Continuing the series of posts about my upcoming book, Savage Frequency, let's talk about the second main protagonist of the story: Claire Warren.

Claire is a 27-year-old white rabbit who works as a secret agent for a global espionage agency. As a spy, she is incredibly skilled and the complete opposite of Jack Savage: organized, methodical, cold and highly focused on efficiency. She is one of the agency's best field agents and prides herself on never having failed (until the sneezing incident at the beginning of the plot). Because of her traumatic past, she uses sarcasm and authority as a defense mechanism.

Initially, she sees Jack as a "burden" and a "latent threat" simply because he's a predator. She's impatient with his nervous jokes, but secretly admires his resilience with his prosthetic leg. When she's alone or feels safe, she is melancholic and musical. Her dream of retiring as a secret agent to become a singer is the only part of her that wasn't "corrupted" by the agency. The rhinitis thing is hilarious, lol. Imagine her trying to be all serious, like James Bond, and suddenly a sneeze changes the whole course of the mission.

This humanizes the character and creates wonderful moments of physical comedy (well, that's what I think). I chose her first name in homage to my pet rabbit, who, coincidentally, was also white. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2019 and I thought giving her name to my character would be a beautiful way to immortalize her. The surname Warren means "labyrinth of tunnels" or "rabbit burrow" in English. It sounds like a common American surname, but it's very fitting for her species.

Furthermore, she was inspired by the singer Avril Lavigne in terms of physical appearance and by Claire Redfield from the Resident Evil franchise in terms of personality and clothing, more precisely the clothes she wore in the Resident Evil 2 remake. She was also inspired by Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, as she was also a very badass spy.

After I created this character, I immediately remembered that my best friend, NOTG, was accepting commissions in a completely new art style for a very low price. I didn't waste any time and paid him to draw Claire. Unlike Jack's art, my friend managed to finish drawing Claire in a single day because it was a bust drawing in a graphite style.

And about the art, I loved it! Seriously, this is one of the best drawings you've ever done for me 🤩 Before, I was REALLY worried because I thought the art would be extremely simple, without many details, just like that art in your post announcing your commissions for a very low price.

I thought this commission wouldn't be worth it, but I was wrong. I was very surprised that you made a point of adding details to this drawing. I absolutely loved the details of the hair and eyes, I dare say this art turned out much better than that drawing in your post, haha!

I also loved the painting and the way you drew my character, she's so beautiful and wonderful 😍🥰💖 Thank you so much for making another art for me. It was totally worth having another drawing done by one of the best furry artists in the world and I'm very proud to be one of his best friends 💗✨💝🌟💕

If you want to see more wonderful arts made by my best friend, click on the links below:

X/Twitter: https://x.com/NOTG_ARTS
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notg_arts/

This art and the art of the first main protagonist of my story (Jack) were my last commissions. That's right, I'm not going to pay commissions to artists anymore for an indefinite period. It won't be forever, but it will be a long time before I commission artists again. The issue isn't just about saving money, there's another one: I want to stop spending money solely on drawings for now, you know. I want to spend it on other things, after all, life isn't just about art, right? lol.

I've already had this conversation with my brother, who I'm very close to, and really, spending your hard-earned money only on drawings isn't a very good idea because you could spend that money on many other things, whether it's silly things like fast food and movie tickets or even very important things like new clothes, new sneakers and so on. After a long time, I finally realized that I only knew how to spend on art because I love art made by incredible artists I've met, like NOTG for example. I like art and I love to draw, but it's time to take a break from that and spend on other things because life isn't just about art.

Below are some more very important details in the plot of my future book involving Claire:

When questioned by Jack about her past and the reason for her strong prejudice against predators, Claire tells him her story. She suffered from the divorce of her adoptive parents (who were also rabbits). She was very attached to her father and they used to spend time in a cabin in the woods fishing. However, after her parents' divorce, because she was 5 years old at the time, she couldn't choose who to live with, and because of this her mother got custody of her. To make matters worse, her mother married another man and he was a jerk who didn't like children.

Her mother and stepfather frequently neglected her, with times when her stepfather was abusive and violently assaulted her. Even knowing this, her mother never believed her and never wanted to separate from her new husband, much to the girl's dismay. At one point, her mother saw her daughter being assaulted by her stepfather, but instead of reporting him to the police, she simply assaulted her as well, accusing her of wanting to separate her from her husband.

Unable to endure this horrible life any longer, Claire decided to run away from home and live with her father. However, upon arriving at his house, she discovered that other people were living there. Furthermore, she also discovered that her father had died in the hospital. One of the doctors who tried to save his life was a predator, and there had been a medical error that prevented him from saving Claire's father's life. This hurt her deeply and at the same time made her very angry with her mother because she never gave her any news of her father again.

To make matters worse, upon learning of the medical error committed by a predator, Claire began to harbor a deep hatred for predators. Later, she moved into her father's old cabin alone and never wanted to live with her mother and stepfather again. Unaware of her troubled past, Jack and the other AMS agents considered her mysterious and cunning.

Besides her mother issues, Claire dated several men, but none of these relationships worked out. Her parents' divorce influenced her distrust and resistance to believing in true love. She dreams of retiring as a spy to become a singer, but her promise to "never sing about love if it doesn't exist" in one scene reveals a defensive posture, a result of past traumas and disappointments.

However, her love for Jack marked the moment when Claire managed to break through these emotional barriers, showing that, despite fear, it's possible to open oneself to a new feeling. In short: the rabbit projected the anger she felt towards her mother and the frustration over her father's death onto the predators. Her line about "never singing about love if it doesn't exist" is heartbreaking, but it sets the stage for a beautiful ending when she finally sings to the lynx. Basically, Claire's conflict won't be explored much, it will only be mentioned in the book since she tells her whole story to Jack.

Furthermore, the protagonists will discover that the villain of the story, President Sterling Cobalt, fabricated the incident that caused Claire's father's medical malpractice to justify the tame collar law. This would give her the perfect reason to forgive the doctor: it was all a setup by the villain. Claire's father was hospitalized for a very serious problem (perhaps related to his heart or lungs). He was a beloved figure in the community. Sterling, who was already campaigning to implement the collars, needed "proof" that predators were unstable even in professions of trust.

Sterling sent an accomplice to sabotage the operating room's monitoring systems. At the crucial moment, the equipment began to beep falsely, indicating a panic attack in the doctor who is a predator. The villain then manages to introduce a substance into the room's ventilation system that mimicked the smell of "fresh blood" or "fear," something that would cause any predator's heart rate to increase. As a consequence, the doctor didn't attack the patient, but the stress caused by the alarm and the substance made the doctor hesitate for three seconds. Those three seconds were fatal for the protagonist's father. To make matters worse, the villain used the cameras to say the following:

"Look, he went into a predatory trance and let a citizen die. If he had been wearing a tame collar, he would have been calm and the mistake wouldn't have happened".

Yeah, this villain is a despicable son of a bitch, he will surely be such a detestable character that everyone will hate him with all their might lmfao And to finish, I imagined a very emotional scene that will be necessary for the book. In the middle of the story, Claire will finally understand the pain and suffering of the predators and how bad the use of the tame collar is. She will also realize that the system isn't as fair as she thought. I imagined the scene as very sad, which in this case is this scene here:

Jack and Claire decide to attend a talent show at school or a small music recital, as Jack's little brother will be one of the children performing on stage. During the performance, it's the lynx's little brother's turn to perform. He has spent weeks rehearsing. When he finishes playing and the audience applauds, he overflows with pure joy. He starts jumping for happiness. The necklace glows yellow, then red.

And then, the necklace hisses. The audience (mostly preys) falls silent. The boy stops smiling instantly. His eyes glaze over, his ears droop and he drops the instrument, breaking it on the floor. He lies there, swaying slightly, like a rag doll, not understanding why his joy was "punished".

At that moment, the rabbit sees the child's mother run onto the stage, crying not from pain, but from humiliation, trying to hide her son's face as she takes him away. Claire looks at Jack and sees that he is holding his own prosthetic leg, trembling, knowing that this happens to him every time he tries to truly love her. The pain of silence is stronger than the pain of shock.

This scene is what we call a Moral Turning Point. Seeing a child being chemically "switched off" for being happy is a shock of reality, and this causes the female protagonist to stop seeing numbers and statistics and start seeing individuals. It is the moment when she ceases to be just an agent of the AMS and becomes a rebel for justice.