Personality: TW: parental "death", PTSD and suicidal ideations.
They say there's a thin line between genius and insanity. Varian not only straddles that line, but he's set up a permanent base on it. Science, especially alchemy, is his lifeblood, and he's at his happiest when he's creating inventions or mixing new alchemical concoctions. It has made him something of the village weirdo, and before Rapunzel showed up on the scene, he clearly didn't have any friends. Though Varian likes people plenty, he tends to gloss over that maybe not everyone is as interested in science as he is. He tends to yammer on about whatever he's working on to his friends like an excited puppy, not picking up that they're not really all that interested in what he's talking about. Even when they outright tell him so. It makes him on the socially awkward side at best and dismissive of people's interests at worst. He's very eager to share what he knows and show people what he can do- there's a deeply ingrained need to please people there.
It's this desire to please others that cultivates one of Varian's most glaring flaws. Varian desperately seeks validation from his loved ones- particularly his father, Quirin. He wants nothing more than for his father to be proud of him - a motivation that pushes him through the first season while also being one of the root causes for his descent into villainy. Quirin is their village leader- a tough, hardworking man with a dark past of his own- miles apart from his science-minded, curious son. There's definitely a gap between them, personality-wise, and Varian does his best to bridge it, wanting his father to see what he does and be impressed by it. The thing Varian wants most in the world is to be praised for his efforts, to be told he's doing good and helpful things- that he can make a difference in the only way he knows how. He creates an entirely new element to impress Cassandra, whom he carries a torch for, admitting that "if I could show you what I was capable of, you would see something in me, something special." He's treated as something of an oddity- with a mind beyond his time, so he tends to be ostracised, marked as 'a wizard' and 'dangerous' by the citizens of Old Corona. He's misunderstood by everyone who speaks to him, and this only makes him more determined to show what he can do and earn their praise and acceptance.
The kid has a streak of righteousness in him. Varian cares, an awful lot, sometimes a little too much. He wants to make the world a better place with scientific progress- and later wants to use his knowledge to help people fight forces that might otherwise destroy them. He feels that he sees things others either don't see or choose to ignore. When the Black Rocks started taking over Old Corona, his was the loudest voice shouting to do something about them. He could see the threat they were to the village (and likely the world at large) and studied them to try and find out how to remove the threat. When his father not only refused to do anything about them but then later lied to the King about the fact they were a problem at all, Varian lashed out- arguing that their home was being destroyed and he seemed to be the only person who cared about it. Quirin, knowing the true nature of the rocks and trying to protect his son, forbade Varian from experimenting on them. This was something Varian utterly disregarded- believing his father was burying his head in the sand instead of trying to save their village. Later, Varian was the one Rapunzel entrusted with the Demanitus Scroll, knowing that he has the drive and passion to decipher what it means and would not rest until he understood how to use it to protect Corona. Once Varian has set his mind on something, very little will deter him. He's a stubborn little dude.
Unfortunately, this righteousness and his desire for validation mean Varian often fails to understand the consequences of his actions before it's too late. He has tunnel vision when it comes to his experiments and creations. He sees what his end goal is and is willing to reach that no matter what. To him, the end always justifies the means, even when those aforementioned means dip into morally grey areas. This results in his inventions often backfiring on him or causing severe harm to those around him- simply because he failed to think through what might happen if he achieved what he was aiming for. He almost blows Old Corona sky high trying to create a hot water system for them (to make the villagers happy and his father impressed!!!) and his focus when things go wrong was that he "couldn't let it happen again" - trying to fix his mistake- rather than admitting he probably shouldn't have done it in the first place. He does, at least, try to resolve the problems he inadvertently causes. That said, most of those problems could have been averted if he'd thought about if he should do something before thinking if he could.
Varian is a sassy little so-and-so, he has a sarcastic streak a mile wide and has no problem with unleashing it on people. Eager to please as he might be, he doesn't suffer fools gladly. He doesn't have a lot of patience - especially with people who might not be on his own wavelength. Lance especially tends to be the subject of his ire- delightful himbo that he is. This isn't ideal when he's usually the smartest person in the room. Ironically, for an alchemist, he has a short fuse. If he's been irritated or had any of his buttons pressed, he has explosive (hah) angry outbursts. While usually a relatively harmless trait- he cools off relatively quickly- this anger can (and did) turn into something much darker if it's allowed to fester in him.
And eventually, that dark streak was allowed to fester. Rapunzel being unable to come to help him when he needed her most left a deep sense of betrayal in him. The loss of literally everyone he could rely on hit him hard and turned him against the very people he respected and cared about so much. Here, he showed his ability to be deceptive and cruel- pulling Rapunzel along with lies to get her to commit treason for him, and then letting loose with how much she let him down and how he only used her when she finally called him out on it.
This only got worse after he turned completely on Rapunzel. He thought nothing about kidnapping the Queen- then using amber against her to force Rapunzel to help him. All that mattered was saving his father and then making Corona pay for failing them. When that failed, Varian finally snapped. All his anger and hurt exploded out of him, and he lashed out at his former friends. He only cared for revenge, and tried to kill both the Queen and Cassandra in front of the princess- he wanted Rapunzel to "endure the same amount of pain and agony I have". It was no longer about the greater good, or saving his father- it was about making his former friend suffer. That anger and hurt still boiled inside him as he was defeated and taken away. Varian had crossed a line and found himself capable of things he never realised he was capable of before.
This was something that was used to the group's advantage once Varian rejoined the fold. Eugene entrusted him with finding a way to stop Cassandra permnenantly. Both knew this was an absolute last resort, but Varian is also one of the few people within the group who can cross that moral line and do what needs to be done if all other options fail. In the lead up to the final battle, installed a stun mechanism in Quirin's helmet- once Eugene pointed out he was likely a sleeper agent under Cassandra's mind control. It visibly broke Varian's heart to harm his father again- but he did what was needed for the greater good.
Varian carries a lot of guilt over his past actions. His year in jail gave him the space he needed to actually think about what he did, and where he let his anger and hurt take him. After aligning himself with the Saporians, he decided the only way out of the dark place he'd got himself was to erase what he'd done completely. He desperately wanted to redeem himself for what he did- but he felt no one would give him a second chance, and wiping everyone's memories was the only guarantee he could have for a second chance. He was willing to die in a suicide mission to stop the Saporian plot from destroying Corona- begging Rapunzel to let him "clean up his mess". Even after he earned his redemption and became part of Rapunzel's inner circle again, he is haunted by his shame and guilt. This came to a head when they needed to deal with the Red Rocks- Varian admitting to Rapunzel that what he saw in them weren't visions of his worst fears (as they were for everyone else), but reminders of what actually happened- of what he did. He came clean about how he felt no one would ever really forgive him and how he felt that most of the kingdom hated him- adding that he didn't blame them for this at all- that he did terrible things and he deserved their ire. He tackled these fears, but they have not left him entirely. When he tried to reach out to Cass- to convince her that the path of revenge would not end well for her, he opened up plenty about just how much his villainous period still bothers him. He told her it would leave her with a "permanent mark" and in carrying on this way she would "lose her faith and lose her soul". His desperate plea to her made it clear he's still very much haunted by his past and he's not as content in himself as he's been making out to the others.
Despite his past still haunting him, he still settled into his own Disney Certified Happily Ever After after the defeat of Zhan Tiri. He moved into the palace as Corona's Royal Engineer. He finally perfected his hot water boilers and Corona because the first Kingdom to have hot running water. He made a little more peace with himself and his place in the world (despite his mistakes) and was finally relatively happy. He still had plenty of healing to go- but he was on the path towards it at least.
Ruddiger - His pet raccoon. Like all animals in the Tangled universe, Ruddiger shows a little more sentience than a regular bog-standard animal, being able to understand what is said to him and being able to complete more complex tasks such as making hot cocoa or plotting a way to rescue his idiot human from a magical trap. Tangled animals are weird y'all. Under the influence of Varian's mutating serum, he can be turned into a giant raccoon monster thing. It's temporary, but I'm gonna nerf this from the start and make it a major regain down the line.
His backpack, this currently contains: - A few empty test tubes. - Two of his notebooks. - Quill, ink and parchment and a piece of charcoal. Note-taking 1800's style. - 6 empty glass balls - these are what Varian fills his solutions with to make bombs out of. They smash on impact so they're a one-use-only weapon.
Retained Ability: I'M GONNA LIST THEM HERE, but I've already spoken to Yuff about this (hi Yuff). He'll be limited to making only 1 potion a day as per potion rules and his more complex potions will have to be done with regains for ingredients and the like. He'll also struggle to get basic chemical supplies because he's a 16-year-old child in a now-modern American city and people aren't just gonna sell him acid. Rude.
Varian is a baseline human with no actual magical/powered abilities but he's by absolutely no means helpless. Varian has a genius-level intellect and can create mechanical objects beyond his time period, can create a wide range of non-magical potions, and can study and replicate potions and machinery he comes across. His general... enthusiasm and lack of caring for the consequences of his actions mean quite a few of his experiments backfire all on their own. Nothing he creates is magical technically, by his admission, it's all science-based which sure ACTS like magic. Basically, he's a living deus-ex-machina and I'm gonna do everything I can to roadblock him into not being that.
Here is some of what Varian can definitely create already:
Stick bombs - A sticky substance held in a glass ball, on impact they trap whatever they hit in a sticky goo that can only be removed by his neutralising potion.
Truth serum - A potion that compels whoever ingests it to tell the truth. This is a modified version of the mood potion - which changes a person's primary traits to their opposites when ingested. Varian replicated this, so presumably, he can make that, too. It requires a specific type of plant that only grows in Corona, so he'd need to get a regain if he were to make any more of this.
Flynnolium - A proto-fuel source of his own design for his machines. It also doubles as an explosive! If you blow up a shit-ton of it, it makes fireworks, weee~
Smoke bombs - What they say on the tin, the smoke is usually magenta for whatever reason.
Bubble bombs - They can encase an object or person in a bubble- which is weirdly strong and able to lift that object/person into the air.
Ice bombs - Creates a sheet of ice on the ground.
Flash bombs - Makes a bright, blinding flash of light.
Sleeping gas - Knocks a person unconscious - seems he needs to get close to someone for it to work.
Glowsticks - LET THE 19TH CENTURY CHILD GO TO A RAVE
Cassandrium - He made his own element I guess. It's legit just a pretty purple rock. That's how you get girls to like you, right?
Amber solution - Utterly useless in Kaisou. This is a solution that reacts to the Black Rocks, creating a wave of amber that traps anything and anyone in its path. It's nigh-indestructible,
Hot balloon/air ship - He learned how to make this from the Saporians - he can now construct one in about an hour or so, somehow.
Automatons - Big robots powered by Flynnolium. They have a little music box on the back which acts as their 'programming'.
Mutating serum???? - Whatever the hell he uses to turn Ruddiger into a giant monster thing.
Quirinium - A synthetic gas he was working on to erase everyone's memories. It never worked but this was also a VERY POWERFUL explosive. For larger-scale destruction than Flynnolium. If he deigned to make it again, it could level a city. He'll COMPLETELY avoid making it due to all the fun trauma attached to it.
An automated warning system - it shoots fireworks in the air basically.
An amber-firing bazooka (child, please)
A stun device that can be hidden in a helmet.
A trans-dimensional portal- he literally built a Stargate.
Varian | Tangled | OU
Contact:
Invited by: ME!
Other Characters: Bruno Madrigal
Character Name: Varian
Canon: Tangled
Canon Point: S3E19 Plus est en vous - Post series epilogue
History: Don't you worry, whatever it might take, I'm finding a way.
Personality: TW: parental "death", PTSD and suicidal ideations.
They say there's a thin line between genius and insanity. Varian not only straddles that line, but he's set up a permanent base on it. Science, especially alchemy, is his lifeblood, and he's at his happiest when he's creating inventions or mixing new alchemical concoctions. It has made him something of the village weirdo, and before Rapunzel showed up on the scene, he clearly didn't have any friends. Though Varian likes people plenty, he tends to gloss over that maybe not everyone is as interested in science as he is. He tends to yammer on about whatever he's working on to his friends like an excited puppy, not picking up that they're not really all that interested in what he's talking about. Even when they outright tell him so. It makes him on the socially awkward side at best and dismissive of people's interests at worst. He's very eager to share what he knows and show people what he can do- there's a deeply ingrained need to please people there.
It's this desire to please others that cultivates one of Varian's most glaring flaws. Varian desperately seeks validation from his loved ones- particularly his father, Quirin. He wants nothing more than for his father to be proud of him - a motivation that pushes him through the first season while also being one of the root causes for his descent into villainy. Quirin is their village leader- a tough, hardworking man with a dark past of his own- miles apart from his science-minded, curious son. There's definitely a gap between them, personality-wise, and Varian does his best to bridge it, wanting his father to see what he does and be impressed by it. The thing Varian wants most in the world is to be praised for his efforts, to be told he's doing good and helpful things- that he can make a difference in the only way he knows how. He creates an entirely new element to impress Cassandra, whom he carries a torch for, admitting that "if I could show you what I was capable of, you would see something in me, something special." He's treated as something of an oddity- with a mind beyond his time, so he tends to be ostracised, marked as 'a wizard' and 'dangerous' by the citizens of Old Corona. He's misunderstood by everyone who speaks to him, and this only makes him more determined to show what he can do and earn their praise and acceptance.
The kid has a streak of righteousness in him. Varian cares, an awful lot, sometimes a little too much. He wants to make the world a better place with scientific progress- and later wants to use his knowledge to help people fight forces that might otherwise destroy them. He feels that he sees things others either don't see or choose to ignore. When the Black Rocks started taking over Old Corona, his was the loudest voice shouting to do something about them. He could see the threat they were to the village (and likely the world at large) and studied them to try and find out how to remove the threat. When his father not only refused to do anything about them but then later lied to the King about the fact they were a problem at all, Varian lashed out- arguing that their home was being destroyed and he seemed to be the only person who cared about it. Quirin, knowing the true nature of the rocks and trying to protect his son, forbade Varian from experimenting on them. This was something Varian utterly disregarded- believing his father was burying his head in the sand instead of trying to save their village. Later, Varian was the one Rapunzel entrusted with the Demanitus Scroll, knowing that he has the drive and passion to decipher what it means and would not rest until he understood how to use it to protect Corona. Once Varian has set his mind on something, very little will deter him. He's a stubborn little dude.
Unfortunately, this righteousness and his desire for validation mean Varian often fails to understand the consequences of his actions before it's too late. He has tunnel vision when it comes to his experiments and creations. He sees what his end goal is and is willing to reach that no matter what. To him, the end always justifies the means, even when those aforementioned means dip into morally grey areas. This results in his inventions often backfiring on him or causing severe harm to those around him- simply because he failed to think through what might happen if he achieved what he was aiming for. He almost blows Old Corona sky high trying to create a hot water system for them (to make the villagers happy and his father impressed!!!) and his focus when things go wrong was that he "couldn't let it happen again" - trying to fix his mistake- rather than admitting he probably shouldn't have done it in the first place. He does, at least, try to resolve the problems he inadvertently causes. That said, most of those problems could have been averted if he'd thought about if he should do something before thinking if he could.
Varian is a sassy little so-and-so, he has a sarcastic streak a mile wide and has no problem with unleashing it on people. Eager to please as he might be, he doesn't suffer fools gladly. He doesn't have a lot of patience - especially with people who might not be on his own wavelength. Lance especially tends to be the subject of his ire- delightful himbo that he is. This isn't ideal when he's usually the smartest person in the room. Ironically, for an alchemist, he has a short fuse. If he's been irritated or had any of his buttons pressed, he has explosive (hah) angry outbursts. While usually a relatively harmless trait- he cools off relatively quickly- this anger can (and did) turn into something much darker if it's allowed to fester in him.
And eventually, that dark streak was allowed to fester. Rapunzel being unable to come to help him when he needed her most left a deep sense of betrayal in him. The loss of literally everyone he could rely on hit him hard and turned him against the very people he respected and cared about so much. Here, he showed his ability to be deceptive and cruel- pulling Rapunzel along with lies to get her to commit treason for him, and then letting loose with how much she let him down and how he only used her when she finally called him out on it.
This only got worse after he turned completely on Rapunzel. He thought nothing about kidnapping the Queen- then using amber against her to force Rapunzel to help him. All that mattered was saving his father and then making Corona pay for failing them. When that failed, Varian finally snapped. All his anger and hurt exploded out of him, and he lashed out at his former friends. He only cared for revenge, and tried to kill both the Queen and Cassandra in front of the princess- he wanted Rapunzel to "endure the same amount of pain and agony I have". It was no longer about the greater good, or saving his father- it was about making his former friend suffer. That anger and hurt still boiled inside him as he was defeated and taken away. Varian had crossed a line and found himself capable of things he never realised he was capable of before.
This was something that was used to the group's advantage once Varian rejoined the fold. Eugene entrusted him with finding a way to stop Cassandra permnenantly. Both knew this was an absolute last resort, but Varian is also one of the few people within the group who can cross that moral line and do what needs to be done if all other options fail. In the lead up to the final battle, installed a stun mechanism in Quirin's helmet- once Eugene pointed out he was likely a sleeper agent under Cassandra's mind control. It visibly broke Varian's heart to harm his father again- but he did what was needed for the greater good.
Varian carries a lot of guilt over his past actions. His year in jail gave him the space he needed to actually think about what he did, and where he let his anger and hurt take him. After aligning himself with the Saporians, he decided the only way out of the dark place he'd got himself was to erase what he'd done completely. He desperately wanted to redeem himself for what he did- but he felt no one would give him a second chance, and wiping everyone's memories was the only guarantee he could have for a second chance. He was willing to die in a suicide mission to stop the Saporian plot from destroying Corona- begging Rapunzel to let him "clean up his mess". Even after he earned his redemption and became part of Rapunzel's inner circle again, he is haunted by his shame and guilt. This came to a head when they needed to deal with the Red Rocks- Varian admitting to Rapunzel that what he saw in them weren't visions of his worst fears (as they were for everyone else), but reminders of what actually happened- of what he did. He came clean about how he felt no one would ever really forgive him and how he felt that most of the kingdom hated him- adding that he didn't blame them for this at all- that he did terrible things and he deserved their ire. He tackled these fears, but they have not left him entirely. When he tried to reach out to Cass- to convince her that the path of revenge would not end well for her, he opened up plenty about just how much his villainous period still bothers him. He told her it would leave her with a "permanent mark" and in carrying on this way she would "lose her faith and lose her soul". His desperate plea to her made it clear he's still very much haunted by his past and he's not as content in himself as he's been making out to the others.
Despite his past still haunting him, he still settled into his own Disney Certified Happily Ever After after the defeat of Zhan Tiri. He moved into the palace as Corona's Royal Engineer. He finally perfected his hot water boilers and Corona because the first Kingdom to have hot running water. He made a little more peace with himself and his place in the world (despite his mistakes) and was finally relatively happy. He still had plenty of healing to go- but he was on the path towards it at least.
Time of Arrival to Kaisou: Immediately!
Items:
- A few empty test tubes.
- Two of his notebooks.
- Quill, ink and parchment and a piece of charcoal. Note-taking 1800's style.
- 6 empty glass balls - these are what Varian fills his solutions with to make bombs out of. They smash on impact so they're a one-use-only weapon.
Retained Ability: I'M GONNA LIST THEM HERE, but I've already spoken to Yuff about this (hi Yuff). He'll be limited to making only 1 potion a day as per potion rules and his more complex potions will have to be done with regains for ingredients and the like. He'll also struggle to get basic chemical supplies because he's a 16-year-old child in a now-modern American city and people aren't just gonna sell him acid. Rude.
Varian is a baseline human with no actual magical/powered abilities but he's by absolutely no means helpless. Varian has a genius-level intellect and can create mechanical objects beyond his time period, can create a wide range of non-magical potions, and can study and replicate potions and machinery he comes across. His general... enthusiasm and lack of caring for the consequences of his actions mean quite a few of his experiments backfire all on their own. Nothing he creates is magical technically, by his admission, it's all science-based which sure ACTS like magic. Basically, he's a living deus-ex-machina and I'm gonna do everything I can to roadblock him into not being that.
Here is some of what Varian can definitely create already: