Zelos Wilder (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
presidentheartbeat) wrote2019-04-18 09:49 pm
presidentheartbeat) wrote2019-04-18 09:49 pm
A breakdown on how the fuck I write/RP Zelos I guess?
Hi what's up I Guess I just wanted to explain the muse because it sounded like a good idea at the time so here we are. Now buckle up cowboys we are in for a ride
Now I'm gonna be the first to admit that Zelos is a bit of a goddamn enigma wrapped in several layers of deflection and red herrings that I haven't even started to completely peel apart like the onion he is, but what I've got so far I've gotten out of watching his actions and listening to his speech in both game and OVA and maybe even fic. I'm of the belief that Zelos is an ever-changing character who is hard to pinpoint because he doesn't want to pinpoint anything that he does or thinks himself and because he's not exactly the most normal or healthy person to exist.
Yeah, anyway.
The main things that make up Zelos' character at first glance are four things: his capricious nature, his happy and flirty front, his self-hatred, and his cutting cynicism. Which is funny because these are all like tied to each other at his core, actually, and all serve a purpose and stem from a common trunk. Each point will present itself as I talk about them, but for the sake of my own structure I'll start with the happy and flirty front.
Zelos has a tendency to wear masks to protect himself, and I think his favourite and default is the one with the laugh. He laughs for everything: to deflect, to threaten, for self-assurance, to hurt, to misdirect. Y'see, at the top oh Zelos' priority list when entering a room full of new people is to assert two different sides of himself; the approachable, flirtatious goof, and the confident and dangerous viper that could spring up and bite back at any moment, and he balances both through laughter. Laughter is contagious and disarming, and it's much harder to call someone out for being a threat when they're laughing.
At the same time, though, I still think his need to be in the spotlight is merely just a front and a safety measure in the first place. Zelos' second priority, after putting his hard-to-even-discern duality out there in the open, is to assert himself as of higher or equal standing to the rest of his peers by never shutting the fuck up, always having a quip ready, and slowly gathering data and information from his surroundings by taking advantage of literally any moment of vulnerability or little bits and pieces he can get out of the other person. He's the type to discreetly pry and prod to get what he wants.
That's a thing too: Zelos' mind is a highly analytical one, more mathematical than anything, and he's capable of stringing pieces of a puzzle together and coming to conclusions or hypotheses quite fast. If he knows what he's looking for, then Zelos can read a person like an open book if he so desires. If not, it obviously takes a lot more time, but also his curiosity to figure a puzzle out keeps him going anyway. However Zelos is so desperately interested in figuring out social/moral standings and the way that people tick not just because he wants to plan and strategise for his own later use and gain, but for another two reasons:
For all he likes to pride himself that his mind is analytical and logical, Zelos' biggest, worst flaw is the fact that he is an inherently emotional being, and a very unhealthy one for that matter. Should the control that Zelos has over a situation and/or his understanding of it ever be threatened, he reacts very badly, and rather irrationally, until either the situation is resolved, he manages to personally gain that control back, or until he can enact revenge over it.
Zelos' emotional core is a black and white thing: prone to mood swings, Zelos doesn't just feel an emotion normally, he is intense in his emotions and reactions. He loves passionately, hates ardently, finds boredom to be an emptying feeling, and can switch from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye if his environment pushes him into it. The end result is his uncontrollable emotions and his logical mind are always, constantly at war with each other, and whether or not he fully gives into one or the other depends on many factors but ultimately decides how he acts around others and how he treats himself.
This makes him appear superficially capricious, but the reality is that he is suffering from intense emotions on top of his paranoia and need for control, which, if left unchecked and pushed too far, can have disastrous results, such as when he commits suicide by having Lloyd and co. kill him in the Tower of Salvation. A completely irrational and unhinged impulse followed through to the end, I headcanon his deflection being real in Kratos route as a last-minute choice meant to hurt the others as badly as he was hurting, as well as using them to end his own life in a truly spectacular fashion.
It's no secret that Zelos is a cynic and a nihilist a bit, but I like to believe that the reason behind these is that he is both protecting and harming himself on purpose, as well as using them to push others away through a prickly behaviour that he passes off as a joke since he knows it will piss others off even more. Highly aggressive and irritable (again with the intense emotional responses!), Zelos' prideful and petty nature are things that mix up his friendliness with his anger to create the greatest weapon of all: his silver tongue.
While it's true that he mostly uses his words to deflect and convince, to sneak his way into victory and to get the information that he wants, Zelos also uses his words as a deliberate weapon to hurt and destroy, actions that he may or may not regret after the fact. He's prone to lashing out and becoming hostile to protect himself or to seek self-satisfaction and validation through causing as much pain as he feels, even if at his core Zelos may not want to push others away after all. Irrationally twisting and bending his bonds is something he does when he's at his limits or when he feels a situation slipping out of his control: his logic here is, "if you hurt them and they leave, then that's better than disappointing them and having them leave."
Yeah impulsivity is a big problem for this boy huh.
Another thing, also, is how Zelos uses his body to hide and emphasize his words. Touching someone to distract or deflect, gesturing with his hands to take attention away from--or even redirect it completely to--his face, theatrically changing postures, deliberately changing the way he walks, getting right into someone's personal space. Zelos' physicality is as much of a social weapon as it is a shield for himself, and a quick way to save face should any of his other methods fail.
So yeah. He's pretty great, and I can't think of much more but take this, I think I got what I wanted out.
Thanks for liking my boy
Now I'm gonna be the first to admit that Zelos is a bit of a goddamn enigma wrapped in several layers of deflection and red herrings that I haven't even started to completely peel apart like the onion he is, but what I've got so far I've gotten out of watching his actions and listening to his speech in both game and OVA and maybe even fic. I'm of the belief that Zelos is an ever-changing character who is hard to pinpoint because he doesn't want to pinpoint anything that he does or thinks himself and because he's not exactly the most normal or healthy person to exist.
Yeah, anyway.
The main things that make up Zelos' character at first glance are four things: his capricious nature, his happy and flirty front, his self-hatred, and his cutting cynicism. Which is funny because these are all like tied to each other at his core, actually, and all serve a purpose and stem from a common trunk. Each point will present itself as I talk about them, but for the sake of my own structure I'll start with the happy and flirty front.
Zelos has a tendency to wear masks to protect himself, and I think his favourite and default is the one with the laugh. He laughs for everything: to deflect, to threaten, for self-assurance, to hurt, to misdirect. Y'see, at the top oh Zelos' priority list when entering a room full of new people is to assert two different sides of himself; the approachable, flirtatious goof, and the confident and dangerous viper that could spring up and bite back at any moment, and he balances both through laughter. Laughter is contagious and disarming, and it's much harder to call someone out for being a threat when they're laughing.
At the same time, though, I still think his need to be in the spotlight is merely just a front and a safety measure in the first place. Zelos' second priority, after putting his hard-to-even-discern duality out there in the open, is to assert himself as of higher or equal standing to the rest of his peers by never shutting the fuck up, always having a quip ready, and slowly gathering data and information from his surroundings by taking advantage of literally any moment of vulnerability or little bits and pieces he can get out of the other person. He's the type to discreetly pry and prod to get what he wants.
That's a thing too: Zelos' mind is a highly analytical one, more mathematical than anything, and he's capable of stringing pieces of a puzzle together and coming to conclusions or hypotheses quite fast. If he knows what he's looking for, then Zelos can read a person like an open book if he so desires. If not, it obviously takes a lot more time, but also his curiosity to figure a puzzle out keeps him going anyway. However Zelos is so desperately interested in figuring out social/moral standings and the way that people tick not just because he wants to plan and strategise for his own later use and gain, but for another two reasons:
- He's a deeply paranoid human being who really does not trust anyone and would rather know the ins-and-outs of a person before they even have a chance to gain the upper hand on him, ever.
- He's the type of person who needs to feel like he has at least some semblance of control over a situation in order to feel structured and at peace.
For all he likes to pride himself that his mind is analytical and logical, Zelos' biggest, worst flaw is the fact that he is an inherently emotional being, and a very unhealthy one for that matter. Should the control that Zelos has over a situation and/or his understanding of it ever be threatened, he reacts very badly, and rather irrationally, until either the situation is resolved, he manages to personally gain that control back, or until he can enact revenge over it.
Zelos' emotional core is a black and white thing: prone to mood swings, Zelos doesn't just feel an emotion normally, he is intense in his emotions and reactions. He loves passionately, hates ardently, finds boredom to be an emptying feeling, and can switch from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye if his environment pushes him into it. The end result is his uncontrollable emotions and his logical mind are always, constantly at war with each other, and whether or not he fully gives into one or the other depends on many factors but ultimately decides how he acts around others and how he treats himself.
This makes him appear superficially capricious, but the reality is that he is suffering from intense emotions on top of his paranoia and need for control, which, if left unchecked and pushed too far, can have disastrous results, such as when he commits suicide by having Lloyd and co. kill him in the Tower of Salvation. A completely irrational and unhinged impulse followed through to the end, I headcanon his deflection being real in Kratos route as a last-minute choice meant to hurt the others as badly as he was hurting, as well as using them to end his own life in a truly spectacular fashion.
It's no secret that Zelos is a cynic and a nihilist a bit, but I like to believe that the reason behind these is that he is both protecting and harming himself on purpose, as well as using them to push others away through a prickly behaviour that he passes off as a joke since he knows it will piss others off even more. Highly aggressive and irritable (again with the intense emotional responses!), Zelos' prideful and petty nature are things that mix up his friendliness with his anger to create the greatest weapon of all: his silver tongue.
While it's true that he mostly uses his words to deflect and convince, to sneak his way into victory and to get the information that he wants, Zelos also uses his words as a deliberate weapon to hurt and destroy, actions that he may or may not regret after the fact. He's prone to lashing out and becoming hostile to protect himself or to seek self-satisfaction and validation through causing as much pain as he feels, even if at his core Zelos may not want to push others away after all. Irrationally twisting and bending his bonds is something he does when he's at his limits or when he feels a situation slipping out of his control: his logic here is, "if you hurt them and they leave, then that's better than disappointing them and having them leave."
Yeah impulsivity is a big problem for this boy huh.
Another thing, also, is how Zelos uses his body to hide and emphasize his words. Touching someone to distract or deflect, gesturing with his hands to take attention away from--or even redirect it completely to--his face, theatrically changing postures, deliberately changing the way he walks, getting right into someone's personal space. Zelos' physicality is as much of a social weapon as it is a shield for himself, and a quick way to save face should any of his other methods fail.
So yeah. He's pretty great, and I can't think of much more but take this, I think I got what I wanted out.
Thanks for liking my boy