The story continues!! · 4:02pm January 5th
Decided to show Live Axle some love, as the mare is an important supporting character. Giving her some more thought to the design, her side shave is gone, now growing out, and she wears Slowtrots jacket, even if it's a few sizes too big for her. I have one more art peace with her in mind, though it will be one of a bunch of the cast of Desperados, it's just that I felt she needed a bit more attention. As of right now in the story, Live will be the bridge between the main cast and the Desperados, explaining some things as they go.
As for the rest of the story, I finally finished going over the current batch of chapters, and got started on the new chapters, the only problem is that I'm still flying by ear with this, but have a good idea where this is all going. At least I'm at a point where the story can start picking up, with less setup needed. So I hope you enjoy the new batch of characters, and hopefuly fun factions.
Nice.
I enjoy these little character sheets you got full of stats and art. Seems to me you got this down to a science. Almost convinced you have this customized program for your ponies and you simply have to plug in their image, skills, equipment, and some numbers besides those skills. Also a little place to have a short description of them.
Let me ask this. Hypothetically, pretend you are whatever character you imagine yourself to be in your world and you handed Live Axle the stat sheet you have above. How would she react?
As a follow up question to that, can you think of any other character you have, regardless if they are hero or villain or anything in between, whom you think would have an especially interesting reaction to this kind of information?
I know there's a small handful of characters in your story that are practically aware that they are in a story. I think one of them you said was pretending to be a barmaid but was actually death itself. She'd probably shrug at this little stat sheet and equally aware of who you are. Still others might get alarmed and wonder if you've been spying on them or something. Give me a funny story if you want in regards to these questions.
5762667
Most likely, confusion. It be like if you were handed a character sheet of yourself, and how you would react. As for any other character, hard to say relay, as it's a 4th wall existential thing. Then you have the higher up characters, though they still play by their own rules and such, it's not like they "Know" their in a story, it be more like they understand that knowing this changes nothing.
All it is, is finding out that there is a god, and their is a plan, and that's it. Unless it directly effects your life, fully knowing this only relay affects people seeking answers. I imagen if this knowledge came with the world changing round you, then you'd have an existential crisis, that or I'm just not bothered with such things, and it's hard for me to imagin others getting too freeked with such knowledge.
5762676
Well, I thought this would be a fun mental exercise. Can you know your characters well enough, climb into their hide sort to speak, to predict their reaction to this unusual situation? You can be dismissive to some extent here but I saw potential in the effort. I'm not asking for deep psycho analysis of every character. I don't do that too with every npc in my stories either. Typically I might only go that for with those integral to the main plot of the story, especially if such knowledge is required to predict their next move.
OC's can be like that. If you have a show canon character, you already have s script you can follow for their behavior. With an OC, however, you're the one who has to come up with everything about the character from scratch. However, once you do, I advise to be consistent with that script of behavior unless you have a good reason for changing it.
For multiple reasons, I believe you about your answer for Live Axel. She'd probably have little idea what those numbers beside the skills mean at first, and that's assuming she could read it at all. LIkelky her secondary reaction would be dismissive like "Get out of my face" kind of deal.
I just thought this might be a fun little thought exercise.
Here's something else I'm curious about. Of all the characters in the story, which do you consider the closest to a self-insert of the author? If I had to guess, based on your comics and artwork, I'm guessing that gentleman crab-like pony whom I forget the name to. I even forgot the name of his race.
A reason that lends credit to my theory here is that character likes to record the story around him and he has a racial ability to blend into the background, thus affording him the possibility to be a background observer and not influence the story too closely, yet he gets a front row seat anyway.
He tends to have a minor roll in the story which only adds up to a lot over time. Fetch this item. Distract these monsters. Consider his advise. Each of these examples might be minor on their own, but what if he wasn't there? Would the main characters have died then or at least had a much harder time?
As an author I know it's your job to move the story forward. That character only does what is required of the story while also considering his personal limitations physically, mentally, and emotionally. Same as any other character, but my question still stands.
When I asked other authors that question before, sometimes the answer I get is, "Actually, the answer is all of my characters. Each of them has a little piece of myself in them in different ways." I'd like your opinion on the matter.
5762681
The big problem is that, ya, it's a bit of yourself in all of them. It's hard not to do that. But there's also putting yourself in their headspace, which reduces your own bias a little. Things like, Harp is more thoughtful and observant, but is phisicly weaker. Star is agressive and carefree, but dosent think things out fully. Slowtrot is just their, doing his best, but sometimes gets lost. Theirs also considering the characters history, which will affect how they act or say. Slowtrot is from the past, so he knows how things were before the bombs, Harp is traditionaly educated, and knows both a lot of usful things, and a lot of not so useful, Star, Is wasteland smart, but tacticly dumb.
As for Azure, the crab pony, he is the outsider, and is able to see things from an outsiders perspective. also, if you see how he talks, he is the only one the uses the word "people" among other things. but ya, he is used to help push the story along, such as helping Star swim through the sunken tunnles. For the most part Azure is more of an ideal version of myself, but still not me, as he is his own character.
So ya, it's both that they all have a peace of myself in them, but they are all their own characters. Each has their own quirks, limitations, and history, of which I try to stay true to them.
5762694
I respect these answers, and for the most part I expected them. Thank you for replying. I like getting that clarity to verify some of my guesses.