These were the chapters that properly introduced us to Tail. Given he is such an important "Character" going forward, I felt he deserved the opportunity to have his introduction arc have its own article. So here we are, with Tail's final form looming over the proceedings. I'm here to explain Tail, what he is, why he is that way, and how this story came about. There's quite a bit of stuff to talk about and some misconceptions I really should resolve. It's long overdue, so... might as well start.
The Id Unleashed: First off, Tail was an early concept from the very inception of the story. That RJ's tail had a literal mind of its own, RJ's subconscious mind. At the start, Tail would be helpful and bothersome. Capable of getting things done and protecting RJ, but also clearly at odds with him because it wanted to do its own thing. That thing is usually something very violent. But Tail only gets unruly at a certain point, that being the introduction of Loona which sets something off. After meeting Loona, Tail becomes increasingly hostile and even more violent, to the point it rarely listens to RJ and in fact just wants to cause chaos.
This of course culminates in Chapter 31, when after a full night of basically holding onto Charlie around her waist to keep her from wandering off while love-drunk, Tail throws a tantrum when he's forced to surrender her over to Vaggie. And that's what sets off the events you saw in chapter 32. Where RJ finally discovered his second brain.
The second brain idea was conceived from, as directly quoted in the story, from the outdated scientific theory that dinosaurs possessed two brains to help them with their motor functions. This was because they were just too large to move on their own and the signals from the brain would take forever to reach their limbs. They needed a second brain to help them. This is of course wrong, because that's really not how any brain works. However, even after being proven how inaccurate this concept is, the idea persists in media. And I'm still fascinated by the idea overall. What if dinosaurs DID have two brains? But it wasn't to help them walk? What if it served another function altogether?
That's where the idea to give RJ two brains came in. But one is a copy of his subconscious mind rather than his conscious one. A place where a lot of his deep thoughts, memories and various personality traits dwell. This is the realm of the Id, the psychological concept that are more basic fundamental personal desires, wants, and needs are all managed by a foundational persona within ourselves. First coined by Dr. Sigmund Freud, the Id is a representation of the most selfish, insular aspects of one's persona. A lot of people might tend to call it "The Lizard Brain" online, the impulsive, primal functions of our ancestors that acts on instinct before anything else.
That is what Tail is, he's RJ's Id. He's not a foreign entity, nor is he a wholly different personality, Tail is the Id. In every respect he's still RJ. He's just deeply concerned with what matters to RJ before anything else. That involves self-gratification as well as survival. But when you give the Id more autonomy independent of RJ, the Ego or conscious self in this case, that's when things get weird. Tail is still obligated to keep RJ safe... but he wants something in return and feels RJ is getting in his own way too much. Let's be fair, our dragon hero is doing his best to be considerate and thoughtful, he prefers altruism over selfishness. But at times, Tail feels neglected over RJ never giving them what they both want while all he does is protect RJ. In his mind, it's not a fair relationship.
This culminates in why Tail throws a tantrum. RJ wants Charlie... and he wants Loona. But RJ is dragging his feet on getting with Charlie and not even acknowledging that he has feelings for Loona as well. Tail was reminded of RJ's basic desire to open the polycule up to at least one more candidate when our lovely goth Hellhound showed up. And being denied more time with Charlie was the final straw after being ordered to behave himself while he was wrapped around her. Tail feels under-served, that RJ won't acknowledge or try to get what he wants, and thus he's stuck playing protector for no real gain.
With that in mind, I need to address something else here. The fact that Tail is rather analogous to a lot of things. A multiple personality or DID as it is more clinically known today. That's not what Tail actually is, but he does have similarities to it. Or at least something like it. Specifically, Plural Systems as an Alter.
You might be asking what that is? Is it a fancier term for Dissociative Identity Disorder? To an extent, but it's a bit more complicated than what you might think. Plural Systems are what you get when two or more distinct identities share the same body. These identities are called Alters, and they can be wildly different, yes, but they are a collective. They are aware of one another and they inhabit the same space.
It's hard for me, as someone without this identity to properly explain this, therefore I'm going to link to some material that can help.
https://system-dictionary.carrd.co/#
This was provided to me, and explained to me at great length, by a friend of mine who was kind enough to share their experiences living with alters. Suffice to say, it's not anywhere near what the movies claim. And while they were explaining all of this to me, how the Alters have desires of their own, how they can come in and out at specific times or for specific purposes, that they are fundamentally part of a system they all operate in conjunction with, it all felt very similar to Tail and what I was doing with him. Strangely enough, I had never really heard of this sort of thing and I hadn't told this friend about anything involving Tail. So it struck and eerie cord.
Understanding that, I'm trying my best to keep things along those lines. Tail being so heavily coded as a plural systems alter, despite in story not being one, means I'm obligated to do him justice. That involves one very particular element concerning this arc's resolution. One I shall go over in detail, especially since a few people seem to misunderstand RJ's decision just as much as they have misconceptions about what Tail is.
So that's the rub, Tail is RJ's Id, a fundamental part of who he is as a person. He feels neglected and ignored despite doing so many things to help RJ, for better or for ill. And while he is not an alternate personality or alter, he can be ready and coded in such a way all the same. If you're interested in learning more about Plural Systems and what they're all about, I'd advise you to look into your own research on the topic, or check out the link I've provided.
For now though, its time we discuss the other part of the arc, that being the... Freaky Friday scenario. Where RJ and Tail swap... well, not bodies so much as bodily functions.
Jekyll & Hyde: We have a lot to go over here because I think this was the core concept of why I wanted to do this chapter. Mainly, I felt a lot of body swap, personality swap, or whatever sort of swap stories have a fundamental flaw. No one really seems to notice anything is weird or out of place. And more to the point, it's almost always presented as an Evil Personality or Negative Foreign Invader. It follows the Jekyll & Hyde archetype that is so popular in media, and I don't really agree with it. Not just because the original story is nothing like that, but because I feel its not exactly a healthy outlook. Allow me to explain as we go through the swap portion of the plot.
I felt the need to justify how Tail takes over RJ's mind and shunts him back down to where he used to be rather than just having Charlie do a magic spell wrong. Not only does that place all the blame on Charlie but it's kinda lazy to just say "It's Magic." So I planted the seeds for a long while. That Tail was always trying to do this, or at least be heard. To that end I revealed that it was Tail who took RJ's body for a violent joyride back during the Opium Den chapter. That he wrote the entry in RJ's skills set concerning himself. And some of the more forceful hallucinations were him trying to break through. It was all legwork to set everything up going forward.
Even the mirror conversation, revealing Tail was a thing as far back as the very first chapter, was all set up, pre-planned, from day one. I'm honestly surprised that at least a few people started to understand what Tail possibly was, but that no one really truly got the full scope of it. It was both impressive to watch and a bit scary. I was worried someone would figure it out too quickly. Then what would I do? Stupidly try to change the whole twist at the 11th hour like they did on Game of Thrones? No sir, that's how you get Super Dragon Lady Hitler that Flies!
By the way, I'm putting in now, but Tail's voice very specifically sounds like Jim Cummings' NegaDuck from the animated series "Darkwing Duck." That's not just a joke on the darker alter ego thing, there is sort of an in-joke about it that I'll share more about when I finally make that voice claim video.
Anyway, the conversation between RJ and Tail through the mirror was meant to feel a bit more dreamlike, even ethereal in its nature. What would it be like talking to a part of your psyche in such a way? Basically this in my mind. It enabled me to drop a bunch of lore bits concerning RJ's life, but more importantly it helped establish who Tail is. Not really Hyde, but more akin to the original Alien Symbiote. I made the direct comparison because it was important to the resolution of the story and because it better established what Tail's motives are. He's not here to hurt, RJ, he wants to help him. But the problem is, RJ doesn't like his way of helping people because to him it will just make everyone hate him.
The good news on that front is Tail is terrible at pretending he's RJ. This wasn't just for the obvious subversive joke about people not realizing something is wrong in one of these body swap scenarios. It made the most sense for Tail. The Id isn't great at deceiving you. It is a surprisingly honest part of yourself, telling you exactly what you want and what you need. The only problem comes with how impulsive it can be and how if left unchecked it will get out of control.
So because Tail is supposed to be very blunt with his desires and wants, all his attempts at deception are... well, awful. The second he gets a chance to throw his weight around and act like he feels RJ should, everyone notices the drastic shift in personality. And frankly, this should happen more often. People should spot this sort of shift in their loved ones in the media way sooner than they do. It always makes them look really stupid when they don't notice it. Some can get away with it when the body swap involves a character that limits their interactions with others. Bill Cipher for example in Gravity Falls, he's way better at tricking people.
However, the impetus for how quick Tail fails here is based around one thing in particular, Super Spider-Man. For those who don't know, Superior Spider-Man was a story about Peter Parker getting swapped out into Doctor Octopus' dying body, only for Ock himself to take over his own. In the end, instead of reverting to the status quo, Peter dies in Ock's body while Ock remains in Peter's, declaring he'll be a better Spider-Man! A Superior Spider-Man! And while I can defend the general idea behind the story, to show why Peter is Spider-Man and deserves that name... the problem is the story went on too long. Way too long. Spider-Ock somehow tricks his friends, his family, his fellow superheroes into thinking nothing is wrong. But that honestly makes zero sense because Ock is fucking awful at pretending he's Peter. He constantly talks like a super villain, is belittling and rude to everyone for not being as smart as him, and repeatedly acts nothing like how Spider-Man would act. Various superheroes guess something is wrong I but just as quickly shrug and ignore it, deciding Spider-Man is just having a bad day.
It's insulting to everyone else's intelligence that no one figured out what was happening.
So this was my answer to that, everyone finds out Tail is pretending to be RJ, pretty instantly. And Alastor knew it from the get go. Proving once again he's the master manipulator and Tail is an amateur to him. Alastor knows RJ well enough to figure out what's going on, even without the familiarity with the headset's radio frequency. The scene also reminded me of a moment in Justice League Unlimited where Gorilla Grodd instantly figures out that the Flash is in Lex Luthor's body and doesn't tell anyone just to watch him squirm. It was nice to swap that around a little on this occasion.
With everything very quickly deteriorating and his plan falling apart, Tail tries to speed things up. Only managing to make it worse. The scene with Angel and Pentious by the way where Pents gets very pedantic about the Jekyll and Hyde story was inspired by Crow mentioning how everyone gets Jekyll's name wrong and how a British person like himself would've likely corrected Angel about it. I expanded it out from there to allude to the ultimate theme of the arc.
As for the confrontations with Vaggie and then Charlie, I needed to be careful there. Tail couldn't come off as a creeper, just angry, maybe forceful, demanding at worst, but I had to make it clear he wasn't going to do anything to Charlie if she said no. That's why he never touches her inappropriately. And why, even if he wants more control in the relationship, he doesn't really hurt Vaggie either. Tail is a jerk, but he's not a monster. He's just RJ without a proper sense of perspective concerning the needs of others. And regardless of anything else, RJ is still who he is at his core. Tail may not admit it, but RJ's values are his own.
He unfortunately just has some very bad influences that he thinks he can modify to fit those parameters. That if RJ just follows a long in a specific way what he thinks will get him what he wants, maybe it will all work out. This is why Tail thinks being more Alpha means just being more confident. He won't Neg women into having sex with him, but he will try to play up being a super sure of himself bad boy that he thinks they want. More on this later.
The line he spouts when he escapes the hotel by the way is from a comedic fandub of Batman Beyond, where a character declares Gamers are the most oppressed group of all. It was a deliberate call back to how often RJ got ragged on for being a gamer during the start of the fanfic. And while that's not exactly gone, it will be something that comes up as time goes on. I just didn't want it to wear out its welcome with overuse.
The Sweating Bullets mind fight sequence was one of the more technically involved sequences to write out. It was probably the most nightmare fueled imagery I've shoved into any of these numbers, and involving RJ basically fighting himself took it to another level. There's also a lot of little lore bits concerning RJ's history in there. Particularly the school section where RJ is particularly tormented. I actually really enjoyed writing this part the most, specifically because Sweating Bullets is one of my favorite songs and it perfectly encapsulated the dilemma RJ was facing with Tail. In that he's basically his own worst enemy in a very literal way.
The ending part where RJ's narration stops in the middle of him recounting what happened to him as he sunk down and Tail emerges as the new narrator, setting things up for the very next chapter.
Tail's Grand Day Out: Tail taking over the narration was an idea I came up with to switch things up. We rarely get a perspective outside of RJ's due to the first person narrative. But Tail was now in the driver's seat and RJ was out of commission. So it made sense to give him the narration wheel for a bit. Mostly so he can show why RJ is the way he is and how much more annoying it would be if he was just a show offy jerk. As Tail pointed out, he wanted to be an Isekai protagonist. The kind of character who gets to live out a massive power fantasy because he's able to cheat at the game somehow. Tail's representation here tells you what I think of that story premise.
Namely if it was in any way realistic, these jerkwads wouldn't be going around trying to conquer the world or even try to change it. Hell, I even think the whole "Get Revenge on the hero party that betrayed me" is too generous a depiction of these sorts of characters. No, Tail does what anyone with a degree of power like he has does... he goes around picking easy targets that he knows have no chance. All the while being a general nuisance because he can get away with it. All of it. No one is gonna stop him, because no one can. He's not a villain, he's not even a bad boy, or a rebel. He's just a jerk. Mainly because everything he does is mostly self-serving and inherently selfish.
Look at what he does through the Bad to the Bone sequence, mainly harmless pranks at best, disruptive assholery at worst. He doesn't do anything that actually puts him at real risk. He follows Loona's advice certainly by playing into the idea that RJ is a joke and an easy target, but once he's gotten what he's wanted he just flaunts it. Letting out all his aggression and disappointment, everything he feels he's been denied. He's not cruel, he's just giving in to the fact that he's in Hell and therefore it's okay. This isn't a big deal, he's allowed to be a jerk because he's in Hell. Can't do worse than that. The mentality I imagine most Sinners have.
Coming up with stupid things for Tail to pull took a bit, because it could never be anything too criminal, but it had to be wrong all the same. It helps a bit that Tail is a very unreliable narrator, so take whatever justification he gives with a grain of salt. Keep in mind though, that he had limits even here. Even when he pushed that kid into his cake, he still gave him some toys in the end. And the joke I'm very proud of, Tail stealing candy with a baby just to prove how he's not that kind of a jerk. I found that funny and a bit endearing.
And yes, I threw in the Runabout meme, if only because Viv herself has referenced the cartoon before and even participated in a re-animate project for it. At least I added my extra punchline to it with the owner being literally right there.
Meanwhile, RJ was feeling down in the dumps, stuck inside his own brain. That led to some more lore of RJ's life, lamenting one of his stupid decisions that he deeply regrets. And then there's the moment where... things get a bit trippy. The narrator starts talking to RJ.
This was an idea I've had for a long time. The narrator talking to the character in the story. In this case, the narrator takes the form of RJ's superego, trying to get him back on the right path. Maybe a bit meaner than usual, but the nature of the story, with RJ stuck in his brain, enabled me to do this and have it make sense. So I went for it. I pulled the weirdest of meta chords and watched it all unfold. It was weird of course in this instance, because the narrator is still RJ and it's now talking to him. So it's a bit stranger than say, an omniscient narrator wholly separate from the protagonist. This is a first person narrative where the narrator speaks to himself. And moreover, that protagonist actually hears his narrative as an internal monologue.
It did get a bit trippy, especially with RJ talking to himself in the middle of dialogue sequences in response to the narrator's replies. Separating the two modes of thought wasn't always the easiest, but I truly think that it came out wonderfully. It's something I'd like to try again, but I also know it's not something you can always do every time.
That hospital scene also was very visceral. Just to be clear, RJ didn't know the kid and was only there for entirely other reasons unrelated to it. But it's still disturbing to be outside an operating room, thinking about what's happening to someone you don't know but are specifically empathetic towards because you can place yourself in their direct shoes. The general idea of that scene was to show you just how much RJ really hates hospitals and that they are kind of nightmare inducing for him. Probably something to store away.
Let's talk about Loona's involvement here for a bit. Because I think it's important to explain why Loona is even entertaining any of this, about going out with RJ, though she doesn't know it's not really RJ. Part of it is the fact she's looking to mend a broken heart after Vortex revealed he had a girlfriend. But a general sense of it, I feel, is the fact RJ genuinely seemed to like her and appreciated her without really asking for anything in return. He didn't flirt with her, he didn't make demands, he was amicable, friendly, just in general a good guy who genuinely felt concerned about her feelings even while he was dealing with own crap. So a this stage, the fact some guy actually wants to hang out with her, Loona of all people, the hellhound with no friends who knows how quickly she pisses everyone off... it's kinda attractive to her.
Unfortunately, she didn't get that RJ this go around, she got the jerky RJ. Who might be a bit more direct with what he wants, even flirty, which isn't unwanted from Loona... but it's not the RJ she likes hanging around. So the whole situation feels... off to her but she doesn't understand why because she doesn't know RJ as much as the Hotel crew. But she sticks around because, well, obviously something is up. Maybe she can help him out like he did for her?
Sadly, Tail really just wants to vent about video games, thinking if he tells Loona all her opinions on stuff she'll find him fascinating. Rather than realize he's kinda making her bored out of her mind because he's not really letting her engage with any of it. You could probably make decent conversation about the Call of Duty games, but definitely not like this and not how Tail is doing it.
Luckily, RJ is on the case, wandering around in a corner of his mind full of his various deep thoughts and memories, categorized here as stacks upon stacks of video game boxes and cases. While this isn't the full extent of RJ's mindscape, it's a particular corner of it that handles a lot of his disparate ideas. The Psychonauts analogy was very intentional here. As was the technical aspect of how RJ gains control of the Tail again. Mainly by playing a video game.
This is when he actually gets into contact with Loona again and properly starts conspiring with her. Here we see how their relationship is supposed to work. With RJ trusting Loona to follow along and Loona showing she cares while still holding her own. They both need to rely on one another. And she takes the whole situation well, even with RJ accidentally complimenting on how good she looks.
There is the question of why RJ contacts Emberlyn here instead of anyone else. Besides the joke? It was the only contact number he could directly see in the HUD when he looked into it. And RJ doesn't really remember numbers, the whole point of putting those into a phone's contact information is so he doesn't have to. So memorizing one contact call out of many is an easier prospect.
More or less, I just wanted an excuse to have Emberlyn show up and once again correctly guess the plot despite there being no conceivable way she should be able to. Purely because she is so fanfic-brained, that she just somehow can guess these perfectly. That and she apparently got Charlie on the dial through very creepy means. But that's just Ember.
Yes, there were a lot of The Mask allusions here. Particularly in the dance sequence that was very directly calling back to it. However, I knew it would be weird if Loona, even if she was pretending for the most part, to be just okay dancing with a guy she's not actually attracted to. Well, she is attracted to him, but not this specific version of him. So instead, she uses every opportunity she can get to dance with RJ while he's stuck in the tail. Giving her a bit more autonomy and agency in this sequence, rather than just being Tail's dance partner. She's able to lead a bit as a result and I think it removed some of the ick.
What really helped though, was the hotel crew rushing to the rescue. Instigating the fight between tail and them. Here we have Tail spit out all his frustrations at them, every thing that RJ finds annoying and anger inducing that he won't say out loud because it's not the whole picture of what he thinks. It also enabled me to finally have Husk use his magician powers, because damn it, I'm annoyed that he didn't show those off sooner because I would have included them sooner. This was my moment to do it and I took full advantage of it, especially those magic rings. Those were very helpful.
But ultimately, it's Alastor who defeats Tail by, essentially, pointing out that he's not nearly as big and bad as he claims. That he is still a big softy and isn't up to the challenge of being an antihero who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Because Tail has limits. He wants everyone he's fighting to be his friends and he can't do that if they're hurt. He denies it, but it's all bullshit. He can't hide it from Alastor. So, he does the one thing he knows Tail will not allow, putting Charlie at risk. Because Tail, like RJ, really loves Charlie. And rather than risk losing her, he does the only option open to him. He leaps to save her. And he does, but it gets him captured.
Like I said, Alastor is the master manipulator here.
This brings up though to the last bit we're here to talk about.
He's a Part of You: This was the key point of what we were getting to. RJ's rematch with Tail. Set to Confrontation from the Jekyll & Hyde musical. Crow was actually going to suggest this for me to use for the sequence when I explained my plan, but I had already decided on it because of a specific video I watched. It was a short animation slice with music from the end of the song that depicted Bill Cipher and Stanford Pines fighting one another in the center of Ford's mind. It was so striking visually, and so perfectly in line lyrics wise with what I wanted, that I just had to use it. With RJ fearing that no matter what he does, everyone will hate him now and Tail insists he can't be rid of so easily.
In the end, RJ wins but comes to a revelation, however wrong Tail was to do that things he did... he did it because he had a reason. And he would keep trying unless they found a compromise. And RJ had to find one because the other option was being at war with yourself.
This is the crux of everything. Some folks seemed to think that the best solution to this problem was either kicking Tail down the well for good or merging him back into RJ's psyche in full. But that's not really a solution and frankly... it's awful to do. Turning your mind in a prison is not an ideal solution. And frankly, it's not a good idea in general.
Plural Systems in particular are extremely against the idea of merging their identities together. It is basically akin to death. You are killing that alter by forcing them to merge into you. Frankly, I did not even like the idea of Tail being merged back into RJ even before I heard about the allusions to plural systems that I was making.
As noted, Hyde was not an different personality asserting itself on Jekyll. In the original story, he was merely an alter ego of his own creation. The potion just changed his face so he could act like a thug. In the same vein, the symbiote in Spider-Man only got angry and hateful over Peter rejecting it. Yes, it took Peter's body out for joyrides, but it did not change his personality nor did it encourage him to hurt people. RJ, recognizing he's making the same mistakes that those characters did, opts for a third option. Rather than letting Tail win, or fully rejecting him, he tries to make a deal. He attempts to seek a common ground between them both, one that will allow them both to exist on potentially equal footing, with some guidelines they both have to follow. Tail has a few more than RJ, but to be fair he did try to takeover their body.
A few people were kinda grossed out by Tail calling dubs on anal. And yeah, I get it, but he is a very base creature. And impulsive. So... yeah, he goes for the whole anal thing on this one. I think Tail mostly just wants to experience something for himself that he knows RJ will never want.
After RJ makes some apologies to everyone, Tail reveals his true physical form. In the mindscape he's a palette swapped RJ. Outside, he's a Tail Spade Spike that can talk. You can see the image for yourself at the top of the post. It's a very basic looking face, with a purple color that matches the back spines. However, the clever bit for me is Tail's tongue. As you might notice, it's green, the same color as RJ's scales. Essentially, the tongue is RJ's tail tip now acting as a part of Tail's physical mouth. I think it's honestly the most interesting design element of the character. It's also a good thing that he's so simple to draw. Compared to RJ, his face and design are so incredibly simple and I prefer it that way as it makes him an easy update.
But the real kicker for this chapter and arc? RJ giving Loona a jacket! ... Okay, it's actually Loona meeting Charlie and the rest of the Hotel gang. In a very awkward moment that suggests Charlie might just be a little jealous that RJ has a friend now. One he really seems to like. Wonder where that will lead? Well, whatever else, now the shows of Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel are more directly tied together because RJ has become the link between them. And I like that, I like that I can find a way for these characters to get together earlier than expected purely because of the circumstances I've created and they're not really that random seeming.
In any case, I'm really glad I pulled this off. It was probably the biggest moment I've been building towards since the first chapter and I'm overjoyed with how it came out. More importantly though, I'm glad Tail was so accepted by the readers. Because I was really worried they'd all end up hating him and now that he's sticking around... well, I'm screwed there. But a lot of people saw Tail for what he was. A part of RJ that has just as much right to live life as RJ himself does. What needs to change is communication between the two, RJ listening to his instincts more and his Id not trying to force him into things. How will Tail and RJ grow as they navigate this strange new existence? We'll just have to find out together I guess.
Until next time readers! We'll have a lot of chapters to go over! Specifically concerning RJ's first adventures with Tail and all the various characters that make up his close relations. See you then!
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