V1-RS (Patreon)

Chai should not have said he was afraid of spiders. Especially robot spiders.

Because I was listening.

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All in all... V1-RS not the best-written villain, no denying that. He has all the narrative depth and complexity of a rabid dog. But considering he is one of the aspects of the story I made up as I went, I don't think he came out too bad. He didn't have a backstory at first, he couldn't talk either. He was just another mindless machine taken in by a computer virus. 

I changed it as I was drawing page 24.  Everything that came after wasn't in the original script. He wasn't planned. He was pure improv. V1-RS just kind of... came into being as the story progressed. The fact that he was made by Roxanne? I added that as I was drawing that very page. V1-RS mimicking voices? That simply seemed like a fun thing to do in the moment. His ability to repair himself? That's just what my hands happened to draw when I storyboarded those pages so long ago.

Although this could have gone disastrously wrong... somehow it all worked out? Cause like...

The thing that made Chai a force to be reckoned with in the game wasn't his musical robot powers but his cockroach-like ability to survive whatever the baddies threw at him. Every time they thought they got him, he was back 5 minutes later to smash up another department. That made Chai scary. That, his out-of-the-box thinking, and his ability to call upon his allies.

Giving all those same qualities to V1-RS makes him a frightening villain. Let Chai have a taste of what Vandelay's robots felt when facing him... but with none of the humor or whimsicality.

V1-RS is a "wonderful" accident. It makes me wonder how much better he could have been had I properly planned out this story. But I have no regrets. It's still a fanfiction, after all. I don't need perfection in this case. He made for a fun addition to the comic as he is. 

I think V1-RS proves how much a story can be elevated by sheer force of presentation. If you have to sell a turd, you better glitter the fuck out of it.