"I should back up that last post to my documents so I won't lose it. it turned out quite long"

that last post: is seven pages long when I paste it into a document for safekeeping

Claudia, Viren & The Very Real Parent-Child Dynamics of The Dragon Prince

Sometimes I wonder if I come across like I try to defend Claudia too much. That's not my intent at all. I just think she deserves more and better critique.

The Point I guess

Personally, I really connect with Claudia's brand of messy, unflattering and even pathetic rage and grief much more than the dignified and mature ways Callum and Ezran handle things (More on that later). Maybe this sounds unflattering but Claudia being also kind of an asshole really speaks to me. Like that's the kind of teenage girl I'm the most familiar with and we don't have enough media that has nuanced takes on this sort of troubled character. Exploring negative or even anti-social traits and impulses in fiction, especially in women, is kind of undervalued in my opinion. Those are part of humanity and therefore part of us and this impulse to completely reject them doesn't benefit anyone really.

Finally, some wholesome father-daughter relationship rep in media!

My way to view fantasy media is about how it can artistically portray something true to real life. That's why I'm the most invested in this kind of reading of the text. Fantasy media is often dismissed as mere escapism even by the fantasy fans themselves (*side eyes the dude bro Witcher fandom*) which ignores the emotional depths it can reach by approaching difficult subject matter more metaphorically.

Inject Viren & Claudia's Father-Daughter Dynamic Straight into My Veins

There is something viscerally real about Claudia and Viren's relationship. I've seen this kind of father-daughter dynamic play out in real life many times where the child gives and gives and gives yet the parent takes it all for granted until it's too late and the parent-child relationship is just a mangled corpse of its former self, way too damaged to ever be truly repaired.

Like if you've had a difficult relationship with your parents it can feel similar to how s4-5 Claudia struggles to keep Viren alive while Viren hesitates. The child is the one who tries to fix things in the relationship while the parent is in denial or completely oblivious. Viren doesn't really try to connect with Claudia further in s4-5. It almost seems like he's completely emotionally unprepared to have that conversation and oh boy if you know any boomer parents that's pretty damn realistic. He just sort of gives up and acts completely passive because he's so out of touch with his emotions.

There is also this aspect of your parent aging and then one day you realise that you, the child, are the one who has more power in the relationship. It's a universal experience. These are just some of the ways I can see Viren and Claudia's relationship in seasons 4 and 5 metaphorically portray real life parent-child dynamics. There is a lot of emotional truth to how TDP approaches these relationships even when the story itself is an over the top fantasy romp.

How much Viren relies on Claudia is revealed little by little: She got the unicorn horn for the spell that killed Avizandum, she got the dragon horn that helped them cross the lava to Xadia in s3. It's set up really subtly how there is almost this parentification of Claudia like she's the one who took her mother's place as the emotional center and caregiver of the family after Viren and Lissa divorced. It's a lot of pressure to put one a child to say the least. This extends to Soren and how he is treated as the scapegoat of the family when Claudia is the Golden Child. This sort of treatment of Claudia and Soren by Viren is probably the most common analysis of their family dynamic as far as I can tell.

You ever heard of the thing called "eldest daughter syndrome"?

Eventually Claudia's most admirable and positive traits get corrupted (insert here an analysis of the corruptive nature of the dark magic as a plot device). It's like this perversion of feminine nurturing instinct society values and enforces in girls. Claudia's love is not domesticated but something that's so all consuming it destroys everything in its way. In s 4 she insists Viren has to live. She does everything in her power to keep her family together even against the wishes of her loved ones; first it was healing Soren in and then it was bringing Viren back to life in s3. Claudia has fully internalised her role as the caregiver to the point of self-imposed victimhood.

All The Characters Have a Part to Play

Since TDP is meant for an all-age audience (And later for teens and up since they hiked up the age rating) all the younger characters Callum, Ezran, Rayla, Claudia and Soren collectively represent the kind of different and difficult feelings parental abandonment and neglect can cause. A real person most likely feels all of these emotions at some point of their life but in fiction they need to be spread out among different characters or the story wouldn't work as, well, a story.

"she was a mage girl committing warcrimes, he was an elf boy vibing in the woods, can I make it anymore obvious"

I'd gladly read some more critical takes on Claudia's character. There is something very interesting there about Claudia and Terry's relationship for example. Terry is clearly very enamored with Claudia whom he perceives as someone very vulnerable and in need of help. Terry isn't wrong exactly but it does get problematic when he goes to great lengths to protect Claudia to the detriment of his own wellbeing. While TDP itself doesn't draw attention to it there are also the racial and gendered elements, both implicit and explicit, because of Claudia's fantasy racism and because of Terry being a non-white trans boy character as well. Claudia is the most powerful dark mage in Xadia when Terry is just a normal guy. Given the context of the show there is a power imbalance there.

tHÖ END

Why I'm laying this all out is that I think the Internet would be a better place if people didn't try to constantly find an objective "right" way to view a piece of media but instead were somewhat transparent about what they personally got out of it. I think this Viravos meta is the most popular thing I've written so far and I tried to explain my approach in detail because I don't want people to go "look this person says Viravos is canon!". Jokes are fine of course but taking it too objectively ignores the fact that analysing subtext is valuable on its own.

Idk how to end this. Here, have this meme.

Something I've been thinking about lately is this: a brief defense of "self insert" writing.

I remember when I first shared a shared story with some random person in a Facebook writing group--I had written about a young woman hiding her magic, who meets a mystical man. He shows her kindness and gives her a place to live in relative safety while they figure shit out. The feedback I received was at once true (clarity was not my strong suit back then) and strange: I must have written this as a form of wish fulfilment, and that this young woman was a self insert. Why? She had my hair colour.

While think there's more to be said about how gendered and common this idea is/can be, that's not quite what I'm focusing on today. Let's also put aside the fact that yes, this kind of "feedback" (though I hope it's delivered in a much more actionable and helpful way) can be grounded in a real narrative issue.

The interesting thing about fiction, I think, is how it's one way we can step outside of ourselves and embody someone or something else for a while. I have written about witches in the woods, and I loved living with them for the weeks it took me to polish their short story. I loved falling down the rabbit hole of how to prepare fish for cooking over a fire. I have written about men digging garden plots during a war and earning his living by giving the government a place to hide bodies. I loved putting myself in his dusty old shoes and imagining myself on another planet, a techno chip in my hand used for everything from getting into buildings to transferring payments.

This week I wrote about a grieving man in his nineties, playing his wife's favourite song for the first time since she had passed away. And I sat in that grief and sadness with him. I think I'm able to do this partly because I give all of my characters at least a tiny part of myself, oftentimes without thinking--a dislike of lavender for the witch, a constant undertone of emotional supression for the gardener, the cold weight of depression for the old gentleman. I insert a little of my experiences, beliefs, personhood, thoughts, and feelings into them, even when they feel like the furthest thing from me.

I have come to think that maybe everything is a little self-insert by virtue of coming out of your brain, from your imagination and your willingness and ability to think and feel and see as your characters do.

Sure, sometimes I write about women with red hair, few friends, chronic pain, or a very firm opinion on Cars 2 (2011). Those characters are the very obvious parts of me, and so what? She goes on the adventures I'll never have as a (sadly) reality-bound human, and I go with her. I go with all of them, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

What do you think?

Do you draw inspiration from.your own life (events, emotions...) to write ?

HEAVILY!!!!

I think this is something I do specifically for my longer form fics...the one shot tend to be more of the sporadic, cute scenarios I imagine while I go to sleep. but longer form fics are where I really start digging into my own life and putting my own thoughts/feelings into it

a few examples:

roommate eren: actually doesn't really apply, because that was so early into my writing.

method acting eren: (gets bullet points)

eren as a character and y/n as characters I feel have parts of myself that I often feel like are at war with in my own head lol (which is why they have conflict!!)

y/n gets swayed by people around her so quickly and cares about what people think - a little too much. eren is also just deeply self destructive at times and so in his own head that he can't see what's in front of him at all. those two things combined are not a pretty combo, which is why x y and z happens in method acting.

historia's whole being jealous of y/n arc is based of me in real life!!! struggle with real life comparisons so hard and it can be something that is so obsessive for me. when the song lacy came out, it was the first time I really felt seen in the way that wanting to be like someone else so bad can be so all consuming that I wanted to kind of include that in the fic, esp how it pertains to female friendships (will say, all the reception I got about that character and that friendship soothed a lot of rough spots in my heart about that so I appreciate you all)

lana's struggles with love - particulary the part that she has bad relationships of love modeled to her, hence why she originally puts up with ricky in the first place is also based on me (guys this fic is so self indulgent please leave me alone ok) and I haven't reached the whole self actualized love part but i'll get there! (thank you for all the love on the lana character I could cry if I thought about it)

also a bit more deep, but a lot of criticism that I got about the fic (esp after the whole reveal of why eren did what he did) was like "oh he could have just told her" "I don't get why he didn't" was kind of meant to be a more subtle thing of how when you love someone who is struggling with mental illness/bad environments (which at that point he was in a kind of abusive relationship with his producer so), it's often that the way that they cope or react as a byproduct is sometimes something that doesn't make sense/isn't logical - and is no way that something to put up with (which is literally why she doesn't), but it's also why eren is more logical and rational when he gets help. you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped (which at that point he didn't want to) and they need to put their own work in (which eren obv does after everything that happens)

^^ (this is based on relationships that i've had in my own life but also feeling put in that position of doing things that weren't rational and didn't make sense that hurt people and later realizing when I put the work in what a lot of that actually was and trying to have grace with it)

kind of random, but I always imagine method acting sasha as poc. I didn't want to say it explicit so people didn't start beefing with me about x y and z, but that's why she doesn't get the same treatment as y/n or mikasa. (not saying that y/n is white or fits beauty standards, but she's a self insert so I can't exactly assign her a race so the same point can't be made). but for the sasha character, it's kind of those feelings that poc/darker skinned girls get of not being the person anyone is interested in, the girl who is always funny and never pretty, super motherly but never the girl anyone has a crush on. anyways. (sincerely the token mom friend in highschool!!!)

best friends older brother sukuna:

so like. ive never talked to my best friends older brother. he is thirty. and he's also married to a sweetie pie.

THAT BEING SAID

a big part of that fic is obviously intimacy - but more the fact that there's a lot of depth to intimacy beyond sex - especially for people who have bad first experiences and how they kind of have to grapple with that afterwards (I will not elaborate on how I relate to this. connect dots.)

AND ALSO. sibling relationships is a big part of that fic. I have two older siblings (and the fic also has two older siblings). the relationships that I have with both of them are so dynamically different - in terms of good sibling/bad sibling (if that's even a thing, which the point is kind of that it's more complicated than that) and also younger/older dynamics

^^I won't elaborate more on that but just know in that fic that i've had my fair share of sammy and my fair share of sukuna - but also had my moments where i'm immature and not fair like y/n and yuuji. so.

thanks for this ask it was so fun!!! so sorry I yapped....and overshared.....

pspsps hi fux do u have any btd/tpof ocs (for no reason in partic tacular)

Oh! Yes I do!

I tend to become self conscious about my own ocs, and because of this I don't share a lot about them due to my...anxiety? LMAO /lh

I have three, but for now I'm just going to share two (I don't really have art of the third yet so that'll wait) I have an OC and I have a Sona/"Self Insert"!

I've posted about my OC, Cricket, before. She also gets called Pigeon/Pidge. Her ref is outdated but the other illustrations are pretty accurate still.

Pidge is a 27, Cis, & Bisexual. She's 5'0, and weighs 110lbs. She grew up in Seattle to a deadbeat dad and an overbearing mother. Eventually in her teen years, her parents split and she moved to San Francisco with her father, who inflicted a lot of bad shit upon her before she packed up and moved out on her own. She lived alone perusing modeling & photography before she was Got after a party in the city.

Waking up, she found herself in an auction room. Derek buys her, takes her to the hunt. I have kind of a few 'versions' of how the hunt goes for her, some ending in possession or sacrifice, or just death, but the main one is she stabs Derek but doesn't have the guts to kill him, so he takes her home and she basically becomes his lap dog via repeated abuse and torture.

I'm not sure what parts of her 'story' I should expound on and what parts I should sum up quickly, haha.

Personality wise, she's very dry, doesn't smile much. She got a lot of shit for being an ice queen growing up, and tends to come across apathetic, even when she isn't. Very sarcastic and can seem catty, but usually is trying to cover her own ass. She has a huge soft spot for other girls, especially fem folks who are in trouble, and will often put herself in danger to help others who are vulnerable/in danger.

She is afraid of her own capacity for attachment, which is why she refuses to let herself attach to anyone. This provided a lack of support in community around her, and made her a better target for kidnapping, since no one would notice her gone or take much action if they did.

In reality, she is desperate for connections and keeps herself from interacting intimately with anyone due to her fear of becoming over attached. This really blossoms later as hee Stockholm Syndrome with Derek kind of...Happens. Haha

Eventually Derek rubs off on her and she gets into some trouble, and starts killing at the hunts that Derek drags her to. You can also imagine she gets used a lot by the whole hunt lmao

Here's some pictures of her! ^ I love her very much, she is small and full of rage LMAO

Then we have Kade/Juju. This is my "Self Insert". I haven't posted about him much yet, I have been redoing his reference 100 times it feels like, and this is what I have at the moment.

Kade is 28, He/Him trans masc, and mlm. He's an American Red Fox, and grew up on the dense forests of the west coast. His family is estranged, and he ran off to the cities after he was of age to go to school for Botany.

His schooling and thirst for Travel causes him to move North, where while he's attending school he runs into a Specific German at the bar.

He's a quiet dude, kinda nervous, and has very big "Homeschooled by a forest ranger" energy. Loves to infodump about animals, bugs, plants, you name it. Pretty decent survival skills, which also lends to him being a bit of a slippery captive.

I eventually want to put him in a situation with both Lawrence and Mason also, but I haven't been able to sit down and Think in a hot second. If he ends up in Strade's house, he either gets killed for attacking Ren or also gets pet-ified. In that instance, I really like the visual of Strade just having this duo of Fox pets that are constantly horny but also kind of at each others necks a lot (Male foxes have no chill around other male foxes)

I'm starting to get lost in the sauce here so I'll leave it there and if anyone wants to know more, I'd love to answer whatever curiosities may plague you!

I've been pretty curious about the LO Critical side. I'm asking genuinely but what are the reasons why LO has such a strong anti Fandom.

Do people not like it? I was curious because it seems like a lot of lo critical/anti lo blogs seem to enjoy certain aspects and characters. Is it the author people don't enjoy?

Like I said I'm really being genuine. I think people have the right to have like their own critical space for a free webcomic. It's just interesting because it's like. This Fandom has a second Fandom of people who seem to hate the comic.

The anti community for any fandom is sure to be a complex place that’s usually, in my experience, more built on pain and disappointment than anything else. Pain because something important to you no longer provides comfort, maybe even perpetrates harmful themes for your own personal experiences, and disappointment because this is something you used to love and you wish could be better.

There’s two parts of the anti community for LO. There’s one part that, as you said, still holds some affection for the series, for memories attached to it and for some characters. There’s also another part that, again as you said, straight up just hate it.

I’ll briefly touch on the first part. They can see so clearly how LO could be infinitely better and that’s frustrating. They can see all the flaws they didn’t notice or didn’t want to see before and are exasperated by why it’s allowed to continue this way. Let’s not forget that a significant number of LO’s critics are people who were young teens and read it in their formative years without realising what they were being so carelessly exposed to.

With that realisation, there’s a level of anger and horror at learning what was put in front of them, marketed as safe and heavily promoted at every turn, and it’s only gotten worse over time. That must be an absolutely gut-wrenching thing to feel over something you loved once.

So in that sense, you’re correct; a big part of the anger comes down to Rachel herself and her choices.

Then there’s the other part of the anti fandom, the part that just out and out hates it and always has. This is where yours truly fits in.

Now, I was super active on tumblr during 2014-2017, when fandoms like Steven Universe, FNAF and Undertale were at their peak. I had to learn, trial by fire, how to be real critical of any media I consumed. There is certainly a downside to this, I tend to see the negatives of anything I enjoy first and then find positives later. The upside is it’s certainly been one helluva way to improve my media literacy and spot the bs from a mile away.

A lot of people don’t believe when I say I got skeevy, uncomfortable, gross vibes from LO from chapter one, but I did. I don’t know what it was, but it set me off so bad that I couldn’t get past “her butt is shaped like a heart” and never read it again.

Now I’m willing to admit that this part of the fandom, like me, are the way we are because we were never the target demographic for LO.

Therefore, when it came out and got popular, we were the ones who were absolutely baffled and the ones who got dog piled and called every name under the sun by fans for a long time…that is, of course, until a lot of those fans grew up, realised what they were reading and turned on the series.

As I said, the critical side of any fandom is complicated and this is just my two cents.

I could do a much longer post about how fucking angry I am at Rachel personally for the fact she’s from my country, a country who constantly gets ignored, and given this amazing chance that so many of us wish we could have, yet chose to peddle her self insert x celebrity crush jailbait fantasy.

I could talk all day about how physically sickened I am that she’s taken so many aspects of trauma experiences by myself and millions of others and used it as ignorant, glamourised, fetishised shock-material.

I could go on at length about what a racist, misogynistic, homophobic piece of baggage she is and how she’s permanently done damage to another culture while completely misrepresenting ours…but I won’t.

I’ll just draw more mean art of Persephone’s giant lips and Hades accidentally letting the air out of them with his mosquito nose instead.

What’s Rachel going to do? Draw a goofy, technicolor caricature of me in her comic that’ll blend into the background, be only half finished and look like a recoloured Persephone in her otherwise pristine and totally professional looking masterpiece that’s definitely not losing readers? Oh wait—

It's time for the post long awaited by nobody, my little look into what Hyde actually is. This post ties rather nicely into my other one on Jekyll's reliability as a narrator in the book's final chapter so if that takes your fancy then you should be able to read it here (if I've inserted that link correctly). This post will be entirely comprehensible without looking at that at all, but it might be of some interest if you want to hear more about my thoughts on that.

Anyway, the question of what Hyde is sounds pretty simple at first, but a lot of people would give very different answers if asked. It's something that can really get quite complex in the way that a lot of seemingly simple things in the book can due to how much is left unsaid. If the story was entirely from Jekyll's point of view, it would be a lot clearer, but I honestly think the speculation and interpretations are part of the fun.

A very common interpretation of Hyde is that he is simply pure evil. I say 'a', but even this has its layers and will differ depending on who you ask. Hyde could be all the evil parts of Jekyll or he could be all the evil things in the world or something inbetween these two. He could even be some other form of evil. This is what Jekyll says he is so this one works more on the basis that he is relatively reliable in his statement of the case. This one usually works on the idea that they have become separate personalities, though interestingly, interpreting Jekyll as the pure good counterpart of this is less common. When Hyde is pure evil, Jekyll is frequently still morally grey and relatively unchanged. I just think that's kind of fascinating.

This next one is less common, but it links well to the pure evil interpretation so I'm putting it second. This one is Hyde as the parts of himself that Jekyll dislikes. I am, personally, a pretty big fan of this one. I just enjoy it. You may think it is the exact same as Hyde just being evil as those are the parts Jekyll dislikes about himself, but I view it as different. Evil is a very vague concept which will differ depending on who you ask. Morality is a complex subject with no clearly defined correct answers. This allows for those grey areas a little more. Hyde can include the parts of himself which Jekyll views as evil or simply dislikes for other reasons, but which may not all be considered bad by everyone. It means that Jekyll's statement is what he believes to be true, but may not actually represent the truth, which I find rather interesting. The complexity and the self-loathing of this one just really appeal to me.

One very, very common view of Hyde which I see quite often on here is that he's just Jekyll in a different body. This one sees Hyde as a mask more than a separate identity and means that Jekyll's explanation is largely false. Anonymity can make people do weird things, a fact internet users can understand well. Perhaps that's why I see it so often online. I also think a lot of fans of this one dislike Jekyll, which is understandable. I have more complex feelings about this one. Sometimes I like it, and other times I don't. It's rather hard to explain so I just won't, for the time being. This post is going to end up long enough as it is.

So, onto my next interpretation. I've seen a few people talk about Hyde as Jekyll, but affected by the drug in the way that people act different when taking real-world drugs. This one is very similar to the last in that everything Hyde does comes from Jekyll but isn't necessarily something he would do if he could fully control himself. Things like him losing his self-control, being overly aggressive, and gaining an increased dependence on the drug frequently come into this. This means that Hyde is technically Jekyll in a different body, but he isn't fully controlled by Jekyll-Jekyll, if that makes any sense at all. Different people will mix and match parts of this in different ways. I like elements of this one. I'm not overly big on drug analogies and things. It's just not for me. However, I do quite like the idea of Hyde being Jekyll with no impulse control. Everything coming from him, but only some of it being things he actually wants.

Since this post is getting quite long now, I'll make this my fifth and final example. This is a combination of a few of the things above, but I want to give it its own paragraph simply because I really quite like it. This is the idea that Hyde begins as just Jekyll allowing himself to indulge in the things he doesn't think he is allowed to like and slowly splits off and becomes his own person. In this interpretation, Hyde grows beyond what Jekyll wanted him to be and becomes evil rather than just cruel and shameful. I just really like this. The idea of Hyde starting out as some small indulgence from Jekyll then going out of control. The idea of Jekyll no longer wanting these things, but being unable to stop Hyde from going too far. That just gets me. This one can work with Jekyll being honest in his statement, but also leaves room for him to be lying in sections as well. It's the one I kind of went with in my head when reading the book (before I had been a Hyde=Jekyll kind of person, but reading it for myself changed my mind a little).

There are many, many more ways to think about what Hyde may or may not be. I could also go into much more depth on each of the ones I listed here. Perhaps I'll dedicate a post solely to one of them in future if the mood strikes me. There's no way for us to really know what Stevenson wanted us to think of Hyde as. Even if you assume Jekyll is a reliable narrator and take everything he says as truth, it still leaves room to interpret that in different ways. I don't think it really matters though. As I've said before in other posts, the way the reader can view the text to reflect their own ideas and experiences is what makes it so appealing, even after all these years. If you have any particular thoughts on Hyde's nature, please feel free to share them in the comments, tags, reblogs, or whatever. I'd love to hear them. I always like to see how different people can take the same words in such different directions.

I want to take a second to talk about Mary Sues as I understand them. And by Mary Sues, I mean all variants unbound by gender or style.

People used to discuss Mary Sues a lot back in the early 2000's. There were litmus tests all over defined by superficial qualities like hair/eye color, number of love interests, whether a tragic backstory existed, etc. Readers would run up to strangers with hate reviews if an OC didn't meet their standards. It was common to accuse disliked canon characters of being Mary Sues too. There were lists of works that were considered guilty of Mary Sue creation assembled for mockery. The whole thing became a form of public bullying and I think it scared a lot of creators into not trying anymore. I suspect it's a huge part of why we keep getting y/n and other open self-insert fics these days.

At some point, the public shifted. People attempted to defend Mary Sues by equating them with all power or romance fantasies then claiming the only reason such characters would be vilified is sexism toward a female default archetype. By doing this, most people stopped examining the phenomenon altogether--not only in understanding what the actual common factor in Mary Sues is, but why Mary Sues are alienating to readers.

That answer was a cop out. I promise that Mary Sues are just as off-putting with characters of any gender, demographic, orientation, whatever. And frankly it doesn't matter if your character is the most generically designed, unassuming, non-tragic shlub of all time--they are still capable of being a Mary Sue if the structural issues remain.

Mary Sues are normal among developing writers. I've certainly made Mary Sues before. They were cringe af and occasionally I discuss them behind closed doors if I want to make someone laugh. Created them in dead earnest as a teen and holy fuck it was parody level. Everything I talk about is as someone who is 0% free from sin lmao.

Before I give my definition of what a Mary Sue is, I need to explain something about characterization that is often overlooked.

There is micro, individual characterization and there is macro, population characterization. Worldbuilding requires characterization too. You need to look at a group's motives, influences, psychology, resources, etc. the same way you would for individual characters while allowing room for varied experiences. You need to know the cause/effect of societal development. It isn't something you can just wave away as 'because I said so' because that dehumanizes the entire population, which makes the world less believable/immersive. A less believable world in-turn strips individual characters of experiences and perspectives that shape who they are. This has a flattening effect and makes characters less believable and relatable too. Tradition, style, and genre def shape how much detail is needed but some degree of macro-characterization is necessary.

With that said, I'd argue that Mary Sues are characters who (rather than having behavior believably shaped by experiences or operating within the parameters of the world they inhabit) define themselves for how they are exempt. It doesn't matter if the exception to cause/effect is positive or negative. Mary Sues are also prone to being the most at what they do. Most ordinary/boring counts. Mary Sues will warp the experiences, perspectives, and desires of other cast members around themselves like black holes without it being acknowledged as abnormal by the other cast members or the narrative. Cause and effect in relationship building through behavior/choices does not apply, a Mary Sue does not start from zero like a regular person. Lore and stories revolve around Mary Sues exclusively even when it doesn't make any sense for that to be the case. Every significant thought or experience of other cast members ties back to Mary Sues too. Positive or negative, Mary Sues are likely the only and most meaningful relationship characters will have. Design elements (when present) tie to exceptionalism and lack of cause/effect.

Being a chosen one or someone with unrivaled power/influence in a particular arena isn't enough to make a character a Mary Sue if it is cohesive within the world. These things also tie heavily to characterization in response to situations as well as the dynamics with others/characterization of others. The existence of Mary Sue tends to preclude any alternate meaningful relationships or experiences for other cast members, and again--Mary Sue is specifically not shaped by experiences in credible ways. They don't experience meaningful internal change. They're pretty much always right or always wrong. And having an exceptional or rare experience (ex. someone did an experiment with odd results on a character) isn't enough to cause a Mary Sue either if that experience or exception remains consistent within the overall worldbuilding/macro-characterization. So ex. if there were similar experiments being conducted on or by others, that would go a long way to addressing exceptionalism. Isekai characters who come from one world to another are not inherent Mary Sues, because the isekai character still carries and is shaped by both their previous life experiences and the life experiences of their new environment. The source world is still part of the overall setting that shapes them. In-universe reality warpers also don't count as Mary Sues because reactions to reality warping tend to be organic and not normalized by the narrative.

There are degrees in how much a character is or isn't a Mary Sue, but lack of cause/effect, absolutism, and exceptionalism are big. The reason Mary Sues are bad storytelling is because they are not credibly human (figurative), diminish the humanity of other cast members, and diminish the humanity/construction of the entire world simultaneously. They lack believable consequences for any choices made--be they positive or negative. Stakes/tension are skewed as a result. Mary Sues tend to be static and they not only break immersion, they alienate readers because it's a form of destroying a world and cast the audience is invested in. There is no reason for random strangers to love Mary Sues. Mary Sues don't come across as authentically alive in any capacity, but more as poorly done caricatures of life.

And the thing is, they often don't work for wish-fulfillment fiction either. Wish-fulfillment (when the reader imagines experiencing the story in the role of protagonist) gets passes on certain technical elements necessary in empathy-based storytelling (when the reader forms opinions of cast members as distinct people) or intellect-based storytelling (the reader is exploring a philosophical or medium-based concept).

In wish-fulfillment, it is very important that the writer creates a main character who many audience members can project themselves onto. Usually such characters are left somewhat underdeveloped to facilitate this. Whether it's a power fantasy (reader imagines having luxury/influence), a romance fantasy (reader obtains an ideal partner), or even revenge fantasy (reader has an outlet for anger without consequences)--in wish-fulfillment it's important that not only the author but a wide range of readers can share in the fantasy. While it's possible to get limited success with some Mary Sues here, I think the extreme, specific, hyper exceptional nature of Mary Sues often distracts. Again, wish-fulfillment finds strength in how well it shares fantasies with audiences. If the audience is so caught up that they can't effectively project themselves onto the Mary Sue (being hyper aware of the Mary Sue's artificiality), that isn't going to work. If the fantasy doesn't resonate with audiences, it won't go as far either.

Imagine taking James Bond and giving him natural purple eyes and hair in a world where no one else has that. He'd never lose a single fight or struggle to escape peril, never wreck one of the fancy cars he's given, never have a single advance rejected. Bond is a power and romance fantasy character no doubt, but his limits are significant in keeping him from being a Mary Sue. There are plots and relationships that have nothing to do with him beyond details in the mission he was assigned and those keep things immersive.

All this said. If you're telling a story for yourself, and only yourself--doesn't matter if your character is a Mary Sue. Once you bring other people in, you have to think about what you're trying to achieve as a storyteller in terms of interpersonal communication. That includes whether the experiences you're crafting for readers are effectively realized.

Mary Sues are a normal part of learning. They aren't immoral or unforgivable. Mostly they invoke a self-centered mindset supposing the entire world/everyone in it revolves around you in some way. Again, I've made 'em lol--think immaturity is a big part of the practice. But in a story where everything revolves around you, that doesn't necessarily share well with readers who aren't you who are still the heroes of their own stories.

Making Mary Sues is a craftsmanship issue. It's like trying to build a chair only for one leg to come out wobbly. It can be your favorite chair sure, but that doesn't make it well-crafted. Certainly no one owes you money or praise for it. Hell, they wouldn't owe those things if it was a perfectly crafted chair but not the chair they were after.

Part of what motivated me to write this is because I've seen certain creators with wobbly chairs. They've slapped on carvings, stains, and all kinds of features--but the chair still wobbles like a motherfucker. These creators don't understand why more people aren't buying their chair. They think people must hate them personally or the material their chair is made from then fly into rages accusing audiences of moral deficiency. It's hit a level of bullying in its own right.

To people like that I say:

Your chair wobbles. It'll do way better if it doesn't wobble. The wobble is fixable. Strangers are not obligated to fawn over your wobbly chair. There isn't something wrong with them for not wanting a wobbly chair. Wobbly chairs haven't done well historically either. You're not an exception, just one in a very long line of wobbly chair makers. Some of those chairs were made of the same material you're using. Some were different. It isn't about the material or your staining, your carvings, any of that. It isn't about you either. Your chair can't support itself--let alone someone trying to sit in it. Even if your prospective customers couldn't make a better chair themselves, they can tell when shit's unsteady and they don't want that. Of course you're making wobbly chairs before you make sturdy ones because you're still figuring chair construction out. This is just a part of the process you haven't mastered yet. It takes attention and practice. If you spent half the energy you use yelling at other people honing your craft instead, you'd probably have better sales.

Whats your thoughts on Mami Tomoe in general? I dont like PMMM but Mami does interest me alot as a character concept: a veteran MG who took other, younger MGs under her wings to guide them; whom sees enough shits in her time that shes gone somewhat unstable but keep up a facade of cheerfulness to comfort her students. Im intending to create a character using this concept as well.

I wanted my character to have her Happy Ending - the rest of her younger teammates as well. I think it'd be rather ironic to base her on a dark MG while she belongs to a lighhearted Magical girl story. Shes still in a vague designing state, with a concept and some basic traits and backstory. I wanted to her to be a MG veteran who saw some serious shits during her younger days too, but with help from her mascot (who is not the bad guy in this story) and eventually the MGs whom shes teaching, shes healing from her past traumas and is on the road to a beautiful future.

I know there are other MGs from other shows that are good mentors for their team, but weirdly enough Mami was the first one who introduce me to this concept (PMMM was also the one to introduce me to the Maho Shojo gerne, but I dont like it so I evetually follow Pretty Cure instead, best choice ive ever made) so shes the one I pick to base my character on. Mostly for the ironic part.

I absolutely adore her. I even had a sideblog entirely dedicated to her back when this account got temporarily deleted, just to have any idea of how much I loved her. Heck, one of my self-inserts was inspired by her, too.

One of the many reasons why I love Mami could dial back to Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon's Kino Makoto/Sailor Jupiter. A strong yet sensitive girl who has lost her parents on a tragic accident and now craves the feeling of a family with the friends she makes.

Mami is indeed a fascinating character herself, and I think her death, while understandably haunting the narrative afterwards at least, was very disrespectful (she died in the span of ONE episode! Right after she debuted!) and the jokes that were relentlessly cracked by everyone and their mother for 10+ years are not funny at all.

Imagine if I were to crack jokes about Flapjack's death. You guys wouldn't like them, would you?

No, you guys wouldn't like them. It'd be cruel and done in bad taste.

Anyways, back to Mami...

She's the cool and experienced onee-san/senpai type of character, approachable and friendly; she's skilled and graceful, plus with an epic theme tune to boot. Of course, her calm and collected persona is just a mask that hides how terribly lonesome and scared she is. To quote Bebe in The Rebellion Story:

"Mami is a real crybaby. She gets lonely super-easy; I know, I know."

Homura's description is more in-depth, though:

"She would always put on a strong front and push herself too hard, despite having the softest heart of any of us."

This vulnerability of hers is more explored in Magia Record, though. She joins the Wings of Magius so she could help in finding a cause to save her friends from despairing and becoming Witches, as she feels guilty for dragging them into such a hostile world.

Except that the WoM's methods were very cultish, thus causing her to be brainwashed and used as a puppet, distance herself from the ones she was supposed to guide and protect, and when she'd be challenged by outsiders, she'd quickly lose her cool.

Turns out that no matter the timeline/universe, Tomoe Mami will always be the first one to crack at the revelation.

And I like that, because it makes her morally grey, which it's something quite rare in the Magical Girl genre. She wants to save her friends, but she has participated in dangerously unorthodox methods to achieve such an end.

Anyways, I've been rambling about Mami for too long, that I've forgotten your concept. Sorry! Your idea is amazing! My followers having galaxy-brained suggestions, as always!

Angeal for the ask game :D

ANGEAL HEWLEY

🎟️ SEXUALITY HEADCANON: Heteroflexible and biromantic. He prefers women, physically speaking, but could have an intimate relationship with a man. One man in particular.

⚧️ GENDER HEADCANON: Angeal is hard to get a read on, for me, since he's another of those characters who exists in a position that he seems to believe requires a hypermasculine presentation. I read him as cis, but I can see just about anything for him.

💕 A SHIP: Unrequited Angeal/Sephiroth is really the only ship I have for Angeal—I genuinely believe he's utterly in love with Sephiroth, and he never ever said a word about it to anyone.

🖇️ A BROTP: Angeal+Lazard is probably my biggest one, only because the mental image of both of them trying desperately to keep Genesis and Seph in line is so clear in my head it might as well be made of crystal.

🚫 A NOTP: Don't garotte me for this, but honestly Gengeal? I don't like the way he talks to or about Genesis; I've heard people say that they're like a divorced couple, but if anything they read to me as siblings desperate to get out of each other's orbit and utterly unable to escape their shared history no matter how they try. (Given that they seem to both have Gillian's mtDNA based on explanations in-canon, and we know that they can be considered siblings based on Weiss using his connection to Genesis as proof that he's also Angeal's brother in DFFOO, I feel like that's a fairly accurate read.)

💭 A RANDOM HEADCANON: Angeal didn't actually join SOLDIER at the same time as Genesis, and not only because he didn't particularly want to—Angeal is over a year younger than Genesis, and was just too young to enlist when Genny left Banora. It was almost a year before Angeal was able to follow him to Midgar, by which point Genesis had already formed a fairly solid relationship with Sephiroth, and Angeal was more than a little put-out by the idea that his position as Genesis' only friend had been taken by this weird kid with weird hair and weird eyes that Genesis kept clipping photos of from the newspaper. When he got to know Seph, though, he changed his tune pretty dramatically—and fell for him almost as hard as Genesis. This is one of the reasons that he inserts himself between them at every opportunity, not only because he doesn't think they're good for each other, but because he doesn't think that anyone is good enough for Sephiroth, not even himself. And if he isn't good enough to be Sephiroth's one and only, then Genesis (impulsive, arrogant, troublemaker Genesis, who spent days exploring a monster-infested cave system as a boy without a thought of the danger he courted in doing so, who already had everything he ever needed or wanted and still leveraged his obsession over a hero he hadn't met into an invention that garnered recognition in a way that Angeal never could) definitely wasn't. This is how the whole relationship fell apart.

🗣️GENERAL OPINION: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the saddest thing about Angeal is that he's the only one who couldn't bear to live with himself. I'm not a huge fan of the character as a person, but he's fantastically executed as a character. His story is legitimately one of the most heartbreaking in the series—He had a whole host of people who loved him so deeply as to be fathomless, and it didn't matter. His story is a tragedy not because of how he was made or how he died, but because of why things turned out the way they did. So much of the suffering he went through was self-imposed, and that's the saddest part of all.

(For the character ask game.)

Alright, I've been analyzing Harry Potter again, and I have three huge questions. (I apologize in advance for this being long)

why did you write this How does wizard metabolism work? In the books, we're told the students eat a massive breakfast and dinner everyday, yet none of them ever gain weight. Plus there's Hogsmeade and the trolly express where the kids eat a ton of candy. Harry especially confuses me. In GOF, he gets three cakes, and I can't remember if he eats them all or not, but he eats at least one. He doesn't even get a stomachache despite a good part of his diet at the time being sugar. Yet he's as active as ever, so are the other characters eating a lot. Unless they're evil, then they gain weight (Malfoy's goons for example). So does magic burn calories? Or are there some magic exercises? Or does wizard food automatically convert into magic like in Undertale? That'd actually be some cool worldbuilding. - Some quick math. The an average sheet cake has about 4,000 calories and 350 grams of sugar (estimated). Harry gets three, making the number 12,000 calories and 1,050 grams of sugar. Cake also only lasts for 2-7 days in a refrigerator, but Harry was keeping it under a board in his floor, reducing it to about 3 days. That means Harry would've had to eaten AT LEAST 7 days worth of sugar (50 is the maximum daily sugar intake) within 3 plus his regular meals. I spent way too much time calculating this. Boy if only I could put this effort into math class . . .

2. Why does Ron become such an asshole after book 3? He was pretty chill and light-hearted in books 1-3, but in books 4-7, he's unbearable. He's rude, cocky, jealous, and gets as angsty as your average YA love interest. Like Lavender's worst crime was being clingy and worried yet he treats her like garbage. And the audience is EXPECTED to hate her. I've watched one of your interviews and I have a theory it's because you were upset that Ron was getting more attention than your self insert Hermione, so you character-assassinated him.

3. If Hogwarts is considered the safest place in the wizarding world, why can't they keep Harry there? Yeah, yeah, power of love spell and all that. But we're told Dumbledore is the one of the most powerful guys alive. Plus the other witches, plus the extra security, Harry should be a-okay. I think it said something about not taking summer students, but they could easily make an exception for the Boy who Lived. It's not like you haven't given him ridiculous plot armor and convivence before.

1. It's just funny for the bad guys to get the ass end of diabetes! Good guys can eat whatever they want in my eyes, because they're good. Like Shaggy and Scooby-Doo.

2. Ron was faking being nice! I never liked him to begin with because of his hidden personality. So..I decided to reveal his true character later down the line! And maybe he was more popular than Harmione..but why was that? She's so pretty, smart, and filled with everything that everyone should like!

3. Do you really think I'm gonna let Harry go to a school with a gay man??? I mean, he does at one point..or maybe a few points unknowingly..but I like to prevent any old man from being able to prey upon a young man whenever I have valid excuses to do so!

@mortau asked way too many questions 6, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22

Damn, dude. Alright, let's do this.

Other characters/muns you’re interested in roleplaying with?

Frankly, if I had to pick one group of characters, it'd be Yakuza. I want to get more use out of my Yakuza muses over on my multimuse. That being said, as far as characters and muns go, I'm usually pretty open and I really enjoy OCs.

Would you get along with your muse?

I'd like to believe so. I won't go as far as to say that Matthew is a self-insert(I mean for starters, he's Brazilian-American, I'm white as shit), but I do have a lot of similar interests to him. Now whether that was intentional or just a side effect of him being my muse is up in the air, but I have a feeling he and I would be pretty chill.

What’s your opinion on blog themes? How do you feel about your own?

I feel like blog themes can be neat, but I think they're a pain in the ass to deal with. I'm kinda neutral on the ones I'm using right now, and I think the coolest one I have right now is over on the reboot blog, @everglow-synth-reboot, but even then because of the HTML lock shit that tumblr implemented, I've just moved onto using a Carrd anyway. It's gotten to the point where my newest sideblog, @golden-lynel, doesn't even have a theme, and is dash only.

What’s something that would make you unfollow a mutual?

Truth be told, there aren't a whole lot of things? I tend to be fairly chill, and I also more or less vet my potential mutuals? But as a hypothetical thing it'd probably be just outright harassment as a big thing. There's a whole slew of others I could think of, ranging from stuff like actual predatory behavior to just being a petty piece of shit, but I don't think I've really run into that problem overall.

Three big no-nos to do or say to your muse. (their ‘berserk button’)

Hurting his friends is a huge thing. Hurting anyone definitely due to his heroic nature, but those closer to him are much more precious.

Threatening the Lounge itself. This is his baby, he put in a lot of work to make the place a comfy spot for people, and he's not going to let it go down without a fight.

To a lesser extent, "You won't; no balls." Because then he'll do it, and when he succeeds, he's going to be super annoying about it.

Three interesting little tidbits or facts of your muse.

Matthew, and Polycus as a whole, was made based off of a Dungeons & Dragons 5e supplement known as Lasers & Liches. It's very fun, I highly recommend it if you play 5e. It turns the whole game into a silly Saturday Morning Cartoon, complete with new classes based on stuff like Sailor Moon and Kamen Rider. This is why magic is a huge part of the world, as well as stuff like dwarves, elves and orcs being present in Neo Arcadia.

He once swallowed a quarter on a dare. It took three minutes of him choking, drinking water, and nearly throwing up to get it down. He doesn't know what happened to it. He is still scared to this day.

Despite living there most of his life, Matthew still gets lost in Neo Arcadia sometimes. It gets so bad that he literally needs to climb up the highest building he can find just to get his bearings, usually meaning following billboards and business signs to get around.

🕯️🐇🎨 if you're still taking these?

I absolutely am! [Questions here]

on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?

Unequivocal 10! I ... am a fiend ... and greatly prefer editing to writing anything new at all. This year, I've been trying to build better habits and set aside a minimum of one hour a week to put new words on the page (however few or fraught they might be). It's helping and I am at last making progress as I slowly recover from a crippling case of burnout. But my favorite thing to do in the world is beta reading my friends' work and sometimes that burst of serotonin and feeling of accomplishment from helping them make their thing better is enough to jump start my own creativity! Usually though it just inspires me to re-read my wips ... tweak a few sentences ... and close the laptop.

do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both? 

Original characters, 100% of the time (although let's be real, they are all at least a little bit self-insert too). Most of them are either mine or Daisy's, but I also think it's a particular delight to borrow my friends' and mutuals' OC's from time to time.

When I think of "reader insert" I always think of the "y/n" format which is probably my top Nope Trope in fandom. I get the appeal, but I personally can't stand it and will go out of my way to avoid it (Oops accidentally answered 🧩). Since Dragon Age is so choice based and has so many moving parts, I've occasionally written things that are vague enough that you could mentally slot in [Your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor] here when relevant, but they're outliers. I also write exclusively in 3rd person, so the only way I can really swing that is if it's from a canon character's POV (like with the Surgeon/Cole ficlet buried down at the very bottom of my WIP pile)

link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

I was going to be extra self-indulgent and link any of the art pieces I've commissioned of Daren, but no, it's going to be this comic spread based on The Adventure Zone: Balance

It's patently obvious that I am in love with TAZ:Balance and I positively adore this poem. The art style is impeccable and of course anything with themes of longing, love, loss, and regret cuts me right to the quick

What's your alter ego like, actually? How did you come to create her? I get that this could be a bit personal so share anything that you think is "safe" to share, ofc. I want to get some inspiration, having an alter ego - one developed enough to even have her own distinct appearance - is really tempting, not gonna lie ;D

Putting this under the cut for those who want to read this:

One of my favorite ways of experiencing fiction are self-inserts; this is the main thing I do to explore the topics I'm not comfortable being public about, like psychology and violence. Self-inserts are different from writing an original character in an original universe because it is, plainly put, too much work if the goal is to focus on self-exploration. I use already existing universes and the characters in them to bounce off the ideas I have through, for the most part, dialogue, but I take note of the environments I put characters in as well. Since I both write and draw, I can fully focus on my perceptions of the original piece and the additions I make as opposed to commissioning someone else. The drawing I posted is a character I created many, many months ago before I had a solid idea of what I was doing and what the character meant to me.

To give this a backstory, I have always been into character design and I have always strongly identified with the fictional characters I liked. However, as I grew older, I felt less and less represented by other people's characters because there would always be a conflicting trait I was unsatisfied with. Knowing that only I could give myself proper representation, I started investing more of my time into my original work. I was drawn to a specific character type at the time, and one of my biggest motivations for improvement was wanting to come up with a design similar to this:

I didn't know what this original character was going to be at first, but would eventually decide on her being an "[insert fandom name] OC". She was a villain and the first one I've ever written, and at the time I had a very narrow view of what her appearance should be like. My logic was that if she had disturbing qualities, then she should look that way too since that was what some other artists did with their characters! Me thinking I "should" be creating such a personal design based on something other than me liking it should have been a red flag, but more on that later…

I have an unfinished story with her where I would write her interactions as perceived by other characters. Eventually, I figured out it wasn't a "character" I was writing, it was me trying on different traits and imagining myself in different scenarios (and observing them from the outside perspective) to try and understand what I was and was not comfortable with. Weirdly enough, even though I had spent a lot of time on her appearance and was in general satisfied with it, it was also the thing that bothered me the most. I liked her design, and I liked drawing her, but I always felt weird about utilizing her as a placeholder for myself and could never tell why. I have kind of been moving away from rationalizing everything, so I'm just going to straight up say what I see when I look at that drawing nowadays — I don't know why it didn't occur to me that one's personality could differ from their fashion preferences. I was fine with some of her overbearing traits, yes, but I couldn't get behind her intimidating looks or even associating them with something sinister in the first place! It wasn't until recently that I realized how much I was limiting my perceptions of other people and my personal expression to cultural standards (think flowers — kind, dark colors — evil). Preconditions like that are not an inherently bad thing to pick up on since you can try them out and either discard them or recombine into something you like, but it turns into a problem when they take over the creative decision like it did for me. Developing this character allowed me to resolve the "visual biases" I had that stunted my creative process, and I have since moved away from such a rigid approach to character design or even my own fashion sense. In a way, she's an incomplete version of me, so I don't identify with this character very much anymore.

If alter egos are something you already feel like doing, I suggest going for it. It was certainly the most comprehensive thing I've done to better my understanding of myself.

After work, I sometimes read one of your "x readers" to de-stress. The thought of Pinter, and getting suffocated by his chest, is great motivation to get through an eight-hour work day.

I'm curious, what inspires you to write and are there any blogs on Tumblr that inspire you/ like writting-wise?

That's genuinely heart-warming to hear. I used to do that type of thing a lot, and it's sweet to hear that someone out there may also use my content (the lighter or darker parts of it) as a comfort/motivation.

It's funny you mention Pinter specifically, he's probably thinking about you during his own work shifts. Desks are so good for hiding boners.

My inspiration fluctuates, but I don't think I ever felt burned out of my own content. Ideas just sort of pop up, according to what I'm seeing or thinking or talking about. I have a massive list of ideas I can eventually start picking at if I feel bored. Some people say alternating between larger projects is good for keeping motivation, but I tend to disagree. There are some parts I'd rather chug through than just keep putting it off. I too have a couple of comfort stories saved somewhere, but nowadays I don't have that much time to revisit them, only occasionally.

I think, and this isn't such a great thing in the long run, the reason why I find it so easy to write and (at times) draw is because I'm constantly in my own head, in my own land. I'm the type of person that can stand still like a statue for hours so long as I have my imagination. I don't often need stimulus to get into the role of my characters, it comes naturally. Maybe because I've had them swimming around for a while.

I've been asked several times if there are any tumblrs I'd recommend, and honestly? No. I'm extremely picky with what I consume, and people's tastes vary wildly- I can't immediately recommend one or two to you. More often than not, what I have is a collection of loose works I've saved, usually off Tumblr but a couple from here too. I'm also like, a goofier brand of monsterfucking, and I don't see that around too much.

You shared a thought, I'll share one of mine- I keep coming back to the movie Legend (1985), and I constantly replay the scenes where Darkness and Lily are sort of in that tense game, but naturally with self-insertion. I'm not sure if it's a motivation/comfort thing, but it's one of those hyper-specific scenarios I keep looping.

WIP Question Tag Game

Tagged by @ceph-the-ghost-writer

Rules: Answer as many (or as few) of the questions about your WIP as you can.

Tagging: I'm leaving this as an open tag

I'll be answering all of them for A Hero's Call.

1. What was the first part of your WIP that you created?

The very first part of A Hero's Call that I created was the concept of dimension jumping in general. It was inspired by both the ghost portals from Danny Phantom and my middle school self's mighty need for crossover content from my favorite shows, and then I kind of just made a self insert to make those crossovers happen, and that self insert evolved into Kira.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the intro song be?

So, when I was young and naive and didn't know how filmmaking worked, I wanted A Hero's Call to be a tv show. The intro song was always gonna be some sort of early 2000's rock/emo/metal song, and I almost always came back to In The End by Black Veil Brides. And honestly, I still stand by that.

3. Who are your favourite character(s) and why?

So, I love Kira, I really do, she's the main character after all. HOWEVER, my blorbos for the series are definitely Lucent and Cairn, which is really funny if you have the knowledge I do (that knowledge being that Lucent has ice powers and Cairn has fire powers). Lucent was a character I originally made to rp with some friends without having to use my already established characters, because I was weird and had stupid hangups about sharing my work, and she's kind of become my punching bag OC of the series which is how I know she's one of my favorites. I love making her go through physical and emotional torment.

Cairn is just fun for me to think about conceptually, because he's a villain that really could have chosen redemption, and he almost does at quite a few different points in his life, but ultimately he succumbs to the cycle of abuse and gives in to that darker side of himself. Also the thought of this very inhuman-looking dude having a Tumblr is SO funny to me (he is canonically VERY internet-savvy).

4. What other pieces of media could share a fan base with your WIP?

Any number of media pieces tbh, but the biggest one would probably be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was a HUGE inspiration for this project.

5. What has been your biggest struggle while writing your WIP?

Writing the beginning of it. I've struggled so hard with it and I can never figure out what's holding me back, which annoys me. And the more I write the more I discover that when I have all the pieces to a story that I want to tell, the writing starts flowing eventually. But with this WIP I've just had to drag those first few chapters out kicking and screaming from my brain and I can tell something is missing, but I don't know what.

6. Are there any animals in your story?

Yes, there are. There's the Shade family dog, a golden retriever named Gary (who is, in fact, just my real dog inserted into the story), and there's also Lucent's "pet" Jannik, who is a ferret-like creature called a skitnik. Emily and Pickle are ranch kids so they have a ton of animals that sometimes get mentioned, but Gary and Jannik are more central to the plot than those animals are.

7. How do your characters get around?

All the normal ways you would get around in rural Wyoming in the 2010's (cars, horses, off-road vehicles, etc). And, of course, dimension jumping.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I'm rewriting the first few chapters (again) to try and get them ready to post on AO3 because I've been churning out fanfiction nonstop because of how much the kudos and comments go to my head, so I want to see if putting my original works on AO3 would spur me on to work on them more.

9. What aspects of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

I think that the characters and the worldbuilding will be the major draws for people, cause I have a LOT of lore and a lot of fun characters to introduce and I think it'll be fun for people to explore.