Broadway Melody of 20XX
Chapters
Chapter 01: Prologue
Chapter 02: High Society
Chapter 03: The Nutty Professor(s)
Chapter 04: You Must Pronounce
Chapter 05: Scoundrels' Epithets
Chapter 06: Upon Which To Repose
Chapter 07: Most Amusing Gents
Chapter 08: It's Called Spunk
Klaus had never been much for the theater; upon seeing the eminently charismatic, almost debonair competition he would have to face in order to land any of the lead roles in any of his high school's offerings, he laid one slightly-too-skeletal hand to the side of his face, which wasn't pimpled but which was stiff with a crust of pale astringent cream, thought about just how much or alternately how little he could extort chess club as a co-curricular on his university applications, and resignedly turned himself to the signup sheet for stage crew.
Yes, he was the only member who insisted on wearing full concert blacks with wingtips instead of a simple black t-shirt and dark jeans (he didn't own a sufficiently scuffy pair of black trainers, only white), and yes, he rubbed thumb against fingertips vigorously before clasping the sweaty hands of the adjoining students when it came their time for bows, but most importantly, Klaus watched.
He studied. He absorbed the archetypes, tried to boil down Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe into a science - and he would have succeeded at it, too, had he not arrived to the stage before the latter half of his penultimate year of secondary schooling, and dropped the damned thing after the former half of his ultimate year of secondary schooling.
What he saw, too, were dramatized, modernized productions, the stuff the old loonies in the pit hired out from the local area would gab to each other was the "PC" version, though he wasn't exactly sure the jokes weren't hitting due to being poorly written - the delivery might just have been flat on all fronts. Oh, many times did Klaus thank the stars that he hadn't actually gone through with auditioning, and buddying up to the oh-so-campish ilk.
At university, he favored orchestra concerts in the main hall over artsy little flings stuffed back into the black box - the kind of thing he could sleep through without worry of actually having to have a coherent throughline opinion thereafter, you see. It wasn't that he was lazy, no, more efficient, and, quite honestly, he preferred a function where he could cough somewhat freely.
So, we arrive at an Aoidos plant whose impression of the theatre included not quite enough diversity of character, and then we arrive somewhat indirectly afterward at the same semi-unimaginative soul who was tasked, in not-quite-dichotomized not-quite-intertwined lead lines, to create entirely universal casts. He proceeded as follows...
high society princess - Melia, Nia
When it came to the first tropish archetype, that of the high society princess, Zanza's genius went a little more middle-of-the-road: a girl whose upbringing gave her a stiff sort of kindness, a kempt sort of sweetness, but whose loyalty was not just a fake, foppish thing. Klaus's outing, however, showed herself to care just exactly none for the situation of it all, instead investing her manners into convictions, her reservations into hesitations, and her love into everyone she met. Perhaps they would comport well together, eventually, when both had advanced beyond the first, unbittered arcing development of their roles.
science boffin - Shulk, Egil, Meyneth, Klaus, Mikhail
Tremendous potential for a player who could twiddle at this or that scientific - boffin buffoonery - and have it be neither comical nor over[t]ly serious lay always at the brisk side of a set. Klaus himself had his academic qualifications take a backseat to godhood, as Zanza, and so it was Zanza who saw these personalities edge to the forefront - Shulk and Egil might well have bonded over their shared passions, had they not been shot to death and war, and Meyneth...well. Mikhail, meanwhile, alone on Alrest as a tinkerer, could merely mimic what the Architect had done.
they/them - Jin, Tyrea
Everyone loves a mystery. The audience will, of course, not notice when a character is referred to in the gender-neutral third person, as a they or a them, but textually, the sterling choice always shines through. Klaus's was Jin, the snow-white ghost of a crimson forgotten memory, and Zanza's was Tyrea, a literal appointed assassin who hid in the shadows not because she was afraid of discerning what lay beyond but because she knew it exactly, and had no intention of altering her perception. Odd, isn't it? That such amorphous identities should appear, or pretend, to be the most certain.
that bastard - Malos, Addam
Zanza had no prototypical bastard man, in fact - none were quite jovial enough to truly grasp the calling. Klaus, at heart, still took up the mantle, bringing two: Malos and Addam both could be considered the type. While the former was only bastardized, born into the world not quite as originally (most purely) intended, the latter was quite literally a bastard, born to a non-royal woman by a married (not to her!) man. The energy? Impeccable. Inmitable. On both fronts, almost made by design to frustrate with sheer unwonted avuncularity. And worry not, in the end both found extraparental love.
furry footrest - Riki, Dromarch
What have we so far? A pallid selection of leads, a handful of side characters, an antagonist or two...we're missing, then, some prior-generation advice to be dispensed from the mouths of creatures better suited to set-dressing than to actually advancing the plot. You know it by now: Zanza had Riki. Klaus had Dromarch. The directors needed not war, as one was a cat-butler who just wanted pets, and the other was a feather-father who nearly always demanded cuddles. Yes, you read that right. There was narrative significance (though not much) in these furry footrests - the very best of support.
funny little guy - Rex, Tora, Kino
Just as the last installment was not one of pure comic relief, so the funny little guys found herein are far from simply joke characters. Rex, a juvenile foil to Klaus's aged folly, was simply meant to be trying his best, and if we had a chuckle at the times when his efforts fell through, no one would fault us - Tora, too, along that road to hell. And oh, Kino, that adorable little fellow, that sweet little man...no, he wasn't meant to make us laugh, only smile, even though brought into the fold and our attention after Zanza's defeat.
little scamp - Lora, Nene, Juju, Milton
Finally, we've the spunky fellows, the little scamps with all heart and soul, whose efforts to uplift those around them by their own hands were nothing short of honorable. In the time before Torna fell, and Klaus either watched or didn't, both Lora and Milton had tremendously courageous plans for the future, and they scrapped for them with every sprightly tooth and nail, rarely faltering in significantly risible ways. Juju, too (once on his feet, that is), and Nene with fiercest basher in wing...they sought to live for the future, not just change it, and joyfully play their parts.