#trisca

[ml-typhonverse]

Andromeda’s Looks

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while because while I have a basic idea for every other character’s looks, I keep flip-flopping on what Andromeda looks like. Mainly because her looks could potentially have a big impact on how Kinsley treated the original Andromeda, and thus how he treats Andie. So I’m hoping that by getting all this out, I’ll finally make a decision or someone will give me a solution.

Okay, let’s start off with Kinsley’s design. I want him to be traditionally handsome, like a Hollywood actor. People unfortunately tend to be more trusting of attractive people so it’s an asset for him in his line of work. He’s tall, white, with gray eyes and blond hair that he wears slicked back. With all the privileges that come from being a wealthy white man in America. His hands are soft and look like he’s never worked a day in his life.

Now, I’ve already decided that Andromeda, and thus Andie, looks far more like her mother than her father. So my big issue is figuring out who her mother is. I’m leaning towards Cassandra as a name (for the Greek origins and in mythology, Andromeda’s mother is Cassiopeia). There are two backstories I have in mind and both have their pros and cons.

Option 1 is Cassandra coming from a wealthy upper-crust family. Kinsley seduced her (either for her money or as part of a gambit for one of his jobs), they married, and Kinsley successfully isolated her from her friends and family. This would make Kinsley even more horrible, give him a reason to actually get married (as I can’t see him marrying unless it had a benefit for him), and provides another basis for his wealth. The downside is that unless I make Cassandra an orphan or her family at least emotionally abusive, I’ll have to figure out how her parents would feel about Kinsley and Andromeda, and how that would fit into the story.

In this reality, Andie would likely be a blond, but maybe a darker one or have light brown hair. Her eyes would be a greenish gray that combines her parent’s eye colors, and she’d be decently tall and slim. Sort of that traditional model body. She’d likely have delicate white skin that tends to burn easily, and be easily recognized as Kinsley’s daughter due to their similar features. That makes the man proud whenever she gets complimented on her looks.

Option 2 is Cassandra being the daughter of first generation immigrants from Mexico. Kinsley would have been hired to get the owner to sell their decently successful business and he decided the easiest option would be to seduce her into trusting him. Only she wound up pregnant and Kinsley couldn’t risk her coming after him so he decided to marry her and dispose of her later. Cassandra and the baby ended up being decent cover for him so she stuck around longer than he thought.

This Andie would look very different from Kinsley. She’d be relatively short, with long dark brown hair that looks black in certain lights. She’d have big brown eyes and have a fuller figure than the Option 1 Andie. Kinsley would find this useful as if he needed to set a potential pedo trap, no one would easily connect Andie to himself. That said, it makes it easier for him to ignore her as she looks so utterly different from him.

No matter what, Andie will go through some physical changes as the story goes on though. Part of being a sentimonster is that they don’t really need to eat if they’re put back into their amoks often, so Andie was rarely fed before starting school. Another thing is that Kinsley’s mental image of what Andromeda looks like controls things, so she starts out the story looking paler than she should and pretty underweight.

As the year passes, Andie starts putting on some weight, her hair gets healthier, and she gets some real sunlight. I really like the idea of her getting freckles the more time she spends outside; though they’d be covered by the mask as Trisca. She’ll gain some muscles from fighting and the self-defense training, she’ll start experimenting with clothes and make up instead of just wearing what Kinsley dictates. I just really like the idea of Andie changing in subtle ways as she gets healthier and happier, but looking at photos from the start of the story and the end would show a drastic difference.

What do you guys think?

[ml-typhonverse]

Plans for Character Growth

So we have our three main characters. The question is, how do I want them to grow from here. I have a few ideas about where these three start and where I want them to end. The story just needs to get them there naturally, hopefully through the course of around a year or so.

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Let’s start with Andromeda/Trisca. At the beginning of the story, she’s not in a great place. She’s been mentally beaten down by Kinsley/Typhon, she has no support system, barely any self-esteem. The big changes for her are not only becoming Trisca, but also interacting with people as Andromeda, or Andie.

I see her as shy, submissive, practically unable to stand up for herself. She has morals, thanks to the original Andromeda, but Andie has had to shove them aside in favor of her own survival. Fair, but also another thing for her to be guilty over. She’s honest, but partially because she feels she has to as otherwise Kinsley will kill her. Andie’s self esteem is also tied in to her identity as a sentimonster, feeling that she’s stolen what should have been the original Andromeda’s.

As Trisca, she’ll likely try to avoid acting like she does normally. Partially to keep Typhon from recognizing her, partially because being submissive and shy during a fight could end up with her getting badly hurt, if not killed. She’s also so busy playing peacekeeper between Sabotage and Kermes that her own needs and wants might get buried, and then there’s the guilt about not being able to tell them all she knows about Typhon.

In Andie’s case, I’m leaning towards a full transformation. Trisca is her chance to be brave, bold, kind, and clever. She gets to learn to work with people who will listen to her and act on her suggestions, gets to protect people and be praised for her actions. While Trisca remains a mask in some ways, Andie will likely try to get herself to act like Trisca normally as well. Learning to stand up for herself, to say no to things.

Trixx would be a great help just as support in Kinsley’s house, but also other ways. Trixx would help to keep her going in the moral direction even when faced with fear. He’d teach her how to safely lie to Typhon without really lying, and how to see things from other perspectives. He’d play small pranks around the house, just to show that Kinsley isn’t as invulnerable as he appears to be.

So by the time the story ends, Andie will hopefully have bloomed. She’ll have learned she’s worthy of having friends, of having a life even though she’s a sentimonster. She’ll learn she can be brave and strong, that she’s willing to fight and willing to sacrifice if it means stopping Typhon and bringing Kinsley to justice. She’ll be a hero and a friend and a person. Which is all she’s ever wanted.

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Will’s big issues to me are his loner tendencies and his inability to trust in the future. He’s not in as bad a place as Andie at the start, having had some stability in the form of his uncle and Plagg, but he’s still pretty much alone. Becoming Sabotage forces him to work with other people, and also rely on them.

I imagine that Sabotage is the best fighter at first of the trio. He’s naturally adaptive, he has the most fighting experience, and he’s known Plagg the longest. His issues would mainly be throwing himself into a fight when it’s pointless, not attempting to stay back to allow the other two to come up with a plan, and the natural danger of Cataclysm. I could definitely see a chapter where Cataclysm hits a sentimonster and makes it go beserk, and then Sabotage dealing with the fallout.

As Will, his issues are severe in more subtle ways. High school is around the age when people are starting to plan for their lives outside of their parents or guardians, and Will doesn’t plan that far ahead. He still has issues with his mom, and Leon maybe doesn’t push as far as he should when trying to connect with his nephew. So, potentially through Andie, Will will have to start making some real friends.

Plagg will probably be helpful, though not as much as he could be. He’s not exactly prone to putting pressure on his wielders, though he would stand up if it’s something he truly believes in. I can definitely see him trying to get Will to ease up at times, and Will would be more likely to listen to him since they’ve known each other so long.

At the end, I want Will to have embraced teamwork and the people in his life. I want him to deal with his feelings about his mom, and realize it was pretty messed up long before she left him forever. I want him to have plans for the future, whether that leads to college or trade school, or something else entirely. Will’s been trapped in a shelter of his own making for a long time now. Maybe Sabotage’s cataclysm will be able to get him out.

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Daniel needs to start relaxing before he dies of a heart attack before age 20. He puts too much pressure on himself and has issues when things don’t go perfectly. If Will needs to look to the future, Daniel needs to start focusing on the present.

Learning to use the Lucky Charm would probably be a big help. Instead of coming up with a plan and getting the thing to make it work, Lucky Charm would force Kermes to come up with something quickly under a time limit. It would also lead to him trusting his teammates, especially when the Lucky Charm plan leads to a better outcome than his original plan would have.

Dealing with Sabotage alone will also force him to confront his instinctive urge to lead and his natural resistance to being told he’s wrong. Trisca would probably help as a mediator to find a compromise, but Sabotage would provide more natural friction, which would make a better wake-up call.

Tikki...probably won’t be the best help. She’s very duty bound, but the good thing is that Ladybugs and Black Cats are supposed to work together. So she’d naturally push Kermes to work with Sabotage and Trisca instead of trying things on his own. I can definitely see this pair as having the most friction between them though, for a number of reasons.

Hopefully, by the end of this, Daniel learns to ease up some. Kermes will learn that he can rely on his teammates, and that he doesn’t have to have the perfect plan for things to work out. And both of them could do with a spa day and a nap, they work too hard.

[ml-typhonverse]

First Team Meeting and Story Set-Up

So Andromeda is now committed to fighting Typhon as Trisca. Now, her next problem is getting to that address that Kermes gave her and Sabotage after their last fight. Thankfully, Kinsley isn’t suspicious of her after the police attack was foiled, but he’s never been fond of letting Andromeda go out and about without supervision.

That’s when Trixx comes in and starts to privately teach Andromeda about manipulation. To Trixx, the best lies are the ones built off the truth, so that the listener hears what they want to hear. Andromeda suggests going out to get a better lay of the city to make her collection of amoks go faster, and Kinsley reluctantly agrees.

Once sentimonster and kwami are out of the house, they make their way to the address where Andromeda transforms once they’re close enough. And just in time too because as she’s phasing through a wall, she spots Sabotage and Kermes at each other’s throats, looking seconds away from killing each other.

Thus begins Trisca’s career as the team mediator, at least in those early days. Kermes and Sabotage are decent people who want to help the city; it’s just they have very different ideas on how to do that. Combine that with naturally conflicting personalities, it makes for some messy team-ups during those first few days.

Kermes is a long-term thinker. He’s more than happy to forgo current comfort in favor of treating the source of a problem. To him, the most important thing is not stopping the sentimonsters, but stopping Typhon. Fast. So he declares that they will catch Typhon within six months and he expects everyone to put everything they have into finding this guy. If that means letting a sentimonster get away to maybe track it to Typhon’s lair, that’s fine.

Which doesn’t sit well with Sabotage. He’s an in-the-moment kind of guy, never makes plans earlier than a few weeks in advance. Getting rid of Typhon is fine, sure. But they’re the only three who can successfully deal with sentimonsters attacking, and Kermes is the only one who can repair any damage. Not to mention he doesn’t want to burn himself out trying to meet a deadline that doesn’t need to exist.

Both heroes have their points, but they’re also both stubborn and defiant and things would get really nasty if it was just the two of them. Trisca gets a lot of practice balancing their desires and compromising, though she has a few issues of her own. After all, the easiest thing to do once Typhon is taken down is for someone else to put on the Peacock and then snap any remaining amok out of existence. Including her own. Not to mention that she knows Typhon is more experienced with transforming and as an adult, he doesn’t have a timer.

Of course, she can’t explain that. But Trisca does point out that all three of them likely need more experience with fighting in general and working as a team before they try to take on Typhon. If he gets his hands on all of their miraculouses, he’ll be even more dangerous and it will be even harder to stop him. Not to mention dealing with the public, who really have no clue what’s going on.

As things calm down, the trio starts working on potential plans. Finding times to hopefully train with each other. Kermes wants everyone to practice will all weapons just in case, and Sabotage begrudgingly admits its a good idea. Coming up with ways to track down Typhon. Listing their powers so they know what the others can do. (Trisca mentions her phasing and lets them assume it’s part of the Fox’s powers instead of her own.) And the biggest thing, figuring out what to tell the public.

The three unanimously agree that telling everyone about the Miraculouses isn’t a good idea. If people know, it could potentially lead to their identities being discovered or the government stepping in to try and take control of them. But as Typhon can’t create multiple new amoks without another person’s agreement, people need to know so that they’re aware of him trying to manipulate them. It’s long and complicated and they don’t really come to a good conclusion during that first meeting.

But eventually, an alarm goes off and the three separate to head home. When Andromeda arrives, she sees Kinsley speaking with an unfamiliar man. He introduces himself as Leonard Davis (call him Leon), who works with child services. He received some tips alerting him to problems within the house. Kinsley denies them, of course, and Andromeda is forced to agree with him.

But thankfully, Leon isn’t an idiot. He can tell that she’s essentially trapped in this house. She needs a support system, people not associated with Kinsley. So, Leon improvises. He makes a few comments on how school will be starting up and he’s sure Andie (a nickname he came up with because Andromeda is a mouthful,) is looking forward to it. Kinsley retorts that she’s home-schooled and Leon grins and tells him he’s looking forward to visiting the house regularly. Every day. At random times.

The more often Leon shows up, the more likely that he might notice something related to Typhon, so Kinsley grits his teeth and reluctantly enrolls Andie at the local public school. Trixx is excited and Andie is nervous, but the kwami assures her that more interaction will be good for her.

Leon returns to his own home late that night, dumps his stuff on the kitchen table, and goes upstairs to knock on his nephew’s door. Will goes to the public high school as well, and Leon asks that he keep an eye on Andie, just in case Kinsley makes a move or punishes her. Will agrees, (he’s done it before), and closes the door in his uncle’s face before locking it again.

He sighs and returns to lounging on his bed, trading barbs with the black cat kwami on his desk as Plagg munches cheese. This isn’t something he wants on his plate right now. Not when being Sabotage already adds so much to it.

But what else can he do?

[ml-typhonverse]

Andromeda’s Commitment

So Andromeda returns after her first fight against a fellow sentimonster, and Kinsley is waiting. He’s furious for a number of reasons. Andromeda didn’t get the second amok, a sentimonster was unleashed on the public outside of his control, people now know that he exists, even if it’s merely a theory. And now there are heroes out there who will be looking for him, ones who know exactly what the miraculouses are and what they can do. Despite none of this being her fault, he lashes out at her.

Trixx, who slipped through the door and hid himself in a corner, helplessly watches as Kinsley attacks Andromeda. He gives her no time to answer any question he asks, and she can’t help, but scream. This goes on for only a few minutes before there’s a knock at the door.

It’s their next door neighbor; an older retired woman named Olivia Reynold. Kinsley quickly pulls himself together and deals with her sudden barrage of questions about the noise she just heard, but not before the police arrive, courtesy of Olivia’s phone call. The two officers are warded off by Kinsley, but they’re smart and quickly realize that Andromeda is being abused. One of them decides to get in contact with a friend of theirs involved in child services, just in case.

The police arriving didn’t improve Kinsley’s mood and he storms off to his office to plan. Andromeda slips out into the backyard just to get out of the house for a bit, and Trixx finds her there. The two talk for a bit and Andromeda reveals the limitations that have been put on her, namely that she cannot betray her ‘father’. Trixx points out that Typhon doesn’t want the sentimonsters running amok, so technically, she wouldn’t be betraying him by stopping them.

They verbally spar for a bit, with Trixx countering Andromeda’s concerns. But eventually, Ms. Reynold comes out into her own backyard to have a one-sided conversation with Andromeda through the fence. She talks about her own history with an abusive parent, about how hard it was to get out and build her own life. And how much better it was to be free, even with the fear of the unknown. She speaks of courage, and the will to do the right thing.

Andromeda isn’t human though. As a sentimonster, she remains under the control of anyone who possesses her amok. If Typhon realizes who the fox hero is while she wears the necklace, he’d make her hand it over and use it to further his schemes. She sees it as too much of a risk. So she turns away, runs into the house and leaves both of them behind.

But Typhon has been putting his newest plan into action. Kinsley needs the police to forget about Andromeda so they won’t investigate him. He ignores their thoughts of abuse because to him, Andromeda isn’t a person. She’s a thing with his daughter’s face; she means very little to him. But since she has a human identity, she’s very dangerous to his plans. But Masque and Hypnos are currently handling another project and Janus can’t help with anything that isn’t electronic.

But people will be looking for another monster. And a true villain would have every reason to attack a police station. If the two police officers just happened to get killed during the rampage, who would connect them back to a house call? So Typhon unleashes a new sentimonster, gives it the order to attack and kill the officers, and then hands over its amok so that it can’t be tied back to him. All while Andromeda silently watches.

The guilt overwhelms her; people would die because they were trying to help her. Andromeda rushes back outside and demands the necklace to stop this. But Trixx has a condition. She can’t pick and choose which sentimonsters she can fight. If she takes the necklace now, Andromeda has to use it to bring Typhon down. No taking it off, no handing it off to someone else. It’s all or nothing.

Andromeda hesitates, but agrees. This time, she’s the first on the scene to fight the sentimonster, swiftly joined by Kermes and Sabotage. The amok is broken, the damage repaired, and Sabotage asks for her hero name. Embarrassed, she admits that she hasn’t come up with one with a blush, amusing both the other heroes. Kermes gives her an address to visit when she can, as her hero self, so they can plan to take down Typhon, who revealed himself dramatically with a separate sentimonster with false plans to destroy the city and bring chaos.

Still scared, but ready to keep her promise, she agrees. And by the time she meets them in a relatively clean, but forgotten warehouse near the water, she has her hero name.

Trisca.

[cilverlining]

The Shifting Expanse!