Part 7: Sisterly Screaming · 3:20pm Feb 10th, 2020
Background
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
On Writing: Chapter 5: Sisterly Screaming
One of the earlier chapters I wrote, Sisterly Screaming evolved based on the characters of Mirage and Kyria and ties back to how I decided their backstories.
Being sisters and considering their family, I wanted to make sure Mirage and Kyria loved one another but had a … natural tension between them based on who they grew up to be. Yet, I knew that as characters, the had to seem familiar to the audience in that their characters should remind them that they are Alternia and Harlequin’s daughters.
From the start I had decided Mirage would be most like her mother, but her initial character was very different. I pictured her as a less serious Alternia, and more of a teenager type, with a social butterfly like personality and a meddler do-gooding attitude.
But once I had Mirage be an airship captain, though, and gave her the storyline of being stressed out from the missions she’s gone on… that personality made much less sense and it made even less sense as I continued to write her. Because of that, I just wrote her the way she felt to me and thus she became a lot like her mother, only, even more formal, and even more serious about her responsibilities.
I very much like her this way, though, and her arch throughout the story… so it worked out well.
Kyria was meant to be the smart young sister. The more quiet, listening nature she has was written into her at the beginning. In creating her character I was heavily influenced by Fluttershy. The characters in this series are very much talkers, and so I was interested in creating a character that listened, thought, and acted.
What I ended up having was a character who was rather naive though. I did expect Kyria to be less mature than Mirage, but I didn’t quite expect her to come off across as naive until I started writing her. This worked in my favor as I already wanted her arc to be taking up further responsibilities as a princess, but it was surprising to me.
What does this all have to do with writing the two screaming at each other about how they grew up you may ask?
Well once their personalities were established, it was easy to figure out what parental factors led to them to grow up this way. I already had a base idea that Mirage would be the more mature one and Kyria would be the less mature one, and that would cause tension. Furthermore, I also knew Alternia would be closer to Mirage.
Eventually I realized that Alternia would cherish Mirage just… because Mirage was the first child she’d ever given birth to. So there would be subsconscious favoritism, which would grow as Mirage strove to well… be like Alternia and fulfil her dream of protecting and serving Equestria. It’s not that Kyria didn’t reject that dream, but Kyria prefers to go about it in a different manner. This will become clearer as the story goes on XD.
But out of all that therein laid the grounds for the drama in this scene. Kyria doesn’t quite understand the danger they’re all in. Mirage is taking the danger too seriously. Kyria is obviously a bit jealous of the close relationship Mirage has with her mother. Mirage knows this but… can’t address it easily and she’s dealing with her PTSD.
Cue Sisterly Screaming :D
