Re: analysing Ryan: he's the "love to hate" character in the best possible way (for me, at least). So far he comes across as the most competent in his family and it makes him such a great antagonist; like, his mother is fixated on superficial details(whether Onyx acts graceful or not) over matter(whether he completes tasks or not) and his brother is basically a rich kid bully: the moment he realises he's on equal footing with someone or that confrontation may not end in his favour, Cadran folds like a wet newspaper(at least that's the vibe I'm getting so far). So far, Ryan feels like someone who would be just as functional out of the lap of luxury as he is in one; he can work(or quickly learn to work) his way if not back into lap of luxury, then to being seen as(mostly) a reasonable authority figure position and resources that come with this - and this is what makes him terrifying in a very grounded way (unlike his brother or mother, who seem more set in their ways as rich assholes). Also, we already have indirect proof of Ryan's competence as a whumper - Onyx's behaviour. He's the guy who conditioned him to behave as the perfect servant and supressed Onyx's memories of whatever life he had before serving the royal family. Ryan is ruthless and competent, and this is a very scary combo when established through his actions (as opposed to establishing it through narration - "show, don't tell" at its best). He's not unlikable just because its a genre convention, you written him as a genuinely scary antagonist, and I love this so much i struggle to put it into words. I want to hit him with a chair but I also want to see what schemes he's up to😈😈 also, I love the "every time I write Ryan, he thinks its okay to monologue" tags - he is the antagonist who earned his right to monologue. He's very pragmatic in his vileness(at least so far; based on your tags, he has some major trouble coming his way), and I really like the way it plays out in the story so far.

Tl;dr: I love the way you edit and write those characters so freaking much :3 :3

OH MY GOD. HI. OKAY. THIS ASK HAS MADE MY WHOLE WEEK. I HAVE REREAD THIS ASK LIKE FOUR TIMES JUST GIGGLING AND KICKING MY FEET.

I feel like you know these characters even better than I do, which is maybe a sign that I've done well writing them but also kind of intimidating?? but yeah. let's talk about Ryan.

The first time I tried to write this story was about a year and a half ago. I stopped for a few different reasons, but I still wanted to rewrite it on my new blog. And when I was rereading my old work, one of the things I got frustrated with was that I was excited to write multiple whumpers, but all of the whumpers sort of blended together. They didn't have any personality, if that makes sense? They were just a bunch of people who wanted to torture a guy. Which is fine but I really wanted them to be more individual, so that's when I started assigning them actual motivations.

And yeah, you pretty much nailed their main motivations. Lucia (the queen—I don't think I've ever mentioned her name but it's Lucia) is very superficial because she is very driven by how she thinks other people see her (she thinks that holding onto the title of royalty is more about popularity than anything else) and it reflects in the way she sees other people, especially the ones who work for her. Cardan is driven by entertainment because he thinks he can get away with anything (hence the surprised folding like a wet newspaper anytime something doesn't go his way). Ryan, on the other hand, is driven by something like productivity? He also sees himself as the most competent person in the family.

I've honestly never considered how well Ryan would do in, like, a job that didn't already come with authority. But he is very... put together, in a way that intimidates everyone around him. He is the type of guy who people praise by saying "They can make the hard but necessary decisions" the way people say about historical figures. Ryan can be super ruthless whenever he thinks he needs to be, whereas if we see Cardan being cruel, it's out of boredom or curiosity.

(On a somewhat separate note, the twins are more or less supposed to be literary foils. Foils are two characters designed to contrast each other, usually to highlight good qualities in the protag of a story, and the twins are meant to highlight how horrible the other one is. cuz they're both horrible.)

Also, it means SO much to me that you included the part about show vs tell because Onyx is not a reliable narrator whatsoever when it comes to the morality of the royal family, due to this conditioning. And I've been kinda nervous about the way it's written because I was worried that the narrator saying "oh yeah this is normal :) they're the royal family they can do whatever they want" might make people think that it's not as bad as it is or something? Especially in spots like chapter three where Onyx is like "oh yeah Ryan hates his brother more than he hates me." But like. I'm glad we can all agree that Ryan is a dick anyway