#matts original plan of lucien haunting mollymauk and trying to get the body back | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mareastrorum · 9 months

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TF&TS Meta: How did The Fool and the Soldier come about?

Since I am posting another chapter on Friday, no WIP Wednesday excerpt today! However, I will try to throw out a meta post 2 days before each chapter to tide people over.

This post goes through the following questions:

Where did the idea come from? Why did I want to write it? What premise does it cover?

See the directory for other meta posts.

I finished Campaign 2 in July 2022. It was great! Loved it! Hyped for the book! Pre-ordered it! Queued up the Campaign 2 Wrap Up.

In the wrap up, the cast discussed what Taliesin knew about Mollymauk and Lucien (basically nothing), and what Matt had originally planned for Molly’s character arc before he died on Glory Run Road in episode 26. Matt explained:

“How I had initially had planned it was that Lucien, the original soul that was in Molly’s body—after being shattered—found his way back but had to go into another body and is trying to get the original body with the nine eyes back. And so it was going to be— what was this movie? There was this old, I want to say, Denzel Washington movie about this killer spirit that would transition from body to body through touch. I can’t— it was a film from the late ‘90s or something. … But anyway, I wanted Lucien to be this, like, spirit that would jump from person to person and was, like, a recurring antagonist trying to find a way to kill Molly to take the body back or find a way to remove Molly from the body to take it back. And that was going to be a smaller ongoing villain until things like the Somnovem got revealed, and then Molly died. I was like, ‘Fuck!’ … Or, yeah.”

The movie that Matt couldn’t remember was Fallen, a 1998 thriller about a detective who discovers that a serial killer he had caught was actually possessed by a spirit/demon named Azazel. Azazel had spent thousands of years possessing people, systematically ruining their lives, massacring those they care about, and moving on whenever his victims get caught or killed. Azazel set his sight on the detective once he realized what was going on, and the film follows the detective’s attempts to stop Azazel.

I love that film. It’s such a cheesy ‘90s thriller. I love Azazel. He’s a horrific, sly, manipulative predator playing with his food the entire film. I enjoyed Lucien as a villain for the same reasons.

Azazel’s powers were incredibly creepy. He could possess people upon a touch, and very few could resist him. In NYC, a notoriously overpopulated city, he could practically swim through people tapping each other in a chain. If his host died, he could travel through the air to a new host, and when he did that, no one could resist him. He perfectly controlled his hosts, stole their voices and memories, and had tons of nasty tricks for tormenting his prey. He could be anyone, anywhere, and there was no easy way to contain or detect him if he didn’t want to be. Just a delicious villain in every way.

However, even though I was so certain someone would have already taken that idea and run with it for an AU, no one had done it. Some fanfics explored Lucien as a more traditional ghost or haunting dreams, and a smidgen of fanfics addressed something similar to body-snatching. But not a full-on Azazel-style spirit pursuing Molly and trying to murder him throughout Campaign 2.

So I stewed in that for a while and thought: what would Lucien's spirit abilities even be in a D&D game? Taliesin had chosen the ghostslayer subclass, so I’m certain Lucien would have been undead. That would have given Taliesin a chance to really capitalize on his subclass and show off all the cool shit. However, individual and bodiless undead are pretty lame in D&D against a group as large as the Mighty Nein. Lucien couldn’t have been one of Matt's Lingering Souls because that could be killed permanently, and it would have been really easy for the Mighty Nein to do that. That wouldn't work for a recurring villain. He'd get Lorenzo'd. So Lucien would have to have been something that was more challenging for a group, and he'd need to be able to come back from each defeat.

Since Matt would have certainly customized a stat block, I built a monster block for Lucien with Azazel style mechanics by mashing together different types of undead. Then I got all the character sheets from CritRoleStats and played out how it would work in actual combat. I had to adjust it when it turned out that Molly would absolutely curbstomp Lucien. An undead spirit trying to kill Molly would have to be incredibly powerful just to survive the fight, let alone threaten Molly’s life.

As I tried to finesse the block, I thought, wait, when would that have even happened in the campaign? Would Molly have leveled up by the time they crossed paths? I looked up the timeline on the wiki to sort out when there would be an opportunity for (1) Lucien to come back as a spirit in the first place, and (2) when he would be able to reach the Mighty Nein.

But first, well, how would Lucien come back? If he wasn’t a Lingering Soul, and he had to be repaired by the Somnovem, then he was somewhere in the Astral Sea. The Somnovem probably couldn’t just fling a soul across the planes, so someone needed to summon him to the Material Plane. Who would do it? The Tombtakers! But how? Only Cree and Otis have spells, so one of them. Otis can't use summoning spells like that, and there's no way for Otis to contact the Somnovem. But Cree could Commune! Cree had Legend Lore! But when would she use that? And so on and so on until I worked out a plausible way and time for him to come back.

Then I had a subsequent question: why would the Somnovem send Lucien as a spirit instead of telling Cree to murder Molly? Matt might or might not have had an explanation already planned—or maybe he would have gone in an entirely different direction—but regardless, it never came out in the campaign. At that point, I figured that I wasn’t going to write anything, but I couldn’t avoid the bigger question that I had been ignoring the whole time: if someone were to do that AU, how would Molly have even survived at Glory Run Road?

And then I had an idea.

It was going to be a lot of fucking work, and I was still set on not writing a fanfic, so I wrote the outline to get it out of my head and reasoned that would burn off all the motivation. I spent all of August creating a massive outline for the entire campaign and then editing it to fit in this rough idea of how it would play out. When would the attacks occur? How would things change between each of them? How would each side adapt? I eventually began fleshing out themes and ideas for the Somnovem, then the Tombtakers, and then Lucien, and Lucien’s backstory.

At that point, about September 2022, I figured, okay, I’d write it. But I would wait until The Nine Eyes of Lucien came out to finish polishing Lucien’s backstory so that I would know what to include in the AU.

I did not enjoy TNEOL. Part of that is my fault, I had high expectations. However, that is also beside the point—my enjoyment of something has little to do with whether the material was useful. After all, the appeal of fanfiction is that writers can change what they don’t like or add things in that were removed or sanitized. The problem was that the characterization of Lucien Tavelle in TNEOL was completely incompatible with an Azazel-style villain.

Characters are literary devices for telling a story. They need to be created with the genre and intended themes already in mind. A protagonist, who just needed someone to redeem his poor misguided soul, from a tragedy is not going to match up with Azazel by any stretch of the imagination.

Azazel was a serial killer. He was cruel, clever, egotistical, relentless, manipulative, playful, menacing, and charismatic. Lucien Tavelle was none of those things. Tavelle was careless, idiotic, spineless, lazy, inconsiderate, ignorant, and utterly delusional. TNEOL went out of its way to make Tavelle a lamer version of Molly. Tavelle would not act like Azazel, he would not make full use of Azazel’s abilities in a way that would be entertaining to a reader nor suitable for a horror/thriller villain, and he would probably give up after the first or second time the Nein beat him into submission. Why? Because there was no coherent motivation for his desire to be the Nonagon. He didn’t even do it because he thought it was fun. It was simply a conclusion that he wanted to be the Nonagon because the narrative demanded it. Whether anyone attributes that to irrationality based in grief or madness, Tavelle would have been a disappointing villain as an undead haunting Molly.

Worse, Lucien Tavelle would have been a terrible antagonist for Molly. Molly was designed to avoid his character arc—he would not have willingly sought out Lucien or anything about him absent some external motivation to do so. There would have been no pressure to have anything resembling a character arc if Tavelle was the one chasing him. A grief-stricken, insane ghost would have left Molly unimpressed and bored. He’d have shrugged off any semblence of conflict. Maybe he would have shifted from mocking Tavelle to pitying him, but there would have been so little substance to their dynamic.

Note: This has nothing to do with the relationship between Lucien Tavelle and Molly in TNEOL. Their roles as protagonist and antagonist were reversed in the book. The issue is that in the AU, Molly would be the protagonist and Lucien would be the antagonist. Thus, Lucien would need to be some sort of catalyst or foil for whatever arc Molly goes through, and Tavelle was simply not written with that in mind. After all, that wasn’t the premise of the book. These stories have different purposes, and that imposes different characterization needs.

I needed a character that would suit Azazel’s abilities and the premise that Lucien would ruthlessly try to murder Molly or rip his soul out of his body so that Lucien could trek through Aeor for the threshold crests, fry the Somnovem’s minds, and use Cognouza to take over the world. I needed a villain. Specifically, I needed a villain that puts Molly through a character arc and was canonically going to assimilate all of existence. This is important: if the Nein hadn’t killed the Tombtakers and destroyed that threshold crest, and if Molly hadn’t fucked with Lucien from within in the final battle, the Nein would have lost. The default outcome was that Lucien conquered Cognouza and returned to the Material Plane.

Trying to make TNEOL fit with this premise was going to be an overwhelming amount of work that would have resulted in a mediocre-at-best villain who was really just a poor little meow meow at the center. That wouldn’t work for a compelling thriller/horror/action/adventure longfic AU going through all of Campaign 2 where the looming threat is that the villain will win if the protagonists don’t get their shit sorted.

Fuck.

Thus, I disregarded TNEOL entirely. I did not make that decision lightly. That meant I needed to develop a headcanon from scratch and sort out how to work that into the story itself or write multiple stories for it to make sense. Why not include parts of it? Because I decided to write something I would enjoy, and I didn’t enjoy TNEOL. Why would I pick out pieces of something I didn’t like to shoehorn into a different story when I had already decided not to include the main character? I’m not going to combine two stories meant for different audiences, genres, and purposes into something that would be less than if I just did my own thing.

By the end of November, I had methodically gone through every single plot hole or gap in explanation that I could find in the campaign related to Molly, Lucien, the Tombtakers, Vess DeRogna, and the Somnovem to develop that headcanon. I also managed to come up with a way to work that backstory in: dreams. Thus, it all fits in one story, though it certainly has chunky chapters. By 8/4/23, when the story was first published on AO3, I had reached 400k words in 9 months.

I am well aware that my opinion of TNEOL is not the majority opinion. I love ruthless, ambitious villains, and TNEOL was not written for people like me. I was simply not the target audience of that book by any metric. However, TF&TS was always going to feature a ruthless, ambitious villain. This fanfic is the result of my excitement for a premise that Matt discussed in the campaign wrap up. I refuse to undermine any of that for the sake of a book that doesn’t address that premise—TNEOL wasn’t meant to, and that is not a criticism. That is a simple fact.

Don’t take my opinion as a guide as to whether you should or shouldn’t have enjoyed TNEOL. There is a Venn Diagram of unknown size where there is an overlap between fans of TNEOL and people who would enjoy TF&TS. They are not mutually exclusive things. However, I want to be very clear, both in the tags and in my meta posts, that this AU will have a completely different flavor so that readers aren’t surprised when they read TF&TS and think, “Well, that’s not what the book did.” I know. I read it. It doesn’t work for this story.

In closing, go watch Fallen. It’s fucking great.

#TF&TS #TF&TS meta #Azazel!Lucien

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dent-de-leon · 2 years

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Lucien >:)

First impression:

When Mollymauk is under zone of truth and admits he still gets these faint impressions of Lucien--and how much it terrifies him--I immediately knew the guy was more dangerous than any of the Nein thought. Molly doesn’t just talk about Lucien like a forgotten past, it’s more like someone feeling haunted by a restless spirit. “Whatever it was, it doesn't feel good when I--the moment when something creeps through, I don't like it. I don't want anything to do with it...I feel tinges of things on occasion. Nothing I like.”

As sweet as it is that Veth tried to insist that maybe "he" wasn't so bad before, that welcoming Lucien's memories into his life could be a comfort--I knew it was more than just a name and a troubled past Molly was running from.

Impression now:

Oh I love him. He's vicious. But I think he wasn't always that way. To me, Mollymauk seems like living proof that Lucien had a softer side once. I don’t think Lucien was ever really a particularly "good" person, or a kind person--Cree worshipped him, and she still calls him “charismatic in his cruelty.” But I think Lucien was just someone trying to get by once, a blood hunter who went rogue and then got in way over his head.

His soul splintering into pieces and the Eyes of Nine's influence makes things messy and complicated. I don’t think there’s anything much left of the original Lucien by the time we see him in Aeor. And I think there’s a reason why Cree called out for her friend Lucien instead of the Nonagon when she was at her most desperate. It’s fascinating to me that Matt said, “Molly really is the best parts of Lucien.” It makes me wonder if Cree would’ve liked Mollymauk more than the Nonagon.

Favorite moment:

The throne scene comes to mind immediately, and so does Lucien’s twisted echo of, “Long may I reign.” But I think my favorite is the tarot reading. Even though Jester is the one who really carries that scene, and Lucien stays very quiet and withdrawn, there’s just...something very genuine to him here. An earnest interest in the tarot cards, a desire to indulge in something the Nonagon ought to consider frivolous and beneath him, “Thank you. That was interesting. Always been oddly curious from a distance about such strange...hobbies. Thank you for indulging in the offer.” Remnants of the person Lucien used to be.

I love the tarot reading for the same reason I love that little moment when Yasha gives Lucien Molly’s clover. Anything that catches Lucien off guard for a moment, makes him apprehensive, more vulnerable, too keenly aware of that shard that’s Mollymauk--it always breaks my heart a bit.

Idea for a story:

I can’t get over Matt’s original plan for Lucien--following the Nein around as a spirit that keeps possessing other people’s bodies?? Chasing down Mollymauk to try to get the Eyes of Nine back?? Molly finally meeting Lucien face to face. The Nein killing someone in a big battle and then their corpse just wakes up and starts lumbering toward them, speaking in Lucien’s voice. The Nine Eyes slowly activating one by one, Molly being haunted by both the somnovum and Lucien, running from the rest of the Tombtakers, just--everything that could’ve happened if Mollymauk wasn’t gone so soon.

Unpopular opinion:

I think Lucien was the perfect final villain for the Nein. Mollymauk drew them all together, echoed in their memories for the entire adventure. And Matt said everything was always leading up to the Eyes of Nine, so to have a villain in a familiar friend that they all loved and lost, to have this fascinating mirror image of a corruption arc--getting glances of someone who’s so very eerily like Molly, but so very off-key and wrong--I loved it.

The all-seeing threat of Lucien and everyone still longing to reach for Mollymauk, to bring back the one person they couldn’t save, the party’s worst regret and too many loose ends finally tying together--there’s so much motivation to get everyone really invested in the endgame villain. And Matt just plays Lucien so well, creates this terrifying character that’s so charming and cutthroat and desperately trying to act like a god when he knows he’s still so very mortal.

Favorite relationship:

Despite how fascinated I am by the Tombtakers and the kind of dynamic they may have once had, it seemed to me like anything Lucien truly felt for them was gone by Aeor arc. Especially whatever his relationship used to be with Cree. With the Tombtakers, I’m more so interested in the past and what could’ve been. As for what we see in the present, it’s Lucien’s relationships with Jester and Caleb that really caught my attention.

I think Lucien’s interactions with all the Nein are so intriguing because I’m always curious how much of his feelings are his own, and how much is Molly’s fondness for his family bleeding through. When Lucien flirts with Caleb, is it just because he has a thing for handsome wizards too, or is that Molly’s attraction for him Lucien feels? I think a part of Lucien’s interest in Caleb is because he sees them as being a little too much alike, thinks maybe Caleb could be just as hungry for forbidden knowledge and power, just as driven and ambitious. For someone who claims to despise wizards, Lucien sure likes to behave like one.

And then there’s Jester. Whenever she talked to Lucien, it really gave me hope that maybe she could still reach some remnant of humanity inside him. If there was anything left in Lucien that could be genuine, I think Jester came the closest to drawing it out of him. They share a few moments where Lucien has this quiet sincerity to him. When Jester gives him the tarot reading and Lucien genuinely thanks her. When Jester is quick to call him dreamy, and Lucien gently reminds her that, “Not a lot of folks are eager and kind--especially in Shadycreek Run, growing up--to those of infernal blood.”

Jester asks if he trusts her, and he actually takes her hand and lets her polymorph him--loses himself in a few moments of pure playfulness and fun. Their little cat adventure is adorable, because it’s so ridiculous and simple and a kind of innocence that Lucien has long since lost. In moments like that, it’s easy to see how a part of him could’ve grown to be Mollymauk. Even if Lucien’s only interested in Jester and Caleb because he thinks they’re the easiest to manipulate--which makes Jester getting the HDYWTDT all the more gratifying--I think maybe the old Lucien would’ve felt for them.

Favorite headcanon:

I like to think Lucien was just as scared of Mollymauk as Molly was of him. When he started to twitch and feel that little fragment stir inside him, lashing out and fighting back--I hope he was absolutely terrified. I hope he realized Molly was real and that this “shattered fragment” of a soul was loved.

#did lucien nearly give me a heart attack in that one fight? absolutely #but matt also gave him a really hot accent so there is that #oh i also liked the monster god look. 100/10 i like that he was ripped and mostly naked for no real reason

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