Piper Musings and Self Indulgences

So, I will try to put my thoughts into words about Piper, as I’m messing with him in my head. CallyAnn suggested the idea of incorporating a Peter Pan element into Piper’s design. While this initially opens up quite an interesting angle on a villain (and certainly solves the ‘hot guy’ problem) the longer I thought about it the more worried I became that such a character simply would not fulfill the hopes we have for Piper being the main villain. I know CallyAnn is attached to the idea of Piper not knowing or caring who Spark is at first, a concept I’m partial to as well. The only way I can imagine a Peter Pan like character not knowing their own opposition is in a bratty know it all way, like “I don’t know who you are and I don’t care ’cause I’m just here to do what I want nah nah!” Otherwise I perceive him as being immediately interested in Spark, as either an ally and playmate, or challenge and therefore a source of amusement. The disinterest we start to dabble in when we picture him as being unaware of her and her intentions to stop him strike me as being much more in line with a slightly older, more aloof character. At the same time we don’t want him too much older, lest he wander into ‘hot guy’ territory or so old that he’s a crony and is on a level with Jafar and Cruella.

Again and again I find myself coming back to Jack Frost as the sort of ‘forever young magic boy’ as the source of my inspiration. While this doesn’t fulfill CallyAnn’s hopes of giving him a Peter Pan angle it does seem to be fitting with our theme of turning character archetypes on their heads. Vahaadi isn’t the hero, he’s the sidekick, and Spark vise versa. I think I kind of want Piper to have Jack’s ‘nice guy’ feel, only it turns out that he’s the villain. I want him to have a gentle and friendly and earnestness to him; not only would children like him, but parents would trust him. He seems sincere and is a good listener and makes lots of open and honest eye contact. He laughs softly and is too humble to accept compliments easily. AND YET, he is the one who is doing so much damage and causing so much destruction.

Someone like him would find Spark unworthy of his attention, with her bossy voice and loud explosions and general harshness and lack of subtlety. If he takes notice of her at all, he sees her as a flash in the pan distraction, not someone to take seriously, unlike the Lorewalkers who seem intent on making his life miserable (nevermind the fact the opposite is really the case.) Until, that is, she actually makes good on her word to ‘take him down.’ After enough fuss she’s able to prove herself a legitimate interference into his plans, so he starts to study her and takes a… different approach. I just can’t get it out of my head the idea of a character like Jack approaching Spark with this easy going, casual, nice guy attitude and saying “Let’s play a game, we’ll have a little fun,” and getting inside her mind by speaking her language. His first step would be to seperate her from Vahaadi as much as possible. He sees Vahaadi as a threat, unable to be charmed and capable of monopolizing Spark’s attention, as well as occasionally serving as the voice of reason.

I think maybe an episode could be devoted to him trying to win Spark over, once he’s decided he can’t afford to ignore her anymore. Eventually Spark would be pushed between choosing to help Piper or choosing to hold true to her word with the Lorewalkers. The decision is easy for her to make once she presses Piper on if his offer also extends to Vahaadi and he says no. Spark takes up her mantel as a superhero and tells Piper that they can never be friends, as long as he’s determined to carry out his quest. The plot carries on as we’ve previously discussed from here.

I think a Peter Pan Piper would be too similar to Spark, simply due to the ‘forever a child’ mentality they’d both share. If we made him some sort of twisted form of Peter Pan (Say something ruined his canon and he was forced to grow up; he’s forever bitter and goes around ruining other canons as well) Spark would sympathize with him too much and wouldn’t be able to ‘destroy him.’ But a Piper like Jack would *almost* fool her, *almost* win her trust, *almost* lure her away… but he’s just not crazy enough.

ANYWAY I’m not sure any of that made sense, but it’s what led to the drawings I posted. In other news, I heard a song on the radio (Gold by Brit Nicole) and the lyrics suddenly validated my desire to pull a common manga trope and draw characters not normally clothes in royal wear in outrageously fancy and royal clothes. Ex: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g1DYCAvkmkw/U0HptYnNS2I/AAAAAAAAA08/BTcrDWLZjPk/s1600/SOREDEMO+SEKAI+WA+UTSUKUSHII+2014ANI.jpg )

But as I was drawing this Tephra and Vitiator were practically gaping and sputtering and begging for a drawing of THEM this way, WHAT WAS I THINKING that I drew Vahaadi and Spark instead!? So, I owe them some tropey art. Maybe tomorrow 😉

The chorus of the song reminded me of one of the pep talks Spark would give Vahaadi “Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re not loved, and don’t let anybody tell you that you’re not enough. There are days when we’re all feeling like we’re messed up, but the truth is that we’re all diamonds in the rough.”