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Extended Thoughts on: Jessica Crimshaw/Brenda
a year ago
Welp... it's here. I think this is the longest I've ever took with a character. In my defence, it's also the longest character I've written.
I'll just get the boring whiny stuff out of the way first, since that's the main reason why this character was so challenging. This character is cursed. Nothing really to do with the content itself, as is the case with most Cursed items. But while writing this character, I had to do with mood swings, mental health bs, physical health bs (since flu season was so goddamn terrible our province brought back the masks), and a sprained wrist (from lifting 10lb weights because I'm baby). I wrote the final stages (and these thoughts!) one-handed, which in my line of work, should be a lot more fun. But I had to get this done; if I didn't, my house would catch fire or something (OH WAIT UPDATE IT ALMOST DID WHILE I WAS PROOFREADING WATER SPILLED ON MY CHARGER AND WAS A FEW CENTIMETRES AWAY FROM BURSTING INTO FLAMES, WTF WAS THIS CHARACTER).
Okay, now that I've got that whining out of my system, let's talk about the character itself. Forgive me if this is more rambly than usual; it's a big character.
This character was a commission, and my client came prepared. Six pages of notes, which I absolutely adore. I consider my commissioners cowriters (they're the ones with ideas!), so the more information I get, the better. While it was long, I'd just finished Samantha Brody, so I knew how to write for two characters. And it had a lot of themes I've never written before, but that's fine. Also, hooves. The outline had hooves. I could do this.
Some of the themes turned out quite well; I think the mid-game switchup, where Skye becomes the focus, is really well-designed, and it basically adds 20 more stages of transformation. Other themes were a little tricky; this is one of the most sexual characters I've written, and while I wouldn't call the first few TFs uglification, per se, it's definitely the first time I've written something akin to it. And then there's the big theme, the one that I had the most trouble with.
The incest themes. Or at least, the thoughts. It's something I thought I'd be able to write, but realised that I just can't. Maybe I'd have had an easier time if the character wasn't so long, and if I and literally everyone I knew weren't bedridden with colds, but it robbed a lot of my motivation. And this is entirely a me thing: I should've recognised that I can't write everything well. Still, I don't regret it: I think the character turned out great, and you can't know your boundaries unless you push. It also helped that my commissioner was so, so patient. As Cursed as this character was, I know our next one will turn out just as good, hopefully better!
Trivia time, and then I'll pass out:
- The names were all my client's, so I don't have any dumb facts for them... oh! Emrita was supposed to have a circumflex above the r (like ř), but I couldn't find it used in Latin surnames (and more importantly, I didn't wanna code it into the game, lol).
- This does take place in Sonja Grier's reality, since our host Volpes has a tail. I like that the one thing that consistently pisses them off is contestants taking off their clothes; there are rules to clothing transformations, dangit!
- Again, a big motivator for me was the hooves in the last third... weird, man. I mean, I don't judge foot fetishes, so I shouldn't judge my hoof fetish, but still, no idea where it came from. Major tangent, but I once went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, saw the demon Baphomet had hooves, and immediately searched for their pronouns. I have a problem (they're he/it, btw).
- Speaking of feet, when researching mouse paws, I found out they're called skates! ...And then I learned that's what a <i>computer mouse's</i> feet are called. I don't think real mice have skates.
- Y'know what they do have, though? Really fast gestation periods. Apparently it only takes ~20 days for mice to come to term! I dunno if that's actually a short time, or if we humans just take our time with it; I was a little wary of Googling how fast every animal gets pregnant. My search history's fucked as is...
- I can only really remember the last few music choices, and as usual, they were frenetic, from techno remixes to smooth jazz. Instead of Joji or a pithy credits tune, however, I proofread to Paramore's Brand New Eyes so I could belt the lyrics in order to stay awake. I fell asleep as soon as the album ended.
My question: what was the last thing you really struggled to complete? Hopefully you were pleased with the result, as I am for this!
And now I shall pass out:
- yoshielder
I'll just get the boring whiny stuff out of the way first, since that's the main reason why this character was so challenging. This character is cursed. Nothing really to do with the content itself, as is the case with most Cursed items. But while writing this character, I had to do with mood swings, mental health bs, physical health bs (since flu season was so goddamn terrible our province brought back the masks), and a sprained wrist (from lifting 10lb weights because I'm baby). I wrote the final stages (and these thoughts!) one-handed, which in my line of work, should be a lot more fun. But I had to get this done; if I didn't, my house would catch fire or something (OH WAIT UPDATE IT ALMOST DID WHILE I WAS PROOFREADING WATER SPILLED ON MY CHARGER AND WAS A FEW CENTIMETRES AWAY FROM BURSTING INTO FLAMES, WTF WAS THIS CHARACTER).
Okay, now that I've got that whining out of my system, let's talk about the character itself. Forgive me if this is more rambly than usual; it's a big character.
This character was a commission, and my client came prepared. Six pages of notes, which I absolutely adore. I consider my commissioners cowriters (they're the ones with ideas!), so the more information I get, the better. While it was long, I'd just finished Samantha Brody, so I knew how to write for two characters. And it had a lot of themes I've never written before, but that's fine. Also, hooves. The outline had hooves. I could do this.
Some of the themes turned out quite well; I think the mid-game switchup, where Skye becomes the focus, is really well-designed, and it basically adds 20 more stages of transformation. Other themes were a little tricky; this is one of the most sexual characters I've written, and while I wouldn't call the first few TFs uglification, per se, it's definitely the first time I've written something akin to it. And then there's the big theme, the one that I had the most trouble with.
The incest themes. Or at least, the thoughts. It's something I thought I'd be able to write, but realised that I just can't. Maybe I'd have had an easier time if the character wasn't so long, and if I and literally everyone I knew weren't bedridden with colds, but it robbed a lot of my motivation. And this is entirely a me thing: I should've recognised that I can't write everything well. Still, I don't regret it: I think the character turned out great, and you can't know your boundaries unless you push. It also helped that my commissioner was so, so patient. As Cursed as this character was, I know our next one will turn out just as good, hopefully better!
Trivia time, and then I'll pass out:
- The names were all my client's, so I don't have any dumb facts for them... oh! Emrita was supposed to have a circumflex above the r (like ř), but I couldn't find it used in Latin surnames (and more importantly, I didn't wanna code it into the game, lol).
- This does take place in Sonja Grier's reality, since our host Volpes has a tail. I like that the one thing that consistently pisses them off is contestants taking off their clothes; there are rules to clothing transformations, dangit!
- Again, a big motivator for me was the hooves in the last third... weird, man. I mean, I don't judge foot fetishes, so I shouldn't judge my hoof fetish, but still, no idea where it came from. Major tangent, but I once went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, saw the demon Baphomet had hooves, and immediately searched for their pronouns. I have a problem (they're he/it, btw).
- Speaking of feet, when researching mouse paws, I found out they're called skates! ...And then I learned that's what a <i>computer mouse's</i> feet are called. I don't think real mice have skates.
- Y'know what they do have, though? Really fast gestation periods. Apparently it only takes ~20 days for mice to come to term! I dunno if that's actually a short time, or if we humans just take our time with it; I was a little wary of Googling how fast every animal gets pregnant. My search history's fucked as is...
- I can only really remember the last few music choices, and as usual, they were frenetic, from techno remixes to smooth jazz. Instead of Joji or a pithy credits tune, however, I proofread to Paramore's Brand New Eyes so I could belt the lyrics in order to stay awake. I fell asleep as soon as the album ended.
My question: what was the last thing you really struggled to complete? Hopefully you were pleased with the result, as I am for this!
And now I shall pass out:
- yoshielder
The last thing I struggled on was a draft, and it was really more of a motivation thing. It wasn't that long, and the piece was mostly planned down to the scene progression, but for one reason or another, I couldn't muster the focus to get started on it, and deferred to other projects for months.
I think it was down to this expectation of quality I built up in my head preventing me from actually engaging in the act of creation. I dunno. It's complicated.