Would you be willing to yap about the worst fears of TWA characters.......
(Especially the main group, but also any you wanna talk about)
E h e h e h e I'm doing everyone that has been seen so far :)
Anyways. @latileaf @starsoftheevening
Have fun!
AR:
Mark is terrified of not being accepted at Cozen, or, more specifically, by Petro, for being well...undead. Even if Azrael manages to pull some strings for him, he feels he doesnt deserve his forgiveness due to him being the reason Azzy was imprisoned. He's terrified he's not human anymore, and that he'll never get his old life back. He's desperate to protect and "fix" Petro, but he doesn't know what to do with his complicated feelings for him and his complicated thoughts on his own humanity. He doesn't know if he's enough anymore for anyone but the worms in the dirt...
Azrael is easily the most terrified of losing everything, especially when he found Cozen had been...relocated. Especially with the death of Elric years after Gemma's assassination, he fears he'll lose himself in this strange new world, become something he's not just to survive, letting go of rules and prim and proper style and such. He feels the weight of the entire kingdom on his shoulders, and yet too little to even care properly for himself.. He fears he failed them all, and there's nothing left to return to, and even if so, he'll just lose them again.
Janet and Bridgette (the old lady mentors) are struggling to control things and feel at peace. Their ornery personalities are exaggerated by the intense strangeness of TWA, and they keep finding themselves pushing away others. They know full well they're dead weight; most people are unwilling to stick around someone like them. But they're still trying to just make it out alive with however many years they have left, and they aren't too sure how to change to ensure that. If Azzy and Mark are scared of changing too much, these two are terrified they will be unable to, and get left behind for good...
Trapped:
I've discussed Sabre enough. We're doing the others now! :)
Francis is very similar to Mark, in that he's not quite sure how much of his humanity is left. He wanted to collect that demon bounty to make money to feed his wife and son (in my headcanon at least), and how is he supposed to do that now? He neither knows WHERE home is, nor if they'll accept him, and he can't help but feel he's already died and come back wrong (even though he never has - he's very much alive from the start). He feels both weak in his clumsiness and too dangerous to be around, having innate instincts and abilities he doesn't understand or want.
Ivy, once she wakes from her statue-NPC state, is deeply concerned for everyone's well-being - but as Sabre gets worse, she gets more worried. She's just a normal woman, not any stronger, and she has never practiced these survival skills she needs. How is she supposed to fix and comfort her friends if she doesn't know how? Much later on, when she learns she was programmed specifically to help Sabre, her feelings are.....complicated. Her loyalty stays, and she can't help but wonder if Sabre is right when he mourns for her freedom...does she have free will at all? Or are these thoughts of affectionate worry not her own?
Non RQ/TSS/SL:
Daycare Sabre is just a young kid that goes to a daycare with some silly magic, he's not used to high stakes. He's just a scared kid, maybe 7-10 years old max, and he doesn't understand why he can't go home, why the magic corrupted and...sent him here. Why it caused him to stay as a centaur, it was never supposed to be permanent! Life has become deeply confusing, and he's just trying to find a little comfort in this terrifying world.
TR M was apathetic by the time the end of his world came about, injured and exhausted in every way. But he's alive, and he's stuck with his former enemy, again, at what seems to be a different end of the world as they know it. He's only about 18, and his life has already been so rough... sometimes, he wishes he did die. Those thoughts terrify him, because...he might just have a second chance, and he doesn't want to destroy it, no matter how exhausting and weird it is. He desperately wants to find Assistant/Prof. Red, at least...He feels like a wilted flower, trying to desperately reach the nutrients left in the soil, meager as it is.
TR Shadow Sabre thought he lost everything, all the attempts at being better, at somehow trying to fix his horrible deeds and mistakes, and he's genuinely surprised to be alive. Due to being the only mostly-functional person of his group, despite his injuries, he's unsure how to protect and care for people. He's trying not to hurt them, but that was all he'd known for a long time...He didn't even know he WAS Sabre's shadow until the last moments before death. He can't help but feel intense guilt and self-hate, and fears he will become so clouded by it he'll become a monster again...
Labs!Rainbow is terrified of forever being the strange critter he's become, permanently scarred and unable to grow beyond his trauma. Because he was freshly created, he can't help but feel like he's already been denied his own life for something he never asked for. With his bitey tendencies, he's terrified of somehow, some way, accidentally becoming just like those that did this to him... he feels like an empty shell that doesn't even resemble the person he was going to be one day.
Labs!Sabre did not know it could be so horrifying, or in fact, that Rainbow was conscious in the process. He knows exactly what he did. But at the same time, he feels coerced by...almost a force possessing him. His actions are his own, but...there are horrible visions and ideas inserted into his mind. He can't help but wonder if Assistant Steve is behind this, and if there's really anything behind the cameras but some sort of empty viscera. Something untangible, that isn't the good people, the viewers he thought he was doing ALL of this for. ...is he really a monster? A puppet for something greater? Is this laugh his own? He will likely never find the answer, not before the consequences catch up to him... So, he'll just laugh and laugh, until he can finally succumb to whatever it is that he's become.
And IGC? She just hopes no one finds out this freakish world is her comfort space, that she created intentionally to be the way it is. She yearns to create a life for herself that she wants to live, hurt when she chooses, instead of having no control over it. She's been lying this whole time, and yet, she'll probably drop the disguise if she must. She does not know that part very well...
SSO chicken!Purple is deeply confused by everything, and has no idea what to do when he's in such a fragile chicken body now. He's not sure if he can use his powers, much less protect his weird new friends, and keep Rainbow safe when he, too, has become incapacitated as a pickaxe... All in all, he feels useless and stupid for trusting Prof. Red with the potion and he doesn't trust Sabre or really any of Rainbow's friends much, especially upon learning Rain is from the future. He's scared that he'll just up and vanish again for years, not noticed or missed, being too small to be worth anything.
RQ:
Swaploop!Rainbow, aka Sabow, is having a 24/7 identity crisis living in a body that isn't his. He was sent into the timeloop by Time Steve, and the solution was in trusting Gerald. And he did, he did escape! But then he went on to witness his Rainbow die....only to wind up HERE, back in this....almost uncanny version of his friend. Is this cosmic justice for it all? To become the very person he mourns for, with his "real" self having his friend's voice? He's frankly on the verge of a delusional breakdown, unable to tell what is and isn't reality. Thanks to him being more bird-looking than dragon-like, he feels like an imposter, and fears this is what RQ Orange himself had gone through, and he is so so very afraid of becoming the same - having his life taken by Void after trying to become normal, become...not Rainbow. Anyone but The Hero, Rainbow Steve.
Swaploop!Sabre, aka Oranbre, is just regular ass RQ Sabre. He didn't know about the timeloop, nor saw his Rainbow die, and everything was...normal, until it wasn't. Suddenly, Rainbow isn't Rainbow, but a version of himself, with complicated, messy feelings and experiences. He doesn't know how to handle any of this information. He misses his Rainbow, but he can't help but feel like he has to make himself smaller for his poor friend, trying to make up for something he can't control (being reminiscent of regular Orange Steve). He refuses to leave Sabow's side, but he's so overwhelmed and so scared he WILL lose his friend, completely and totally, if he doesn't try.
Swaploop!Gerald Steve is very much like SL Judge, existing to keep the timelines in order and such. His entire race exists for that purpose, himself being the first. When he arrives in TWA and finds the swaploop duo, he quickly realizes....there is no way to fix this. He can't fix their fates, none of them are able to be set on track now, and despite all his efforts, he feels now as helpless as everyone else, even with his fellow Gerald Steves, there's nothing that can be repaired, just...adjusted. To maybe learn to survive like this, in a perpetual state of chaos...
TSS:
I've already told you Galaxy's, but I'll post his excerpt here for everyone else. Galaxy's main two fears both have to do with him being labeled "the funny one." If he's not joking, making the situation lighter, being a warm presence, what is he? And if being the silly one makes everyone annoyed, if he's too much, then how can he be a person at all? His fear shows up as being physically and vocally Void Steve, his voice and presence being distorted and cold. Sometimes his real voice comes back, but it's too loud. What little he has left of himself physically is dreary and quiet, or too loud and bright. His body is thin, his hair messy and tangled, he can't think of jokes anymore.
Stone!Shadow Sabre is barely a conscious being and doesn't quite know anything at all but his instincts. Easily, he's the most terrified of any version of Sabre, but TSS Sabre he hates the most. If only, because he feels compelled to mimic them... In the time he's been alone in the nightmare dimension, he started to become a person. He desperately doesn't want to lose it, even though he barely understands what it is. All he knows, is he wants to be something else. His inability to speak, or, frankly, to communicate or understand others at all, makes it incredibly difficult for him to bloom into an actual person. He needs practice, but at the same time, he can't help but feel he should be alone...but he also doesn't want to be alone...He's clung onto TR Shadow in an attempt to mimic someone other than Sabre.
Pickaxe!Rainbow is incredibly angry with Sabre for his sheer inability to fix his current state, but he's also uncomfortable with how weak he is. His old friend Purple barely recognizes him, and with Sabre/Galaxy's...everything, it's so hard to feel like he'll ever be the same hero he once was. He doesn't want to become a tool, meant to attack and fix rather than to speak and hurt. He's pissed at Sabre, yes, but he can also see how genuinely horrified he is, and so he's also furious with the universe too. He's terrified of being perceived as a useless object, something whose screams of refusal are unheard.
Guardian had spent a week in TWA alone, combing over empty ruins. He is also currently being forced to confront his worst fear as it is - the fact that BSS Demon Steve scarred him forever (I'll DM you the images heheh). Because of all his failures to protect and warn in the past (BSS Blue and Light getting got by Demon, the spirit world's ruin bc of the infection, Sabre not listening to his warnings) he feels very useless, and the reason he hides beneath a cloak is largely bc of Demon's effects, and his own shame. He tends to spread himself thin in overcompensation, repeating this cycle...if only he could see his very presence is enough sometimes.
Time severely misses his family, and their influence is in his every action - his every attempt to comfort and protect. He's the group's cook, making delicious meals out of strange things, following in his dad's footsteps. He's trying to be kind to Illusion, because he reminds him so much of El in his later mindset, after...Memory and Void had destroyed his sense of peace. In many ways, he's quietly haunted by his family, by Void and Memory, by his past. But he is determined to give the group a baseline sense of normalcy and comfort, to do the little things they can't do. But can he keep up with the demand...? A broken clock is only right twice a day, after all.
Illusion just wants his freedom, to try to become his own person and get away from everything he once knew. Much like Stone!Shabre, he doesn't want to become a puppet for someone else's will. He's essentially a 20-something trying to heal after horrid teenage years spent doing things under his parents' choices, and frankly, he only regrets trying to escape the server, because he's still traumatized from that. In his nightmares, he can feel his body vanishing, Sabre taunting him from his failures, Galaxy's nonsensical words becoming truth, forced to conform to their wills... He doesn't have the energy to placate others anymore, he just wants answers to why he has to keep going, why he can't just LIVE, and he receives none.
Hypno is very confident in himself, especially after learning so much from other variants of himself. His greatest goal is to return to the afterlife, hand in hand with Rainbow. Even with all of his power, he can't parse through the massive, strange world around him to find Rain, and he's refusing to let go of an ounce of confidence that he's out there somewhere.. He is unapologetic in his unusual personality and body, but he is indeed trying to protect those he knows. The only thing is, that IGC seems....odd...she knows something, doesn't she...?
Fax!Light can't help but feel fundamentally broken, which...he kind of is. His core code is incompatible with an old version of his body, making his body's weak state worse. When he heard Hypno was looking for Rainbow, he refused to stay behind, even as his body is in ruins - he MUST find his brother. It might be the only thing that saves him... Due to how his "sickness" works, he's having essentially seizures as he glitches out, his voice backwards and too loud.. In his own way, he feels a severe disconnect from his healthy form and now, and can't help but wonder if it's indefinite - will he one day just fade completely...?
Emerald is just trying to get by, and understand this strange world. When the others welcomed themselves into his home, he felt utterly betrayed and unsafe in his own place (which he was, because Hypno shoved him down the stairs and broke him twice). Though a couple people were a little nicer to him, it made him realize just how alone he really is - his homeworld is decimated, the universe as he knew it is gone, replaced with something....unusual. He's now struggling to come to terms with his insane state of mind and all that he's sacrificed.
SL:
Ocean Leader's anxieties were confirmed by Void's Biome-wide extinction event. If things get too quiet, he swears he can feel Dread's infection creep up into his eyes, the darkness' cold tendrils leaching every drop of water from his body... Being so young, he feels like he's seen centuries of despair - and it doesn't help that the Ocean/Winter kingdoms are merged now. The cold water mimics their deaths in the opposite effect, cold so extreme it burns and dries their lungs out. His lack of confidence makes it so difficult to know what's best, and he frankly was horrified by the idea of lava-based water heaters...But he tried to trust the group, and trust himself. He's scared a lot of the time, and worries that his own doubt killed his people.
Winter Leader is far more confident in himself, but he too is traumatized by Void's destructive tendencies. When he closes his eyes, he swears he can feel his fur burning, his flesh melting into liquid, his once-proud face becoming nothing recognizable. He's constantly irritated with Ocean's anxiety, but can't help but feel himself break a little, too. His people were a confident, strong folk - not the most powerful, but confident enough to survive just fine. But now? They can feel the strain of their deaths, and by God, they refuse to go back there...But can they get any stronger? When most of their territory is...gone? He doesn't know.