Youjo Senki shitpost

ok listen listen, while i have you i need to implant an idea here

This oversimplifies both character’s motivations and stories a bit but like. do you see what im cooking. the vibes are THERE

like. Being X wants to bring Salaryman to his lowest to see if that suffering will make him a believer. Salaryman's values revolve entirely around his autonomy & free will. so an au where being x reincarnates Salaryman/Tanya into Hallownest as a Vessel, a creature that is meant to have no agency and is generally very doomed

so we'd see HK AU!Tanya (Bugurechaff if you will) trying to survive in this new world, but also slowly learning the lore of this world and what's happened to it. and I think over time, as she discovers who the Radiance is/was, she'd probably realize the similarities between Radiance and Being X and go "Hey wait a damn minute." My thought is she'd have a classic Tanya Misunderstanding Moment and misconstrue the two of them as one entity. Whether this fills her with vengeful rage and she takes it upon herself to destroy the Radiance, thinking Rad is Being X, I'm not sure. I could potentially see it.

some other vague ideas

Tanya's whole shtick is that she wants to achieve a comfortable, safe life where she's free to do whatever she wants. I genuinely believe that after somehow escaping the Birthplace, fighting through the ruins of Hallownest, and eventually coming across the town of Dirtmouth, she'd gladly end her adventure there. Think about it. Dirtmouth is safe, nothing really substantial goes on up there. There's no point for her to go back into the depths if she can just live peacefully there without any problems. There is nothing to stop her from doing this. Like, does she need the Geo to buy a house? No point, the whole town is virtually abandoned, just pick a house and live in it. Elderbug actually says this about Iselda moving in.

I think the point I’m trying to get at here is that if the story will let her, Tanya would probably get complacent. Which means that we'd probably need to find a reason to force her to act if we want her story to go farther than just 'makes it to Dirtmouth, the end' Do you think she'd get bored eventually? What is there to do? As said previously, nothing really goes on there, and there are very few permanent residents.

One way I feel like Tanya could be pushed is in regards to her social motivations. Like. I feel like she needs to be seen as a respected, productive member of society in order to feel fulfilled. I don't think she could get that in Dirtmouth, so the question is: Is this desire enough to overcome her desire for safety?

I think motivating Tanya to get moving and back to exploring (and therefore learning about Hallownest & by extension the Radiance) could be more easily accomplished by giving her companions who drag her outside of her comfort zone. So like. Let's drag more YS characters into HK.

In my head I have the mental image of tiny little vessel Tanya rescuing some other travelers on her way to find a safe place to settle. These travelers being Bug!203rd Battalion (Visha, Weiss, Koenig, Neumann). And she just absolutely destroys whatever was endangering them. And they're so impressed by her they just end up following her like lost puppies.

And like. Vessels can't speak. So she can't just tell them to go away and leave her alone. So she has an entourage now, who at least can help her fight. They also probably tell her about Dirtmouth, and they travel as a group to bring her there.

Maybe after she makes it clear she'd like to live peacefully in Dirtmouth, they end up leaving her. Only to return later when she's gotten restless, new party member in tow (Grantz!), who she helps to train and such.

Also also, Vessels being unable to speak definitely creates problems for both Tanya and the narrative. It has the possibility for hilarity with the good old Tanya Misunderstandings that YS is so good for, but also it creates problems with getting her to interact with people. There would have to be a LOT of charades, characters conveniently bringing up information to her, or conveniently guessing what she's trying to get at, which i feel would be hard to do naturally.

You could perhaps solve this with her meeting someone who can teach her to write or sign? Like Lemm or Quirrel. I think it'd be cute to see Relic Seeker Assistant Tanya with Lemm for a little while. I doubt she'd have an interest in the relics, but he'd probably give her a lot of insight into Hallownest history.

the Type 95 is definitely a charm in this universe. In HK canon, we're told charms are created by a bug's dying wish or something to that effect, so my first thought was that it would be a charm made by HK AU!Schugel's death that Tanya ends up getting her hands on, and then Being X blesses it... But then we also see in HK canon that Leg Eater is able to make his own charms, albeit fragile/easily breakable ones.

so my concept is this: Bug!Schugel creates his own fragile charm. I'm thinking the effect would probably be something revolving around converting infection to usable Soul/Mana (akin to the canon Type 95's Mana fixation thing). So, wandering inventor Schugel, looking for an assistant comes across Dirtmouth! Vessel!Tanya, who's hanging around (probably bored out of her mind and desperately needing to do SOMETHING productive) sees this invention and think it might be useful for the world, happens to have nothing better to do, and gets roped into this. Naturally something goes wrong, and before it fails horribly and disastrously, Being X steps in and blesses the charm. This makes the effect work, but using it also causes the wearer to become more susceptible to mental corruption/infection.

Also, I think that it also needs to become permanently unequippable (Like Void Heart) so Tanya can't get rid of it. Also also, the charm needs to have some insane cheesy name after Being X alters it. Everlasting Blessing. Immortal Prayer. Idk. But it needs to be something Tanya would hate.

I think the Silver Wings Assault Badge could also be a charm. I'm not sure what it's effect might be, but maybe something like the monarch wings, but its powered by Soul. She's an aerial mage. She needs to fly. Also it needs a cheesy charm name too. Fluttering Soul. Wings of Argent. etc. you get what I'm going for.

The Pale King is described a lot as being pure white and gleaming. Vessels, as his offspring, do look a bit similar to him. I think somewhere within this concept, you could have Tanya gain the White Silver nickname based on her appearance. Her mask/head is pale white like PK and when she uses Soul she shines like silver? idk i think it could work. Someone (203rd member perhaps?) sees her fighting and bestows the nickname on her and it gets shortened to just Silver or something

(Before this, since Vessels cant speak so she can't tell anyone what to call her, she gets called "Little One" by Elderbug. She hates it.)