Rain:1345: Lore Dump

Synopsis

Rain describes some of the lore of Black Wings, Kaminari.

Author Notes

This section contains copyrighted content by Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick.

First and foremost, if all that flew over your head, don't sweat it. It's kinda supposed to. You know that moment when you're super nervous but someone says something that even vaguely pertaining to your special interests so you just cling to that and hyperfocus as a means of distracting yourself from your stressors but end up just prattling aimlessly about something that no one but you even understands? That's what Rain's doing.

~~What? Just me?~~ ^^;

That said, while none of it is really important (right now), the idea is that essentially all of Chiaki Koizumi's works, from Birth of the Lilim, to Black Wings Kaminari, and now The Second Prophet seem to all share some larger interconnected universe and history. And the big connecting point, is that over the course of hundreds of years, heroes who are born with this peculiar purple marking on their face come and save the world from some cosmic threat in classic fantasy story fashion. And all of it apparently foretold, by some girl named Lilith, the first to bear this mark, who is regarded as some kind of prophet.

As a fun aside, I've talked in previous blurbs about how Lilith is an old character of mine (in a time before Rain, she was like, my main OC. But all of the other "Lilim" are also actually references to other characters of mine from old sidelined or abandoned stories too (the Lilim thing wasn't part of their original stories, mind, but the characters and ideas are mostly intact). Incidentally, all four can be found on this list of OCs from like nine years ago as of this writing (#34, 55, 82-83, and 88).

Again, this part is not important, but some backstory on each if you wanna hear it:

Cole's from an old game idea where the plot was intentionally super basic, but everything along the way was kinda up to the player: from what kind of person they are, to their gender, to whether they want to save the world, to whether or not they do save the world. Lilim Cole would be portrayed in a similar way where because they're the first and no one was really paying attention to this whole prophecy thing yet, no one really knows anything about Cole's life. Was he a man? Was she a woman? Were they a courageous do-gooder, an aloof anti-hero, or a coward pushed into it against their will? People only really know that they existed, and that they did something important, but the details lost to time and everyone has their own theories.

Victoria's story is from a very dark edgy phase, where all the protagonists were literally in hell. Victoria herself as a protag was a good person who technically didn't belong there, and she tagged along with these terrible sinners who seeked a way to escape, in hopes that she could get some answers to why she was there. Lilim Victoria is a little toned down; as a Prisoner Hero, she's simply wrongly imprisoned for life. And knowing she's destined to save the world due to her mark, she sees this looming threat from her cell and similarly joins up with criminals in an effort to escape and protect everyone.

In Zenn's original story, he's a simple mercenary who prefers to keep to himself, do the job, get paid, and be on his way. But when he gets hired for a seemingly small job with a big payout, he finds himself stranded in an unwelcoming country in the middle of a revolution. He doesn't want to be involved, but he gets swept up in the stories of the people at the bottom, and fights this battle that ultimately has nothing to do with him. I figure Lilim Zenn doesn't really have to change too much.

And Aisha, through a set of strange, comedic circumstances ends up going from a simple commoner to a princess practically overnight... which she is not well-suited to. Though her heart is technically always in the right place, Aisha herself is very vulgar and very violent, and due to her half-demon blood, she is dangerously powerful. Fortunately, some foolish Demon Lord decides to try and crush what is now Aisha's kingdom, whereupon she receives a perfect outlet for all of her frightening power. The original story was more of an over-the-top comedy, but she herself was so fun and interesting, I felt she might make for an interesting Lilim too.

I like to imagine there's a few other Lilim along the way too, between Aisha and Genten (and I probably could pull from more abandoned old stories), but this is already more complicated than it needs to be, so let's just move on.

So, finally Genten (pronounced with a hard G like gold) is original. He's from Black Wings Kaminari (and Kaminari was made up explicitly for Rain). In the Kaminari lore, black-winged individuals were rare, and seen as a curse, and they'd often be taken out as children to prevent some alleged "misfortune". This was because history tells that "one black-winged man tried to overthrow the kingdom". That man, was the Fallen Hero Genten. But the truth was that he worked as an advisor to his king, and the king was actually mad with power. When Genten tried to fulfill his destiny and stop his evil king, he sadly failed and the king called him a traitor to protect his own reputation and decreed the slaughtering of black-winged children.

Over the course of Kaminari's story, she eventually comes to learn the truth and finds herself where Genten once stood challenging her own father, the current king, in an effort to right the wrongs that have persisted entirely too long. Fortunately, Kaminari succeeds. It doesn't erase the horrors that went on in her kingdom for centuries, but she fights very hard to assure it would not happen again.

Finally, there's The Second Prophet. We don't know anything about that, except that Rain seems to like it a lot, and there seems to be another black-winged young lady on the cover (though we only see her left cheek). It's not mentioned here, but I've been calling her Nagisa. We probably won't hear too much more about this (for now).

I guess this blurb has been my own overenthusiastic Rain moment where I just talk for way too long about nothing of any real importance because I saw an outlet. It's messy, and there's a lot of loose ends that might seem to not tie together, but everything's deliberate, and probably way more fleshed out than it needed to be (mostly just because I love this stuff).

TL;DR - Rain puts this weird triangle - the Mark of the Lilim - on her face via makeup while recording. It's a symbol of heroes in the Chiaki Koizumi manga universe which she loves, so it's just kind of a cool homage for her followers.

Anyway, this is probably the longest blurb I've ever written (thank you if you actually took the time to read it!), and I'm not sure how to wrap this up. So, don't forget to stick around after Rain ends, for one of my next comics, My Impossible Soulmate. I bring this up for absolutely no reason in particular.

(wink, wink, nudge) ;P

Transcript

This section contains copyrighted content by Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick.

Aiken Flaherty:

It's something you do for your channel, right? What is it?

Liriel Rain Bryer:

I'm so glad you asked!

Liriel Rain Bryer:

It's actually a reference to all of Chiaki Koizumi's works!

Aiken Flaherty:

_{Uh oh.}

Liriel Rain Bryer:

You see, the mark is first seen on the face of the Prophet, Lilith. Although, she manages to defeat her enemy, the Fallen Angel Sonneillon, he had already set in motion an evil force that would continue to threaten the future of the world for centuries to come.

Liriel Rain Bryer:

But Lilith foretells that there would come a time when heroes would rise to battle the forces of evil, going forward. And those destined heroes are born with this purple mark on their right cheek, as Lilith had.

Liriel Rain Bryer:

These heroes are therefore called Lilim, and believed to be the reincarnation of Lilith herself.

Liriel Rain Bryer:

Now, although Kaminari herself isn't a Lilim, she learns about some of their stories in her own adventure: from the First Hero Cole, to the Prisoner Hero Victoria, to the Merc Hero Zenn, to the Ruthless Hero Aisha, and so on.

Liriel Rain Bryer:

All the way up to the Fallen Hero Genten, a former member of Kaminari's kingdom who actually failed his destiny after being betrayed by his King hundreds of years ago.

Liriel Rain Bryer:

It was actually she who finally fulfilled his destiny, kinda making her like an honorary Lilim.

Liriel Rain Bryer:

And then in Koizumi’s new manga, The Second Prophet...