The Tamaraw Teahouse

The only culinarian posted in the small outpost in the cold far north town of Stalhart, apart from the branch head. He is awkward and quiet, and has very little presence, so people tend to forget about him (including his own boss and the players’ adventuring party). This somehow turns to his advantage when an army from L’ua attacks the town, and he manages to slip away without notice.

Hei was Xave's original main inspo when I first invented him over a decade ago. I've been rewatching Darker than Black on and off since I realized, and I think it still applies. He has this specific brand of gap moe 🤔 Similar reasoning for Sid!

Specifically NEO!Neku who is no longer mean and has matured but the result is that he gives a kinda subdued, depressed vibe 😭

I can't remember like 85% of the character names in Dorohedoro so know that I had to Google something like "guy from dorohedoro whose spit kills people" 😭 That just really stuck with me lmao like seriously, bro can't even smile? Give him a break...he's just a little guy... 😔

Stark for the "lowkey scared, don't want to do it > lock in, look cool, give 200%, almost die > immediately pass out" pipeline

When your RP OC has something going on with another character but she's transfem nb and they're both ace so 🏳️‍🌈 doesn't apply and the other players are not sure what flag to react with 😭

This was just supposed to be a quick doodle fr but when hands are in the picture I have no choice but to lock in 😣

There’s really only two flimsy reasons why this AU occurred to me:

If I had a nickel for every time someone who died in Shibuya underwent a supernatural journey to come back to life, I’d have…three nickels, actually. But let’s put aside that third one for now.

If you do the math, the Frontier cast (who were 11 in 2002-2003) and the TWEWY cast (who were 15 in 2007) are roughly similar in age! Weird to think about. (Ignoring the timeline shift introduced by the TWEWY anime and NEO.)

…I said I wanted to share my AU thoughts, but I don’t really have anything concrete. 😅 Part of why it took me so long to post lol. It’s been over a decade since I played OG TWEWY and I don’t remember much of the lore, especially from Secret Reports. I couldn’t tell you what the plot of a crossover would be. Should it be a regular Reaper’s Game without any proxies or other shenanigans from the higher-ups? 

But I’ll share my random ideas anyway:

Reaper’s Game Format

I can’t decide whether Frontier x TWEWY should follow the original partner format of OG TWEWY or the team format of NEO. I’m inclined towards partners, but it’s difficult to figure out a full Week 1 pair order for the initially odd-numbered Frontier cast.

With Takuya as the protagonist, I figured it would go something like:

Week 1: Tomoki

Week 2: Kouichi (deferring Reaper status like Beat did)

Week 3: Kouji

Incidentally, this setup would mean the twins would never be partners…It’s not really a big deal tho imo

Kouichi

Predictably, I've been thinking mostly of Kouichi’s place as a Reaper in this AU lmao

Kouichi died before everyone else and played a different Reaper’s Game, which he won. He became a Reaper in exchange for the complete erasure of any memory of his existence. From his POV, this meant less of a burden for his mom and no unsolved mysteries for the twin he doesn’t even know. Of course, he would check in on them from time to time from the UG.

Initially, I was imagining he died at 11 in 2002, same as in Frontier, and has been a Reaper ever since. This would theoretically let him have a higher position and a Noise form. I dropped this idea when I realized that…Reapers don't age. Still, here's Velgrmon as Noise:

(Although…we already have a black lion-themed boss Noise. It's kind of funny that Sho’s aesthetic suits Kouichi the most lol)

I was also playing with the idea of him being the one who killed Takuya and/or Kouji as the Composer's proxies, but that's a little fucked up LMAO also not really necessary. The Composer should do their own dirty work smh my head

Other stray thoughts

Considering it’s basically how Frontier was written anyway, would the entrance fee for Week 3 be everyone else, leaving only Takuya and Kouji in the game? (Which is also what happened in TWEWY tbf)

Imagine if Tomoki died (again) and got turned into a cute little (bear) Noise like Rhyme did 😭

This is my friend's character Owen from the FU game I GM! Last session, I sent the party into an illusory dungeon where they were split into two teams on superimposed planes of reality. One team encountered the boss(es) early, and Aylin, the mage who was with Owen, crossed the planes to support them. But this left Owen alone and lost, unable to tank for the party like he usually does.

This sesh was wild and I'm hoping to draw and post more scenes from it to complete the context 🥹

Reference pic from Pinterest: