Ryner Lute (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tearsofademon) wrote2012-06-20 07:41 pm
tearsofademon) wrote2012-06-20 07:41 pm
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[OOC] A Tale of Two Ryners: a characterization essay-ish thing... or two
Okay so. A lot of stuff has been happening lately to Ryner, both in Johto and at Camp. (Also I recently passed 2k comments on Dreamwidth, so there’s that too.) So, I feel like essaying to maybe attempt to make a little sense of it all, and also as a little bit of a comparison-ish piece between the two games.
Warning: unmarked canon spoilers ahead, especially in the Camp half.
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cfud
Canon point: sequel, volume 4. ...Technically beginning of chapter 3, because there’s a dream sequence over there that I’ve more or less decided to include, but closer to middle of chapter 1 temporally, probably... but eh, details.
So Axe Crazy Week sure did happen. I think it was fairly obvious that Ryner was affected from the get-go, though... not quite in the same way as other people. Paranoia, feelings that no one likes him, everyone is out to get him, he can’t trust anyone? He’s lived with that his entire life, and most of the time, it’s been true. Yay growing up believing himself to be a hated monster who doesn’t deserve to live. So he has his own unique coping mechanism when it comes to dealing with those feelings: shutting down emotionally.
After all, why bother being upset? Why bother being angry about it? It’s just the way the world works. Nothing’s gonna change, so might as well numb yourself to it. ...Granted, this is a bit of a step backward for him, all things considered, but he also had a headache to distract him, one that just got worse as the week progressed until eventually his will save was eroded enough that it showed its true colors as his Alpha Stigma wanting out.
He’s not very happy that he lost control, needless to say.
But honestly, he’s feeling a little bit better about it than he usually would. This is mostly due to the crowd that actually showed up in response to the explosions - pretty much all of them were fellow godmodes who could actually stand up to Alpha, at least for a while. (Even if Gui Long was killed. He still actually fought back, and held his own for a bit there! This doesn’t usually happen back home! The only person who’s ever held their own against him in that state before was Ferris, really.) So it gives him a little bit of confidence, anyway, in that if he ever loses it again due to Camp being Camp (which is always a possibility, he’s come to learn from this), there will be someone around to stop him.
That doesn’t mean he’s feeling good about it, of course. As of the time of this writing, he hasn’t run into Xia Tian yet and therefore doesn’t quite know about the whole coming back to life thing that Camp has going for it, so he’s got the familiar guilt of a stranger’s blood on his hands to deal with. I’m not entirely sure how he’ll react to that part yet when they do bump into each other, though I suspect there will be relief without absolving himself of the guilt, if nothing else.
He’s keeping himself together and staying as strong as he can right now, though. ...Mostly because he feels he has to, for Sion’s sake, because Sion... also has problems. Yes, Ryner was conscious the entire time, whether he was able to fight or not at any given point. And so he was conscious for the entire fight between Alpha and the Hero. :’D
Here’s the thing. Even if the more things happen the more unanswered questions he gathers and the less he actually knows about what’s going on, Ryner at least has some idea about what’s wrong with himself: he’s an Alpha Stigma bearer, and his eyes go berserk when traumatic things happen or certain dirty tricks are played. Even if he’s always been a special one who actually survived going berserk, and the thing living in his eyes turned out to be sentient, and his mother lives inside his head protecting him from said thing living in his eyes, and there’s something about a Demon and a Hero and all sorts of keywords that he has no context for. He at least has the anchor of “Alpha Stigma bearer” to fall back on as a starting point.
With Sion, he has no such starting clue. Just that he’s been bearing far too many burdens by himself like an idiot, and he’s stubbornly refusing to tell Ryner anything about said burdens even after being asked again and again. ...Well, okay, he’s also managed to gather that there is some Hero involved, probably possessing Sion in one capacity or another if how the night Sion tried to kill him and the other night’s battle went were any indication. Also there are Goddesses that want to kill Sion, and the thing living in his eyes is on the Goddesses’ side. But really, what is he supposed to make of any of this?
(On a side note... Seriously, Alpha. Your logic is “He ran away to try to save him. CLEARLY THAT MEANS HE MUST BE ON OUR SIDE.” How does the point fly that far above your head? I will never understand. Sure this has never happened before, but still.)
Not to mention these revelations that Sion has such a low opinion of himself, to the point of calling himself a worthless coward (which pisses Ryner the hell off, thank you very much, because Sion is anything but). Or how much he really does actually care about Ryner, if certain actions are any indication, which just confirms that something really bad pushed Sion into a corner.
And it’s frustrating, you know? Here Ryner is, having promised that he’d save Sion no matter what from whatever is going on. He’s in a situation where he and Sion are stuck together in a summer camp away from Roland with no way back for an indefinite amount of time. This should be the best time to get information from Sion about what’s going on (...despite, you know, how it took four and a half months to actually address this elephant in the room in the first place, but details), but Sion is being an uncooperative stubborn idiot about it and not telling him anything. Dealing with that? Really sucks.
But yeah. For now, he’s pretty much going to try to pretend that things are as normal as they can possibly be, what with being in a sadistic camp with his best friend who’s got problems that he’s not talking about. Life sucks, but there’s not much that can be done about it but to keep living in spite of everything, if only because death is even more of a pain. And if it takes forever to drag the whole truth out of Sion... well, baby steps.
(Also, deaging is going to happen. Hopefully sometime this summer. I’m just not sure exactly when.)
@route_29
Canon point: episode 23, after the fireworks but before Sion comes to pick him up
So I actually essayed a little bit over here back in November to mark playing Ryner at Route for an entire year, but a lot has happened since then, and that was really mostly a broad overview anyway, so. Either way.
Ryner spent the first ten months in Johto as a lone canon warrior. Then Ferris showed up in September, and things were awesome, because he actually had his partner around! So he was feeling pretty confident, in his own Ryner way, because nothing is impossible when Ferris is around, and also there’s always the tiny little insurance policy that she’s promised to kill him if he ever should go berserk again. Not that it really matters all that much in Johto because powers are sealed, but there’s always that small fear that he could wake up one day and his eyes could be working again.
That’s really one of the things about Johto that he likes best: he’s harmless. He isn’t going to go berserk and end up killing everyone here, because that ability of his has been completely sealed in one way or another. He doesn’t have to worry about destroying everything he touches, so... maybe he can actually do something helpful? If nothing else, giving these little creatures a home hasn’t backfired completely on him yet, so...
Then in February, miracle of miracles, Sion showed up! It was completely unexpected, to Ryner. He’d been by himself for ten months, after all. Ferris arriving had been a fluke. Why should he have expected anyone else? But having both of them around? That was great. And really, at that point, what else could he have possibly wanted? He had both of his best friends in a peaceful world without war, where he wasn’t going to end up slaughtering everyone heartlessly and mercilessly someday.
...Then around Easter, Ferris disappeared.
That... kind of broke him a little for about a week or so, not gonna lie. He had traveling to focus on, but still. And even after he mostly got over it, he’s never been quite as happy or confident since. It really just served to remind him that, just like everything else in his life, Johto isn’t a permanent thing. Much as he really doesn’t want to leave Johto (and he does, deep down, wish he could stay in Johto forever with both Ferris and Sion by his side, despite how he knows that this directly conflicts with Sion’s need to return to Roland - much as it will be there waiting for his return, that doesn’t necessarily mean it would wait forever), sooner or later, he will go home to Roland, his eyes will be unsealed, and he will have to deal with what’s going on back there again. (In his naivety, he’s pretty sure he’ll be back to infinite paperwork the day after he gets back. ...which isn’t exactly true, but.)
I mean, sure, he’s always been aware of it on one level. New people show up on a fairly regular basis, random people disappear all the time. Fuji disappeared in February - it was unfortunate, and Ryner does miss that kid, but he was able to mostly ride unaffected, because, well, while he had gotten slightly closer than others, the distance was still great enough that Ryner was able to get over it without incident. Even the recent disappearance of Hughes he was able to take pretty well, again, because he didn’t know him quite as well, even if he liked the guy. Friendly, and really seemed to love his family. He would have liked to get to know him better. But it was Ferris’ disappearance that really hit it home for him - one day, that will be him, disappearing from Johto.
Not only that, but the menagerie he’s managed to gather will all have to deal with him going home when that happens, whether they like it or not. And much as he still tells every single new one that comes with that he will never force them to stay if they don’t want to and they can leave whenever they want (and Rose still smacks him every time)... he doesn’t want to suddenly abandon them, either.
It’s not a pleasant conclusion to come to, and while he’s been kind of distracted with constant traveling (seriously Sion he gets that you want to get all the badges but would it kill you to stay in one place for more than a week?), he has been sort of mulling it over in his spare time a little, and... well, he’s starting (but only starting, and it’s a slow progression) to come to the conclusion that, if he only has a limited time here, he might as well do something with it. Since taking care of his menagerie of critters hasn’t blown up in his face yet, maybe he can start to branch out to other things, he’s thinking.
Like researching the Legendary Pokémon. If nothing else, he got to be five feet away from Raikou and survived the encounter. And while on the one hand it was ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING WE ARE LISTENING TO THE ABSOLS NEXT TIME NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK SION DO YOU UNDERSTAND???, on the other... it was also kind of thrilling. He was that close to a Legendary Pokémon, and it didn’t try to fry him. Maybe, just maybe, it could be worth it to look into finding and meeting more. He is a bit of a legend nerd at heart, after all. Not to mention, some of what he’s come across when reading stuff, especially when he was in Ecruteak the first time, bears similarities to the tales behind Hero Relics (except, you know, that Pokémon are sentient, while Relics usually are not). And, well, if that’s the case, it could be important to meet them and befriend them first, you know? Before someone else tries to take their power for themselves.
Like all this Team Rocket business. Ryner most certainly doesn’t approve of any of those shenanigans, but has been mostly staying out of it. It’s none of his business, etcetera. Cobra Commander, of all people, has been pushing his patience a bit, though. It’s like, here Ryner had pegged him as bothersome but harmless, right? Some idiot who thought that he could just announce that he was king of the world and everyone would bow before him without question. It was entertaining to poke his posts and have a childish argument with him about how bothersome he is. But now he keeps doing actual harmful things, and... well, Ryner does not approve. Seriously, if Cobra was to try anything that would harm Sion or either of their Pokémon, Ryner would go after him without hesitation, and no one would be happy - he's not lying about that. And even if he doesn’t... well, Cobra’s goading is working a little, in that he’s starting to want to help out when things get rough. The trash event? He was stuck in Azalea. All he could do was help make sure the local wildlife got fresh water, and he was antsy as all hell because that was all he could do. Literally the only thing.
He’s harmless here, and this is a temporary thing, so if he can use this time how he wants, he would like to use it making a positive difference, even a small one.
Even if, if confronted, he’d still claim to be as lazy as ever.
Big happy gold heart sticker if you actually read all of that! Hopefully it at least made some sense... At this point, I’ll open this up to one of those question memes, because I’ve always wanted to do one of those. You ask me something, I answer and then ask you something, repeat until we get tired of it, I’m sure Camp knows how it works anyway.
I play Ryner at both Route and Camp, and Kurow at Route. Also, I played Kurow/Quince at Sabra La Tau (yes hi that was me really), if there are any parties interested in asking about him.
Warning: unmarked canon spoilers ahead, especially in the Camp half.
@
cfudCanon point: sequel, volume 4. ...Technically beginning of chapter 3, because there’s a dream sequence over there that I’ve more or less decided to include, but closer to middle of chapter 1 temporally, probably... but eh, details.
So Axe Crazy Week sure did happen. I think it was fairly obvious that Ryner was affected from the get-go, though... not quite in the same way as other people. Paranoia, feelings that no one likes him, everyone is out to get him, he can’t trust anyone? He’s lived with that his entire life, and most of the time, it’s been true. Yay growing up believing himself to be a hated monster who doesn’t deserve to live. So he has his own unique coping mechanism when it comes to dealing with those feelings: shutting down emotionally.
After all, why bother being upset? Why bother being angry about it? It’s just the way the world works. Nothing’s gonna change, so might as well numb yourself to it. ...Granted, this is a bit of a step backward for him, all things considered, but he also had a headache to distract him, one that just got worse as the week progressed until eventually his will save was eroded enough that it showed its true colors as his Alpha Stigma wanting out.
He’s not very happy that he lost control, needless to say.
But honestly, he’s feeling a little bit better about it than he usually would. This is mostly due to the crowd that actually showed up in response to the explosions - pretty much all of them were fellow godmodes who could actually stand up to Alpha, at least for a while. (Even if Gui Long was killed. He still actually fought back, and held his own for a bit there! This doesn’t usually happen back home! The only person who’s ever held their own against him in that state before was Ferris, really.) So it gives him a little bit of confidence, anyway, in that if he ever loses it again due to Camp being Camp (which is always a possibility, he’s come to learn from this), there will be someone around to stop him.
That doesn’t mean he’s feeling good about it, of course. As of the time of this writing, he hasn’t run into Xia Tian yet and therefore doesn’t quite know about the whole coming back to life thing that Camp has going for it, so he’s got the familiar guilt of a stranger’s blood on his hands to deal with. I’m not entirely sure how he’ll react to that part yet when they do bump into each other, though I suspect there will be relief without absolving himself of the guilt, if nothing else.
He’s keeping himself together and staying as strong as he can right now, though. ...Mostly because he feels he has to, for Sion’s sake, because Sion... also has problems. Yes, Ryner was conscious the entire time, whether he was able to fight or not at any given point. And so he was conscious for the entire fight between Alpha and the Hero. :’D
Here’s the thing. Even if the more things happen the more unanswered questions he gathers and the less he actually knows about what’s going on, Ryner at least has some idea about what’s wrong with himself: he’s an Alpha Stigma bearer, and his eyes go berserk when traumatic things happen or certain dirty tricks are played. Even if he’s always been a special one who actually survived going berserk, and the thing living in his eyes turned out to be sentient, and his mother lives inside his head protecting him from said thing living in his eyes, and there’s something about a Demon and a Hero and all sorts of keywords that he has no context for. He at least has the anchor of “Alpha Stigma bearer” to fall back on as a starting point.
With Sion, he has no such starting clue. Just that he’s been bearing far too many burdens by himself like an idiot, and he’s stubbornly refusing to tell Ryner anything about said burdens even after being asked again and again. ...Well, okay, he’s also managed to gather that there is some Hero involved, probably possessing Sion in one capacity or another if how the night Sion tried to kill him and the other night’s battle went were any indication. Also there are Goddesses that want to kill Sion, and the thing living in his eyes is on the Goddesses’ side. But really, what is he supposed to make of any of this?
(On a side note... Seriously, Alpha. Your logic is “He ran away to try to save him. CLEARLY THAT MEANS HE MUST BE ON OUR SIDE.” How does the point fly that far above your head? I will never understand. Sure this has never happened before, but still.)
Not to mention these revelations that Sion has such a low opinion of himself, to the point of calling himself a worthless coward (which pisses Ryner the hell off, thank you very much, because Sion is anything but). Or how much he really does actually care about Ryner, if certain actions are any indication, which just confirms that something really bad pushed Sion into a corner.
And it’s frustrating, you know? Here Ryner is, having promised that he’d save Sion no matter what from whatever is going on. He’s in a situation where he and Sion are stuck together in a summer camp away from Roland with no way back for an indefinite amount of time. This should be the best time to get information from Sion about what’s going on (...despite, you know, how it took four and a half months to actually address this elephant in the room in the first place, but details), but Sion is being an uncooperative stubborn idiot about it and not telling him anything. Dealing with that? Really sucks.
But yeah. For now, he’s pretty much going to try to pretend that things are as normal as they can possibly be, what with being in a sadistic camp with his best friend who’s got problems that he’s not talking about. Life sucks, but there’s not much that can be done about it but to keep living in spite of everything, if only because death is even more of a pain. And if it takes forever to drag the whole truth out of Sion... well, baby steps.
(Also, deaging is going to happen. Hopefully sometime this summer. I’m just not sure exactly when.)
@
route_29Canon point: episode 23, after the fireworks but before Sion comes to pick him up
So I actually essayed a little bit over here back in November to mark playing Ryner at Route for an entire year, but a lot has happened since then, and that was really mostly a broad overview anyway, so. Either way.
Ryner spent the first ten months in Johto as a lone canon warrior. Then Ferris showed up in September, and things were awesome, because he actually had his partner around! So he was feeling pretty confident, in his own Ryner way, because nothing is impossible when Ferris is around, and also there’s always the tiny little insurance policy that she’s promised to kill him if he ever should go berserk again. Not that it really matters all that much in Johto because powers are sealed, but there’s always that small fear that he could wake up one day and his eyes could be working again.
That’s really one of the things about Johto that he likes best: he’s harmless. He isn’t going to go berserk and end up killing everyone here, because that ability of his has been completely sealed in one way or another. He doesn’t have to worry about destroying everything he touches, so... maybe he can actually do something helpful? If nothing else, giving these little creatures a home hasn’t backfired completely on him yet, so...
Then in February, miracle of miracles, Sion showed up! It was completely unexpected, to Ryner. He’d been by himself for ten months, after all. Ferris arriving had been a fluke. Why should he have expected anyone else? But having both of them around? That was great. And really, at that point, what else could he have possibly wanted? He had both of his best friends in a peaceful world without war, where he wasn’t going to end up slaughtering everyone heartlessly and mercilessly someday.
...Then around Easter, Ferris disappeared.
That... kind of broke him a little for about a week or so, not gonna lie. He had traveling to focus on, but still. And even after he mostly got over it, he’s never been quite as happy or confident since. It really just served to remind him that, just like everything else in his life, Johto isn’t a permanent thing. Much as he really doesn’t want to leave Johto (and he does, deep down, wish he could stay in Johto forever with both Ferris and Sion by his side, despite how he knows that this directly conflicts with Sion’s need to return to Roland - much as it will be there waiting for his return, that doesn’t necessarily mean it would wait forever), sooner or later, he will go home to Roland, his eyes will be unsealed, and he will have to deal with what’s going on back there again. (In his naivety, he’s pretty sure he’ll be back to infinite paperwork the day after he gets back. ...which isn’t exactly true, but.)
I mean, sure, he’s always been aware of it on one level. New people show up on a fairly regular basis, random people disappear all the time. Fuji disappeared in February - it was unfortunate, and Ryner does miss that kid, but he was able to mostly ride unaffected, because, well, while he had gotten slightly closer than others, the distance was still great enough that Ryner was able to get over it without incident. Even the recent disappearance of Hughes he was able to take pretty well, again, because he didn’t know him quite as well, even if he liked the guy. Friendly, and really seemed to love his family. He would have liked to get to know him better. But it was Ferris’ disappearance that really hit it home for him - one day, that will be him, disappearing from Johto.
Not only that, but the menagerie he’s managed to gather will all have to deal with him going home when that happens, whether they like it or not. And much as he still tells every single new one that comes with that he will never force them to stay if they don’t want to and they can leave whenever they want (and Rose still smacks him every time)... he doesn’t want to suddenly abandon them, either.
It’s not a pleasant conclusion to come to, and while he’s been kind of distracted with constant traveling (seriously Sion he gets that you want to get all the badges but would it kill you to stay in one place for more than a week?), he has been sort of mulling it over in his spare time a little, and... well, he’s starting (but only starting, and it’s a slow progression) to come to the conclusion that, if he only has a limited time here, he might as well do something with it. Since taking care of his menagerie of critters hasn’t blown up in his face yet, maybe he can start to branch out to other things, he’s thinking.
Like researching the Legendary Pokémon. If nothing else, he got to be five feet away from Raikou and survived the encounter. And while on the one hand it was ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING WE ARE LISTENING TO THE ABSOLS NEXT TIME NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK SION DO YOU UNDERSTAND???, on the other... it was also kind of thrilling. He was that close to a Legendary Pokémon, and it didn’t try to fry him. Maybe, just maybe, it could be worth it to look into finding and meeting more. He is a bit of a legend nerd at heart, after all. Not to mention, some of what he’s come across when reading stuff, especially when he was in Ecruteak the first time, bears similarities to the tales behind Hero Relics (except, you know, that Pokémon are sentient, while Relics usually are not). And, well, if that’s the case, it could be important to meet them and befriend them first, you know? Before someone else tries to take their power for themselves.
Like all this Team Rocket business. Ryner most certainly doesn’t approve of any of those shenanigans, but has been mostly staying out of it. It’s none of his business, etcetera. Cobra Commander, of all people, has been pushing his patience a bit, though. It’s like, here Ryner had pegged him as bothersome but harmless, right? Some idiot who thought that he could just announce that he was king of the world and everyone would bow before him without question. It was entertaining to poke his posts and have a childish argument with him about how bothersome he is. But now he keeps doing actual harmful things, and... well, Ryner does not approve. Seriously, if Cobra was to try anything that would harm Sion or either of their Pokémon, Ryner would go after him without hesitation, and no one would be happy - he's not lying about that. And even if he doesn’t... well, Cobra’s goading is working a little, in that he’s starting to want to help out when things get rough. The trash event? He was stuck in Azalea. All he could do was help make sure the local wildlife got fresh water, and he was antsy as all hell because that was all he could do. Literally the only thing.
He’s harmless here, and this is a temporary thing, so if he can use this time how he wants, he would like to use it making a positive difference, even a small one.
Even if, if confronted, he’d still claim to be as lazy as ever.
Big happy gold heart sticker if you actually read all of that! Hopefully it at least made some sense... At this point, I’ll open this up to one of those question memes, because I’ve always wanted to do one of those. You ask me something, I answer and then ask you something, repeat until we get tired of it, I’m sure Camp knows how it works anyway.
I play Ryner at both Route and Camp, and Kurow at Route. Also, I played Kurow/Quince at Sabra La Tau (yes hi that was me really), if there are any parties interested in asking about him.
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