#tlou kseniya comes off more vulnerable in mannerisms but can probably fuck your shit up worse than tabula rasa kseniya

[woebegonewings]

Also like, trying to not make TLoU AU Kseniya just…wildly overpowered is fucking hard. Because yeah sure, chronic pain and looks visibly infected (meaning anyone with half a brain cell and a gun will shoot on sight) and blind; that all sucks…

…but she can fucking talk to cordyceps. She can talk to the Infected. Her and Pierce run across three Clickers? No problem, just let Kseniya casually walk up to them and make them go away. Because unlike Ellie the Infected read her as one of them, so not only will they not attack her but they’ll treat her like any other Infected. Cordyceps isn’t inherently evil or violent—it’s a fungus, it can’t have morality. It’s doing what every fungus wants to do: survive, propagate, and make more of itself. It just mutated into something that can use humans to do that, not because it hates humanity but just because that’s how it went.

So if Kseniya’s like “yeah no, not a viable host, sorry!” the Clickers will wander off and leave Pierce be.

That is UNBELIEVABLY overpowered in a TLoU context. 50% of the threat to their survival is just…gone! Poof!

#it’s an incredibly interesting inversion from tabula rasa #where kseniya is this unstoppable killing machine and yet utterly helpless in the face of her programming #and by extension hydra/department x #hence why she NEEDS pierce and NEEDS strike so badly in that world #this kseniya can barely use a rifle at the start and can just casually tell zombies to go look for food somewhere else #and she still NEEDS pierce because she does look visibly infected and without someone there to be like NO DON’T would ABSOLUTELY get shot #the second literally anyone came across her #but it’s a need that’s much less desperate than tabula rasa senya #tlou kseniya comes off more vulnerable in mannerisms but can probably fuck your shit up worse than tabula rasa kseniya #especially if i take this to the logical tactical conclusion and have kseniya not only say go away but also go attack those hunters #this can turn into a unstoppable force of post-apocalyptic nature VERY FAST if i let her become that #and that’s without factoring in the side benefits like being able to use the underground fungal network to compensate for her blindness #and know when people are coming because they stepped on some cordyceps #i know the theme of most apocalyptic stories is #humans are the real monsters and shit #but MAN are other people the literal only problem these two have in this context #guess we’re leaning REAL HARD into this theme #tag meta #tabula rasa tlou au #tlou au kseniya