did you ever talk about evil!brad? like, whats his deal? why is he evil? tell meeee
Evil!Brad aka Logi while I call him an AU, is actually also Brad in his past (at least in my most commonly used Brad's history). The origin Brad you could say. But obviously there are also AUs where Logi never becomes Brad, or Brad returns to being Logi forcefully or not.
The reason he is the way he is is because of this Pathfinder Demigod called Ymeri, the elemental lord of Fire. Notably, in her stats in Pathfinder 1e, she has the ability to control fire creatures and it notes as flavour text that they instinctively follow her commands.
With Ymeri being particularly warmongery and power hungry, when she took over the plane of fire after getting rid of her rival fire lord, I expanded on this subservient controlling idea. Obviously she has built a large dedication of a cult to herself, and while her influence over fire creatures in general is there, she spread her influence much stronger on those that she had more oversight over within her own (very large) cult. While she had the ability to control, she's (unfortunately) not a true god after all so she couldn't keep Every Fire Being Ever under a direct mind control. Plus that would just be silly, she needed good soldiers who could make good decisions in her wars. Instead she used a combination of her abilities to have a softer and more broad charm of "stay loyal to me" over them, and combined with her status to be able to change the narrative and build propaganda around her, she builds her army who will unquestioningly serve her. Even if her charm over them would break at any moment, its the sort of subtle blanket of an enchantment that they likely won't even realise, because they were used to everything else anyway. And Logi was born and raised within this environment.
Thus it is 'easy' to see why he's evil. All his life he's worked in the service of a God (demigod, but she doesn't like that narrative), how much she loves him, how much she could destroy him, this mix of adoration and terror, and I mean she also gets to feed him things that fire beings love doing. Few better outlets for your natural desire to burn than to destroy dissenters and those pesky earth elementals 😊
And thus it continues as is, Logi was rising in the ranks in the cult/army and was definitely in the position to start becoming a general or tactician.
For the AUs where he didnt stay Logi forever, there were various very specific situations that led to Logi suddenly breaking free and fleeing, which then had him take up the name of Brad and his extremely fake personality to cover up the guilt and shame and fear of what he'd done. But one doesnt escape Ymeri so easily. And while she initially did not care or even really notice, and Brad's reception to her weakened when he escaped out of the plane of fire into the mortal realm, he was still connected to her and her desires were still fed through and he had to keep shoving down his desire to return himself. The fact that Brad was an overcorrected mask while Logi didn't have proper free will also fed into a lot of issues for him where he couldn't figure out which side of him was real (the answer: neither!!!)
As Brad grew stronger she gained a vested interest in getting him back, a useful asset. Some other series of events happened largely spurred by the fact that Brad never fucking talked to anyone about his issues and lied all the damn time which landed him back in his home, and he got grabbed right back up by Ymeri who was expecting him and forced him back into Logi, putting him through a sort of rehabilitation. She's not stupid, raw mind control forever had too many potential holes but thankfully she knows exactly the right things to get her toy back in form for her. It's unsustainable and cruel to not let an animal follow their instincts, he'd he much happier in his proper environment...
