#Adeleine + Magolor and the Dark Matter!Noir are not

[desultory-novice]

I don't know if this is going to be expanded upon in Apologies but... What's Adeleine's relationship like with Characters like Meta Knight Magolor and Taranza? I'm just genuinely curious as we don't see them interact with her like the others! I mean... We did see Taranza clean himself up and prepare to go talk to her, Ribbon, and Susie in Star Allies, but not much else.

(Also I just wanted to say, I love how She and Daroach have a little sister/niece/daughter like relashionship!)

Heck yes, Daroach is absolutely Adeleine's super cool uncle! (To contrast Dedede's goofy dad attempts!) He just seems to naturally knows how to be there when she needs it and give her space to grow when she doesn't while Dedede is still trying to figure out if he's going too far or not going far enough?! (Then again, Dedede's origional encounter with the siblings is what put him in that awkward position to begin with. We'll soon see a little more about how his "relationship" with Noir influences his relationship with Adeleine.)

Taranza, once he heard Adeleine's story, probably considered inviting Adeleine to one of his and Susie's "grief nights" ...and then remembered those sometimes (often) involve alcohol and inappropriate yelling and decided against it XD

He offered her a patch of his sizable flower garden instead, if she wanted to plant some flowers for Noir.

Honestly, he doesn't know how to talk to her as well as Susie does because, unlike the two of them, he didn't lose family. TLDR, he wants to be someone who can help and impress and make things better but is a bit too awkward to try.

He has better success with her older brother in the Alternate Timeline, because they have much morein common...

Speaking of! I have this ask on that subject!

Which was such a good idea, I wrote a little scriptlet for it!

--

:Noir in the gardens outside Castle Dedede, training: :Taranza floats up behind him, cordial: Taranza: "You're quite good with that."

Noir: "...You know your way around swords?"  (I thought you were just another squishy wizard...)

Taranza: "Ahaha... Not me! My queen did though. She was...amazing. Glorious. Beautiful..."

Noir: "Oh, right. I remember you now. You're the guy who merc'd his own...!" 

:Noir claps a hand over his stupid mouth: :Taranza looks away: :Noir, ashamed:

Noir: "...Sorry. At some point, I got stuck in the habit of trying to push everyone away on purpose and now...I don't know how to talk to anyone without shoving my foot in my..."

Taranza: "No, it's fine. In fact... it's true. Truer than how most people would phrase it."

:Folds his hands, reflective:

Taranza: "I can lie to myself that the corruption made her a different person but...I know better than anyone that she was still..."

:Noir interrupts him:

Noir: "...She wasn't any different! I could still see her in there! She was calling to me...! Why couldn't I...?!"

:He stops before he breaks down again: :Taranza smiles faintly, sensing a connection building:

Taranza: "I've heard a little about you too. You and...your sister. Has it been hard to talk to the others about?

:Noir trying to play indifferent but struggling: Noir: "...What's there to say? They've already told me it's not my fault."

Taranza: "Do you believe them?"

Noir: "..........No."

Taranza: "Mmm..." :He turns away from the camera:

Taranza: "'I gave her the gift.' 'I wasn't watching her closely enough.'"

:Noir stares at him in disbelief: :It's like he's speaking Noir's mind aloud:

Taranza: "To the others, it sounds like I'm wallowing in my guilt. But to me... it's not something so emotional as 'guilt.' It's just my reality."

Noir: "..."

:Taranza, smiling:

Taranza: "I didn't meant to interrupt your practice however!"

:He starts to leave before Noir stops him:

Noir: "Hey, uh...! What if... there was someone... I wanted to talk to about this...? Would that be...cool?"

Taranza: "It would be excellent! I'm always open for company on the weekend for tea and knitting!"

:Noir cringes in 'guard down' way he hasn't in a while:

Noir: "Tea and...knitting? Seriously...?"

Taranza: "It keeps your hands occupied!"

:Points at Noir's hands, curled tightly around the Rainbow Blade: :Noir admits defeat, giving the first signs of a potential smile:

---

---

[Back to the Ask]

It's a similar deal with Meta Knight, really. It's not that he doesn't care, it's because he does care that he doesn't have a lot to say to Adeleine. Meta Knight is the "watch silently from a distance" type.

His attention is focused much more on Noir than Noir's remarkably emotionally well-balanced and together little sister.

As for Magolor...

I actually did write (another) scene with Adeleine and Magolor but it started to spin off in a direction I couldn't quite wrangle back into place, and I wasn't wholly satisfied with where it was going or what it was doing for either Adeleine or Magolor's characters so I scrapped it. Since I already dropped another script here, we might as well make this an Apologies AU script party and drop that one here too!!

---

[Old Unfinished Thing]

:Adeleine steps inside the Lor:

Adeleine: "Magolor?"

:He is asleep on the console, murmuring:

Magolor: "...L-let...let me go... ...Help...me... Ki...rby..."

:She shakes him, worried:

Adeleine: "Magolor! Are you okay?!"

Magolor: "AH!?" "What?!" "Oh! Adeleine..."

:He calms down, finally seeing her:

Adeleine: "Sorry to surprise you. You asked to see me?"

:shockingly chipper given a second ago:

Magolor: "Yes, yes! It won't be long! I just need to 'fit' you for something!"

Adeleine: "What is it?"

Magolor: "I'm calling them 'dress-up masks.'

:Magolor points to the Lor's screen, showing the ones he's got already. They start to scroll by, renders of the masks' various 'models' showing up alongside them: :Adeleine, impressed:

Adeleine: "...Wow! You made all of these yourself? They're so cool!"

Magolor: "That's right! And every last one was snapped and modeled by yours truly! With the Lor here, I was able to hop back and forth across timelines like it was nothing!"

:Eyes closed, getting into his boastful story:

Magolor: "Some of these very VERY tricky to get of course! Not everyone wanted to be immortalized in the galaxy's BEST theme park! I got in a couple of fights... Won them all, of course!"

:He trails off when he opens his eyes and realizes Adeleine is staring at the Dark Matter Blade mask and model: :Magolor, pensive:

Magolor: "I heard... from Susie, that is... ...that unusual looking Dark Matter...was your brother?"

:Adeleine nods slowly:

Adeleine: "Noir..." "You...met him? While he was like that?"

:Adeleine, frightened to ask: :Magolor reads this emotion on her:

Magolor: "Yes! He was...strong! Truly a noble warrior! The toughest I ever faced! You ought to know I barely got out of there with my...!"

:Adeleine's expression sinks: :She knows Magolor is making stuff up for her sake:

Magolor: "...Sigh."

:He taps a button: :text appears beside the image: :the label "Dark Matter Clone" now displays beside the mask:

Magolor: "I couldn't do it. It's not him up there. Not your brother. Not...exactly. I snapped a recreation from another timeline. One without emotion. I did try to go back there. Back to the source."

:His expression tighens:

"But what I saw fighting Kirby in those dark skies... frightened me."

:He turns off the mask display:

"...Because I've been there."

Magolor: "I made a decision when I started this project: I wouldn't shy away from anything. Even the bad. I felt that everyone, like me, deserved the chance to own up to their sins and become free."

Magolor: "...But I'm a hypocrite."

:He taps at several more keys in a row: :A model shows up on screen as Magolor turns away from it:

Magolor: "Because there's one mask missing..."

:This model has no accompanying mask: :Magolor Soul's haunted expression stares back at the camera:

Magolor: "...I can't stand to look at it. To remember. I couldn't just neglect your brother but, honestly? I can't stand to see him either."

"Do you think I'm an awful person?"

:Magolor's own face reflects the haunted, mauled smile of his soul:

Adeleine: "...No. An awful person wouldn't have felt bad enough about lying to tell me the truth. ...Even if it's unpleasant."

"I'm not sure I'm ready to hear pleasant stories yet. I only saw him once and I was so scared, I ran away. Maybe...if I hadn't, if I'd tried to reach out to him, he'd still be here in some form...?"

-

(For your sake, Adeleine, I won't repeat the things I saw or heard that night. I'm sorry if that means you'll never know your brother's last moments. But I can't...I'm not ready to face that part of myself yet.)

...

[//ANNND like I said, this is about where I realized that not only had this gone on way too long and I had no ending in mind, these two had gotten massively OOC over the course of it and cut the story here!]

---

---

TLDR, Magolor is usually pretty good with kids and pretty good with "faking it" too but he's also something of what we would call a "bad adult." That said, Magolor's status as a non-paragon means that he can give her a perspective NONE of the good adults WILL give her.

Which is valuable.

(It's just not the one above. Because I don't like that XD )

PS: Since Apologies actually crosses over into Salty French Bread(!!) it ought to be said that unlike her brother, Adeleine thinks Marx is the cutest, funniest little guy and because Adeleine loves him so much, Marx in turn loves playing silly tricks with Adeleine like eating all her crayons and then splitting in two to create a rainbow.

...

...

...

...

...

Oh? What's this?

Are you still here?

I suppose since I'm giving out Apologies script bits in this post there's no harm in delivering a final little tidbit. Like the above, this monologue is also NOT Apologies Canon, but if we have any fans of mindbreak + horror in the audience, you might enjoy this brief (non-canon!) potential exploration into Noir's mind during Arc II...

---

Stop.it.Don't.make.me.remember.who.I.am.because.being.****.is.only.pain.Even.without.this.thing.twisting.inside.me.breathing.through.every.pore.of.my.body.I.can.feel.myself.dying.every.time.it.moves.But.no.matter.how.much.it.hurts.I.never.just.die.I'm.not.brave.I'm.not.unstoppable.I'm.afraid.and.I.want.it.to.stop.Mom.dad.why.did.you.have.to.leave.us.alone.I.didn't.ask.for.any.of.this.********.Where.are.you.right.now.I.can't.hear.anything.I.can't.see.anything.Only.darkness.No.stars.Please.don't.find.me.********.God.you.have.to.stay.away.because.where.I.am.there.is.only.darkness.Only.darkness.********.Only.dark...

********... ****...**...

#Apologies AU #Apologies AU AU #Noir (human-form DMS) #Taranza + Noir is Apologies Canon #Adeleine + Magolor and the Dark Matter!Noir are not #(They are not canon because both of them... #...ruin the Siblings personalities too much for me... #...Magolor too. But people may enjoy them anyway! >.< ) #CW: Angst #Magolor #Taranza #Dess fanfic #Long Post #Meta Knight #Adeleine

[desultory-novice]

"Apologies" AU - Masterpost

"Before Popstar, Adeleine lived on 'Shiver Star,' the embittered residents' nickname for the frozen husk of old Earth they were left on after the migration. But she isn't sad, for she has a best friend in her older brother. And he would give up anything to protect her...."

Characters: Adeleine, Noir (loosely based on unused Dark Matter design) / Dark Matter Swordsman, Gooey, King Dedede, others...

-

Note that this "comic" started as a well-received one shot that proceeded to grow into a series. As a result, it's very experimental. Expect random inconsistencies and continual artstyle shifts.

Bolded text are the newest posts

[Apologies AU] -Shiver Star- “Apologies”  “One Sneeze”   (illust) “Summer”   “A Walk in the Snow”   “The Swordsman”  “Wonderful Gift”  (illust) “Damnation”  “Salvation”  “Unstoppable”  “Brightest Star”

-Dream Land 2- “Sibling Reunion” “Big Brother Instincts” “Unsung Hero”  “The Perfect Vessel” “To Protect” “Matter Over Mind” "Darkened Skies" (illust) “Last Will” “Ego”

-Side Stories- "Freeze" "A Cold Hell" "No Friends"

"Honestly, it was all worth it"

"Never Never Land"

-

[Noir Fontaine - Initial Ref Sheet] [Noir Fontaine - Kirby OC Tourney Profile]

-

[White-Haired Noir] “Dark Matter Painter”  (gift art - how this whole idea started...) "Have You Ever Killed Before?" (reblog sketch - W.Noir is born...) "Why Did You Stop Me...?" (reblog text + sketch - W.Noir in Kirby 64)

“You’re a good knight!” (illust - W.Noir and Ribbon) “The Body Remembers” (illust - W.Noir's scars) "Knight Costume" (sketch - W.Noir and Meta Knight) "My Trauma" (sketch - W.Noir and Meta Knight)

"Like Brother Like Sister" (comic, white-haired Noir origin) "Each From His or Her Own World" (comic, one of various endings)

"Three Challenges Noir Had to Face and One Meta Knight Did" (fanfic - W.Noir and Meta Knight in Planet Robobot) "Cold Air" (fanfic - W.Noir and Meta Knight's first meeting)

"The Little Prince" (illust - Adult W.Noir) "Brighter Skies" (Sketch - Adult W.Noir and Kirby)

[Snowflakes Timeline - cw: body horror + bad end] "I'll Never Leave You" - Script + Sketch "...Zero Three..." - Sketch + Script + Illust "Melted Snow" - Script + Fictional Boss Fight "Null v0.3" - Sketch + Silliness

[Extras - Art (canonincal)] “Ugly Scarf”   (illust - our first look at Noir) "It'll All Make Sense Soon, Right?" (illust - Noir + Adeleine) "You Won't Win..." (illust - Noir's last moments) “Was I A Good Brother...?” (illust + text - storycrafting for Noir) “That’s…Funny…”  (illust - Adeleine's notebook) "Blue Penguin Scarves" (illust - Dedede and Noir's Scarf)

"Happy Birthday!" (sketch - Adeleine and Noir)

[Extras - Art (non-canon)] “Full Regalia” (illust - Dark Matter Blade “Gijinka”)  "No Hands Club" (sketch - incredibly short MariPav Crossover) "Looking Over You" (sketch - Angel Noir he's not dead yet!!) "Hell Branch x Apologies" / 2 / 3 (sketch - unexpected crossover!?!) "Games You Play When..." (sketch - the siblings + Steven meme) "Family Wedding?!" (sketch - the siblings + Raquelle/Rimura) "Adeleine meets Dark Matter Painter" (sketch comic) "Noir meets White-Haired Noir" (sketch comic) "Hell Branch x Apologies Returns!" (sketch comic) (Leads to same post as "...AGAIN" below)

"Ending D" (illust - Everyone dies...) "Sempai Noir" (illust - Adeleine draws Noir) "sEmPaI bLaDe" (illust - Gooey draws Noir)

[Extras - Scripts] “Vestige” (script - Susie + Adeleine) "Evil Science" (script - Meta Knight + Susie) "W.Noir and Taranza + Adeleine and Magolor" (scripts) "...AGAIN." (script - Noir in Dream Land 3) (Leads to same post as Hell Branch Returns" above) "Why Does Life Suck?" (more Hell Branch crossover)

"Re_Birthday" (script/sketch - Noir reflects as Adeleine mourns)

[Extras - Asks] "Warning Sign?" (text) "W.Noir and Meta Knight" (text) "What was Gooey...?" (text) "Adeleine, Noir, and 'bullies'" (text) "Noir as Dream Land 3's Dark Matter" (text) "Dark Matter Painter's Light" (reblog; White-Haired Noir lore) "Why hell though?" (text)

[Shiver Siblings Takeover] (For one weekend, I let Adeleine and Noir "answer" any asks about them. White-Haired Noir shows up too. Somewhat non-canon, but surprisingly connected?!?)

Please Send Positive Thoughts to... Which Kirby Adventure... [w/ Sketch] If You Had a Wish-Granting Clock... Food and Warm Clothes Arrive... [w/ Sketch] A Crystal Ball to See the Future - Noir... [Comic] A Crystal Ball to See the Future - W. Noir [Comic] Have You Been to the Forgotten Land... [Comic] (This ^ one is canon to W.Noir btw!) So Zan Roasted Your Sister Online... A Conversation (?) With Marx [Comic] Thanks for the Fun Weekend [w/ Sketch]

#Apologies AU #Adeleine #Dark Matter Swordsman #Noir (human-form DMS) #Gooey Kirby #Kirby #Hooray it finally has its own masterpost! #Now I can stop copy/pasting 100 links per post!! #I added in some missing asks and bonuses for one! #And better organized categories for another!

[desultory-novice]

I just realized: True Arena Magolor (Dess chuckled. "You mean the Dark Matter Wizard?") wouldn't even have the mercy of going to Hell in Apologies.

Also realized why he's called Dark Matter Wizard, not Dark Matter King, despite the corruption artifact being a crown. There can only be one, and it's not you, Mags.

Did you just subtly imply full possession Dark Matter King Dedede in my inbox?! If so, thank you so much, I absolutely love it!

(Yesss, let's take all of Adeleine's precious people from her. That will be "good" for her health. "You're a lot like my brother!" indeed...)

That said, man...I don't think :cough: "Dark Matter Wizard" has the mercy of anything resembling salvation, even in game-verse!

I meant to write about this somewhere but a couple of fans have speculated that the True Arena isn't just a bad end, it's a bad end that takes place specifically after the epilogue. IE: Magolor loses to Mistelteinn and becomes RE:CROWNED. Which would explain why it corrupts him so much faster/why he reaches the point of no return.

No Merry Magoland Hell Branch for him, I-...

Actually, hold up...I've just realized...

(Noir + The Sword count as two.)

#Apologies AU #Magoland Branch AU #Two AUs collide! How shockingly self-indulgent!! #Starting tomorrow I shall post stuff of general interest again #Magolor Soul #Noir (Human-form DMS) #Adeleine #Gooey Kirby #Ribbon Kirby #Dess Sketch Post #Magolor #King Dedede

[desultory-novice]

Before everyone's like, "Damn, Dess, you said you wanted to make Dark Matter Swordsman a tragic bad guy like Queen Sectonia and President Haltmann but Noir's life is implausibly bad???"

Oh trust me, I have various HC that Joronia's life was pretty awful too, going from her happy (?) childhood to "Sectonia."

And I know someone's going to ask, so let me elaborate! XD

In the Dess-verse, the various insectoid species of Popstar were a collection of small, constantly-warring, bloodthirsty nations. Joronia's tiny kingdom was the smallest. She trained from a young age in military and magic arts because unlike the others, she HAD to fight on the frontlines. They didn't have enough power without her.

Her first parasitic bodyswap was not by choice.

The young queen was struck with a mortal wound on the battlefield. Taranza, drawing forth powerful magic he never knew he could harness before the trauma of seeing his best friend bleeding out before his eyes, immediately incapacitated the enemy commander and dragged their healthy body before her as a suitable vessel.

She initially had no intentions of relying on this power. It was Taranza who begged her to do it. For herself, for her people... for him. Please, you can't die, Joronia. She was so weak she couldn't even SEE what she was doing at this point, left to follow bloodborn instincts and half-remembered stories from queens past...

...She wakes up later from death in the very body of the person who tormented and enslaved her people and "killed" her. (Definitely not traumatic. Nope, nope.) A~nd that could be said to be the beginning of her obsession with beauty and bodyswapping.

Taranza would later get her the mirror, of course. He knew it was in some way magical and actually hoped it would help Joronia to always see "her true beauty" regardless of what body she was in. And well, we know how the story played out from that....

(Meanwhile, Max's tragedy wasn't a constant stream of death and body horror happening to HIM - it happened to the people he loved...)

BONUS:

"Why yes, I can be trusted with Kirby characters...!"

Dedede - former lab animal; only survivor of his species Marx - sleep deprivation; uncontrollable mutations Adeleine - raised in a post-apocalypse; dead brother Dark Matter Swordsman - COUGH COUGH COUGH Dark Meta Knight - lover turned into a meatsuit; rendered mute Daroach - lab animal subjected to numerous experiments Magolor - severe, lasting mental and physical trauma Sectonia - forced body-swaps and boatloads of paranoia

(The sad thing is, I'm probably missing several characters! Though I tried to stick to those I'd given non-canonical trauma to. Meta Knight's potential war vet status, and the Haltmanns, the Mages, and Leongar + Fecty's stories are all there on the page, mostly.)

#Kirby #Joronia #Queen Sectonia #Taranza #And a bunch of others but it's mostly about Sectonia #Dess Theories #Long post

[desultory-novice]

Bonus Talk: Storycrafting for Noir and Apologies

So, I keep thinking how funny it is how this whole thing started. I had a chain of ideas at dinner one night: "What if the Master Crown really WAS trying to transform Magolor into Dark Matter? Would he be 'Dark Matter Wizard?' But then, what was Swordsman before he was Swordsman? Hmm. There is that one piece of human concept art he has... and you know...maybe it's the retro anime look or the fact that this series doesn't have hardly any humans in it but he looks just enough like Adeleine that one could think they're related-..."

Back then, "Noir" didn't really exist. I just drew up a quick sketch in Adeleine's notebook that I hope looked recognizably like the human DM concept art. He wasn't in color but given Dark Matter's palette, he probably would have had dark hair, and poring through the wiki - I found at least one Dark Matter incarnation with a purple eye. I also had Ado drop a line that her brother was "bad at making friends" because of that one JP guide and that was IT.

But then... I thought it was sad to draw this poor guy only to kill him off in the backstory without even fleshing out what he looked like (and I was afraid Adeleine's pencil sketch made him look blond XD) so I drew up a quick color pic of him, rendering Swordsman's gear as a normal scarf and coat. Before thecrashman said anything, I hadn't even considered the two of them as living on Shiver Star!

As soon as he said that though, everything started to come together...Now DMS was an overprotective brother taking care of his little sister in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Of course he was. No wonder he couldn't bond with anyone. He was straining under the weight of his responsibilities. He's older. He's supposed to be the protector, so he could never bring himself to tell his kid sister about the things he was going through. He focused on her joy to his own exclusion. A destructive pattern. A fatal flaw for this tragedy.

Twitter readers asked after the first comic how Adeleine's brother even became Dark Matter Swordsman, some suggesting perhaps it was because he died in battle against Zero? I thought a big human-led global effort against Zero and Dark Matter seemed too complicated in scope, so my solution was to go back to where this idea started: he would be the same as Magolor - looped in by a bad ancient artifact that parasitized him before he knew what was happening. Only he doesn't have a Kirby to save him...

At this point, I had to give him a name. I wanted something French-sounding, so he sounded good alongside Adeleine, and remembering the origin of Adeleine's name, I thought to choose something in FL-ese. I combed the lyrics of "Welcome to the New World" back and forth in both English and Japanese. (I was lucky as the song is sung as a one-to-one Japanese audio cypher and I speak Japanese.)

It wasn't easy though. I wanted a "strong" word but almost everything in there was about food or naps. XD I finally found a phrase in the Japanese lyrics, "邪魔できない"/"unable to be interrupted"/"unstoppable" and matched it to FL-ese.

Noruruwa. Sounds kinda like "Noir." And with Dark Matter being "Matiere Noire" in French, well, it seemed all too perfect...!

The rest all flowed pretty naturally from there. If our setting is Shiver Star and Shiver Star exists at the same time as the New World, and it resembles our Earth's globe while the New World doesn't, perhaps Shiver is an "abandoned earth"? One with an angry, betrayed populace and two kids doomed by birth to die a cold, miserable death in a place utterly neglected by the rest of humanity.

Now "Noir" had a good reason to seek out the power that would be his undoing. While I'm at it, why not tell the story of how Adeleine gets her brush? That's magical(?) too. It's no Drawcia's Paintbrush, but neither is Dark Matter Blade equal to Galaxia. So now, we've got the idea for "off-brand artifacts" - found in an abandoned exhibit, perhaps? Maybe Noir wants to get Adeleine a present? He grabs the sword on the way out without even thinking because...it's a dangerous world out and he's got a young sibling to look after.

(Although, similar to the Master Crown, it's hard to say whether it was originally entirely his choice to pick it up...or the sword's.)

But wait, why do the artifacts do the bad things they do? Now that I'd introduced the New World into this story, I had Fecto Elfilis/ID-F86 on the table. The concept that the Shiver Starians were sooo angry at the New Worlders when for all we knew, the New Worlders weren't even ALIVE anymore made me think, "Do we really expect powerful, angry psychic Elfilis was passive that entire time? While they were being tortured? What if...they sabotaged everything?"

I'd already speculated that Elfilis and Void are two of a pair, and you can trace their offshots throughout the entirety of Kirby lore. (If you buy into my Galactic Nova is based on Fecto Elfilis theory.) And seriously, at least half those artifacts have led to serious tragedy. Now, we had a reason for Noir to be doomed by the narrative.

I do HC that everyone who has ever had their soul consumed by an Ancient Artifact had some red in their ledger - and so, I conceived of some for Noir. I didn't and don't ever want to write/draw a "humans are a disease" story, which is why 99~100% of anything "bad" implied to be going on in their lives on Shiver Star is entirely background. That was purposeful for several reasons. One was simply to demonstrate the degrees to which Noir was protecting Adeleine. He would build up more stress and more pain and more trauma while she remains the same throughout. Two is I just didn't want to go into detail about what wretched scenario would force Noir to take another person's life, but it is still a part of his character history.

(I write Kirby fan comics after all! I try to stay within the bounds of what I consider acceptable content to show. Best I can ^^; )

Noir was also just pushed to the brink, despairing in his life and the world around him. He wanted more than anything to escape this life. Of course, Artifacts have this funny way of twisting your wishes in the WORST way. (Screams of joy > screams of pain.) So Noir's artifact transforms itself into a collar he can't remove, with an unspoken time limit to do anything his newfound power could do for him - at the end of which, his body and soul become forfeit to the darkness. Now he has lost all escape routes. Even death only delivers him to a fate of serving Zero, robbed of independent thought and choice and memories of the one bright thing in his life.

Adeleine...

Adeleine still needed to escape though. She has to get to Popstar. This was the most complicated part for me to logic out. In the end, I went with the simplest, quickest, and most brutal method of getting that done. Quietly imply that Noir, resigned to his fate, killed as many people as it took to secure Adeleine safe passage off the planet and then lied to her about everything with a gentle smile.

Perhaps it's because the Dark Matter Blade has affected his mind and dulled any emotional responses the normally gentle (if sharp-tongued) Noir would have to harming people (as again, artifacts tend to twist people in the worst possible ways; Noir is verbally abrasive but his nature is defensive. Now he has only violence to rely on to get his wish) but I also think the look of calmness on his face throughout "Brightest Star", in spite of the blood on his hands, is because he's just honestly happy - relieved, for once in his life - to have at least saved Adeleine. He was already consigned to hell, doomed from a simple mistake born from the desire to do good; to protect. (*) But Adeleine doesn't have to carry either his mistakes or his sins.

His was a character who took everyone onto himself. And he succeeded at that. His and Adeleine's past and their traumas will be buried underneath the unending snowfall of Shiver Star...

...Adeleine departs and Noir dies, his human body dissolved into Dark Matter, rising up into the aether right as the first flakes of snow began their long task of erasing all that has happened...

-

Rest now, Noir...

...it's The Swordsman's turn.

-

-

-

-

(*) I consider Dark Matter Swordsman be in a very small group with Joronia and Max Haltmann as the only sympathetic characters to be permanently dead In Kirby canon. Which is another reason why I crafted Noir's story explicitly to resemble theirs. We had a pair of (potential) lovers whose story ends in tragedy and a father and daughter tragedy but no siblings whose story has ended tragically. By fanon, that's arguably Swordsman and Gooey, but that just made him more fit to be this story's tragic brother figure...

In which case, Noir basically HAD to be someone who had a simple wish (to keep his only family safe) ran afoul of an ancient artifact almost by accident in the midst of trying to do good and suffers an inevitable, horrifying physical and mental transformation that would end with his only option for salvation to be put out of his misery...

Curse you, Dream Land 2! :cries:

[Apologies AU]  “Apologies”  “One Sneeze”  “Summer”  “A Walk in the Snow”  “The Swordsman” “Wonderful Gift” "Damnation" "Salvation" "Unstoppable" "Brightest Star"

[Bonus Illust] “Ugly Scarf”  [Bonus Illust] "That's...Funny..." [Bonus Illust] "Full Regalia" (DMS "Gijinka") [Bonus Illust] "Was I A Good Brother?" [You Are Here] [Bonus Illust] "You Won't Win..." [Relevant] “Vestige” (script-only)

[Bonus Text] Noir Facts!

[Dark Matter Painter AU] "It wasn't supposed to go this way...!" "You're a good knight!" "The Body Remembers"

#Apologies AU #Noir (Human-form DMS) #Dess illust #CW: Angst #CW: Character death #CW: Mild Horror #Long Post #Not sure if people would find my creative process interesting or not but I wrote it up just in case! #Dess Ramblings

[desultory-novice]

Master Post

Call me Dess. I'm an older adult fan and relatively new artist who specializes in light fluff, silly comedy, and tear-your-heart-out angst. Also, long rambling answers to relatively simple questions.

PPS: July 9th is now (un) Official Marxolor Day!

The Big Stuff:

"Marionettes' Pavane" (Gijinka Marxolor / comic) [In Progress] "Apologies" (Dark Matter Swordsman + Adeleine / comic) [On Hold] --"Noir's Field Trip" (Kirby OC Tournament stuff) [In Progress] "Merry Magoland Hell Branch" (Magolor Soul / comic) [Finished] "It Started With a Nightmare" (Noddy Marx / essay) [Finished]

Tags to Know:

#Marxolor - the only Kirby ship I ship with any frequency #Kirby Gijinka - 99.9% of the time used for MariPav stuff #Dess's Crazy Idea - Kirby Fan VN Project (super rare but still ongoing!!) #Noir (Human-form DMS) - the human identity I gave to Dark Matter #Noir Fontaine - (a more specific tag for his Tourney arc)

#Adventures in Novicedom - non-Kirby fandom stuff #Desultory Art - original art

#CW: mild horror - for any canon-compliant body horror & scares #CW: angst - for anything sad, melancholic, or bittersweet

#Desultory Novice #master post #I need to refresh my banner art

[desultory-novice]

I'd gotten a shocking number of asks in over the past few days so it was inevitable I'd hold another... Lightning Round!!

Featuring: King D-Mind, Magolor, Adeleine + Noir, Dark Meta Knight, Sectonia, Dedede, Dark Taranza, Leongar and...

...SPECIAL NECRODEUS THEORY INSIDE!

Edit: OOPS! I meant to set this post up for tonight instead of unleashing it at some ungodly hour of the morning. Amateur mistake. Don't mind if you see me reblog it later when people are awake.

-

Considering regular Dark Mind has some strong callbacks to Nightmare in his design (being a visual melange of Nightmare + Zero) you could believe they were partners/allies/frenemies at one point. It's possible that it was Parallel Dark Mind (because it pretty much as to be the Parallel of Dark Mind, right?) who decided, after possessing Parallel Dedede, that they had surpassed their fellow long-faced wizard rival-friend and stopped answering his calls.

Speaking of friends, I wonder if Parallel Nightmare had any underlings of his own akin to Dark Taranza and Pres. Parallel Susie. Ones that maybe wouldn't stab him in the back? ...Hmm, I wonder where Parallel Magolor and Parallel Marx are right now?

(If they're still vicious trouble makers, I wonder if it was one of them who was like "Oh, you TOTALLY ought to reach out to this guy if you get in trouble." "For sure! The results will be a real spectacle, I bet!")

Haha! I wonder if I could start alternatively calling DMK x DMK (Shadow Dedede vers) DMKx2 or DMKsquared? But now that I think about duplicates and parallel selves (thanks to Crash's ask above) isn't it a little worriesome (/lh) that there are probably MANY "parallel" versions out there? Because again, D-Mind is probably possessing a Parallel Dedede but NOT the Parallel Dedede from Star Allies. And there may also be yet a third Dedede in the Clash verse who isn't possessed by anyone?! I mean, when it comes down to it, "parallel" just means "a universe that turned out differently!"

There could be dozens of "same character" down the line...

I certainly think the potential for this idea is HUGE!

I myself am a fan of Magolor having to confront versions of himself that turned out wrong but the idea that he'd run across a version that was "wrong" but also did HARM to his friends...

Yeah, the "pay for one's sins" guy would definitely step in.

And I agree that is probably how he learned so much about events he wouldn't otherwise be around for. Dark Matter Clone? Susie's Father? Although I feel there's a chance he knew about Joronia from earlier all on his own. After all, he includes an accurate description of her in his weapon's catalogue in his shoppe! (And again, we've got the portraits on the abandoned TDX castle to suggest Magolor and Taranza communicated on some level in the past.)

As for the equipment, it's possible that those were in a way his "redemption" to Kirby - the only Kirby he had access to until he was able to "return to Dream Land" - and so keeping them didn't make sense. They were gifts. I also get the feeling that he doesn't have a huge interesting in physical fighting, and at least half of the gear is swords and axes. (The way he uses his version of the Ultra Sword is very particular and indicates no proficiency in swordsmanship on his part.) But if he really is dimension hopping on a semi-regular basis, he may also just need to keep it in stock at the shop!

Awwww...! Dess will never admit this ask actually got Dess to draw a super quick sketch of Noir as an angel watching over Adeleine from heaven(What even is "heaven" in the Kirby-verse anyway?) right after reading it! Oh fudge, I just admitted to that very thing didn't I?! Nooo! What have I done?! It's so DeviantArt-tier sappy though that I don't want to post it. It's so cliche it would utterly ruin my rep! Definitely don't politely ask me to post it because then I might give in...!!

...A-ahem. But yes, Adeleine will be okay!

As to whether poor, poor Noir will ever learn that for himself, all I can say is... hold out hope for the final two parts of the story!

I feel so embarrassed because I had to go back and look at the pic to realize they were even there. It was completely subconscious on my part. I guess that's the thing about being a novice artist. Sometimes you stumble upon something really cool without even noticing!

But now that you've pointed it out, it's something I think I'd like to keep doing. DMK as a sort of chipping crystal ball is neat~

Despite all that I wrote in my initial post about this...

...I kinda want her to come back too! She was a great tragic villain! And the possibility of a Triple Deluxe remake... it could still happen!

(I mean, we just got Amazing Mirror with modern online multiplayer! It feels like they went the extra mile for that and so I think the Kirby series is still in a good place for receiving (good) fan service!)

Yesss! It is SO good! Big, muscle-guy Dedede being tech-oriented?! It's out of type in the best way! I love that Dedede continually unlocks his potential, both in the changes to his personality but what he's capable of in skill sets too! It is, to me, the reason WHY he is Kirby's rival rather than Meta Knight or another character.

And if Meta Knight pilots a ship anything like he does a car in Dreamy Gear, it's a good thing he isn't the pilot. I wonder if there's a disconnect for him between flying and piloting? Like going from playing a 2D side-scrolling/overhead shooter where "up" is up versus playing one in first-person with reverse camera controls?

Poor Vul must put up with so much...!

It could just be me (I think multiple interpretations are best) but I've always taken Dark Taranza's garb to not as a sign he took over Sectonia's role but as...a form of mourning for her?

Like he dresses and styles himself that way as tribute? So I suppose in that sense, I don't think Mirror Sectonia got corrupted.

Oh boy, I suppose my brief theory there works REALLY well for the people who think main world Sectonia got swapped with her Mirror World self if Dark Taranza "lost" her and then took up her "style."

(Although I also adore your "Mirror Sectonia started crazy and became good" theory too! It's wild in the best of ways!/genuine And just because I saw Dark Taranza as dressing that way doesn't mean Evil King Taranza isn't also an amazing idea!)

Y-You know, my family often catches me on my accidentally using phrases that are maybe a little more coded and/or have different and deeper meanings than I probably intended. ^^;

So :cough: to clarify, I wouldn't necessarily say Leon's worthy of a full on diagnosis, but in his short pre-fight monologue (11 text boxes long) two of those contain a variation on the phrase "left behind."

And two more talk about long-held dreams and years of planning.

It suggests to me that Leon thinks about the animals being left behind by humanity a lot. Which is really interesting when you realize that as the literal King of the Beasts with a pack, nay a whole planet full of animals at his call and the entire run of the natural landscape to their own... he should really WANT for nothing??

Having Humanity ditch would be ideal for an animal-led society. And Leon doesn't specify what he wants the miraculous power for but...I get the feeling he wouldn't mind a chance to sink his teeth into AHEM "talk" to the ex-Forgotten Landers.

Now, whether Leon has felt their being ditched happened enough for it to become a reoccurring condition, uh... I guess Elfilis did shatter his soul and leave him for dead?  But the truth is I probably just exaggerated a wee bit. (But it got me this ask and a chance to talk about Leongar and I love the Beast Pack so it's all good!)

Also, you know, I'm just generally pretty notorious (?!) for reading a LOT (...too much?) characterization into very little! 

Heh. I just know some of you are out there patiently trying to persuade me to become a Necrodeus fan~! XD

That said, I think the idea of him being a "...for the cost of your soul" Devil is very neat. It's a role the Kirby-verse doesn't have currently and could surely benefit from, at least when it comes to interesting interactions with the cast as a whole!

But, heh, you see, I think it's MORE interesting if he's not...!

...BecauseI pored back over the Skull Lord's wiki page for this (I wanted to see if he had some kind of title that would support the "devil" interpretation) and I spotted something that was of EXTREME interest to me given my obsession with the theory that :cough: 

All Ancient Artifacts Corrupt Absolutely!!!

Because Daroach says that the Skullys as a whole "changed" noticeably AFTER Necrodeus got ahold of shiny new Magic Staff...

Gosh! What's this?! Sudden personality changes associated with the acquisition of a magical artifact?! You don't say!!

And look at the dang thing! I point specifically to the clawed talons clutching the center jewel. Like the talons of a certain crown...?

Also, how else could someone like Necrodeus (no offense to Necrodeus fans) split OUR nearly invincible Kirby into ten weaker copies? ...Sounds like an Ancient Artifact at work to me!

(Necrodeus another victim?! Uh oh, I may become a fan after all!)

Edit: ...Actually, I just got a weird sense of deja vu. Did I write about Necrodeus' staff being a Master Crown-tier object before??

That'd be embarrassing! (I've crested 1k posts though, so it wouldn't be too surprising if I start repeating myself at some point. ^^; )

#Kirby #Dess Quick Asks #Dess Ramblings #Dess Theories

[desultory-novice]

Noir in Pop Star almost gives me Christopher Robin energy, tbh. Him being so tall makes the setting feel even more like living toys.

This made me boot up Star Allies for a quick height comparison of all the characters just to check (which I probably should have done long before now, so thank you for the push) (1) and...

...Yeah, the height difference is pretty crucial XD

Given his size in Swordsman-form, that probably makes Noir the only last boss (2) in the Kirby series to LOSE mass when you fight him XD

-

(1)

Observations: The borbs are SMALL omg. Rick and the others are smaller than I thought too. Daroach just barely edges out Dedede with hat and nearly w/o but Susie almost out-talls them both and without headgear. Gooey and Marx are both a little bigger than the borbs, Gooey more than Marx, but Marx on his ball is probably the tallest character? Definitely stands at eye-level with Adeleine that way which must be...kind of creepy, actually. Ribbon is about half Adeleine's size and Taranza looks down on both Marx and Magolor!

(2)

...Yes XD I'm fully aware "Noir" is just a Kirby OC I made up and attached to Dark Matter Swordsman based off a piece of concept art! But, in the context of the Apologies AU, he IS said last boss.

#With this my art skills have reached rock bottom #No more sketches from me for the moment #Dess Answers Questions #Noir (Human-form DMS) #Noir's hair gets steadily worse the more I draw him #Thanks for pulling the toy thing back in! #And for mentioning Christopher Robin... #...unlocking some nostalgic childhood memories!

[desultory-novice]

Is it weird how most of my OC’s are villains/antagonists?

And most aren’t even puff balls or already known species but I just go wild, that’s because I’m trying to follow the way kirby games create characters by trying to be more and more creative while always trying to stay on familiar grounds.

Am I going too far? Am I still drawing Kirby characters?

I just don’t know if my designs are that good.

Im kinda saying this because I’ve seen several human OC designs and your “OC” (between “” since I don’t know if a pre transformation character can be called OC) Noir is one of the few human designs I actually think fit into Kirby and is overall one of the best designs I’ve seen without being too different and without being too similar, and I just wanna give tell you “well done”, do you have any advice on how to do that?

First off, you'll never ever hear "Oh, that's weird!" from me about designing antagonists! I think it's great! Everything from the complex emotions that led them to oppose our heroes (betrayal, vengeance, greed, hatred, jealousy, etc etc) to just having cool power sets you can go all out on from the beginning, they've got to be some of the most fun you can have designing characters!

It's definitely tricky to create something new that has the potential to fit in a work without it being a take off of something already in the work. I think part of the reason a lot of OC creators stick with puffballs or some other recognizable form (Magolor-alikes, Elfilin-alikes) is that it gives you a sort of bonus modifier to recognizability? Once you've got that, you can move on to adding all the original details without having to surmount that hurdle of "Does this non-Kirby character still look like they could feasibly be in Kirby?"

Of course, there's nothing wrong with just throwing all that out the window and stylizing your design like whoa! Heck, some actual Kirby characters don't look much like Kirby characters. I think back to Dark Mind, who is awfully cool looking and going by his name really should look like the rest of the Dark Matters but theweird...fire/vein/wires look? Is he part-eyeball part-computer??

He looks more like a riff on a Kirby boss than a Kirby boss. (Which makes that thing in Amphibia - apologies, as I've never watched the show - that looks so much like Dark Mind kinda funny in retrospect because it's a clear Kirby reference, but it references the first Dark Matter-like being to look really different from all the other Dark Matters before him!)

Sometimes, you just have to stick with it! Designing OCs is fun, but I know that for me, the meat is in their story. Can I connect with them emotionally? (Villain or no.) If I can do that, then it doesn't matter to me too much what they look like!

Also, it's totally fine to call Noir an OC, lol! I think that about him myself sometimes. (Dess Secret: I've had to push myself to be courageous every time I post a new Apologies comic because a mean voice in the back of my head says "You know everyone's going to be mad you turned a fan favorite last boss into a sadboy!")

But thank you for saying that. As for tips, well...

One thing I did was I kinda cheated by taking recognizable elements (his scarf + turning his tan cape into a long winter coat) from the character he's based off of. The concept for his hair I also stole off of the settei sheet while focusing on making it look somewhat flame like, so it matched DMS's dark flame hair.

But you can do this kind of "element borrowing" even if you're not making a character who is part of a known species! On that note, I guess that's the other thing I did for him was give him very "Adeleine-like" proportions. I mentioned this vaguely in the lightning round post that it's easier to draw for Apologies than it is to draw for MariPav because I try to keep Gijinka Marx and Magolor as approx. 7-8 heads tall humanoids with reasonable proportions.

In game Adeleine's got a big plate face with wide cartoon eyes and these kinda stick limbs. So, by drawing Noir a little taller, with slightly sharper features, and eyes that have a distinct "shape" to them (Rhombus? Is that the word?) but still those spaghetti limbs and almost child-like hands, he manages to look not too out of place standing alongside Adeleine.

Speaking of Adeleine's design, this last tip is not a solid rule, but simplicity is a great place to start when designing characters! When you mess around with both sprite art and chibi art, you learn quickly that little details (jewelry, markings, filigree, iris patterns, dozens of other things that may FEEL important) aren't going to make it into the finished piece. So choose a few bold things (and bold colors to go with them) that you can count on are always going to show.

To dip into some actual Kirby villains...

I think Nightmare's helmet is... a bit of a mess and I hate hate hate it and hate drawing it (what even is with those...antenna like horns?!) but the distinctive pointed witchy nose he's got and the dramatic chin, plus a body wrapped in a cape that looks like a tornado?! (Natural disasters are SCARY!) Those are all good, clearly visible design elements that say this guy is bad news!

(I refuse to listen to the haters. Nightmare is a good boss!)

One of the things that makes Zero 2 such a compelling boss visually is, of all things, the freakin' band-aid on his head, which is in complete contrast to his surreal, angelic design. But that's what makes it so effective! It doesn't seem to belong. "Wait, bosses can't take boo boos!" but because it's so distracting it draws your eye and your mind begins to think "...Is that to cover the spot where Zero broke out of last time we fought?" People make fun of bosses having "magical weak spots" but they're visually very interesting!

(Of course, it's actually the thorn that's the weak spot...)

Even rounder, friendlier bosses like King Dedede stick to having a few visually striking elements. Design-wise, he's a combination of a penguin (who is blue and yellow, because those colors stand out more than black + white) and a medieval Japanese daimyo. But he wasn't given a kimono until Smash Bros, which is fine as there would be no way to visually show that off till 3D graphics got as good as they did. So what they did give him a big round Japanese obi, which you'll always be able to see on him as well continuing the theme of the three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) on him and keeps his round belly from being entirely monochromatic!

Crowned Magolor/Magolor Soul, one of my favorite boss designs, is interesting because the more details the crown picks up (again, the design informs the character, as it twists around like roots and grows in some plant-like thorns, and this is before we saw it become a tree!) the less detailed Magolor becomes. This is so you don't have too much detail conflicting with each other. Your eye isn't too busy trying to "read" both Magolor and the Crown. And when you remove the crown, Magolor's basically a bouncy ball with a face! But he only needs to be a face because the empty eyes are the element they wanted to highlight, in this case showing his powerlessness.

So, to summarize...

Pick a few colors (remember to work some contrast in there! If you've got a lot of dark, scary colors, try adding something colorful and saturated to throw the viewer off. They can still contribute to the creepiness, even if they're not normally bad guy colors. The haunting orange glow of a jack-o-lantern. A bright, toxic-looking science-green! The purple of the sky as the sun sets and night is upon you...) Pick a few design elements to focus on (Large ones too! You should be able to see the most important parts of your character, even if you shrink them down super small!) and well, uh, I accidentally got ahead of myself. I think this step comes first but also, look to the forms of other Kirby characters, even if you're not making something that's a specific call back to them! Don't take their design, but take their shape. Or parts of their shape. In the sprite art community, we have something called "franken-spriting" where you cut out parts of various sprites you like or want to borrow from and then merge them together or redraw over what you've pieced together.

Finally, don't just show us what they look like: make us understand something about them. Back to Noir ever so briefly - I think that what made him effective as a character is that first time I actually drew him (outside of the sketch in Adeleine's notebook) I'd already informed people who he was and what his fate would be. He wasn't just some drawing of a moody teen with an ugly scarf.

He was an unavoidable tragedy waiting to happen.

(That said, you might not want to tell us all the good stuff in one go. Drop some tantalizing details, not every twist and turn up to the denouement! Something I was always told is "less is more!")

Tell us what to sympathize with, love, or fear about your OCs. The things that make them human - yes, even the eldritch monsters!!! - and hopefully your art will both energize other people and...yourself!

Most importantly, keep at it!

#Dess Answers Questions #Kirby OC #Kind of?? #Dess Text Post #I hope that helps some! #Long Post #It's hard to keep motivated #It's hard not to doubt or talk down to yourself #But the more you let doubts in... #...the more room they have to grow #And they can be the most STUBBORN of weeds #Try talking to yourself about your art like a best friend #Because often enough it's just going to be you in there #Learn to become your best cheerleader... #...not your best critic! #But if you do...remember to 'critique' not 'criticize' #Pretend you're an art teacher... #Did you follow X Y and Z with this piece? #What will you attempt in your next 'lesson?'