Been thinking about a Teth Adam who wakes from the dead in his tomb disoriented, soul forcibly bound to flesh.
Something with his magic approaches and breaks through the walls of his prison.
He senses malice from the opening, and he reacts with prejudice, sending magic out to kill it.
He gets his bearings enough to realise he's killed 2 (supposedly insignificant) people and something with his magic is flying away but he's not bothered enough to go after it.
Teth Adam who finds himself fighting a Champion wearing a dead man's face. Finds himself staring down a palette swapped version of his nephew when he forces him to power down.
Faces the fact that he's orphaned his nephew twice over and the boy who died begging him to do good is now embodied again staring at him in defiance and fear.
hii terra! i think you mentioned seeing hadestown today (?) what did you think of it? 👀 (you're more than welcome to yap about it with me if you feel like it btw!) hope your day is going good :D <3
I DID I DID!!!!!!! it was so awesome….. i saw the touring version (so not the one w jack wolfe) but the eurydice (megan colton) was INCREDIBLE she absolutely stole the show <333 the hades was really good too and the hermes had such fun stage presence <3333 gah it was so good. this was my first time seeing it and the stage setup was so cool and the way they utilized silence in certain moments ough OUGH
Consider this a review of Rift Apart (PC ver). After playing this game twice on Renegade Legend, I have... opinions. Being a fan of the franchise since Going Command/Locked & Loaded, I admittedly have some strong biases for both the PS2 saga and the Future Trilogy for various reasons. But before I go lambasting this entry into the franchise, a TLDR summary;
Pros:
The game is pretty and well executed on a technical level (for the most part).
The platforming and movement is refined and a step up from previous titles.
Cons:
Quite literally almost everything else.
Also has a propensity for crashing (both freezing and blue screen of death).
Movement & Platforming
One of the core aspects of RaC that I am happy RA got right. The movement is buttery smooth and chain daisying from one platform to the next using wall runs, dashes and rift pulls is excellently designed. The addition of the dash function adds an extra dodge ability that was absent in previous entries although granted we can still use the age-old side jumping while aiming/shooting.
I do wish however that the hoverboots were more integrated into the platforming since most of the time you only ever need it for super long leaps or the timed step puzzles. Something like the jump pads from ACIT would be nice to see paired with the new wall run and dash mechanic. You hardly need to use it outside of Savali and Torren IV and the last part of the Nef Mech fight.
What I wished they truncated however was the glide mechanic the hoverboots had. Given that the hoverboots could both glide and make you go fast, it makes this better than whatever Clank could possibly offer. @erablisme has done a wonderful breakdown on this matter (see here), but essentially having the hoverboots be an upgrade of both the charge boots and fulfilling Clank’s contribution to Ratchet’s mobility (gliding) renders Clank, from a gameplay standpoint, moot. It renders Clank into nothing more than a glorified backpack/exposition device, which beats the entire purpose of the franchise’s own title.
Gameplay
Weapons
The arsenal, while fun to use, is too bloated. A lot of the guns overlap in functionality:
Shotguns: Enforcer, Pixelizer, Void Repulser
Seeker/Turret weapons: Agents of Doom, Bombardier, Mr Fungi
Crowd Control: Topiary Sprinkler, Cold Snap
Grenades: Shatterbomb, Bouncer
Rapid fire: Burst Pistol, Blackhole Storm
Lock-on weapons: Drillhound, Richochet, Buzzsaw, Lightning Rod
Heavy hitter: RYNO, Negatron Collider, Warmonger
Do we really need multiple weapons that do the same thing just with different particle effects?
The level up mechanic, while a staple of RaC games, is frankly outdated by this point and actively hinders the game. If anything, it punishes players for sticking to guns they enjoy once they hit max level. It makes the motivator for using weapons not be its function but rather to chase that arbitrary level cap. Plus, there’s no telling what the level up actually did for a weapon aside from damage buffs.
It’s not like they couldn’t do away with this feature, Deadlocked made the guns increase so many levels it frankly deemphasises them in favour of choosing the best weapon for any given scenario, ItN decreased the max level to 3 (6 on challenge) in favour of more meaningful weapon upgrades, and ACiT had the Constructo weapons and mods (which Deadlocked also had called Omega Mods) that incentivises experimentation on what combos worked best while allowing you to spice things up post max level. Why not tie weapon upgrades to collectibles? They already had the Raritanium collection, sprinkling effect mods for weapons throughout the locations shouldn’t be too difficult. They already did this for the armour system, so why not do it for the weapons too? Heck, why not make all the weapons customisable like the Constructo weapons? It would solve the bloated arsenal problem.
Enemy Design
The enemy design in this game just isn’t great. While it makes sense considering you’re fighting an army so it’s obvious they’re gonna have standardised units, you would think they would spice up their combat stratagem when they know they couldn’t beat our protagonists by throwing the same old shtick over and over. Instead, we keep having to fight the same miniboss Juggernaut over and over and over again. Sometimes there’s two of them! Make it three during the Juice fight!
It’s not a problem with just the Nefarious troopers, it’s an issue across multiple factions too. Across all three factions (Space Pirates, Goons & Nef’s army), they all follow the same formula;
the one with the gun: Pirate Corsair, Goon, Nef Lasertrooper
the one that does melee: Space Pirate & Shield Pirate, Goon Rusher & Undead Goon, Nef Slugger
the tiny short range/melee swarmer: Cutlassies, Robomutt, Nef Trooper
the rinse repeat miniboss: Pirate Marauder, Nef Juggernaut
While stylistically different, they don’t differ much from how they shoot/do damage at you. It would have been great if they did some things different from one another. Some really simple fixes;
While I think giving shields to pirates makes little sense, it is some variety at least. Expand on that. Maybe make the Goon Rusher actually rush towards you faster than the others, or make the Nefarious Slugger can do 360 attacks or have more range since it’s a) a robot, and b) basically has the Scorpion Flail for arms.
Make the Vroom Goons try to ram you instead of just having to avoid the taser things it shoots cuz that’s the exact same thing that the Nefarious Sniperbot does since all you need to do to avoid both attacks is sidestepping it.
Make the Pirate Corsair shoot high damage while the standard Goon does horizontal strafing rapid fire compared to the Nef Trooper’s vertical one
Make the Zoom Goons dodge your attacks, maybe give it a ground pound that opens it up to attack so it's at least somewhat different from the Nef Peacekeeper other than being a slightly squishier variant.
For a game so pretty it is bizarre they couldn’t put more effort into gameplay itself. The repeating minibosses get stale very quickly since once you’ve figured out a tactic that worked, it is rinse and repeat across the whole game.
Two Protagonists, Same Shtick
The gameplay doesn’t differentiate itself between Ratchet and Rivet. They play the exact same way, with the exact same arsenal, and the exact same progression. What is the point of having separate playable protagonists if they’re just gonna end up the same? You could replace Rivet with Ratchet and vice versa for 90% of the game and nothing would change. It would be something if they had separate weapons or separate movement gimmicks that make them distinct, but we didn’t get that for some reason.
Character Issues
The character writing is just abysmal, even when compared to the Future trilogy. While the Future trilogy (and by extension A4O, FFA and ItN) had plenty, and I mean plenty, of plotholes from a worldbuilding standpoint, the character writing was solid and fairly consistent. I cannot say the same for RA. Some examples;
Ratchet(?) & Clank(?)
I can hardly recognise Ratchet as the same character we had over the PS2 and PS3 instalments. He feels more like the 2016 reboot version just haphazardly retconned as the ItN version that RA was supposedly a continuation of. Being afraid of being a washed-up hero was Qwark’s thing, not Ratchet’s. Why would he even care? The man was downright tired of being a hero come ItN. And why is he even worried about meeting the Lombaxes? He saved Polaris multiple times and beat Tachyon, y’know, the reason why they left in the first place? The reason he gave up searching for the Lombaxes was because he had more going on with Talwyn and was assured the Lombaxes would do just fine without him. Why the sudden change of reason? What, is acknowledging Talwyn one too many female characters for Insomniac?
And why would Clank, despite knowing Ratchet not wanting to pursue the Lombaxes, go out of his way to make a whole ass parade about the Dimensionator? If he was just trying to cheer Ratchet up from his fear of being a washed-up hero (which, again, made no sense for his character) he would have just done the parade and given him the Dimensionator in private. The entire premise of Rift Apart hinges on the fact that Clank decides to give Ratchet what can be considered as a WMD since the Lombaxes used the Dimensionator to get rid of the Cragmites in an open public setting. Had he not done this, had he not told Qwark he wanted to surprise Ratchet, Nefarious probably wouldn’t have found out about the new Dimensionator, and the entire game wouldn’t have happened.
Another gripe I have with how Clank was handled was that his Zoni heritage was conveniently forgotten about. They could have tied the Zoni more deeply into the mysticism of the RaC universe and be the reason why he was able to fix the dimensional anomalies, but instead it was tied to Gary and... the Lombaxes. Huh.
Rivet, or as I like to call her, “Furbait”
There is so much missed potential with Rivet. Where to start? Instead of a grizzled, closed-off survivor of a robot dystopia, we just get miss middle-of-the-road, clearly made for pandering, furbait. Design wise, she would have been perfectly serviceable had this NOT been a robot dystopia. The only physical giveaway to show that she was a survivor/rebel fighter was her arm. It is the only thing that shows she’s a rebel fighter survivor. Her suit is well made, her eyelashes are on fleek, her hair is silky smooth, her tail is all fluffy and clean. Nothing about her says she was a survivor. No scars, no dirt, nothing other than the obvious robot arm. It is lazy. Lazy and stupid.
Her personality doesn’t make sense for the universe she supposedly inhabits either. Heck, no one in this franchise fits well in this robot dystopia, tbh. She distrusts robots due to past experience, yet is chummy with both Clank and Kit (and by some extension, the Zurkons & Pierre) relatively quickly. For someone who should have gone through a lot of adversity, she hardly acts like it. She’s confident, has a lot of friends, and whatever negative aspect she does have (which is just distrust instead of the obvious robot racist she should have been) that would have given her an opportunity to grow as a character is watered down and conveniently forgotten, so she hardly grows as a character, if any.
Ultimately, Rivet boils down to being “What if Ratchet, but a girl?”. There’s work put into trying to make her her own thing, but there’s also the narrative yanking her by the collar to be Ratchet’s other self. She’s the last Lombax in her dimension, she also wonders where the Lombaxes went, and she’s trying to be a hero. At that point, how is she any different than Ratchet? They don’t even differ much personality wise for a version of Ratchet who never met her Clank, so to speak. One would think she would be the spunky RaC1 Ratchet since it was meeting Clank that got Ratchet to grow as a person. Instead she’s just your lovely neighbourhood Rivet, friend to all except robots except the ones she meets I guess. What is the point of having two main characters if they are just gonna end up the same?
Kit
While arguably the better other of the new duo, she has issues as well in the writing department. She had the most growth out of our titular cast, however how she got there is ramshackled at best.
In comparison to Clank, he was a defective warbot, which made sense why he was small. Kit on the other hand was tailor made by the supposedly competent Emperor Nefarious, so why does she have a cutesy mode? Why does she even have a character crisis from hurting Rivet, for that matter? Stopping rebels was what she was designed to do, and she suddenly gained a conscience from doing her job? If Kit is so effective at what she did, why did Emp Nef stop at making just one of her? Shouldn’t there be multiple Kit models roaming about? She could mow down hordes of newer Nefarious Troopers and Juggernauts, so why didn’t Emp Nef expand on that?
These inconsistencies make Kit as a character start falling apart as soon as you give it more scrutiny than a surface level glance. The writers could have easily solved these issues by just alluding that she might have been an outdated model, or was damaged and abandoned on Savali where Gary and the monks fixed her up and gave her a new purpose — protecting the Archives. Instead of an exterminator, she became a guardian. They could have taught her how to be more “human” as it were, too, which would tie up nicely to why she regrets her actions in her previous line of work. Instead, they went with the “Oh no, what have I done, I did my job and injured a trespasser, now I’m gonna be a recluse on Savali” route.
She doesn’t gel well with Rivet either because the only one actively having something to overcome was Kit. Had Rivet been written better (having to overcome her prejudices, letting go of her past trauma, solving her trust issues) it could work with Kit growing out of her self doubt and regrets, but it just isn’t there. Plus, there weren't enough scenes of them together to build towards that conflict resolution that would make their friendship more believable. She has more of a relationship with Ratchet than Rivet.
“EmPeRoR” Nefarious
He is boring. Simple as. There is no driving motivation to him other than “conquer everything”. We could have gotten an Ultron (which would make a perfectly sensible callback to the Biobliterator shtick our Nef pulled from UYA) but we just end up with a sassy English bastard with the personality of wet bread. There was no fun interplay between him and our Neffy, anything to make both their personalities shine as they work together or grind against each other, it just sucks.
The Plot(holes)
Imma just list it down.
How does a helmet clearly designed to fit a Lombax head is supposedly “one size fits all”?
How did the fish kid Rivet saved in the intro made it around Nef City in the first place if this was supposedly a robot dystopia that eradicated all squishies? What, was he just having a stroll, taking some fresh dystopian air? Could have made it that this was a fellow rebel she was tasked to save cuz he had some intel that he swiped and Rivet decided to use herself as bait to draw attention away from him so he could get the intel out of there, but no.
On that matter, why do planets like Savali and Torren IV still have organic inhabitants?
What was Skidd trying to achieve by hacking the propaganda blimp? This served no purpose at all narratively since it didn't even turn any robots against the Neffies.
Why was Skidd even in Nef City, for that matter? What was his original mission that he was going undercover for? Busting Rivet out of prison? Couldn’t be, since he made no mention of it.
Why did none of Emp Nef's cronies question our Nef just popping in despite looking clearly different? He’s a whole head shorter and the wrong colour. What, do they not have colour vision?
How did Emp Nef know about the existence of the dimensional map? He barely knew about the Dimensionator so how does that make sense?
If Ratchet already has hoverboots, why couldn’t he dash/sprint with it until he gets to Savali?
Where and when did Rivet get a rift tether?
Where and when did Rivet get a pair of hoverboots?
Wasn’t the Space Pirates/Decadroids designed by Tachyon? Why do they exist in this dimension? Why aren’t they allied with Emp Nef since they too are robots? None of this is explained.
Where did the Lombaxes of Rivet’s dimension disappear to? Did they have a Tachyon-like threat in this dimension too? Did Emp Nef wipe them out? Don’t know, and the game doesn’t bother explaining it cuz Rivet is supposed to be girl Ratchet and nothing beyond that.
Why would Emperor Nefarious announce for the whole galaxy to see where he was going during the finale? Did he lose that much intelligence in the short timeframe we’ve known him? This is the guy who conquered the galaxy?
Why would he leave a portal for our protagonists to conveniently follow him through?
Where did that telekinetic abilities of him suddenly disappear to?
Where was this dimension’s Lawrence counterpart? That stupid little secretary is so dumb as to not recognise her own boss she couldn’t possibly be the Lawrence replacement.
Environmental Storytelling & Worldbuilding
Environmental storytelling & worldbuilding has never really been Insomniac’s strong suit. RA is pretty and all, but aside from Blizar Prime, none of the other locales did anything different from Ratchet’s dimension. If this was supposed to be a galaxy where Emp Nef has conquered it all, you would think that there’d be more neon, more cyberpunk, more Emp Nef aesthetic, more robots flying about. Instead, we just got the same thing we had from Ratchet’s dimension, just in prettier graphics. It is set dressing with no story to tell. It's a puddle pretending it was an ocean. While I appreciate seeing the graphical glow up the locations got, it’s a missed opportunity to actually show the impact Emp Nef had.
Take Nefarious City for example;
How was Ratchet able to move around Nef City without raising alarms? This negates the entire point of Rivet needing a robot disguise in the first place.
Why does a static statue in the middle of a city have a terminal that activates a platform that leads to Emp Nef's office in the first place?
On that note, why is an EMPEROR working from an office? Where’s the throne? The grand palace and palisades? The royal guards? If he’s an authoritarian that likes to take control, where’s the giant screen with a hundred monitors that watch every inch of Nef City?
Why does Emp Nef have a tiny four seater shuttle? If he needed to commute planet-side, wouldn’t he have something more posh? More grand? A Rolls Royce of shuttles instead of what can be considered a slightly pricier but still shitty Tesla model? They could have made Ratchet or Rivet have to steal a fighter jet and that would make infinitely more sense than what we got.
The same can be said with the inhabitants of this universe. They only exist to serve as plot devices or to point the protagonists to the next goal rather than actual people. There is no culture, no differing beliefs, nothing to tell you about what they are about or what they do. If all they exist to do is to be exposition devices/mission pointers, what was the point of even making distinct characters? Then again, the Future trilogy suffered the same problem with environmental characters being practically stand-in cardboards so points for consistency, I guess.
Verdict
Essentially, Rift Apart is a creatively bankrupt, designed-by-committee tech demo for Sony Playstation. What used to be a franchise that does satirical commentary on capitalism that later tried to delve into narrative/character driven sci-fi story, has ended up being the most capitalistic-designed entry imaginable. Which is unfortunate because I want to like this game. God, do I want to like it.
Did I enjoy playing it? When it works and doesn't crash on me, sure.
Do I like it enough as an entry to the franchise though? No, no I don't. The gameplay hardly expanded on the RaC formula, and the narrative just killed it for me.
But of course, that's just me. If you enjoyed RA, more power to ya. If you told me to play it again, I'll probably do it. It's just not for me for the long run.
I'm gonna start this off by being self aware. Vriscourse in 2024 is so funny and kind of silly in a way so take as little or as much of this as you want.
I think I should lead in with Vriska is divisive on purpose. Her entire story is rife with places where you can either hate her, love her, or find shades of grey. I love Vriska as a character, but I want to be perfectly clear. Vriska Serket is NOT a good person, but imo very few people are. Narratively speaking Vriska grows up on a hostile planet where she's forced to kill for her Lusus. She also has the influence of Mindfang's journal to contend with. Vriska never knows who she is, she's always living in someone else's shadow and constantly hating it. Yet at the same time she's trying to live her life by some grand formula. Let's take Tavros for example. By virtue of Karkat and the descriptions we get of Alternia we see the word pity used several times when describing Flushed feelings. Can we take it with a grain of salt and assume that Karkat a known romance over enjoyer is being an unreliable narrator? Sure, we can. That said I think that wording is relevant here. In Vriska's head she feels bad for this guy and thinks that she's the only one who can fix him. On top of that you add in that her hero was flush with a powerful bronzeblood and you've put massive blinders on yourself. She becomes so self absorbed with this idea that she ends up going way too far in her efforts to bring him around and pushes heavily past his consent and boundaries. (Looking at that kiss scene). Even after his death she says maybe 2-3 things about ahh man maybe I shouldn't say bad things about that guy anymore or am I bad for killing (another) friend. She's young but I think the lack of remorse is something that matters here when looking at her in adulthood which is what we're really trying to get to here. As for the previous murder it's barely even touched. There's an air of well Aradia killed me back so we're all good. Even though she ascended to God tier and initially Aradia was just a ghost who had to deal with it while Sollux had to cope with the fact that physically it was his body that killed his matesprit. General other beats are the arrogance, easy to anger, and lack of empathy. Which we actually get to see some development on those from pre retcon Vriska! More on that here in a second.
Holy shit Gil, you're rambling so God Damn much why do we care? I don't know, don't ask me, but here's why all that foundation matters. If we're thinking about the theoretical for any Homestuck character as a whole I feel like we have to consider who they are in adulthood. Tons of discussion and debate all circles around "well they were kids!" Okay, well lets talk about what they could be as adults. So with everything we've already brought up about Vriska, how does she act in her 20s? Personally I think she struggles post game. She has no mental purpose for a while and she's in a place where she doesn't have to fight just to live so that means tons of time to sit around and think. We've seen from pre retcon Vriska that when the stress is off she does actually consider what she's done to a degree. Do I think she thinks about Tavros or Alternian sins all that much? No. I think she doesn't like her younger self (like most people) and does what she can to avoid being like that anymore. That comes with painfully slow growth and still a lot of bridges in need of mending. Those same traits of being self centered and needing attention are there but they're a little more tempered. She can at least listen now and has the emotional intelligence to realize when she's hurt someone and actually care about that.
In summary: Vriska is a complicated and flawed character and saying that she did nothing wrong but also saying she did everything wrong are both incorrect. There is nothing defensible about her acts (She fucked up bad) but we can understand why she may have done them without condoning them. As an adult she is still kind of an asshole but she's not to that same level and she gets to grow into a somewhat reasonable adult that is still a dick at times. Also if you got this far then enjoy my shameless Vrisrose propaganda. They get in fights all the time and want to beat the shit out of each other nonstop. Both of them suck and it's so funny.
i keep saving ewan mitchell edits to my recipes folder on tiktok. it was hilarious the first time i realised what i’ve done but now i’m worried for what my subconscious is trying to tell me.
Hail Mary style Danny Phantom meets Billy Batson / Captain Marvel where the Ghost Zone is destabilizing because of shit the Guys in White fired into it, but since its literally several different planes of the afterlife all at once, the planes attached to it are also beginning to destabilize and (maybe?) Ghost King Danny but definitely a Danny who's Core is entrenched in Amity leaving it one of the few stable spaces but supporting a whole town on his core while being eaten away by the stuff the Guys in White created is destroying him slowly.
Danny being both the Hail Mary and Grace at the same time and he needs to keep it together or he'll lose everyone he loves. But also the people of Amity have a high amount of Ecto resistance which allows them to survive in that state but not forever but also makes them susceptible to the Stuff but the ones who have poorer Ecto resistance are getting poisoned by Ecto and Danny is at his wits end.
Then he finally catches wind of something else stable in all this mess and its the Rock of Eternity (which, depending on the canon was hewn from bits of heaven and hell if I'm remembering right and hence, PART AFTERLIFE) and could hold the key so Danny is desperate to get in.
Billy who had to take over Wizard duties alongside being the Champion because the Rock needs a Wizard while the Planes are crumbling is the last defender of the Rock and is also trying to find a solution and then this Creature with a mass of living/unliving within it and coated and rotting at the Edges with the Stuff is scrabbling, trying hard to get in but also projecting friendliness and desperation but can Billy really trust it he doesn't even know what started all this but that thing seemed entrenched in it all and Billy is 10, 12 at the most and Danny is 15, 17 at the most and they need help and they are so scared and its like they're the last stabilizing agents in worlds gone mad, plus Chaos is trying to take advantage and villains are closing in - in this essay I will-
I'm not entirely familiar with Moon Knight, but I do find his concept intriguing. Imagine them applied to Billy though.
Billy Batson who, amidst a dangerously high fever and facing the neglect of his uncle is then confronted with the news that his entire family has died.
The sheer trauma coupled with his youth at the time ended up with his second identity splitting off - one based off his twin sister Mary who his mind then assumes and fabricates a whole story about how she must have been ill as well and that it had been only their parents who had died.
Ebenezer does not take kindly to Billy's "oddness" (or really, his presence in general) and kicks him out once he's sure CPS won't come sniffing around. On the streets, Billy's condition worsens and he has a running narrative where its the two of them against the world, and explains away why he rarely sees (i.e. hallucinates) his sister as the both of them having to find work in the day to support themselves.
Clearly, since he knows some of what is happening in "Mary's" life, they must be discussing their days at night or something and the brain fog is only due to tiredness and a lack of food and sleep.
The third identity appears when Billy gets his powers - specifically, as the Living Lightning roots itself in his being, coupled with how he is expected to be both Host and Hero, Billy fabricates an ancient, adult persona to be Marvel. It makes sense to him as the original that he can 'see' through Marvel's eyes as he must be backseat driving their body.
It's slightly different from Moon Knight in the way that all 3 personalities are aware that they each exist, but none of them are necessarily aware that they are personalities rather than separate persons in the first place.
This isn't ever highlighted as a problem initially because as a homeless child and then a child in a shitty apartment on the bad side of town, no one is looking into Billy and as 'they' like to tell people, Billy and Mary are very much identical down to the short, dark pixie cut they supposedly share.
Things come to a head however when Billy or Cap begin coming into contact with the real Mary Batson, who Billy subconsciously recognises, but can't reconcile with his years long mental narrative of the Mary who's been with him all this time.
It also doesn't help that while Mary finds Billy familiar as well, her own trauma had (canonically) given her amnesia. She and the Mary persona do tend to clash however as they both can tell something is wrong but aren't what it is exactly.
They do however end up hanging out more and Mary slowly begins to gain awareness that her 'two' twin friends are not quite what they seem.
Persona Mary has an added layer of fear she can't shake when she looks at Real Mary as well because if she does end up acknowledging the truth, her own existence becomes a lie and purposeless. While she isn't aware of it yet, deep down, she fears acknowledging the truth would make her disappear.
Just throwing this out there but would anyone be interested in seeing an OC-insert Tawky Tawny?
Who initially comes to as a wild tiger and over time discovers that 1) Magic exists 2) Even without considering magic, there's enough weird about his new world that he can proceed to try and make his life easier.
This tiger man thus stumbles/researches his way into being one of the biggest, oldest, magically charged mutant tigers known to man.
The dude will be trying to play this off to multiple different parties that it's "a magic thing" or an "experiment/science thing gone wrong," and many will believe him. Many people who are experts in the matter however will most definitely be wondering how the fuck he keeps getting away with things.
Tawky Tawny may or may not have been a name he came up with in a drunken bender and then ran with it.
One of his original goals would be to become bipedal with opposite thumbs. He will inevitably be mistaken for an alien.
He also may also attend many a furry convention across time and countries. This will inevitably also cause paranoia in people who look out for such things.
Eventually he will settle down a little into a Victorian gentlemenesque persona.
Just in time for the Wizard to call in a favor he owes him, and now he is one tiger dad uncle to Billy Batson.
