The traitor himself...
The Traitor Within Us was an animated Crossover roleplay that blended the styles of several animated films to tell its story, and doubled as something of an Original Character Tournament. It began in July 2017, and ended in May 2018.
In a World… where magic is outlawed, the one remaining magician, Tulio, murdered the king, and as punishment was sentenced to death by hanging. But at his execution, the traitor simply laughed.
"You people are all so funny! I'm not going anywhere! I will live on!"
With those words, the condemned magician burst apart into dozens of balls of light, flying into the crowd. The eyes of those who were struck began glowing bright blue, prompting the Duke to realize "The traitor is inside of them! They hold magic - kill them! Kill them all!"
In the ensuing massacre, ten people manage to escape into the woods, but the soldiers are hot on their trail... and things aren't what they seem...
The full playlist can be seen here.
With a plot twist in nearly every new round, spoilers are heavy.
Contains examples of...
- Aborted Arc: As eliminated characters are killed, this leaves some plot threads unanswered; why does Jim hate Phoebus? What happened to Jasmine and Melody's kingdoms in their absenses? Who was Kida's child and what happened to them?
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Kida doesn't look a day over 18, but had a child sometime before the events of the roleplay, and Melody reminds her of them.
- Abusive Parents: Melody's mother, Tremaine, is both emotionally and physically abusive, as she belittles her daughter and tells her not to "embarrass" her, and slaps her when Melody talks back.
- Adaptational Heroism: Frollo is on the side of the survivors, having seen the massacre firsthand and being horrified by the brutality. The fact that his son was also killed helped him decide to betray the king's men. In the final two rounds, he is shown to still be working to protect the survivors, by working with Aladdin's family.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- The Grand Duke (now simply "the Duke") is power-hungry and immediately (and gladly) jumps straight to murder when he realizes he has a way to get some.
- Played with in Tulio. The survivors' Tulios aren't actually evil, but the Duke's Tulio is.
- Bears Are Bad News: The ten survivors are attacked by a bear as they take shelter in its cave. It kills two of them, Jim and Milo.
- Big Bad: As it turns out, Tulio... Or a single piece of him, anyway.
- Big Damn Kiss: Between Nita and Sinbad in round 4, during the jailbreak.
- Bittersweet Ending: Eight out of the ten initial survivors have died, but Duke and his Tulio are dead, Sinbad and Nita are alive and free to live their lives in peace. And with the truth of magicians being brought to light, it's very possible that Tulio and the deceased contestants will be
Vindicated by History. - Characters Dropping Like Flies: Due to the nature of the RP, only two of the contestants survive to the finale. And then there's how many minor characters are killed.
- Cool Old Lady: Mama Odie, who was Tulio's mentor when he was a younger magician and teaches the remaining survivors how to perfect their magic.
- Crossover: The nature of the roleplay; similar to other works such as To Belong and We Hit A Wall.
- Crossover Relatives:
- Melody is the daughter of Lady Tremaine.
- Aladdin is now the older brother of Shanti.
- Tulio is the brother of Anne Marie, and the son of Mr and Mrs Darling.
- Deader than Dead: Happens to the Duke's Tulio, as the souls of the eliminated contestants rip him apart.
- Demonic Possession: Ruber's soul had been in the King's body, granting him magic, for years. In the finale, the Duke's Tulio plans to do the same to Nita.
- Disney Death: Sinbad appears to die in the finale, but he returns to life through a combination of Nita doing something and his own willpower.
- Disney Villain Death: The Duke dies this way, falling from the top of the castle in the duel between him and Nita.
- Dramatic Irony: For the first two rounds, each survivor believes they are the only one with a piece of the magician Tulio and are desperate to keep it a secret. They don't learn that everyone had a piece of his soul until reaching the mountain in Round Three.
- The Dreaded: Ruber. His arrival on the mountain makes the mood change drastically, as all the magicians' souls go from happy and at peace to absolutely terrified. Considering he murdered a large amount of them, including Anne Marie (who can only scream "It's the bad man!"), their reaction is completely understandable.
- Everyone Has Standards: Frollo didn't have any qualms with the execution of Tulio; he killed the king, so he had to be punished. But slaughtering a crowd of innocents because any one of them could have housed a piece of his soul, that was monstrous.
- "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: " Nita... I'll see you on the mountain."
- Gayngst: Melody is a lesbian and was in love with her lady-in-waiting, Eilonwy, but knew their love was forbidden. At a ball, Melody was outed and Eilonwy threw her under the bus to save her own skin, leading the ostracized Melody to run away from home in shame.
- Give My Regards in the Next World: Sinbad say this as the Duke's Tulio is killed: "Say hi to Ruber for me."
- Glowing Eyes: Magicians are recognizable by their glowing blue eyes. The Duke and the King are shown with red eyes, symbolizing their villainy.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Mama Odie tries to shield the four current survivors with her own body. It only partially works, and she, Charming, and Melody all die.
- Sinbad willingly sacrifices himself so Nita won't have to pull him back to safety and lose precious time against the Duke.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": No, really, Charming's name really is Charming. It causes slight confusion when the survivors introduce themselves; Milo thinks he's calling him charming.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Aladdin dies, impaled in the chest with volcanic rock.
- It Amused Me: Eilonwy used this excuse to protect herself when Melody was outed at a ball, saying she was never serious, simply that it was amusing playing such a "game" with the princess.
- Leave No Survivors: The Duke's order when he sees Tulio's soul has flown into the gathered crowd: "Kill them all!"
- Killed Off for Real: Eliminated contestants were killed off in some form or another, be it by a bear or in a volcanic eruption. However, being magicians, their souls go to a mountain where the Northern Lights touch.
- The Kingslayer: Tulio murdered the king by strangling him, which kicks off the plot.
- More than Mind Control: Implied with Ruber and the King, and with Tulio and the Duke. The King was already envious of his two older brothers and how they had claim to the throne first. Ruber's presence may have darkened his heart, but really all he did was bring his inner darkness out and give him power to commit the atrocities he was already thinking of. And the Duke already wanted more power, when he received a piece of Tulio's soul, he gave the kill order to gain even more and give himself a clear line to the throne.
- Never Found the Body: Jasmine, Jane, and Kida are eliminated this way. The two former are lost and presumably drowned when the ship catches fire, and the latter is missing in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption.
- The Nicknamer: Sinbad nicknames nearly everyone in the group; Melody is "Fish Girl," Nita is "Tribe Girl," Jim is "Jimbo," and Jasmine is "Princess."
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Sinbad falls from the top of the castle to his death as his Heroic Sacrifice.
- Princess in Rags: Melody is the runaway princess of the Eastern Kingdom.
- Shamed by a Mob: In the finale, the king's soldiers have killed three people and are prepared to shoot the two remaining survivors... only for a woman (Anya) to shout that they killed her son in the crossfire. This triggers a reaction in the rest of the gathered crowd, who begin screaming that the soldiers were about to kill children among the traitors, and demand an explanation. One soldier is clearly affected as the crowd continues: "Who's the real traitor here?!"
- Sibling Murder: In backstory, the King, under the influence of Ruber, killed his two older brothers.
- Sole Survivor:
- Ten of them, initially.
- Nita is the sole survivor of a massacre once already, when her tribe was slaughtered by the king's men for being magicians themselves.
- Survivor's Guilt:
- Nita shows clear signs of this throughout, first from being the sole survivor of her tribe, and again as her new friends were cut down one by one. It gets to a point where in the beginning of the final round, she can barely stand up to defend herself.
- Melody feels horrible for running into the forest and leaving her surrogate father figure, Kashekim, behind to be killed. Granted, he told her to run, but still...
- Sword Fight: Sinbad, who's been trained in swordplay since he was a child, has one against the Duke's Tulio, with the two of them both being spirits.
- Title Drop: In round three: "So we all had the traitor within us?"
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Miguel, a man briefly taken in by Nita's tribe, was wary of the magic they wielded, and reported to the king's men that they had magic artifacts. He intended for the artifacts to be taken from them and confiscated, he had no idea the soldiers would massacre them.
- Walking Spoiler: Tulio. Anything further than identifying him as the King's murderer goes into massive spoiler territory.
- Wham Line: Several.
- "And the more magicians he killed, the stronger he became. That's why he hunted us down! That's why he killed my sister!" Said by Tulio, revealing the true reason why magicians were outlawed and then killed by the king, and what the nature of his spell is.
- "You feel it too, don't you? The power from your friends... oh, yes, what a thrill!" Begun by the Duke, then finished by Tulio. His Tulio.
- Wham Shot: The Duke revealing his own glowing eyes and his own Tulio.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- The king's soldiers who began the massacre; in the montage of people being attacked, several of the new magicians are children. They are also prepared to hang Shanti with her family for treason, and Melody as well.
- Ruber, who killed every other magician he could find in order to gain power... including Tulio's little sister, Anne Marie.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Sinbad finally starts using Nita's name near the finale, showing how close the two have gotten.
