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aks3raao1 · 3 years

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You know, there's a thing with characters that foil each other and serve as the "good" and "bad" respectively (Toga/Himiko, Tenko/Izuku, Nagito/Hajime, Ryoko/Hajime, Atsushi/Akutagawa) but that trope felt rather annoying to write, especially in the world I am trying to write about (ALTERNATIVE's world is basically MHA X BSD but like. 1000 times more fucked up and the Specialised are always prejudiced against. A terrible lot).

The title itself, ALTERNATIVE is to symbolise Romila's POV of "infinite choices and paths present for every being" and how she starts off the story with a decisive line of,

"Many people ask me if this could have been avoided. They beg for me to tell them that things could have been better. There are others too, who try to justify that this was the only way for things to have been. If you ask me, both are living in states of denial. One can't accept the stupidity of humanity for disregarding common sense for violence and prejudices. Another can't accept humanity's choice for having better circumstances if the one with the power chose to."

The thing is, the running theme is that the story is a bittersweet one, despite there not being many deaths of the main characters, but there was always a junction where you can see it could have been avoided, that there was an "alternative" for things to have gotten better, especially in the first book.

Another reason for the title is that it's basically an "ALTERNATIVE" to this world of ours, where super powers and stuff like those exist.

The subtitles of both the books (Myriad of Colours, Colour of Death) signifies Romila's power, "Aura Tracker" which lets her view people's aura as colours (Myriad of Colours is to signify the different kinds of people she meets, Colour of Death is about what affects her the most (death) and how she's constantly seeing that colour everywhere, especially now that it's war).

The thing about ALTERNATIVES is that Romila could have chosen to be a doormat (like Koldin tends to be at the beginning (his rp self is like THAT due to circumstances different to ALTERNATIVE's actual storyline. Also because Hack's a nicer person to be around than Romila is) in order to nOt hAvE cOnFliCt™) to not get into conflict and put up a super nice persona for people but she didn't. She decided to focus on hanging onto her reasons for doing what she does and using it to create a caustic personality to shield herself because she knows that she will regret being a doormat (Her Despair takes the form of Koldin Hopkins).

Now Koldin could have certainly put his hatred for society at the forefront and taken a caustic personality but instead chooses to be nice. Because he doesn't want to become as hurtful as the rest, that's how he wants to disentangle himself from society. However he, like Romila (who just took standing up for herself to extremes), takes this to the extremes causing him to gain the personality of a nice boy™.

However this also goes into why they made the choices they did (which is what Romila realises during the Mansion of Death arc), because for Romila, she didn't really have the psychology for actually becoming a doormat (because a) Her mom wouldn't have it b) She hated to be called weak c) She didn't have anyone to fall back to after the inevitable consequences of being a doormat d) She felt that if she were to live with monsters, then it's easier to blend in by being one (this comes useful to her when she infiltrates into the Government) e) She saw doormats getting suicidal which frightened her) or not becoming fully caustic (since her standing up for herself wasn't. Liked. By. Anyone. And seen as aggressive and she basically went, "Well if they see me as bad, I will show them BAD" which led to her breakdown causing the incidents at the Mansion Of Death (especially a twisted hatred against Koldin for extremely understandable reasons).

For Koldin, being meek and peaceful had let him get by in the streets and his skills to difuse fights had come in handy. Later when Dr. Hopkins took him in, he was well. A member of the Radicals who were known to be extremely merciless towards the Specialised (he had defected but Koldin had a REALLY good reason to be wary) so he figured if he stayed nice, he wouldn't be kicked out of the house and Dr. Hopkins being Dr. Hopkins just assumed that it was his normal and that behaviour carried into school. He figured that it was a horrifying thing to be aggressive and then saw how Romila got treated and decided that yep, he was right, that confirmed his world view alright and it was more reason to be super nice. While Romila saw Koldin as a person who everyone took advantage of (a thing she hated. To be exploited just like that) and went, yep that confirmed hers and it was more reason to be super angry.

However the thing is that, Romila was chided for being anything, which caused her to just give up to be peaceful (because what would she do? Anything she tried to do got her scolded) while Koldin (thankfully) found a support system. It really goes to show the difference a good friend can do.....

As it is, when I first began writing this, the most obvious choice presented itself to me. Koldin is the "hope" and Romila is the "despair" (on the protagonist, deutergonist side) but that seemed stupid and boring as it wouldn't make sense. Since I am trying to make a point of showing with how Romila's world view gradually changes from "there are wrong and right choices" to the fact that it doesn't have to be rigid and that *now* she wouldn't be hurt if she used what her vulnerable side wanted (a world free of prejudices and unnecessary cruelty) with the talents she had. That kindness mixed with her usual personality won't literally kill her.

And for Koldin, being a doormat means that he got taken advantage of a lot by different people and since he refused to actually stand up for himself ("Ah...aha......it seems that I can't..." "Can't what?" "Feel angry for myself......it's always anger that comes from the ones I love being hurt" "Then love yourself too, you will feel angry again" ~ Koldin's conversation with his inverted self in the Labyrinth) he got. Taken advantage of. By virtually everyone. However he decided that if being nice would keep him keep his self and his name self then it would be fine. He did not want to be the source of grief (his actual parents tossed him out because of his Specialisation). The Mansion Of Death actually causes him to snap for that reason, because Romila literally puts him in a torture dream "for the greater good" and then proceeds to kill his dear friend. One thing Koldin HATED. Killing friends. (Due to them being run over by a car, which led to his paralysed left arm)

Now on the other side, their respective friends:

Romila:

Luja: Cynical and annoyed by people's stupidity but not to caustic extents and she wants to be a scientist and isn't haunted by the possibility of dying.

Kratanos: Full of anger and hatred against the world but not entirely blinded by it and is focused to using that anger for reformation of the world (she becomes a therapist later, to help people)

They both have her caustic parts but they also let themselves embrace another side which makes them her "balance".

Koldin:

Anand: Believes that there's no requirement for violence unless it's absolutely necessary.

Karishma: Figures it's a better idea to just listen to rules but doesn't hesitate to break them if she sees that they are bs

They both have his peacefulness, but don't hesitate to do what they think they should do, which makes them his "balance".

The point is that, the case of choosing alternatives isn't possible with a tunnel vision. Even so, there are choices that literally can't be made due to the individual and circumstances. Sometimes the choice is to choose more than one choice. Well, that's one dramatic storyline......

It reminds me of DDLC side stories since everyone has a bit of the other person's solutions and more of a opposite personality (don't take this the wrong way, there are many stories like that and it's honestly a favourite to think abt but it's just that DDLC does it well especially since it's only a school environment). Tbh, I like dramatic storylines that rlly dig deep into a character's perspective (reasons why I'm in love with Hack and Axel in particular). My whole thing is that I'd rather read a story with interesting and in depth characters than one where only the plot is good so I say you made the great call of the century with Koldin and Romila's characters.

What you thought before getting into it is rlly how every great character arc starts. You focus on one, somewhat forget the other one until you review every single character for inspiration and then BAM! PARALLELS! It's really admirable how, even in this messed up world of specializations, you didn't purely focus on the plot bc it honestly sounds interesting enough to just stick around for Romila's life and journey. You could have ended it all with just that, but no, you smacked Koldin in there and said "be my interesting on par character that can kick Romila's gut" and IT WORKED SPECTACULARLY!!!

I really love ur writing and hoping to one day read (and maybe print out) every story you've ever written bc GODDAMNIT I NEED THE FEELING OF THOSE WORDS ON WORN PAPER WITH AN ARTISTIC COVER AND AN AMAZINGLY HEAVY WEIGHT

Aka, paperback. Bc that's how I like to roll and that's how good I think it is. 1000% worthy of a bestseller

#writing #mah fwend's story :3 #novel #ALTERNATIVE #Koldin Hopkins #Romila

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aks3raao1 · 3 years

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So I saw a weird dream—

1. It first began like a typical high-schooler's dream about missing school but we all could feel™ that something was wrong. Either way, I missed assembly and reached history class late and heard that we have to submit our projects (which I didn't complete).

2. Anyways, I submitted the half completed project, hoping that she [my teacher] would return it to me when she saw that it was unfinished, however she told everyone that no, she would send these projects directly to the council, causing me to panic.

3. I spent the entire Bengali class overthinking on the circumstances and then came up with the plan to tell her the truth [I hadn't completed the projects] in a slightly twisted manner ["Ma'am, I am so sorry, I realised just now that I left a few places blank and forgot to fill them up"]

4. It evidently worked as she asked me to go and search for my textbook. Junko (yes) volunteered to go with me and we went on an epic quest to find my history project. She said that she wanted two of my hair strands along with the project and I was like, "Okay??" and she was totally nice throughout the quest™ to find the project (we saved a cat there as well).

5. Either way, she got my hair strands and was like, "I need to purify them" and we stood in the washroom (I was outside it), purifying it™ when I heard my history teacher grumble that we just took this fake excuse to bunk history class.

6. Oh wait, lemme explain how we even got the project dramatically. I first had to enter some code but my phone started glitching right them in a weirdass manner, causing the person who was giving it to give me the side eye, until Junko came to my rescue and entered the code and then we returned to the washroom fiasco.

7. Either way, I heard our history teacher grumbling and went inside, telling her everything that happened and she was fine, "Fine do your project" and let me be. I never realised when Junko disappeared.

8. Either way, the scene shifted to a movie theatre. Pretty normal and stuff. A married couple (cishet) were sitting in it and it was pretty empty. The girl was criticising the movie since it was rather cringe and expected the guy to agree.....but the guy went eerily silent. The girl was confused when the guy reached out two hands to strangle her. Horrified, she looked at him and realises that he had turned into a creepy zombie type thing. And the strangling caused her to turn into one as well and they killed each other. The last thing the girl saw before all this was that the entire audience was more or less full of zombies.

9. The POV shifted to me [I was in the same theatre, but I was looking more like a Koldin Hopkins-Nanamura Suisei fusion] and I was sitting there with a blank poker face, but I was certain that they weren't hallucinations.........since I was aware that I was dreaming and just wanted to see how this would play out. The zombies and everything wouldn't attack me/nor would I turn into one if I just refrained from criticising whatever was displayed on the screen.

10. However then I noticed an absolutely ordinary girl sitting there. She was wearing a light yellow full sleeve sweater over a white shirt and dark blue miniskirt. She was thin but short (as in. Shorter than me) and I realised that I didn't know her....but she appeared to know the rules...and that she was an entity that I had no idea of what she was in the dream.

11. She spotted me and smiled...it's the same smile dream! Nagito gave me when I asked him why he saved me and whether he wants to tell something. I was rather unnerved because I remembered Nagito as well, but it was plain that I...don't know the girl (...not even after waking up) and she came up to me, still with that unsettling but unthreatening smile.

12. I asked her what she was doing. I told her that I didn't need to fear this entire thing but why she was here since she certainly wasn't someone like me. She kept smiling. Then I explained to her that I was in my own dream so I wouldn't die...since even if I did, I would just wake up. Then she looked satisfied and explained that....wait what did she explain—......the entire thing is a full memory blank but I can remember the rest vividly.....did I forget another secret again? (This is a part of my recurring dreams about knowing a secret to my dream world but just...forgetting it when I wake up. And Dazai (real dude) and that smile is forever involved somehow) Anyways, she probably explained that she was....someone. Idr but then she went on to say what I already knew. Do not react and then she would save me.

13. Anyways, I went back to my seat and they began starting a play of the game and everything but it was just porn games and I wanted to just leave when one shouted out, "Don't put the Airtel games, they are terrible" and they got brutally killed by being hacked into two with a chainsaw. I went on with a, "I know this is my dream....but I don't want this...I need to get out of here" because I was on the verge of tears internally (Miko be like:)

14. Then the mysterious girl caused the time to freeze by entangling it in a spider's web and then motioning me to follow her, God knows where. I wasn't sure whether I could trust her but decided that it was my dream, so I would be safe, and this was a better alternative to whatever the hell was the zombie theatre.

15. Either way, I stepped out, causing a strange sort of coordination error in my head, causing me to say stuff like, "I will miss Yoshiko" (now a friend has an OC of that name but I am pretty sure that was the name of the chick from NHL/Human Lost) and my brain (who apparently knew more than me) began mocking me like, "You can still hear about her when you wake up" (but my brain was trying to snap me out of some realisation-derealisation) and then I went, "Haha yes....I will miss talking about her....Yozo.....I—" and my brain overrode everything with a classic "Huhuhuhuhuh" (think Nagito's mind splitting when he was talking to Izuru) and I was like, "Yeah, I will probably miss talking about how stupid the zombie is" before going to where the mysterious place(for whatever reason I was on a motor bike and I am pretty sure this is a weirdass Human Lost reference, tbh). Now, I think it's a good time to mention that I was presenting as male here though everyone used she/they pronouns for me (I referred to myself as he/they which is........ strange, considering everything)

16. Either way, the brain disregulation/split/whatever TF it was was promptly forgotten in the favour of growing confused at where I had been brought. The girl had disappeared but I came face to face with Maki Harukawa and Kister Aster and multiple others (mostly from V3 and SDR2) and I was like, "What's going on" and they explained that they were trying to find a way to get the world rid of the zombie (what a poetic way to say that my depression is improving with fiction but anyways—) infestation and discover the secret behind everything. But right then, since Kister was new to Maki, she challenged them in an assassin's duel (wonderful. I love Maki but realistically she would lose against them) and they began fighting. Kister's fighting style (the one they revealed to Maki, that is) was apparently mimicking her movements but right when she thought that, they mixed up their movement's, causing her to grow frustrated. However, Kister also purposefully let her win, but she knew that as well. I mediated the situation.

17. Then they said that the three of us (Maki, Kister and I) would go to sneak out and discover something/acquaint ourselves with each other. We agreed, spent the night together in wariness and then went out. Maki asked what I could do (Maki had the "Assassin's blessing" and so did Kister (who was immune to most poisons (this is probably a HxH reference))) and I laughed, slightly embarrassed and said that I couldn't be killed at a certain time, during a certain day, during a certain month when the sun's light was on (however I walked behind a pillar while saying this...implying that this was a lie), but they believed me and laughed about how weak my power was.

18. Then another girl joined up with us. Now she was also someone I do not know. She has pearly white hair which was done in a single braid thrown over her right shoulder, an experienced face and was rather tall. She wore a white dress which went beyond her knees over which she wore a royal vest. She also wore boots and was in the habit of playing with her braid. She led me away from the other two on the promise that I would be fine but then I had a mental line of, "Ah of course...since this is my dream, I am supposedly the protagonist of every single fuckery. And now this it Riddle Story of the Devil." while entering the pristine cathedral. I asked her what she was up to and she said that it was a quiet place. And that this was a test for both of us.

19. I went and stood to the side and she started her powers. A silvery spider's net (similar to the sweater girl from the beginning but this was sinister in accordance to me) shot out and froze the reality (yeah) as the entire place went dark. You could only see anything with the light of the net. Then she went and did some magic gesture on me with the use of this net, causing my inner self to spring out, paralysed (since she had summoned me, I hasn't done this willingly) and the threads faded and I could see that the cathedral I saw with my soul was a rather derecipt one with no decorations or tiles. Just the barebones of a cathedral. Apparently if she could make my spirit fall unconscious in 120 seconds, she would win and I would actually die. Despite knowing that this was a dream, my spirit didn't want to die as something bad could happen.

20. The timer went down to 6 seconds and she was frustrated like, "Why TF aren't you fainting/dying" while I was praying for something to happen. Apparently to snap us both from the spirit state, someone physical needed to touch my body for that to happen. However the cathedral was deserted and I couldn't hold out for much longer....but then it revealed my real talent (which was a core objective of the girl), "Ultimate Lucky Irony" (Idfk either but here we are) and we heard footsteps when the timer was down to three and I was about to faint and the scene shifted over to the outside and Kurapika, Leorio, Killua and Gon had come because they needed to save a friend (wonderful. Even my dream self was aware of this dream logic. RIP fourth wall, ig) and their banging on the door at the exact spot my prone body was caused it to move and I snapped back to reality and the cathedral was back to what I had seen when we first entered. The glimmering threads were still there and the girl smiled at me, like she had figured out something and said, "I failed my mission....what should I do now? I have no one else.......Ah I see.....you really can't be killed." I wanted to assure her that we could figure something out but she smiled (that SAME smile but colder) and I woke up in cold sweat.

....

I have. Questions.

......so do I- n a n i-

I'm seeing good things and bad things and don't know how to feel ultimately

Honestly, what I see is that your whole thing of "I can't be killed" be symbolizing smth else like your resolve or anything else that you're painfully sure of. How I see it is that ppl would try to cut that down or smth else like inner or suppressed thoughts but you just won't give up. We once talked abt reality a few days ago and the fact that these ppl could "freeze" reality is pretty interesting, considering it was ur dream reality and how u were constantly telling urself that this was ur dream. I have no clue what we could possibly make of that but I find it interesting

And Yeah, fiction be like "we are healing your depression" which is pretty cool. And I will honestly slap anyone who tells you to let go of it

And the gender story is still a blur but this convinces me on the theory that u were a boy in ur previous life pfft

The most that I can say abt this is that this was...interesting

Imagine the short girl was also from a previous life and she was actually rlly important to you which is why she showed up there nsnsnwjekwkriwi

#dream analysis?#KK's dream

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