Gah, whoops. I actually did have my blog post written and published on my normal Tuesday update day, but completely forgot to then promote it here.
Anyway, as the blog post title implies, I’ve been surprisingly inspired lately by a bunch of exterior sources.
I talk about my story Ladybug’s Simp Squad inspired by this fanart by @carpisuns and added commentary by @miraculousmolls
I go over the story stats for both the 24hr mark and week-long mark, along with gush over the lovely comments people have left me. 💕
I talk about a handful of plot bunnies that have sprung up from those lovely comments on my story: one about Adrien talking to Plagg about not mentioning yeeting himself off the Montparnasse Tower in Gorizilla (whoops, let’s cover up that plot hole), one where Marinette makes Nino a “#1 Rena Rouge Simp” shirt, and one with Ladrien fluffy cuddles.
I talk about an alternative for the Ladrien plot bunny, this time inspired by the story Comfort from Each-Other by ScarletRedfox ( @lady-charinette ) where the whole thing takes a strong angsty turn.
A month-long battle with my internet provider, plus nearly yeeting myself down a flight of stairs, inspired me for a potential akuma attack for one of my future fanfics.
The character designs for Alice Nakiri and Eishi Tsukasa from Food Wars! reminded me enough of my X-Men OCs Willow and Shawn Driver that I’m thinking a bit about X-Future/Glitches again.
If you want to follow me on my journey of inspiration and want to learn more about the above, feel free to hit up my writing blog.
(Also, thank you to everyone I’m stealing ideas from ;) )
The Rogue’s Scribe: Inspiration From Everywhere!
I got an email yesterday, and it took all my willpower to stay on-protest and wait until today to share, but @edendaphne finished my commission of my OC Willow Driver!!!!!
Now, it occurred to me just this morning, as I was waiting for one final email with Willow signed now that I okayed the colors, that Eden probably isn’t going to sign since it’s a commission and I can do whatever I want with it????
So... and this may or may not be a first for her.... I went ahead and swiped her signature off another one of her pieces of art and tagged it to Willow so I can show off who drew her for me. :D (I now have both a signed and unsigned copy)
Without further ado.... WILLOW!!!!!
Meet My OCs: Willow (Part 3 – Character Arc Events)
Hello yet again! Ready for the next part of Willow's introduction? I'm telling you, when I first started working on this, I did NOT intend on Willow's entry surpassing 30pgs single spaced within a Word document, nor did I expect it to take a week to write up and edit! Thankfully, the epic document was easy enough to break down into 6 parts for slightly easier consumption. I wonder if my other characters will be as detailed....
Anyway, how about a quick recap before I keep going? This is part of a multi-post series I started here on Tumblr about a month ago. A means to introduce you guys to my main OCs.
In Part 1 of this series, I talked about why I'm doing it in the first place, as well as explain the real-world influences that helped me create my two story worlds of Gyateara and Glitches.
Part 2 of the series talked about the inspiration that birthed each of my four main Gyateara characters.
Part 3a did the same, but for my four main teenage Glitches characters.
Part 3b then talked about the Glitches main supportive cast of six adult characters; each one originating as a canonical X-Men character.
Earlier today, I moved on to Part 4 of this series: the official introduction of my characters, one by one. I started off with my most present character: Willow Driver. In Meet Willow: Part 1, I shared Willow's background, gave an overview of her personally, and talked about her powers. There were also some lovely pictures to showcase what she looks like.
In Meet Willow: Part 2, I discussed her main relationships.
Part 4 will showcase the other artwork I created for Willow, as well as two cards @chibisunnie created for me that feature Willow.
Then, in Part 5, Willow is showcased narratively with a series of scene samples and shorts.
Finally, Willow’s introduction is concluded in Part 6 with a couple videos of wrestling intros we created for Hubby's WWE13 video game. It will be a fun closing post for this mini-series about Willow.
Now, getting back to this post (Part 3), I'm going to discuss Willow's main story arc events, as seen thus far in the X-Future play-by-post game she originated in. In truth, I haven't played Willow since 2017, so I had forgotten just how eventful her X-Future life truly was! At the end of this recap of her life, I'll also talk about how any of these events will relate to my intended opening character arc for Willow in Glitches.
So, hopefully you have a snack and a drink, because this ended up being 10gs long in my word document. It may take a minute or two to read. Once you're ready, go ahead and check below the break to see what Willow has been up to in X-Future, and how it will transfer to Glitches.
X-Future:
Most of the early events I had already talked briefly about in Part 2 of Willow's introduction, as I discussed her main relationships.
She was at Colossus Academy from the ages of 13 through 15, but when Colossus and Jubilee were killed on mission, and the Academy was shut down, Willow transferred to the Xavier Institute along with her close friend Marge, her surrogate younger brother Hedge, and her pseudo-girlfriend Penumbra. They were a tight clique, but she quickly grew attracted to Chayse, formed a rocky friendship with Lia, and found a playful flirt-buddy in Devon.
She was pushed hard by the faculty at the Xavier Institute, and held to a higher standard than she was used to. This forced her to shape up, mature a little, and stop pranking/bullying others as much. She became closer to Devon, and focused using her powers to mostly prank and tease him and William.
Devon couldn't really hide his attraction to Willow, despite her teasing, and she soaked up as much of the attention as possible. She also tried to ignore her feelings for Chayse, who was dating Lia at the time. Instead she leaned more towards her feelings for Devon, much to Penumbra's dismay.
Willow noticed William's straight-laced and overly conservative personally, and put it on herself to get him to loosen up and act like the 17yo he was. She falsely believed he had a crush on her, so she routinely teased him with sensual images. She thought he was riled up because he, a nearly-18-year-old, was trying to resist his attraction to her, a 15-year-old. She didn't realize he actually got so worked up because she was genuinely annoying him.
One day there was an accident. William was practicing unsupervised as he pushed his powers to their limit. He ended up passing out when he teleported too high into the atmosphere, and plummeted to his death. Willow and Lia joined forces to lead a vigil and build a statue dedicated to William's memory. Willow then realized she thought of William as a brother, as she remembered her own estranged brother. She regretted her treatment of William, and toned down her sensual illusions to tease people. She didn't give them up completely, but she certainly used them more as a means of flirting with those who positively responded to them, as opposed to using them to tease and prank as she had done with William.
Life evened out for a few months, getting back to some sort of normalcy within the school. Then came the day that Devon went to Willow to confide in her. He was on a mission to recruit a new kid for the school, and he had run into The Brotherhood. The leader of the organization, Pyro, told Devon, who was abandoned at a church orphanage while only 4months old, that The Brotherhood could help him figure out who his parents are. Devon had turned down the offer, knowing the Brotherhood to be a terrorist group trying to rule over humanity, as opposed to the X-Men's goal of cohabitation. Devon couldn't get the offer out of his head, though. Trying to help Devon clear his mind, Willow suggested he try out his first Danger Room session. Cyclops offered to run the session, and went to the control room; leaving Devon alone in the DR. Willow moved to an observation deck, assuming watching Devon's first DR run would be hilarious.
Instead, it became something that would haunt Willow for the next couple of years. Devon was put through a generic rescue mission training, in which he had to recover Penumbra. Upon freeing her, Devon was promptly knocked out in a surprise attack. Willow was horrified as she watched the Danger Room transform to look like the school’s infirmary, making Devon believe he was outside the simulator when he awoke. Devon was then told of a mission he needed to go on, and Willow desperately tried to signal to him that nothing he was seeing was real.
While on this “mission,” Devon was paired up with Willow's friend Marjory (Marge). They were separated from the team and confronted by Pyro, who again offered Devon information about his past. All he had to do was “get rid of” Marjory. Devon wrestled his teammate, put her into a sleeper hold, and knocked her out. He discretely checked that he didn't kill her, and then swiped her phone, hoping to use it to contact the X-Men with a location once Pyro brought him to Brotherhood HQ. The simulation didn't last long enough for Devon to execute his plan, however. Cyclops shut the simulation down, declaring Devon a failure of his loyalty test, and instantly put Devon on probation; resulting in him getting limited access to X-Men records and withholding information on who Devon's parents are.
Willow was beyond pissed at the deception, not fully grasping the irony of her anger. She viewed Cyclops a villain for his manipulation, and stormed off to cool down. She intended to check in on Devon later that night, but she never got the chance. Devon had decided he would prove Cyclops wrong by following through with is Danger Room plan, but in real life. He'd infiltrate the Brotherhood, find out about his parents, and then lead the X-Men to the Brotherhood stronghold to take the organization down. He wrote a letter of apology and gratitude to Headmistress Kitty Pryde-LeBeau for giving him the opportunity of joining the school. He wrote another letter of apology to Marjory, in case she truly was in the DR with him instead of a simulation. He wanted her to know that he never meant to hurt her. Finally, he wrote a farewell letter to Willow explaining why he had to leave, and his plan for coming back. As proof that he intended to return, he left Willow his prized possession: his customized lighter. His only means of creating fire that he could then manipulate with his powers.
Before anyone realized Devon had gone, and/or found his letters, the school was attacked by a large energy blast. The energy blast created a major explosion that collapsed the school. Chayse and Gambit were able to read the energy change around the school soon enough to give almost everyone enough warning to get to the safety bunkers below ground. There were still some casualties, though, and Willow feared that Devon was among them. The faculty wouldn't let the students leave the bunkers as they did headcounts and looked for the missing. Drifting to the Astral Plane, Willow watched the clean-up and rescue crew pulling bodies from the rubble. She was relieved that none of them were Devon, but devastated to discover young Hedge's body among the deceased. She swore vengeance on whomever attacked the school.
A few hours later, security film revealed that Devon had run from the school campus an hour before the attack, although the actual attack wasn't caught on cameras; they were all damaged by the energy surge.
Most at the school suspected that Devon was somehow involved; signaling to The Brotherhood for the attack. The fact that the faculty knew Devon was the son of two Brotherhood members, and that he had been in and out of juvenile detention centers for the past five years didn't help matters.
Willow decided that Devon was a traitor, and his was the face she'd picture whenever she thought of revenge for Hedge. She spent the next two years hating her former best friend and crush; picturing ways to torture and punish him for Hedge's death. She also hated Cyclops for his deception, although she understood why he did it. The whole experience showed her, from an outside perspective, what her own powers do to people, and her use of them to pull pranks dropped significantly.
Around the same time as the attack on the school, Chayse's best friend Nix was abducted from the school's infirmary. Chayse had a lead on where Nix could be, and desperately wanted to follow it. Cyclops was chosen as an escort, and Willow his teammate. Lia wanted to go as well, but her earth/magma manipulation powers were too valuable for the fortification of the school's foundation and bunkers, so she was ordered to stay behind to help with reconstruction. Nix's girlfriend Annika also stayed behind, working with her mother Rachel Grey to try to find any other hints on Nix's abduction.
Willow and Chayse spent most of that summer running around Europe, following faint traces of clues to Nix's location. On a mountain range in Bulgaria, their search came to an abrupt end when they came across an experimental facility. While searching through the building, Chayse believed he heard Nix call out to him, but there was an explosion shortly after. Chayse had to decide between Nix and Willow, and decided to phase Willow to safety. Having pushed his powers to an extreme he never tried before in order to save Willow, Chayse collapsed from the strain. The explosion had also separated them from Cyclops, so Willow was left alone to fend for both of them for three days before they were rescued. When the trio went back into the building to see if there were any possible survivors, the facility was in complete ruins, and charred remains rested where Chayse thought he heard Nix call to him. The DNA sample they took revealed that it was indeed Nix. Their search was complete, and Chayse had failed. Annika wouldn't believe them, though, claiming she still felt the psychic link she had with Nix. When everyone tried to tell her she was in denial and grieving, Annika left to prove that Nix was still alive.
Willow helped Chayse grieve over the next few weeks. Between that moment of vulnerability and the months of being each other's companions, the two became incredibly close. They both felt sparks, but both assumed it was simply a product of traumatic events – Willow's near-death and having to nurse Chayse, and Chayse's grief over Nix – and assumed the feelings would fade again. Chayse remained faithful to Lia, and Willow became even more flirtatious with just about every other student at the school.
The next year went fairly smoothly, mostly focused on rebuilding the school, grieving the students they lost, and continuing their trainings so they would be strong enough to take down The Brotherhood. During this time, Willow became Lia's new roommate to replace Annika. This allowed the two of them to get fairly close, and soon enough Willow, Lia, and Chayse became the big power-trio on campus: The Three Musketeers.
Then, while protecting a new recruit coming to the Xavier Institute, Chayse was attacked by a new Brotherhood member. He managed to defeat the Brotherhood, and get the recruit back to the safety of the school, however, he was badly injured: two spiral electrical burns to his chest. While Chayse was in the infirmary, Willow realized how much she truly cared for him. Not wanting to break up a happy couple, she decided to keep her distance while Lia stood watch over her boyfriend.
Chayse was hurt that Willow didn't visit while he was injured, and confronted her about it. Eventually, Willow admitted to her feelings, and how she had them nearly the whole time she had known him. Chayse confessed his feelings as well; they never truly waned after their mission to rescue Nix. Willow refused to be the reason he broke up with Lia, though, and told him they needed to stop hanging out. Chayse admitted that he and Lia were drifting lately (a fact Lia ended up not realizing), and that he couldn't ignore his feelings for Willow any longer. They agreed that Chayse had to break things off with Lia, and that they'd allow her time to grieve the relationship before Willow would start dating Chayse. She didn't want to rub her relationship in her roommate's face while Lia was still healing.
While on the subject of healing, Willow then checked on Chayse's chest, and was confronted with two healing spirals that would be scarred there. Chayse told Willow of the attack, and described the assailant: a man about 19 with the same silver-white hair and aquamarine eyes Willow had, and went by the code name Screwdriver. Willow was dumbfounded to discover that her brother had powers, had teamed up with The Brotherhood, and had attached Chayse. She didn't want to believe any of it. Picking up on how overwhelmed Willow was, Chayse left her to process everything.
The next day, Chayse went to break things off with Lia. She was so devastated by the news that she lost control of her powers, nearly burning Willow with a fire blast, and forcing Chayse to strain to use his powers to help her regain control. Chayse wasn't healed from his brush with Screwdriver, and fainted under the effort. Willow stayed by Chayse's side as Lia rushed to get help. The two of them had a fight in the infirmary waiting room as Chayse was taken care of. The fight ended with Lia running out of the building to hide by the river that ran along the border of the school's estate (more about this in Lia's intro in 2 weeks).
Chayse recovered fairly quickly, and he and Willow walked on eggshells for the next couple of weeks while Lia recovered from her heartbreak. As Prom neared, Chayse asked Willow to be his date. Trying to extend an olive branch, Willow asked Lia and a couple of other girls on their floor if they all wanted to go dress shopping and get ready together. Lia, now infatuated with two newer recruits Lincoln and Ripley, agreed to the group Prom-prep party. Willow and Lia still had a rocky relationship, and Lia still hated to see Willow and Chayse together, but they were at least civil and attempted to be friends.
At the prom after-party, hosted by one of the students - a former Irish pop idol - the Brotherhood attacked. They were again after the recruit Chayse had saved from Screwdriver. Shawn had already killed the mutant Dazzler, who was there to perform at the after-party, and then he set his sights on Chayse. He quickly picked up that Willow cared deeply for Chayse, and so Shawn focused on killing his sister's boyfriend in front of her. Willow, being protected and carried away by a fellow student, slipped into the Astral Plane in order to try to create illusions to distract the Brotherhood long enough for the students to escape, as well as have enough power to mentally attack Shawn to slow him down and protect Chayse.
In the end, Chayse was able to take down Shawn on his own, but Screwdriver was whisked away from the battle by his teammates before Chayse could properly capture him for transport to the X-Men. Meanwhile, Willow's illusions made it look like the Brotherhood's target was killed in the crossfire, rendering their mission complete. Just as the students were going to call themselves the victor, Chayse noticed the same energy signature he felt just before the school collapsed two years prior. He alerted Willow via telepathy, and she relayed the information to the other students. They ran for cover as she used her telekinesis to hold the building together long enough for everyone to escape. The strain of using her powers so much that night, and lingering on the Astral Plane for so long, left her unconscious the next day.
Shortly after recovering, Willow's world was rocked by a new arrival at the school. A man with silver hair in his early 20s. A man who had come from the future, and one who looked an awful lot like an aged up Chayse. Soon enough, it was revealed that this man – Sebastian – was Chayse and Willow's son. He was from an apocalyptic future where an organization called Challengers of Heaven took over the whole planet. Sebastian and is fiance Brianne - who was originally from the present, but was thrown into the future via a wormhole - came to the present to try to stop the Challengers, who had also sent warriors to the past.
Sebastian was excited to spend time with Chayse, who had died when Sebastian was about five. Meanwhile, Willow was trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was going to have a kid with Chayse, and that she would be known as one of the Great Protectors; the last of a resistance against the Challengers.
As Willow continued to recover from the prom after-party, and tried to cope with finding out about Sebastian, Lia was in charge of an escort mission. During the prom after-party, Lia managed to capture the Brotherhood member Trish. Lia was the only one who couldn't be burnt by Trish's pyrokinesis, so she, and a few other students that had signed up as X-Men junior recruits, were assigned as prison escorts for Trish's transfer to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. The mission went horribly wrong. A relatively new student, who went by the code name Psyke, had betrayed everyone to The Brotherhood. The terrorist organization managed to kill most of the S.H.I.E.L.D agents, and Psyke killed a student who believed himself Psyke's best friend. The Brotherhood also managed to rescue Trish from the X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D. The only victory the X-Men had on that mission was three Brotherhood members defecting. Lia had run into Devon while he was there to rescue Trish, and he instantly switched sides to help Lia and the X-Men. His pseudo-girlfriend Nyssa followed suit, as did Devon's best friend Zeke. The former Brotherhood trio even rescued Lia from a new villainess who called herself Agony; a mutant who has the ability to transfer the pain and physical damage she received to whichever target she picked. So any time Devon would punch Agony, Nyssa would feel the connection as if Devon had punched her instead. That sort of thing. She has far more powers than just that, but those will relate more to Lia's intro, so I’ll talk about them then....
Upon arriving back to the Xavier Institute, Lia vouched for Devon, Nyssa, and Zeke, and asked for them to be accepted into the school. The trio was vetted by the local telepaths, and were put on probationary student status. Willow was NOT a fan, however, and instantly attacked Devon the second she saw him. Chayse had to peel her off of Devon to stop her from knocking him out, especially since Devon was just accepting her hatred and punishment, and likely would have allowed her to beat him unconscious.
There were a lot of arguments between Willow and Devon as he tried to find his place within the Xavier Institute again. The main conflict between them became the premise of the collaborative story “Please, Let Me Explain” that Devon's creator Ronoxym and I started working on YEARS ago. (We need to get back to that story...).
Shortly after Devon's return, Chayse and Willow had their own encounter with Agony. They were off to recruit a mutant, but their mission went south the second they landed at their destination. They quickly realized they were sent to the same portion of Bulgaria where they lost Nix. The very mountain range the facility was on rose above the valley they landed in. Chayse, already suffering from PTSD, instantly dropped to the ground and became catatonic. Telepath and team leader Emma Frost almost instantly realized that the PTSD flashbacks must have left him vulnerable, and he was attacked by a powerful telepath. Chayse was stuck in some sort of mental trap, and Willow needed to enter his mind to rescue him while Emma looked for the attacking telepath. It was tricky, since Willow never astral projected herself into someone else's mind before, but after a couple of tries, she succeeded. While in Chayse's mind, she saw him tortured by Nix; screaming about how little Chayse must have cared for anyone if he let Nix die and abandoned Lia for Willow. Willow quickly stepped in to try to protect Chayse and reassure him he had done nothing wrong. When Nix retaliated against Willow, Chayse came to his senses and rescued her. That was when it was revealed that Nix was actually Agony, astral projected into Chayse's mind, just like Willow, but cloaked in the image of Nix. After a quick battle, wherein Agony failed her attempts to mentally attack Willow, the duo incapacitated Agony, and Emma created a means for the three of them to escape the mental trap Agony set for Chayse.
Once back to the real world, Agony physically attacked; attempting a sneak attack to stab Willow through the shoulder blades. Chayse stopped Agony, and knocked her away. Willow then attacked Agony, knocking her to the ground, only to watch Chayse fall to the ground as well. Any injury inflicted on Agony would also happen to Chayse. To further prove her point, Agony stabbed a barbed spike through her own palm, and Chayse's hand went limp and began to bleed. Willow and Agony tussled a bit more, before Willow accidentally stabbed one of the barbed spikes into Agony's side in a take-down tackle. Thankfully, Chayse phased at the last second, transferring the pain of the stab, but the injury couldn't be transferred since he didn't have a solid form at the time. With Willow distracted in making sure Chayse was alright, Agony slipped away, vowing to not underestimate Willow next time.
After patching Chayse up, he, Willow, and Emma made their way to a Bulgarian prison where their recruit was being held. After a tense prisoner exchange, they got the new recruit Nodya to safety and flew back to the Xavier Institute.
To try to help Willow relax after so many emotional and physical shocks, Chayse took her to Japan for her 18th birthday; spending two weeks on the other side of the world. The trip didn't go exactly as planned, though, since they experienced some fairly open mutant discrimination and hatred. Chayse was even attacked while trying to defend Willow against an anti-mutant threat. Chayse managed to win the fight, barely, and they spent the next three days holed away in his mother's summer home in Japan (where she was trained by Wolverine, once upon a time) while Chayse recovered. The majority of the trip was lovely, though, and Willow appreciated both the distraction and the time away with her boyfriend (and future baby-daddy).
Returning to the school refreshed, and seeing how much effort Devon truly put in trying to make amends with the school, Willow's hatred for him faded. He didn't really do anything terribly unforgivable, and he had suffered just as hard over the past two years: thinking he had abandoned his friends to die. The Brotherhood wasn't actually at fault for the attack, and so Devon had also spent two years looking for revenge for the death of his found family. Devon and Willow never got back to the same level of closeness they had before he had left, but they slowly became friends again.
Then, a few weeks before the summer break ended, Nyssa started receiving letters from her estranged family. She had been disowned simply for being a mutant, but her parents realized how much they missed and loved their daughter. They asked for forgiveness, and begged for a chance to make amends. Nyssa mostly ignored her parents' pleas, but then she received a letter from Trish stating that she was with Nyssa's parents, and vaguely threatened their lives. Nyssa couldn't leave her parents to that murderer, and so she decided to go stop Trish. Devon insisted he'd come as well, since Trish was clearly after him that whole time anyway. They asked the X-Men for help, but there was a delay (for some reason that I can't recall... lack of intel?). Nyssa and Devon couldn't wait for the X-Men to be ready to go in for the rescue, so they went on their own. After a long battle with Trish (another story I've written but still need to polish before publishing online), Nyssa and Devon were killed. Turned out Nyssa's parents were already long dead, and all the letters about making amends were written by Agony, who had partnered up with Trish for this bit of sport.
Willow grieved the loss of her friend, unbelieving that he was truly gone this time. (In truth, Devon was revived, has amnesia, his mutation gave him a new default face, and Devon now lives in a mutant safe-house as he tries to remember who he is; no one knows any of this though.)
As the summer came to a close, and everyone once again grieved the loss of student lives (real safe place, the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters.... >_> ), Willow was rocked by another development. She had gone to Chayse's room one day, to discover him missing and the room ransacked. There was a note that Chayse had received, which told him to go back to the destroyed building the prom after-party was held in. The note's author, who turned out to be Agony, offered up information about what had happened to Nix all those years ago if Chayse agreed to meet.
Willow gathered up Lia and Zeke to try to help track Chayse down. They managed to get to the destroyed building shortly after Chayse. Agony originally mocked Chayse, but when he attacked her, she was rescued by a man made of ice and dressed in a monastery robe. The man called himself Boreas, and he could control winter weather – creating a frozen tundra on the building's lawn despite it being early September in New York state. Chayse instantly recognized Boreas as Nix; his DNA somehow altered to remove his telekinetic powers, but his ice manipulation powers enhanced to Omega level. Another body had its DNA manipulated to match Nix's, and that was the body Chayse had recovered from the facility two years prior. Willow raced to Chayse's side to help him as Boreas cried out for vengeance for being abandoned, and attempted to kill Chayse. Pissed that Chayse had backup, Boreas used a massive arctic wind to knock everyone away from them. He then created a maze of magical ice; the same thing he had used to help Trish escape S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.
Chayse was alone with Boreas, and knew his only option was to fight his former best friend. He hoped that once he incapacitated Boreas he could bring the man to the Institute, and have Nix be restored. Willow, Lia, and Zeke were all separated from Chayse in the maze – and Zeke separated from the girls. They rushed to try to get back to him, but Agony managed to corner Willow and Lia, cutting off their advancement to Chayse. Avoiding a two-on-one fight, Agony welcomed into battle Boreas' main ally, his partner Judgment. She was a woman in her early 20s, dressed in battle armor, and resembling a warrior angel as flame wings erupted from her back. Judgment declared Lia her opponent, and Agony happily detained Willow. Before anyone could react, Agony used yet another power no one know about, and encased Willow in an orb that forced her onto the Astral Plane.
Willow and Agony battled, and Willow managed to get the upper hand at one point, threatening to stab Agony. Unfazed, Agony simply stepped into the knife, spraying blue blood all over Willow. The blood then paralyzed her, trapping her stiff on the “ground” of their battle field. Once fully incapacitated, the blue blood spilled off of Willow, and formed into a blade within Agony's hand, leaving Willow vulnerable to Agony's killing blow. At the last second, the three copies Willow made of herself earlier in the battle lunged towards Agony, stopping the attack. Agony was startled that the copies moved of their own accord and independent of each other, the doppelgangers Agony created earlier in the fight could only mirror her movements. It was then that Willow discovered that the illusions she made on the Astral Plane were actually psy-weapons, which meant Agony disbelieving the illusions didn't dispel them. As the three Willow copies wrestled Agony, the dagger fell from her hand and shattered. Terrified by the sight of the blade breaking, Agony quickly retreated, and wished Willow luck in escaping the Plane Agony had put them in.
As Agony vanished within a blue orb, the landscape changed to a faded image of their battleground; gray and barren. The only thing Willow could see was a large blue crystal in the distance. The paralysis gone, she ran towards the crystal, and spotted the silhouette of a woman sleeping inside it. Finally, Willow got close enough to discern who the woman was: Willow herself. Upon that realization, Willow was brought back to the physical plane, the ice walls of Boreas' maze still up, the growls of battle around her, and her physical body locked comatose within a blue crystal right where she was when Agony forced her onto the Astral Plane.
Willow was still astral projected, as if she were a ghost on the physical plane. However, she was locked; not on the Astral Plane, and not truly on the physical one. She couldn't interact with anything, and couldn't communicate with anyone, despite how hard she tried. As if she were watching a TV show she couldn't control, Willow was forced to watch Lia finish her battle with Judgment, who had turned out to be Lia's friend and former roommate Annika; Nix's girlfriend who had volunteered to join the same villainous group as him, simply to stay by Nix's side.
In a cruel play, Judgment pretended to be Annika again; confused as to what had happened. As Lia ran to comfort her friend, Judgment held her close, and then used telekinetic powers to throw six adamantium spikes at Lia. Even in Lia's obsidian form, adamantium was the toughest substance on the planet, and they could rip right through her. Lia, in survival mode, dodged out of Judgment's death grip. She still was struck in the face, legs, and arms. Two spikes even ripped straight through Lia's shoulders like bullets. Already bleeding out pretty badly and in pain, Lia then noticed that in dodging the spikes, she condemned Judgment to be struck by them instead; all six impaled in the woman's torso. Willow was helpless to stop any of it.
Judgment collapsed into Lia's arms. She teased that Lia was capable of killing someone after all, and then passed out. Lia screamed for help, and the ice walls fell. It wasn't clear if Judgment had died in Lia's arms, but shortly after, her body vanished within a blue orb, just like Agony had done to escape the Astral Plane. Boreas escaped the same way as well. Chayse then rushed to Lia's side, with some assistance from Zeke. Once Chayse was certain that Zeke could care for Lia, he ran to the crystal that had encased Willow. He tried to phase her out of it, but the crystal reacted with violent electrical shocks, badly burning Chayse's hand. Zeke got to one of the motorcycles they had used to get to the ruined building, and sent a distress signal while Chayse tended to Lia's wounds.
Willow tried to call out to them, but her telepathy didn't seem to work. She tried to run for some help, but she was tethered to her physical form, incapable of going more than 20ft (6m) from her body. She screamed again for help, and Zeke responded to her; surprising her since she didn't realize he was a telepath. Chayse causing the electrical reaction from the crystal managed to create a microscopic crack that allowed Willow's telepathy to leak out slightly; catching the attention of other telepaths within that same 20ft radius she was locked within.
At the Institute, Chayse and Lia's wounds were taken care of. Chayse was released later that day, and Lia a few days later. Willow, on the other hand, was stuck with her body; trapped inside the private room in the infirmary for a week. Finally, when no one else could figure out how to get Willow out of her crystal, they called in the Sorcerer Supreme: Pixie. She was shocked at the massively advanced spell – one that she had only heard rumors of previously – and tried a few spells of her own. She was able to dispel the crystal, and trap it for further examination to see what kind of sorcery they were fighting against. Finally free of the crystal and the infirmary room, Willow went off to freshen up, have a few arguments with Chayse and Lia over how they overburden themselves as if they were the world's lone protectors, and then Willow blew off some steam at a new parkour training park Deadpool had built. She ran into a couple of new recruits, worked out on the parkour course for a little bit, and then headed back to the school in hopes of getting back to whatever her normal was.
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Like I said at the beginning, Willow has gone through way more than I remembered. And it's the points that I remembered that will make it to Glitches. Mostly because they were the most impactful on both Willow as a character and me, as a “reader.”
First and foremost, I don't want to get into the complexity of time travel in Glitches with everything else I'm trying to balance. So Sebastian and Brianne won't be making their way to Glitches. However, they MAY make their way into their own side-story at some point, but that's probably a couple decades into the future, especially at the rate I'm going....
Things with Nix and Annika are a bit too complicated as well, plus Nix/Boreas and Annika were created by other players (although, Husband came up with the Judgment persona for Annika after Nix's player came up with Boreas). Nix and another character – Lucas Kinney – will most likely become an amalgamation; one of the glitch children Matteo rescues when he tries to break his sister out of the experimentation facility. I can go more into this when I introduce Matteo.
Similarly, I don't know if I'll have the William plot exactly. Again, mostly because I don't own William, so I'd have to create a replacement character, and I'll most likely have to discover a new reason for Willow's grief over him, her realization of that brotherly connection she destroyed, and her adjusting how she uses her powers; assuming I have her still be a callous prankster at first.
While the Japan trip is sweet, we never actually role played it, so I don't see the over-all impact on Willow's arc, so that's also gone.
So, what bits are staying? For me, these are the key parts of Willow's development:
Willow's dual attraction to Chayse and Devon.
Willow becoming best friends with Devon, only to feel betrayed when he runs away to find out more info about his past.
I'm still trying to decide if the school will again be attacked by a third party so that Willow ends up hating Devon, blaming him for the attack, and vowing vengeance for Hedge's death.
Since Devon's DR run, his running away, the school being attacked, Willow's self-hatred for “pushing Devon” to betray them, as well as her hatred towards Devon, and then their subsequent reunion makes up soooooo much of Willow's arc in-game, I feel it NEEDS to be in Glitches in some shape or form.
The real trick is either convincing Ronoxym to allow me to write Devon/co-author Glitches with me, or I’ll have to create my own Devon from scratch...
Willow discovering her brother Shawn not only has powers, but has also joined The Brotherhood (Called The Virus in Glitches) and wants to kill her and their parents.
Seeing the interaction between Shawn and Devon would be interesting
Shawn will just be “turned evil” by his childhood; no additive of being a psychopath needed (I'll leave that to Trish).
Shawn will still be discovered via his attack on a new recruit for the school. I'm debating if I want it to still be Chayse, and Willow finds out after-the-fact, or if she is there for the first interaction...
While not necessarily a prom after-party, I do want an off-campus gathering to be attached by The Virus in order to capture one of the students. That way Lia can show off her badassery with her one-on-one with Trish, and Willow can still prove her usefulness by using illusions to throw off the attackers into thinking their target is dead. Also, that was her greatest showcase of her telekenetic powers, and it also showcased the downsides to Willow having to be on the Astral Plane in order to fully utilize her powers.
Willow's interactions with Agony; a means for her to push her mental powers, and a foil as Agony has similar powers of manipulation/illusion.
Hubby originally headcannoned that Agony was actually Jacob's first child before meeting Meryl and having Shawn and Willow. Which is why Agony and Willow have similar power sets. It seems a bit weird, however, that Shawn's powers wouldn't match those of his sisters, nor did it seem logical that both of Willow's siblings were murderous psychopaths that loved to torture and torment, but Willow wasn't like that after seeing how much her powers truly hurt others. So, I'm still debating if I want to make Hubby's headcannon official.
Willow being trapped within the crystal after a battle with Agony. It would be interesting to have the time to fully explore that experience, and the grief her friends suffered while trying to break her out of it.
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You good? Everyone caught up? You can take your pee-break now.
Makes sense that this kept me so long to write up and edit down, no? Anyway, thank you guys SOOOOO MUCH for again indulging me and sitting through all of that! You all amaze me!
Next up: Part 4 - Images. Who’s ready to see all the different versions of Willow I’ve collected throughout the years?
Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 3a – Glitches Originals)
Look at me, following my plan and actually having the next part of this series posted on a Sunday! Whoot!
As I have mentioned before, I've wanted to do this series since November, so I'm excited I'm able to actually follow through with it finally. If you're just getting into this series, the long-and-short of it is that I want to introduce you fine people with all of my main OCs. They will each get their own Sunday bio post to introduce them individually, but in the meantime, I wanted to give insight on how I came up with them.
In Part 1, I had given a broad overview of the whole Meet My OCs series, as well as some generic IRL background to the inspiration and creation of my two main worlds:
Gyateara
Glitches
In Part 2, I talked specifically about the IRL inspiration for my main Gyateara OCs:
Amara Yori
Natalie [Last Name TBD]
Connor [Last Name TBD]
Jolene Crisslebalm
Now, in this third part for the series, it's time to talk about my IRL inspiration and creation for my Glitches OCs. This list of characters is MUCH longer than what I have for Gyateara, so this may take a bit. In fact, there were so many characters - this post was 9 pages in Word - I had to split up this part into two more parts. So this first part (3a) focuses mostly on the Original Characters that are characters from the role play game X-Future. The next part (3b) - which will be published in a few minutes - will focus on the characters that started off as X-Men canonical characters, and how I reworked them into originals.
If any of this sounds interesting to you, feel free to keep reading below the break. If you'd rather just skip on ahead to the character bios themselves, my first one should be up next Sunday.
First, I should probably explain how characters are supposed to be formed in the game that birthed Glitches. As I mentioned in Part 1, Glitches started its life as an X-Men role play on a message board/internet forum in a Play-By-Post style. The role play game is called X-Future, and I loved the story we were telling so much that I wanted to re-tell it to the world. However, the more I build Glitches, and the more I try to make the story an original work, the more I realize that only a small portion of the characters and overall role played plot can truly transition over.
Regardless, the way characters are created for X-Future is as follows:
My husband has a lineage chart set up on the forum. There are two lists of available X-Men comic book canonical characters: list of usually male and usually female characters. I say “usually” because there are characters like Mystique, who is usually recognized as a female character, but is technically gender fluid, and has had long canonical runs as a male character.
The players get to choose ONE of the listed characters; therefore choosing either their character's father or mother. This allows the players to have a connection to at least one canonical character of their choice, and/or the potential for a power set they'd like to have for their character.
Hubby then rolls on the other chart to determine the other parent. Therefore, if a player chooses a female character for their parent, Hubby rolls on the male list to find the OC's father. There is also a “Sinister Shenanigans” option where the X-Men character Mr. Sinister created you as a clone of two mutants, in which case your “parents” could be both male or both female as well as the standard “a male and a female.” There is also a chance – again using Mystique as an example – for your character to have “same-sex” parents biologically, since Mystique could also be someone's “father.”
Once parentage is figured out – and Hubby posts the second biological parent on the boards – he then rolls on another chart to determine the character's power set. He does this because it keeps the players on their toes, evolution is weird, and real life is random, so why can't games be? Options he uses for a character's powers include:
--> Character inherits powers from both parents in equal amounts
--> Character inherits powers from both parents, but favors the father's powers with only hints of the mother's powers
--> Character inherits powers from both parents, but favors the mother's powers with only hints of the father's powers
--> Character inherits a variant of both parents' powers
--> Character's powers are a mesh of both parents' powers
(for instance, a fire manipulator and a rock manipulator could produce a lava manipulator)
--> Character inherits father's powers
--> Character inherits mother's powers
--> Character inherits a variant of father's powers
--> Character inherits a variant of mother's powers
--> Character inherits neither parents' powers, and instead forms their own powers
(I think that's all of the options he uses...)
Once Hubby figures out the mutation the character has, he posts it on the boards. After that, the player then gets (mostly) free rein to create their character. Some other restrictions include the starting age of the character being high-school-age unless special permission was given, the backstory of the character must not counter other character's backstories or the already established history of our Marvel continuity, the character has to be an Xavier Institute student or Brotherhood of Mutants member, and Hubby needs to double check character profiles for any potential issues before they can be posted. (It's rare that Hubby doesn't approve of the profile)
So, those are the basic 5-easy-steps to creating an X-Future character, which comes into play with 2 of the characters I'll introduce today. Speaking of, let’s get to them, huh?
Ironically, I'm going to start off with a character that isn't mine. Chayse is my husband's character, but he gave me full permission to use him in Glitches. Mostly because he trusts my treatment of his character – most of my Miraculous Ladybug readers will tell you I'm very good at keeping characters True-to-Canon – and because Hubby knows that I'll probably talk about nearly every single one of Chayse's lines and actions with him, just to make sure I'm keeping him in character.
Chayse, being my husband's character, was the first character ever made for X-Future. Hubby's favorite X-Men of all time is Remy “Gambit” LeBeau, so naturally Hubby chose him as Chayse's father. When Hubby rolled onto Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde as Chayse's mother, we had to do some quick continuity work to figure out HOW that relationship happened. We are HARD CORE Gambit/Rogue shippers. They are by FAR our OTP (with Shadowcat/Colossus as a close second). If Gambit was with anyone other than Rogue, we needed a reason for Rogue to not be in the picture; not a possibility at all. Hubby created an event called The Reaping where Professor Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Magneto, Mastermind, and Rogue all die in battle. There may have been some other casualties, but those are the main ones I remember...
Anyway, once we realized Rogue had to be dead for Gambit to be with anyone else significantly enough to have a kid with them, we then went back to “X-Men: Evolution”; the show that inspired Hubby to create X-Future. In the TV series, Kitty and Rogue were besties, and so Hubby and I decided that Kitty and Gambit were comforting each other in their grief over losing Rogue. That grew into a tight friendship, and eventually a romance blossomed. The two got married, and Chayse was born.
Chayse is basically my husband without the anxiety and terrible knees. If Hubby could be as athletic and outgoing as he wished he could be, he'd be Chayse.
Amelia “Lia” Mordeaux [Last Name Still Workshopping]
Lia was my first-ever character for X-Future. Since Rogue is clearly my favorite X-Men – I mean... check the handle and icon – I really wanted to chose her as my character's parent. However, after Hubby and I jointly determined that Rogue had been dead for nearly two decades, I struggled to figure out who else to choose. So many different power sets and great characters. However, in the end I ended up going with Amara “Magma” Aquilla. I am a bit of a fire freak – something that will come up later – so the idea of my character being able to manipulate magma seemed fun to try. In truth, though, the deciding factor – aside from how adorable Magma was in “X-Men: Evolution” - is the fact that her name is Amara.... like my Gyateara character; my oldest OC.
Rolling on the chart, Hubby landed on Jamie “Multiple Man” Madrox. Based on the personality we saw in “X-Men: Evolution,” and ignoring that poor Jamie was only about 12 or 13 when depicted on the show, I lamented at how “lame” Lia's father was going to be. In the end, I did sprinkle in a touch of the badassness Jamie showcases in the comics, as well as whenever he's shown – usually as a villain *sigh* - in the cartoons. However, he's still LARGELY a nerd still for X-Future, and became a bit of a neurotic helicopter parent.
Lia ended up with her mother's powers exactly. The only difference is that instead of just a magma form, Lia encases herself within obsidian skin. I even designed her to look like Amara did in Evolution, with the straight brown hair and Brazilian skin. (It was easier for Evolution to just have Amara be Brazilian than trying to explain the existence of Neo Roma within the Brazilian rain forest so she could remain White with blonde hair and blue eyes) Lia being basically a carbon-copy of her mother – something I headcanon as Jamie's duplication DNA accidentally turning Amara's egg into a clone of her – meant my next struggle was trying to figure out why Lia was at the Xavier Institute. I didn't want her to have been raised there, but why couldn't Amara just train her daughter on how to control identical powers?
In the end, I decided that Amara has to go. Hubby and I came up with a mission where Amara went MIA. She is perceived dead, but isn't confirmed dead, along with Storm, who went missing on a similar mission a few years prior. Without his wife to help train their daughter, and having NO CLUE how to handle a 14yo blowing up his yard with geysers, Jamie sent Lia to the Institute, and promptly signed up as a faculty member so he could still be close to and keep an eye on his daughter: the last family he has left, and a reminder of his wife.
For Glitches, I did end up shifting Lia's race to Hawaiian (Polynesian? Should I specify?). Having her be part Native Hawaiian just felt more fitting with the lava-focused powers. Yes, there are volcanoes in Brazil, there is also one in Washington state. Still, you wouldn't necessarily equate Washington state with lava as much as you would equate lava with Hawaii.
Lia was SUPPOSED to be my naive rebel; a 14yo who was getting her first taste of freedom at the Institute. She was going to wear less-conservative outfits, be flirty, and maybe break a few rules: curfew, being in the guys' wing of the dorms, skipping a class or two, etc. She even started off like that... for about a game session or two. She instantly fell into her main personality though: reserved, shy, maternal, and unsure of herself. While I do love this character and who she is, she also wasn't who I initially wanted to play. Enter: Willow.
Originally, we had about a dozen players, which was fantastic. However, Hubby still wanted to “fill out” the school. He wanted a few NPC students the players could interact with when the other players weren't available. He had a small list of NPCs, some of which will make their way to Glitches as background characters. On this list was Willow. Hubby actually created her, designed her, and was all set to role play as her. Then we got to talking about how I loved Lia, but was a bit disappointed that she didn't turn out the character I was aiming for. Hubby knew that Willow was indeed much more like who I wanted to play, so he passed her over to me.
Soon enough, Willow went from an NPC I ran to my secondary character. Since she was the character I wanted to play the whole time, she quickly surpassed poor Lia as my preferred character. In fact, a lot of my “companion stories” that I have written for X-Future center around Willow. Specifically, Willow and my friend Ronoxym's character Devon. They have a.... complicated relationship. Willow is just a much more fun character to write. She's playful, manipulative, unsure, confident, loyal... she's just a walking ball of contradictions as she's trying to figure herself out.
If Chayse is who Hubby wishes he could be, then Willow is me with virtually no inhibitions. She's my playfulness, my confidence, my lust, my impulsiveness, my spontaneity, and the athletic prowess I wish I had.
In contrast, Lia is basically everything keeping me from being Willow: my caution, my fear of disappointing my parents (both the one who passed and the one who raised me), my maternal instincts, my reservations, my critical thinking, my constant knowledge of potential consequences, and my insecurity that I'm ever going to be the best version of myself.
There's one more side of me though. That's where Trish comes in.
Trish did NOT turn out remotely close to who she was in my head. Heck, she even refused to be properly formed while I still was picturing her in her first incarnation. Trish truly did create herself.
Remember my friend Ronoxym's character Devon I mentioned a few paragraphs up? Well, he's the son of two Brotherhood of Mutants characters. In other words, he's the son of villains. He was orphaned as an infant, and when he was a teen at the Xavier Institute he ran into his father Pyro. The man suspected that Devon could be his long-lost son, and hinted that if Devon joined the Brotherhood then Pyro could help Devon figure out who he was. Devon eventually took the bait, and left to join the Brotherhood and discover who his parents were.
At the time, The Brotherhood was just made up of the Marvel canon characters; no one there for Ron to role play against aside from NPCs. I decided to create Trish so he would have a player character to role play off of. Originally, Trish was supposed to be a potential love interest for him.
Trish.... was not a fan. I actually had mental images of Trish gagging at the thought of her destined romance with Devon. Even when I tried picturing her flirting with Devon for the sole purpose of getting close enough to stab him or slit his throat: a sort of Black Widow character. She still gagged and REFUSED to let me have her show Devon anything other than disdain. He became her number 1 rival; her arch nemesis. She was actually in love with Pyro, and hated that Pyro's attention was now torn between her and his long-lost son. Her goal in life, aside from making Pyro fall in love with her; age be damned, was to murder Devon.
She then became more psychotic the more I wrote her. She has the power to create fire, and is completely fireproof herself. She loved playing with her fire, and became a pyrophile; getting highly aroused around flame. She had the stereotypical serial killer childhood of fulfilling her early bloodlust by torturing and killing animals. When she got caught by her twin sister, and her parents threatened to call the Mutant Police to collect her, Trish burnt everyone alive in their family home. She then lived on the streets, killing anyone who got in her way of survival. Eventually, she got taken in by The Brotherhood and Pyro, where her murderous tendencies were aimed at anti-mutant groups like The Purifiers.
If each of my main X-Future/Glitches characters (jointly named simply My Girls) is a part of my personality, then Trish is my anger, my love of fire, my dark desire to be an arson (ya know, if it didn't cause terrible destruction and harm), my ability to hold grudges, and my aggression. I wanted her to be fairly on-par with Azula from “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but with her manic end-game personality making more of an appearance. I wanted her to be like Minatsuki Takami from “Deadman Wonderland”, or Tanya Degurechaff from “The Saga of Tanya the Evil.” In other words: tiny and unassuming, but terrifying and intimidating if her true self is ever seen.
I don't know if I never played her correctly, or if Ron just couldn't picture a character I run as THAT intimidating, because Devon was always quite unfazed by Trish and her threats...
EDIT: Holy smokes! How did I completely forget that Trish has theme music!? The main reason Trish is yet ANOTHER fire user, when we already have so many in X-Future, is because of her theme song. See, I was fairly obsessed with Fall Out Boy’s song “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)” when it first came out. I would spend days just listening to it and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons on repeat.
One day I was rocking out to MSKWYDITD for probably the 4th time in a row or something, and I lamented Lia being so mild mannered. I would have loved to have had a chaotic fire user that would follow the destructive high energy I felt whenever I heard that song. Someone who would as much fun as those women in the music video. I mean, just watch them. I wanted a character with their energy and vibe:
I wanted another fire user, and Devon had JUST defected to The Brotherhood on X-Future, so I figured it would be perfect to make that more chaotic fire user as a Brotherhood member. THAT was when I figured “She could be a good foil for Devon; two fire users, one more chaotic than the other”... and THAT was when Trish went “Fire yes; Devon fuck no!”
So, there you have it, the truly original characters that make up the core cast of Glitches. Next up, as in a few minutes, will be the adult cast of my story: the characters reworked from their X-Men canonical origins. Stay tuned!
@edendaphne sent me another email with further work on the commission of my OC Willow she’s doing for me.
And I’m dyyyyyying, guys!
She asked if I wanted to tweak anything, and which of two options she gave me I prefer. I need like a day to let it sit before responding because HOLY CRAP ARE THE WIPS GORGEOUS!
You don’t understand how much it pains me to not share them with you guys, but I respect Eden enough to wait. Eventually I will get to gush to everyone over how amazing Willow looks.
Just... in the meantime, this is me venting because HOLY MOTHER MARY I AM STUPIDLY EXCITED TO SEE WILLOW!
*dances*
Until I get the next update (final product?) from Eden, I will quell my Willow craving by again checking out the fanart @chibisunnie drew of her for me. ^_^
OC Birthday Party
Bay Window Birthday Party
X-Future Christmas Party
I wish I could post the awesome pics themselves, but they seem to only be on her DeviantArt, but go check them out there. ^_^ :D <3