#i so badly want to dig through my storage unit to find my old sketchbooks... their first designs compared to now would give y'all whiplash

[muddshadow]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What is something that has changed from the beginning of your WIP to now?

hello @ryns-ramblings!! *showers you with glitter* I have morphed this ask into world-building Wednesday! and for the subject of change, i’ve gotta talk about my oldest, dearest, most maddening project...

TO FORGET A PRINCE // High fantasy, mystery. A world built on bones, volatile magic and sentient nature, and the escalating riddle of a godling’s revenge. First in a trilogy, To Forget a Prince brings together the three strangers Yulei, Nara, and Kon, each struggling to prove themselves in all the wrong ways as a cold-hearted monster wakes from its long sleep. About failure, perseverance, and creating your own salvation.

oh boy this story... it's been with me since i was about twelve years old. It's undergone so many overhauls, i could write an entirely separate novel about what's changed since the first few ideas. It’s original version was more a convoluted chain of wild events and spectacular battle scenes and extra-dramatic character drama than it was an actual story with plot. Giving it structure took a lot of time and effort, though the biggest challenge was designing character arcs. The three main characters sort of grew up with me, their traits and personalities went through several transitions, and so writing them a beginning and end was tough. I'm sure they'll endure more tweaks and adjustments as the last of my plot comes together, but I've settled on their personal journeys - how they begin the story and the difficult truths they face along the way. Besides a name change for each, a couple makeovers, and some major background revisions, here’s some of the biggest changes for the three main characters...

Yulei began as many twelve-year-old OC's do: an over-powered, over-dramatic, tragic chosen one. Also everyone was in love with her (naturally). Yulei was really good at being captured by enemies (everyone wanted her ultra special powers), accidentally destroying buildings in fits of magical hysteria (she was always forgiven for this), and staring pensively into the night sky. Yulei didn’t actually have that much personality. Her righteous goodness and popularity were boring. Over time, she’s become significantly less ‘good’ and entirely less ‘popular’. After scrapping the chosen-one gig and rearranging her background, Yulei is defined by her razor-sharp resourcefulness, eager impulsiveness, and lonesome wanderlust. She grew up in a big city with very little support, she knew a hundred flavors of neglect before an affectionate touch, and is infatuated by the whisper of magic (and now also branded by it). Despite being (mostly) good-natured and friendly, Yulei struggles with attachment. Meeting her mentor changed the trajectory of her entire life. When he disappears, Yulei becomes obsessed with finding him. Her character arc centers around this obsession - fearing the rot of loneliness, killing the self to please someone else, digging up truths better left hidden. But in the effort of searching for her mentor, Yulei forges new bonds she never thought she could, and learns a lot about how to love.

Nara (Nathera) is utterly unrecognizable from his original design. He began as the story's villain: also over-powered, smirks eight times a paragraph, and whose blinding handsomeness and (predatory) charm cancelled out all those murders he committed. But Nara was also indentured to the bigger, badder bad guy, and so this made him sympathetic enough to team up with sometimes. Nara’s personality has changed A LOT, and transitioning him from problematic villain meant giving him a weakness - so now, Nara is a coward. He runs from blatant danger, possible danger, confrontation of an emotional nature, and most things that blink at him funny. Not for lack of magical talent - Nara is still an exceedingly talented sorcerer - but his work often flirts with death and running away has always meant survival. Nara looks after himself first and foremost, and he prefers to hide behind a hundred-layer mask. His character arc is about courage - courage to face his fears, but also the courage to know oneself. Nara can’t flee the plot of the story because it grows from the problem he never quite foresaw (he’ll curse himself for never anticipating that danger), and he can’t flee himself as the past comes calling. Surrounded by people who are ferociously authentic, Nara is forced to decide who he wants to be.   

Kon (Konvhana) has always been the voice of reason. Except when I was a kid, I had little to no interest in silly things like reason, and so Kon was condemned to be the bland and boring one. He led a prestigious team of warriors; always making the right battle decisions, connected the others to the story’s political higher-ups, and rarely felt complicated emotions. The best thing I did for Kon’s character arc was take away all that certainty in his leadership - Kon stills leads a (much smaller) team, but his storyline is defined by trust. Kon has good instincts, a sharp nose for lies, and a strong sense for justice, but he doubts himself. It’s difficult for him to trust others and terrifying to lead them. He wants to make a difference but doesn’t know how. Throughout the first book, Kon hesitates and stumbles, blindly follows others despite disagreement, suffers and learns from his failures. Meeting Yulei and Nara forces Kon into the position where he can make a difference - where his decisions have consequences and his actions affect lives, and where he must trust himself or lose everything he cares about. Kon has always been stern, grumpy, and a slight buzzkill, but nowadays he’s also intelligent, extremely caring, and someone who’s had to work very, very hard to act on what he believes is right.

thanks for the excuse to ramble about my oldest characters <3 here's some lineart of them i haven't colored yet!! Kon - Yulei - Nara. (yulei is usually 5'3" hehe) i love them very much <3