#rabbid perfectus

[randomrabbidramblings]

The drinking contest from @bramble-scramble's An Appeal to the Heavens because the idea of Phantom vs Augie is very amusing in any way, lol.

Added Perfectus to cheer his bro up even if he didn't last very long. Phantom, behave! Poor Augie's going to need more than a coffee to get rid of the hangover.

[minnesotamedic186]

HI SO RANDOM!! I saw you wanted to bring augie up for the au :3 I would love to hear your take if that’s okay with ya! /pos

BOY HOWDY-!

So as my good friend @monsterbride99 has mentioned some time ago, the Darkmess would pretty much crank all of Augie's negative emotions(anxiety, depression and anger) into high gear, whipping up a storm even worse than the one the Darkmess Tentacle conjured up

I always saw Perfectus(Augie's brother) maybe coming in to interfere(btw if you want a link to this, 60 page google doc me and Bride are doing about Augie and all these other Rabbid Gods, I can totally hook you up-) and at least helping the heroes with getting rid of all the Darkmess(It'd be like a "destroy Darkmess something" stage with Perfectus and Augie fighting in the background)

And once that's over(and because I wanna believe Perfectus isn't as bad as some people think) Perfectus hugs his brother, releasing him of Cursa's control, and we actually get two gods in on the resistance ^v^

[augie-the-better-brother]

I actually like to think Augie and Perfectus had something of a good relationship, Perfectus being the one person in the family supporting Augie

Interesting idea. Maybe he was the one protecting him and that in turn caused both guilt and resentment from Augie? Or heck, maybe his parents ignored Perfectus because being empathetic is just a quality of a good hero, it's just a reflex. "Aw, sticking up for your brother again. Such a good son of ours..." "...but you know he'll never deserve it."

[pixies-and-poets]

Ok here you all go, some more background information I thought up for the High Seas AU!!!

-Instead of being planets, Palette Prime, Terra Flora etc. are all isolated continents or large islands in one big world dominated by ocean. They have established trade with each other but it takes a fairly long time to traverse between them by sea, so travel for leisure is minimal. Barrendale Mesa is still in its bountiful untouched form; in fact, it hasn't even been discovered by sapient life yet and thus has no name.

-The Mushroom Kingdom exists on a larger continent along with the Darklands, Beanbean Kingdom, Flower Kingdom, Sprixie Kingdom and some others. It's pretty distant from what is known as the "Rabbid Archipelago" where Rabbids are the dominant species, and the two civilizations have only recently discovered each other. Donkey Kong Island is between the two.

-Wardenry has not been established as an institution in the Rabbid Archipelago.

-Sweetlopek felt the calling to be a sailor (specifically a ship's carpenter) instead of a lumberjack, and thus left his home island when he came of age.

-Woodrow's childhood was much the same as we know it. However, he left Palette Prime as a young man and took to sea. This was largely for two reasons: 1) his best friend had already departed, leaving him far less incentive to stay, and 2) as stated above, the position of warden did not exist, so he didn't have that to strive for. Once he realized his poetry would never be appreciated by the locals, and without his friend to back him up, he decided to leave, despite his strong love of his home island.

-Woodrow's main reason for going to sea was the hope of running into his best friend again. Being an honest and honorable sort, be started out serving on merchant ships. However, eventually his curse would always be discovered, and he was chased off of multiple crews, even being marooned once. Turns out the discipline on merchant ships is strict, and the captains were none too keen on finding out one of their own was a disaster poet who threatened the merchandise. It was not a pleasant era of his life.

-It was then that he turned to piracy, ironically finding buccaneer types more forgiving. By a stroke of good luck (perhaps after writing a limerick?) Woodrow was eventually able to find Sweets serving on a rival crew, and his old friend convinced his current captain to give Woodrow a chance (keeping his affliction a secret still, of course).

-Neither Woodrow nor Sweetlopek knew the Dryad of Palette Prime beyond legend. Since Sweets left when he was fairly young, and Woodrow never became warden, the mysterious spirit never made herself known to them. Dryad, however, has taken to the sea on her own account. She is on a journey to meet with nature spirits and observe the biomes of other locations, both land and sea. But she also wants to get to know "normal Rabbids" better and thus has disguised herself as one, going by the name Darya.

-In the regular canon, Dryad would find interplanetary travel difficult. As a nature spirit, she struggles with the sterility of a spaceship and the vacuum of space surrounding her, in addition to being intimately tied to her planet. The mechanics of this AU would make travel easier and more pleasant for her, so travel she does. At least temporarily. (The Spellbound Woods will be ok without her for a little while.)

-Orion is the captain of a regular ship, possibly even the ship Woodrow/Sweetlopek/Darya are on, but I haven't decided.

-Augie has the potential to be a lot more important in this AU; I'm thinking he's generally seen as the god of the whole sea and Perfectus is the god of the land.

-Bea is possibly another siren with this whole underseas drama going on with Phantom??

-Momma is also a captain, of a ship she designed herself, known for its astonishing technological advancement (she and her vessel/crew are very steampunky).

-I wanted to keep Phantom feeling mysterious and primal, so I haven't thought much about how he came to be a siren-monster or if he was just born that way. Someone else can feel free to run with it.

[tco-old]

Sparks of Hope Thoughts - Beacon Beach

My progress in Sparks of Hope has brought me to the point that there's nothing left to do in Beacon Beach that doesn't require going to the next area and coming back. So I figure now's a good point for my initial thoughts on the game! ☆

I'll probably be doing one of these as I complete each area in full, though this one will likely be the longest (except whenever the final one happens) since it's covering my thoughts on the gameplay itself and such.

This will be very in-depth, and therefore will have very clear spoilers for everything you can do up to leaving Beacon Beach.

So, the best place to start would be...

Gameplay

One of the things I was not expecting was the feel of the game in terms of familiarity to other games.

Obviously, it's still mostly Kingdom Battle, but what else is there to expect from a sequel game? A lot of the core mechanics are still there.

But, while I obviously knew there would be Galaxy influences going into it, I didn't expect space-travel to be involved so heavily. I assumed space was coming to them more than the other way around, y'know? (More talk of the Galaxy influences will be down in the Story and Lore section below.)

But what I really didn't expect... was that this has Odyssey in it. Very clearly. The world is more open, you can do pretty much everything—except the main story—in whatever order you please, there's decent helping of lore if you stop to look for it, checkpoints, and level maps! It's all there, and it honestly floored me a bit.

Combat

The combat is very streamlined, which I'm a big fan of.

I audibly reacted when I was dropped into combat for the first time and discovered I was able to move freely. The grid system is gone—more or less. It's really awesome, it's definitely helped me out when it comes to planning my course of action.

I don't remember elemental attacks and strengths/weakness from the original game, so I think that's new as well? I do remember fire from the Kingdom Battle, but I think that was it.

The combat is largely the same in a broader sense though, with the skill trees and unique character abilities and whatnot. Having the different weapons swapped out for being able to give everyone different Sparks is a pretty good substitute, in my opinion.

Story and Lore

I don't remember there being much concrete lore in Kingdom Battle past 'Real-World Mario Fan made a fusion machine' or something? It was never too set in stone, so this game's story being much more concrete did catch me off-guard (in a good way)!

"Sparks" being the name of the Luma-Rabbid hybrids was a very fun reveal for where the name came from. At the current point I'm at story-wise, there are a lot of questions currently left open about them, though;

The fusion of Rabbids and Lumas is making me wonder what's gone on with Spawny since the last game. I think he's gotten one mention—in a Jeanie memory—but that makes Spawny out to be a strictly ally character now.

In another one of Jeanie's memories, she mentions that the Sparks have retained two instincts from their original parts; Calling Rosalina "Mama" and fearing Cursa. It's not clear whether this is part of the Rabbid side or the Luma side, though I'm figuring the latter. Either way, I'm curious to find out why the Sparks are apparently familiar with Cursa.

Where's Rosalina??? She's been mentioned a couple times now and she's very blatantly implied to be in danger. I do know that Rabbid Rosalina is one of the characters from the original teaser(?), and she's yet to appear either.

I also wonder if all the lore given on Augie and Perfectus is gonna become relevant later. It did turn out to be related to a puzzle in the temple, sure, but I feel like they gave far more lore than they would've needed for how simple the riddle was.

After finishing the available 96% of Beacon Beach, I am a little surprised to see that this area alone is 18% of the story's entire progression. Though, to be fair, that math does come out to 5 areas + a bit more, which would mirror the original game.

Theories

Currently, my theories are few and far between, just by nature of the point I'm at, though there are a couple I'm going to present now.

When it comes to what might be up with Rosalina, I see two possible options; Either she's Cursa or she's Rabbid Rosalina.

With Cursa, her eye looks quite similar, though red, and her general silhouette is quite similar as well. It would also explain why the Sparks already seem to fear Cursa—if it's Rosalina in some way, the and Lumas might have experienced something like this before.

With Rabbid Rosalina, this is pretty much just assuming that whatever caused the fusion to create the Sparks also got ahold of Rosalina in the same way.

I also have a small theory that Twinkle, the Spark that lights up the lighthouse, is created from Baby Luma, just based on them both being the only two apricot-colored Lumas known to exist.

Characters

I will say, when the voice acting started at the beginning, it honestly spooked me a bit. I wasn't too sure if I even liked it, but it's grown on me quite quickly.

First we'll speed through the main cast, since they're all recurring characters from the last game;

Mario is Mario. I love that he's the only one who has no dialogue. Nintendo deciding Mario is mute is always fun (that's not meant to be a drag at the mario movie, but it kind of is.)

Luigi's always great—all the little hums and noises he makes are great. I think I have several of them recorded on my Switch already.

Peach is kind of terrifying. The way she just goes "Ha ha!" when firing at someone is haunting in the best way. Polite Badass Peach will always be one of my favorite characterizations of her.

The three main Rabbids; Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, and Rabbid Peach. I'm grouping them because I mostly have the same major comment; I love the way they're all different ways of knocking-off their source characters. Rabbid Mario is reminiscent of when Mario is over-characterized—the strong accent and arrogant confidence especially. Rabbid Luigi honestly kind of reminds me of Luigi from the 1993 Mario Movie, even the voice feels similar. And Rabbid Peach just straight up isn't Peach, she's closer to being Peach's foil.

Beep-0 is still pretty much the same as he was before. His voice is very good.

With them out of the way, the new (to this specific series) characters!

I can't tell which exact story trope Edge is playing here. They're either meant to very obviously be an antagonist for dramatic irony, or you're just meant to assume they are so the reveal that they aren't throws you off later. I can't determine which.

Jeanie is a very fun character, though there's a deep sadness in her memories—she wants to know her place in the galaxy, she feels a bit unregarded, she sees the WM ARC as her home, etc. I feel like she's gonna have a character arc. (Also, the lore of 'Beep-0 created an AI that's smarter than himself' is wild if you really think about it.)

Cursa remains as mostly an enigma at this point, though that—and the purple-blue color theme—are very typical for story-heavy Mario games.

Again, Rosalina is mostly absent so far, though the fact that she's been mentioned (plus the Galaxy themes in general) make me certain she'll show up at some point.

Augie is a mood and a half. That's all I have to say about him.

Conclusion

All-in-all, I'm very happy with how things are going so far! I hope the game can keep itself up. Very excited to move onto the next location—Pristine Peaks, I believe was the name?

[randomrabbidramblings]

Had an illumination. Perfectus radiates Himbo™ energy.

Having a single braincell runs in the family I suppose. Or his and Augie's parents only had two to give to their child, but they got surprise twins.

[augie-the-better-brother]

Basically it'd be where Augie's ability to control the weather and ocean through his singing(because Siren!Augie-) are actually recognized, while Perfectus tends to look towards simpler things in nature that mortals would usually do-

"Perfectus, Perfectus! Check this out!" Augie belts out a high note, and within seconds an entire grove is watered by a passing stormcloud and the flowers have entered a full bloom. "Isn't that cool Perfectus?" But Perfectus isn't listening. Instead, he's watching some Rabbids from afar as they put together a mystical device that can tell the time. A 'sundial,' he remembered them calling it. His parents might not think anything of it, but Perfectus has never been more proud in his life.

[pixies-and-poets]

Okay so reading through the aforementioned long-ass Rabbid God doc I realized me and @hostess-of-horror already made two gods that have Phantom's role in the Divin AU: Lanta the Goddess of the Theater(Augie and Perfectus's aunt on their mother's side) and Vita the Goddess of the brewery(the Wine Aunt of the Rabbid Pantheon)

I love there being gods for these things in the main universe. In an AU where Phantom took their roles, I guess things would be a little different, and I imagine some other characters who aren't normally divine beings would also be "promoted" - I imagined Bea as a Muse, for instance. And Dryad can be a Dryad- hey wait a minute

Y'know I kinda like the Spark Hunters (minus Edge/Kanya) as the Fates, because there were supposed to be three of them and they were all female... getting off topic again, lol

I can also see it being the case that other gods of wine/theatre/etc still exist, but Phantom sorta took over their roles and made it all about himself, because that's something he would do. After all, in real world mythology, there is overlap of roles, as older/more localized gods get subsumed into wider or newer cultural myths. If he did end up rejecting his godhood to grow old and die with Woodrow (and for other reasons), those other gods would have their roles properly restored.

[augie-the-better-brother]

So, @minnesotamedic186 and I talk about Augie a lot (among other Rabbids), especially his family and his past, and I came up with a pretty angsty idea.

Revenge!Augie AU

An AU where, after being disowned by his own family, Augie becomes a vengeful demigod and vows to get back at his parents, especially his father. This causes him to cause storms from his anguish and despair and results in a nasty battle between him and Perfectus (this part was Medic's idea). The storm becomes so powerful that it affects the Gods themselves. His father suffers horrible hallucinations, while his mother is cursed with nightmares that fuel her guilt of favoring Perfectus over Augie.

What do you think?

I LOVE IT. I'd like to imagine the storms get so crazy that, if the vents of Sparks of Hope still happen somehow...Cursa just avoids him, it's too big of a risk. I can also see the hallucinations of the father being visions of a younger Augie struggling in life, making him realize that maybe they could've encouraged him more. Fully, fully on this train if that wasn't evident lol

[pixies-and-poets]

Hey, uh- slightly random question. I’m planning on writing a fanfic for Mario Rabbids Sparks of Hope (based on an AU post I wrote up a while back) and I’m wondering- do you think it would be fair to portray Perfectus as a pretentious jerk as his normal personality, or should that only be while he’s possessed by Darkmess?

Hmm! Given that we don't know much about the guy except second-hand tales, I think it's fair to portray him as whatever you want, whatever you think would be most fun to write, and what fits the story best. For instance, do you want a story where Augie, who still loves his brother despite living in his shadow, is surprised and hurt to find that Perfectus is suddenly treating him like dirt? Or a story where Perfectus is so much of a jerk normally anyway, that no one notices he's even acting any different?

Personally, I think he was raised from birth with the very strong implication - and likely often being told, explicitly - that he was superior to his own twin brother in every way. At the very least this would probably result in some narcissism issues that would have to be unlearned, and it's quite possible he simply embraced and ate up all the praise and became unrepentantly self-absorbed. I think those characters are always fun to write and to see (especially if they get some kind of humbling in the end). So yeah, a totally sensible portrayal IMO!