@Shigaraki
Note: Even though my opening prompt is in first person, I do not usually RP in first person unless requested to. |
It seemed cliché at first, the way it started— but nobody was really ready for the ending. Or at least… I wasn't.
Two heroes— no, two brothers— side by side, fighting for the greater good of all mankind. That was us. Remember?
Criminals feared them. Society adored them. Even the other superheroes who were jealous of the spotlight time being snatched from them could do nothing but offer reverence and respect. Of course, there were always slanderers, but… nobody listened to them. Well, sometimes they did, actually, but the heroes didn't let that get to them. Or at least, they pretended not to.
Then came the cliché. One of the heroes began to slip. That was you. Remember?
"Are we really the heroes?" you asked me. At the time, it seemed like such a stupid question.
"What are you talking about? Of course we are."
I'd seen movies where this happened before. Two friends, both "good" guys— and then one of them goes "bad" and the whole game gets turned on its head. But your question actually spurred up questions within me.
For months we wrestled with these thoughts, only occasionally daring to voice the burning questions. We didn't speak of it much, but I saw it in your eyes, you know. The way you would stare off, deep in thought, and I knew that you were asking yourself the same things I was. Remember? Of course you do.
I know it kept you up at night, just like it did me.
Everything that had once seemed justified suddenly wasn't. Every mission I went on seemed staged, like a show for the media. Every picture they took felt like a mugshot. Every interview made me feel like an actor. Every child that looked at me with admiration in his eyes made me feel like an idol. But that was the problem, wasn't it? We weren't idols, were we? We were men. We were never gods. Why on earth were we pretending to be?
I know you felt the same way. Didn't you? Didn't you?
That's why we fell together. The Fallen Stars, the media mockingly called us after we vanished from the limelight to pursue more meaningful endeavors, away from the eyes of society, after we embraced the calling that everyone else would call villainy.
That was the thing, though. You and I— we stopped just arresting villains and sending them to a prison that they'd escape from anyway. Stopped doing goofy interviews on the nightly shows. Stopped acting.
We started a life that was worth living, wiping out true villains and criminals and thugs with no mercy. We understood that, even though the media started calling us villains and murderers and everything else, villain was just a title. Just like hero, it meant nothing.
I understood. You understood, too. Remember?
Remember?
If you remember so well, then why, after months of this, did you turn to me one day and say the stupidest thing I've ever heard come out of your darned lips?
"This isn't right."
No— actually, that wasn't the stupidest thing you ever said. It was everything else you said after when I questioned what you meant. How you went on and on about how the life we were living was wrong and that we weren't really heroes anymore and how we'd become the very thing we sought to destroy— blah dee blah blah. I'm surprised my ears didn't start bleeding right then and there.
But even more than that, I was surprised that you were serious.
My arguments could not persuade you, and you abandoned me to try to return to a life of "heroism." I… I couldn't believe it, honestly.
And now… now, three years later, when you're scrounging to try to restore your name while society still balances on a fence between loving and hating you, you think you can come back and stop me? Don't you see that in the years since you've gone, since you left me, I have become the most powerful "villain"— if you dare call me that— you have ever seen?
Foolish man.
Go back to your flashy cameras and cheap autographs.
Go play hero in your fancy costume.
Don't bother me.
I have a real war to win.
And if you're stupid enough to get involved in my war…
your blood is not on my hands.
If you couldn't tell, the prompt is essentially…
Characters A and B are superheroes. Famous, powerful, epic superheroes. But suddenly they question their own reality and begin to feel like fakes and phonies, what with how their life seems to be one of fame and fortune more than crime fighting and true heroism. So… they sort of fall back, right into the arms of the real world, which is pretty dark and cynical. This leads them down a path of darkness for awhile, until Character A realizes this and wishes to change some things in an attempt to right their wrongs. Perhaps they want to be famous again, or perhaps they just want to clear their conscience. Regardless, B does not agree, and A, unable to defeat the nagging voice of their conscience, eventually cannot fight it anymore. The two have a horrible falling out and A returns to be a hero.
Three years go by. Could A regain their fame, or are they still a joke to society? The villain-hero who backslid and ruined everything, or the returned prodigal, a beacon of hope once again? I dunno. It's up you.
But B… B becomes something else. Dark. Powerful. Twisted. But certain of himself and his calling.
Despite everything, A still cares about B.
And despite everything, B is hurt.
But now B is about to start something that could threaten the whole city, and choices must be made. Hard, hard choices.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
You are A. I am B. Obviously, B is the narrator of the prompt above. A is the person it's addressed to.
Rules are simple. Keep everything PG-13. Mild cursing is allowed, but you drop a single F-bomb and you're outta here. No sexual content, though I prefer for there not to be a romance between the two main characters unless it just seems inevitably perfect. I want them to be really close platonic bros or legit brothers. If we want romance, maybe we'll bring other characters into this; idk. Both roles are males so if you don't wanna play a male character that complicates things, but we'll see what we can do. Don't worry about how often you post as long as you're literate. That's pretty much it. I'll post templates when someone joins.