The Raven Prince is an unpublished Troper Work by CJ Croen 1393.
Ayaka Togehana is an Ordinary High-School Student with a relatively normal life, but is socially awkward. She has a good family life, with Good Parents, an Annoying Younger Sibling, a best friend, and all in all a perfectly boring life. Just the way she wants it.
And then HE shows up.
Well, "shows up" is probably not the right choice of words. More like "crash lands".
The guy in question is a prince from an Alternate Dimension whose most unusual trait is the fact that he has large, glossy black wings on his back, like a raven. Ayaka is baffled by this visitor, but is even more baffled by his friends, Nero Keel, Lady Octavia, and Max The Jester showing up looking for him. And then there's Empress Talon, leader of The Nightbirds, The Gull, Professor Owl-Eye, Commander Falconclaw and The Witch, who all want to recruit Raven among their ranks.
A Character Sheet is in the works.
Tropes
- Winged Humanoid: Raven, Empress Talon, The Gull, and all members of The Nightbirds.
- Arc Symbol: The imagery of birds that appear throughout the story.
- Ambiguous Gender: Max. Doesn't help that s/he refers to him/herself as a "they".
- Dark and Troubled Past: The Nightbirds are essentially responsible for ruining everyone's lives. They killed Raven and Octavia's father and Nero's entire family, and kidnapped Max's sister. This resulted in Raven becoming an Ineffectual Loner, Octavia becoming over protective of him, Max hiding behind a smile, and Nero becoming a bit of a
jerk.
- Cynicism Catalyst: The death of Raven and Octavia's father, as well as Nero's entire family being wiped out caused the former two to become cynics and the latter to become very cold.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Nero gets mistaken for a girl sometimes.
- Big Sister Instinct: Octavia is very protective of Raven.
- Meaningful Name: Togehana means "thorn flower".
- Bridal Carry: Humorously gender flipped; Octavia carries Nero like this at one point.
- Open-Minded Parent: Ayaka's parents don't object at all to a winged prince, a swordswoman, a scholar, and a mentally unstable magician living in their house.
Character Tropes:
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The Main Cast
The Main Cast as a whole
- Theme Naming: Besides Raven and Ayaka, we have a Roman theme going on; Nero, Octavia, Max as in "Maxentius", and Max's sister Augusta.
Prince Raven
- Cloudcuckoolander: He's shown to be a bit eccentric, despite his calm personality.
- Real Men Wear Pink: He gains a fascination with an old Magical Girl show.
- Weaksauce Weakness: To make him light enough to fly, his bones are light and hollow. This makes them a bit more brittle than other humans.
Ayaka Togehana
- Meaningful Name: Her last name, "Togehana", means "thorn flower".
Nero Keel
- Heterosexual Life-Partners / Platonic Life-Partners: With Raven and Max. Platonic Life-Partners is listed because no one can be sure if Max is a boy or a girl.
Lady Octavia
- Big Sister Instinct: She's extremely protective of her brother.
- Berserk Button: You WILL NOT hurt her brother in front of her.
- Ms. Fanservice: Good looks must run in the family.
Max
- Ambiguous Gender: No one knows for sure, and s/he isn't telling.
- Big Sister Instinct: Possibly "Big Brother Instinct"; his/her motivation is to save his/her little sister, Augusta, from the Nightbirds.
- Court Mage
- Reality Warper
- Magical Girl: Magical Person
- Fun Personified
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: "I WILL TEAR THIS FORTRESS TO ITS FOUNDATIONS UNTIL IT COUGHS UP MY SISTER!!!!"
- Teacher/Student Romance: Hot for Teacher
- The Trickster
- Nightmare Fetishist
The Nightbirds
The Nightbirds as a whole
- Ancient Conspiracy: They're responsible for the worst things that happen in Raven's world.
- Winged Humanoid: All of them except the Witch and Augusta
Emperess Talon
- Big Bad
- Split Personality: Developed one in prison; the main one is stoic and cunning, the other will fly into a blind rage at the drop of a hat.
- Faux Affably Evil
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Her other personality.
- The Stoic: Her main personality.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: She has vulture wings.
- Lack of Empathy/The Sociopath: Her main personality.
- Parental Substitute: A really bad one to The Gull.
- Abusive Parents: To The Gull.
The Gull
- The Dragon
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: It's hard not to feel sorry for the dude.
- Keet
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Sea gull wings.
- Spell My Name with a "The"
- Fantastic Racism: He's looked down upon because he has sea gull wings.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: To Empress Talon.
Professor Owl Eye
- Born-Again Immortality / Healing Factor: He can regenerate his body if he's injured and when he reaches old age he simply reverts to the age of a child and starts his lifespan over again. He claims that he gained immortality by researching a certain species of jellyfish
. - The Evil Genius
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Owl wings.
- Enfante Terrible: His child form. He's as psychotic when he's twelve as he is when he's twenty.
- Smug Snake
- Badass Labcoat
- Affably Evil
- Really 700 Years Old: He claims that he's existed for over 3,000 years.
- Immortality Immorality: While they failed, his earlier attempts to become immortal involved things like sapping other peoples' life-forces, killing/torturing other people, and taking people's souls.
- The Stoic
- Healing Factor
- Shout-Out:Empress Talon: They're persistent little brats aren't they?Prof. Owl-Eye: Persistent yes. But not immortal.
- Mad Scientist
- Lack of Empathy
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky
- Stoic Spectacles
Commander Falconclaw
- The Brute
- Blood Knight
- Worthy Opponent: To Octavia.
- Sociopathic Soldier
- Lightning Bruiser: Don't let his advanced age fool you, he's not only insanely fast, he's also incredibly brutal in battle.
- Putting on the Reich
- Cool Old Guy
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Falcon wings.
- Hair-Trigger Temper
- Faux Affably Evil
- Evil Old Folks
The Witch
- Psychopathic Manchild
- Spell My Name with a "The"
- Humanoid Abomination
- The Speechless: She only laughs...
- Giggling Villain
- Wolverine Claws
-
Based on a Dream: The author based her off of a clawed, wraith-like creature that appeared in a very disturbing nightmare he had. - Finger-Lickin' Evil
- I Am a Humanitarian
- Blood Knight
- Reality Warper
Augusta
- Unwitting Pawn
- Flower Motif / Innocent Flower Girl
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: She doesn't remember anything about herself. The Nightbirds told her that they would help her remember so long as she served them.
- Token Good Teammate
- Tyke Bomb
- Friend to Psychos
- Ship Tease: She has a crush on The Gull and judging from how he reacts when she bandages his arm, he may reciprocate those feelings.
- The Ingenue
- Long-Lost Relative: Max's kidnapped sister.
- Proper Lady
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: A really creepy example. She doesn't even flinch when Falconclaw backhands Owl-eye's head off and then calmly goes to clean up the blood when he regenerates. Apparently, she's been with the Nightbirds so long that she genuinely believes that this stuff is normal.
- Nice Girl
- Locked Out of the Loop
- Mystical White Hair
- Mysterious Waif
Other characters
Ayaka's Parents
- Good Parents
- Adults Are Useless
- Open-Minded Parent: They have no objections to a bunch of weird people living in their house.
- Satellite Character: To Ayaka and Mori until later...
- Mama Bear/Papa Wolf
Mori Togehana
King Julius
- Posthumous Character
- Disappeared Dad: Killed by Empress Talon.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something
Queen Pompeia
Apollo
- Stern Teacher: To Max. He tried not to let his feelings for the androgynous little weirdo get the better of him though.
- Cuteness Proximity: Max often managed to manipulate him with this.
- Adorkable: Whenever he got flustered at Max flirting with him.
- Cynical Mentor
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With Max. It's apparently strictly forbidden for sorcery teachers and their students to have relationships.
- Teacher/Student Romance
The Royal Council of Avitopia
- Alternate Self: Of the protagonists of CJ Croen1393's other works.
Tobias Middnight
- The Lancer: To the King and Queen.
- Alternate Self: Of Toby Hutchinson.
- Straight Gay
- The Stoic: Unlike Toby.
- High Priest
Patricia
Corithus
- Tagalong Kid: He's not an actual member of the council, but he follows Patricia everywhere.
- Keet
- Alternate Self: Of Cory.
Humilitas
- Dude Looks Like a Lady
- Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Everyone keeps reminding him of the time he led a team of six virtuous maidens to slay seven evil dragons summoned by Empress Talon and won (this is what got him a position in the council to begin with). He hates hearing about it, though.
- Shrinking Violet
- Alternate Self: Of Humility/Tory Hummel. His name's actually the Latin term for Humility!
- Humble Hero
Allistrius
- Alternate Self: Of Alister Lewis, from Alister in Wonderland.
- Guardian of the Multiverse
