-Bloo-,
Xenomorph,
10 years ago
@DD: My version of your history is down below, just go ahead and CTRL+F "DEATHDROP'S HISTORY" to skip the rest of this BS.
@Krio: Dude, you're a regular. Of course you'll be in it at some point, don't worry. However, I'm gonna tell you right now that the only members whose characters get any significant screen time are the staff and clan leaders, old and new. To make up for that, anyone who isn't one of those will still have a fairly important role: Predators will be Council Members (though not Elders) and Aliens will be one of the 50 Lesser Alpha Males (don't let the "Lesser" fool you - they're the same exact thing as canon Alpha Males, and I only call them that because I made up an even stronger type of Alpha Male).
@DW: I know this wasn't 100% serious, but I gotta give you an honest answer: Absolutely. (That was the short answer, feel free to not read the rest of it.)
It's a story about 4 19-year-old girls who are really close. To people who don't know any better, that just screams "LESBIANS." And if it doesn't, this should: 2 of them ARE gay, for each other. (For anyone curious, it's Sarah, the redhead, and Kiira, the blonde.)
I know this is risky, but this is an incredibly experimental work, so it CAN be. I guess you could say a major thing is "The Power of Love," but classifying it like that just makes all sorts of implications that aren't true, like "Wow, another useless love story," or, "Pointless romance in a story that doesn't need it..."
The point of making them gay was not for the sake of fanservice, it was to counter the cold, instinct-driven/loveless nature of the Xenomorphs, and to advance their character development. However, even saying THAT makes it sound like fanservice, because it sounds like I'm saying "In order for girls to grow up, they need romantic love, and for them to be useful, they need to be lesbians." That's not what it is at all.
They could have been 2 dudes and it would have been exactly the same, except I wanted 2 girls for 2 reasons: I've always wanted women better represented in leading/action roles, so I'm gonna try to do it myself. Also, at its core, the story of Alien is one about women. Ripley versus the Giger Drone's reproducing, Ripley versus the Acheron Queen, Ripley versus her "pregnancy" with the new Queen, Ripley and her clones, Ripley and her "daughter" Newt, etc. I want to continue that trend without relying on Ripley, like the rest of the Expanded Universe has.
I think about the sexual aspect of this comic a lot because it's a story about rape monsters. I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from Giger. Of COURSE sex will be a dominant theme. It's going to be hard to find a balance between fanservice and maturity. Are they lesbians for the sake of it? Of course not. Are they 19-year-olds who like having sex? Name me a 19-year-old that DOESN'T. They're strong women, but that doesn't mean they're not allowed to be "girly" or enjoy sex.
And besides, they don't start out in a relationship. They're 2 nearly broken individuals who have been led to believe all their lives that love - romantic or otherwise - is either fake, or will never exist for them (one of them was sexually assaulted in a society where rape is unheard of, and the other has two parents that don't love each other and just use their child to get back at each other).
Their friendship in each other and with the other 2 girls is the first time they've really had anything like that. Those two admitting they love each other happens during one of the most intense points in the story. I mean, shit, those two loving ANYTHING, romantically or not, is a big deal. I could have made this a story between a girl and her dog, but it HAD to be a romantic relationship that involved real, passionate/sexual affection, in order to both counter and magnify the harsh reality of the Xenomorphs.
I guess you could simplify it like this: The Xenos represent the world in general where rape and bad parents* are abundant, while the 2 girls represent the fact that good still exists, no matter how small it is.
*Yes, the Xenos have bad parents. I'm not talking about the Queens or Empresses, and Queen Mothers don't exist here. Rather, it's a single parent, and he's the biggest asshole in all of time and space.
Anyway, here's DEATHDROP'S HISTORY.
There's a FEW things I need to cover before you dive into it. First of all, Predators have a variety of blood colors with green being the most common. Colors come from the Electromagnetic Spectrum, with red at the very bottom and purple at the very top. This is really important, and you'll see why. (Yes, DH, this is a reference to Homestuck. There's no bloodcastes, though.)
Second, in my Predator culture, ranks are NOT predetermined by blood color, but for some reason, there's elitism amongst the higher-ups simply because the colors happen to be "ranked" on the Electromagnetic Spectrum.
Third, Predators don't typically know what their ancestry is unless they're part of an important bloodline (meaning their color is somehow important). No one with green blood knows their parents or family. Purple blood is one of the few blood colors allowed to know their ancestry, because it's said that the very first (and strongest) Predators had purple blood, and so they want to continue and preserve that lineage. Red blood is extremely rare and is seen as a mutation of sorts. This wasn't so bad before, but the current Council has made it a big deal to consider red blood "disgraceful," which created racism.
Fourth, "God" and "Goddess" are ranks, and Predators seen in canon as legends are now actual Predators, although they're still legendary.
Fifth, all of these words/names are human-given or are translated by the Predators themselves into what they believe to be the closest English translation. We will never find out what the real words are.
Finally,, the higher you go on the spectrum, the longer the Predator's lifespan is. Redbloods live about 500-10,000 years. Purples live a really fucking long time.
NOW THEN...
Deathdrop is the name of DD Jr. His father's name is Deathgaze/Deathguise, named after a recurring and notorious asshole-boss from Final Fantasy. They're one of the few bloodlines allowed to keep family. The reason DD and his father get to keep their lineage is because Deathguise was born in the Purple Blood family, which happens to be the same bloodline of the Gods of Death, one of the very first Predators (alongside the Gods of Space, Time, etc). In fact, Deathguise (and, by extension, DD) was set to eventually become the next God of Death, after his ancestors died out. The current God of Death, an Elder named Lich, is only the second EVER in Yautja history.
The Goddess of Death is Cetanu, because I like the theory that she was a woman rather than a man. Cetanu was the very first in the Purple bloodline, and is the one of the oldest living Predators, only younger than Steiner, the God of Time, and Cherubim, the Goddess of Space (named after Steins;Gate, and the Cherub named Calliope). Cetanu is just as old as Chaos, the God of Memoria ("Memoria" being the human-given name of the Predator homeworld, which I'll explain more later). PREDATORv2 is the God of Life (only the 2nd of his kind), and so on.
"God" is a rank, and "Death" is an aspect; [Rank] of [Aspect] is how it works. Deathdrop is the Emissary of Death, which is somewhere near the middle of the rank list.
ANYWAY. Deathguise and DD are the youngest Purples. Except, they don't have purple blood. They would, if not for the fact that they have mutant red blood, same color as humans. Despite this, both DG and DD were model hunters and Elder Council members. However, Lich finds out about the blood and isn't too happy (because he's a racist old fuck). Cetanu doesn't care (more on this later). Rather than immediately outing Deathguise, Lich waits centuries to humiliate DG in the perfect moment.
During The Invasion on Earth (in which only 100 Predators survived), Lich finds that opportunity: a notoriously large Predalien has been murdering a large number of Predators sent to kill it. Predaliens are seen as abominations, and they're feared by Predators. Naturally, Lich blackmails DG and DD into fighting the Predalien. Should they refuse, he would reveal their blood color. They couldn't refuse.
And, of course, this Predalien turned out to be Fire Hunter. FH wasn't the one who gave them trouble, though - what DG didn't count on was one of the 7 Empresses to also partake in the fight (the Empress called Majora, who represents Wrath). The only reason they lived was because they ran from the fight, knowing even one of the Gods would have trouble with FH. So when they returned to the council, they were universally mocked for having run from a hunt. Both were expelled by Lich, who revealed their blood color anyway. Lich's reasoning was that he did NOT want a "mutant freak" to continue the Death line.
DD and DG had all of their technology taken, and so they traveled Earth, gathering scraps to use as weapons and armor. DD was fine because he knew his father was set up, but the humilation caused DG to enter a downward spiral. He would constantly draw Majora's face, calling it a "Demon" (because Empresses don't look like typical Xenos, nor do they look like Queens). He began injecting himself with an incredible amount of drugs, wasting his life away as DD could only watch. DG became obsessed with finding Majora just so he could either kill it or finally die. He even modeled his new mask after Majora, resulting in the mask you see up there. DD went maskless, as he disliked the feel of them.
Even after searching the Earth for Fire Hunter and Majora for years, he could never find them. He quietly died by overdose at his son's side.
Deathdrop would forever wear his mask after that, never taking it off under any circumstance except to eat, and he would always eat in private. He felt like a failure, and so he joined the likes of The Doctor and Predatorv2, who were fighting against Lich in the Predator Civil War (in which The Doctor's side had a mere 18, while Lich's side had over 80).
By the beginning of the story, Deathdrop is angry and hate-filled, bent on killing all the "Badbloods," as well as the Demon that plagued his father's last moments. He only does things for himself and only uses the other "Dragon Heads" to achieve things that would benefit his goals. He also initially hates humans for having the same "freak blood color," but doesn't kill them out of respect to Doc's wishes.
Each human character has a Predator that they "connect" with, and Deathdrop is the one that connects with Sarah, main character. His character development comes along when he realizes that Sarah is in a situation similar to his: she was sent to die right after she was born just because she was a "freak" (she's African/Japanese, but is albino, and her mother is one of the major villains), and her father (Jim) was banished because he was framed for something he didn't do.
He eventually has to face Fire Hunter again, of course. And this time, after 1000 years of experience, they have one of the biggest showdowns in the story. Deathdrop is filled with 1000 years of anger, and Fire Hunter is the Continental Alpha Male of Wrath.
What's different about it this time, though, is that he's not fighting for himself - he's fighting to stall for the main characters and other Predators, something he would have never done before. He's in complete control of his anger while fighting Fire Hunter, who's still an instinct-driven rage machine. Because of that, he's able to kill the last Predalien and bury his father's mask.
Fire Hunter is the first of the 7 "Continental" Alpha Males to die. There's still Donut, Vampyrik, Killswitch, Iseijin, Crow, and Dave. (I thought I'd mention that Doc and Dave fight. Just saying.)
Eventually, Deathdrop fights Majora with help from Cetanu. This is because Cetanu also has red blood. Not only that, but she was absent for those 1000 years because she couldn't deal with Lich's bullshit.
Let me know what you think. Collaborate with me, man.