineer a body for it that was designed to "starve" its carbon intake when it became apparent that it was attempting to reinstall itself into the Refugium dashboard, and thus it became constructed into an autonomous, robot form. Now, even when T.U.X does plug into the dashboard, it has been regulated with control wires that prevent it from chowing through the carbon (and it gets very dramatic about this).
Then came the fateful day where T.U.X learned how to hook its cords into a person, and became addicted to "fresh carbon". The incident of T.U.X attacking a person resulted in it being placed in solitary confinement.
Cue a similar retelling of his concept here, where being deprived of both carbon as its fuel and data as its outlet, it began to fear becoming obsolete after once having been so praised. Due to having foundations on Generative AI, T.U.X describes itself as a "creative", and started tacking on more anthropomorphising descriptors like "starving artist".
When T.U.X is released during the lockdown, it becomes a frantic, sadistic harvester, following its own agendas to survive and seek human validation once again. A bit tricky to gain when humans serve as the very substance that keeps it alive; even T.U.X sees the irony of this.
Now here's his old little sheet and what I may change about him:
He will definitely see a recolour and technology upgrade towards slimmer technology. I want to make his colour pallet navy-blue to black, to almost emulate a xenomorph look for him.
I won't change the body plan though, I like his weird multi-limb, three-headed build that I remember fighting blood, sweat and tears to try and figure out. The fact that he has a body already deviates him a lot from p.AI.nter.
Some characters you never met or likely only saw glimpses of:
Mr Lopee
Mr Lopee was originally going to be a manifestation of trauma tied to Bastian, taking on the form of Mr Urbanshade in the appearance that Bastian personally remembered him by: Before he had been bound to the wheelchair, before he had abandoned the Blacksite.
He was the perpetually smiling entrepreneur who would remind Bastian of the reality of his situation, like p.AI.nter, he played his own role of keeping Bastian mentally stuck and afraid of the consequences of escaping the Blacksite, and succeeded in holding him in the dark for 30 years. Bastian had been desperate to find comfort in both p.AI.nter and Mr Lopee, but the choice would be between survival and comfort.
Mr Lopee might or might not be appearing again, most likely not in the form he had before, anyway.
Alice, "Jackelope/Jackrabbit" & Others
You've seen this "crab" called Jackelope/Jackrabbit. The hand holding him is his "boss". On the right is what Jackelope looked like un-crabbed and rabbit'd instead; hence the name.
Among the other group of Expendables, these two are from a small expedition team that had banded together to keep doing repeated missions to reach the crystal. They're now being better fitted as SDEF Baronauts who are finding and rescuing survivors.
Jackelope was a fugitive who went to jail after murdering a man who had ill intentions towards his wife, and was in turn imprisoned for his crime. He was integrated into the Blacksite expedition team from there. He was going to have a whole schtick of discovering that Mr Lopee would teleport him back to the Hadal Submarine Stations if he just lingered away from the group, and thus he could skip out of doing everything.. Until Lopee just doesn't collect him one day and he was forced to brace Blacksite alone.
Alice, however, was the chosen leader of the group of Expendables she was leading. She is so private about her past that the group surrounding her started to create theories about her. She never minded much, as long as they kept in line, kept out of her way, and helped each other out of not dying and that fun stuff.
There was another member of this Expedition that was directly tied to Bastian in being a person who would willingly sacrifice himself as a food source to Bastian to prevent him from devouring everyone in the expedition. This event was wiped from Bastian's mind by Mr Lopee every time it happened, but p.Ai.nter was keeping count, and this was a source of conflict that would challenge the reliability of Bastian being a narrator.
Things may be same-same but different for what happens to these Baronauts now.
"Sans"
This is you guys.
Pinterest called you "Sans" when they saw you, but when you guys were going to appear in asks that physically roleplayed with the characters, you were going to be "Sans".
"Sans" is a non-binary, fully-masked and hoodied-up character that will still embody you Anons, but I will just have to redesign your appearance slightly. "Sans" has any personality that you give him, even if you trap her in a room where they get obliterated by Chainsmoker. (An ask in my inbox insinuated this and has left me sobbing for weeks at this point whenever I remember it, I MUST draw it.)
I fear you will still continue to look very Sansy for my own amusement, though.
Dr Tallon Vortexium
I'm willing to show what he looks like here because he might see some significant changes in his design now. You've never met him, but you were going to eventually.
He is the product of someone who integrated himself with Pandemonium. That's all you need to know.
But, yeah, these are some of the characters that I am willing to share at this point, because the revamps to the story are significant enough that most of the plots I had originally planned might not be able to be executed now. Maybe. So this felt like a nice way to show the could-have-beens and what-ifs of the story had it remained in Pressure.
There's also a good chance that I'm hauling some of my friends to get involved in this project rewrite with me so they have a place to keep their old Pressure characters. Maaaybe expect this blog to become shared with other creatures soon, hopefully. You've technically seen some of them already.
I've been giving them this treatment all morning:
So we'll see. XD
Content Rewrite 3 will be ongoing for a while simply because it will be looking at and redesigning the entities that appear in Pressure alongside making new entities. My to do list also may consider mapping out what the Refugium looks like. As long as I have the worldbuilding and characters established now, the rest will be more fun and experimental.
Between the technical worldbuilding and stuff, I may already be able to begin the story in comic form, but not foreseeably soon. Who knows, though (I should know).
Also said I would only post this tomorrow but I keep getting too excited to show you stuff. >:(