Conflict Prompts

Fun afternoon sketch of Penelope from Sly Cooper for @Lionalliance0!

penelope didnt punch anyone except for sly bc she doesnt want to be charged after she breaks their teeth

also bentley and her are sickingly in love and give eachother sickingly cute nicknames change my mind guess what you cant

Here's an incomplete list of tropes attributed to Penelope in Thieves In Time Redux...

Adaptational Heroism

Affectionate Nickname

Becoming The Mask

Contrasting Sequel Main Character

Dual Wielding/Morph Weapon

Gadgeteer Genius

Good All Along

Jack Of All Stats, Master Of None

Promoted To Fully Playable

Regretful Traitor

The Atoner

The Drag-Along

Took A Level In Badass

Violently Protective Girlfriend

Today’s mouse is Penelope from Sly Cooper!

The yappers 🐢🐭

Thieves In Time Redux: Full Story Previews

A few months back, I posted a few previews of my full Thieves In Time rewrite on DeviantArt. I thought I'd repost them here.

All of them are set during Episode 0. You know, the museum heist.

I can't wait to fully explore these relationships that Thieves In Time vanilla completely ruined...

Preview #1: Link

Preview #2: Link

Preview #3: Link

Preview #4: Link

Murray, dancing around covered in glowing radioactive oil: Look, Sly! I’m glowing!!

Me, alarmed: Murray, honey, no….

Sly stuff

Thieves In Time Redux Characters: Deep Dive

Time to dive deeper into each of these character arcs. Namely, the lessons our four heroes will need to learn by the end of the story.

I don't need to remind you how poorly written Thieves In Time was. What a storytelling trainwreck.

If Sly 3 was about a seasoned gang of thieves pulling the heist of the century, Thieves In Time Redux is now about a less experienced member learning the ropes and building on her foundations. With, of course, a helping of betrayal mixed in.

Note that Thieves In Time Redux is an AU where Penelope gets dragged into the events of Thieves In Time as a playable character.

First up, Sly.

In canon, Sly jumped into this time travelling adventure because the "old itch" hit him like a truck. We can do better than that. Let's have his initial motivation instead be more about him missing Bentley and Murray. He can still have the itch. But no way is that going to be his number one reason for coming back. Also, when he starts thinking about Penelope now being on the main roster, it leads to him regretting how he ditched all his friends back on Kaine Island...

And when Carmelita comes back for Episode 2, let's just say things won't be pretty... I'm sure you can guess what he needs to do.

Bentley's turn. With Penelope now dragged into the adventure, our favorite turtle now gets a new character arc to navigate.

Bentley is perfectly fine with Sly and Murray risking their lives on the regular... but Penelope, his beloved girlfriend? Not so much. At the beginning of this story, she doesn't have a whole lot of experience yet. The fact that she was nearly kidnapped during the prologue doesn't help. This leads to Bentley being overprotective, but only towards her.

Long story short, Bentley will need to learn to let go of all that fear and let Penelope soar, because spoiler alert! She's actually a badass. It might even save their relationship...

Time to talk about Murray.

Instead of Murray feeling useless from out of heckin' nowhere, he... doesn't have much of an arc to follow. You'd think he'd now have nothing to do, but since Penelope is here for the ride, guess what? Murray has been seeing her as a younger sister. He even goes as far as only calling her "Sis". His focus is now on being a good older brother.

While Murray doesn't get a lot of development here, he does end up being incredibly wholesome.

Which brings us to our main protagonist, Penelope.

I'm not going to reveal her motive here. But I did change it from canon. No longer is she after "something something fame/money/power". As she spends time with our other heroes (and sees how much they care about her), she realizes that her motive isn't worth chasing after.

The lesson she needs to learn is obvious. And it's all about friendship.

I don't even know how to begin covering the ancestors and villains... That'll be for another day. And Carmelita? She's in the same boat.

Thieves In Time could have been so much better. So here. Here's one way it could have gone without ruining the characters.

Yes, Thieves In Time Redux is still in the works.

Yes, it is incredibly challenging to write.

No, I'm not looking forward to writing the villains' dialogue. Or the ancestors. The worst part is improvising their existing lines from the vanilla game. And giving them new lines.