Demon Blade

Creators Notes:

Thad is one of the oldest villains I had written in the history of Demon Blade. Originally called Futacho. (Or a badly translated version of “Fat Ass” which is why Mai calls him fat) His look was similar was more a grown-up version of his 10-year-old self. But when designing the current version, I liked the idea of making him a more classic-looking bully. Even having him look buff and older than the other students makes him look tougher and more badass.

In the long run, this is not the only point I have planned to show Thad. But this is the only point where he is involved in the story as anything more than a background character at this time.

I knew in the remake that I wanted to dig deeper into Thad’s reasoning. In 2015 when I started to make this version, I ran into a transwoman that was upset with herself not being able to see her own kids because her ex didn’t approve of them transitioning. And thus, I came up with the story of Thad’s father Danni Glenn. But I wanted to keep much of it a secret. But if you go to Chapter 5 page 16 you get the major hint that his dad left his family to be quote “A Freak”.

The backstory I have written was that Danni always wanted to transition, but still had a sexual attraction to girls. In college, she got her girlfriend pregnant and married her out of a sense of obligation, but held back on her desire to transition for about four years. In that time and till Thad was 10, Danni tried to raise Thad to not use his inhuman strength to bully others. But the building anger and arguments between Thad’s mother and father caused Thad to get angrier and angrier. By elementary school, Thad was lashing out at others and when they started to tease him with the nickname Thug he started to seriously get into fights. By age ten though his mother has had enough and divorced and kicked out Danni, making it so that Danni had no rights to visitation or otherwise to Thad. This broke Danni deeply as she started to deeply live as a woman. She kept feeling the nagging pain that was watching and being unable to stop her son from destroying his own life. Torn on this Danni broke the restraint and visited Thad in Juvie. Seeing Thad there she tried to apologize for her not being strong enough in her love to keep Thad from ending up the way he had. But all she could get herself to say as her mental strain was pulled apart was. That she was sorry. Thad took it as an apology for Danni leaving to transition and told his father to quit being a freak and that Danni should apologize. This was the last straw in Danni’s mental state. After seeing her son this way Danni wandered out in traffic in the middle of the night and was hit and killed. Thad would blame the suicide of his father on his concept of the twisting and warping of his father’s mind from the trans community. And with his already growing blame of Tetsu for destroying his life having the Yushi’s usually being the ones to send him to Juvie for assault on Tetsu. Thad knew he had to finish what he started ten years earlier by stabbing Tetsu in the neck.

Thad as he stated never intended to stab Tetsu at the start. But Tetsu’s action to protect Kyle caused the accident to happen and in that moment both Thad and Tetsu’s lives began to spiral in ways neither wanted to. In Thad’s case he started to turn more violent and intolerant of people with different views. And whenever something went wrong in his life, he began to place the blame towards the one that seemed to destroy it, Tetsu.

When creating Thad I wanted a school bully but someone who you could see their descent into darkness. And as the school bully arc ends Thad is starting to see that the darkness and hatred in himself. Is his own doing. When he is ultimately beaten by Tetsu in a fight. Thad finally has to resort to the fact that the real person who defeated him was his own hatred. Still, Thad has to pay for his crimes of assault and he ends up in jail having to repent for his own actions and willing to change in time.

The story of Thad is three parts. One it helps build up Tetsu’s backstory. In another, it’s a story of hate and how one redirects hate towards those they perceive as against them. And lastly, as the chapters close it’s about the importance of fathers and their advice and how much our dads try to pass on words of advice to help shape us. In Thad’s case, he tried to avoid his father’s lessons, and ultimately it is that which caused his dad to finally leave his life for good.

In a fight physically Thad could easily beat Tetsu. But he would have no chance against Mai and has been beaten several times by Kyle. But in the end, Tetsu’s quick wits and planning allow him to get the edge to beat Thad.

Tetsu is the only student to not use Thad’s nickname at any point in the story. As to not insult or Bully the very one bullying him. 

The name Thaddius Harris Glenn comes from the first names three people who each bullied me as a child.

The bully that gave Tetsu scars and keeps on bullying him to modern day.