main characters for your mermaid thing?
>:) thank you (deranged cackling)
arguably some of the characters I've included here are not main main characters but they mean a lot to me and they have important roles in the story ok
I will include a character grid for everyone this is the format of the character grid:
'eyes' just means vibe, jewellery is the main component of their.. jewellery because everyone here has their own unique magic jewellery (part of the magic system/worldbuilding) except Calen who has a crown only because he's king.
Teagan is my lonely human skrunckly goober losing her grip on reality<3 15 years ago her older brother got dragged from a cliff into the sea by a big scary sea monster lizard, her parents blamed mermaids and have been going out monster hunting in their boat for weeks at a time. she went with them until she was old enough to stay at home and now she's going slightly insane from lack of human contact and thinks the wind and sea are old lovers/friends/rivals. she lives in a weird amalgamation of cornwall/north devon/mid-west wales and she's the most ridiculous author insert you've ever seen. she's very nice, sort of a peacemaker figure, she loves rock climbing and the sea and her hair is perpetually crusty with salt/sand. arguably the second main character and the secondary pov character.
Anemone is the shy princess who was the first picrew I made and she has been the main character and number one pov character ever since. she has the biggest character arc and she is SO precious to me. she's not very magically powerful and is horrifically insecure about it which is not helped by the fact that when she attended magic tutoring (because she’s a princess and her family has historically been very magically powerful) her best (only) friend was the most powerful witch for generations. then Ane left really abruptly and they didn't speak or see each other for close to 2 years. precious baby Ane has spent the last 2 years rotting in her room combing her hair and staring out of the window and the story starts when her brother the king forces her to leave and go on quests to help the people because she's the most useless parasitic royal ever and this is when she decides she needs her best friend's help with quests and thus the story starts. she is very shy and very much a pushover at the beginning but her arc is becoming a confident(ish) strong selfless leader <33 she is also so sapphic she rivals the og poet
Selma is that super powerful best friend!! she is arguably the most important character in terms of how she influences the people around her. she is also simultaneously a big weirdo and very cool!! she made her own magic jewellery and teaches at the magic tutoring system. her special interest is the ancient mega-powerful witch so she's obsessed with the magic jewellery/books the witch made and with the witch's descendant. she is very passionate and resilient (sometimes to her detriment) and defeats (almost) all her enemies with the sheer power of her lesbianism and homoerotic girlbestfriendships. she was very hard to name and only got her name when 'Selma' came to me in a dream (I had a different dream beforehand where the name Olympia came to me but I don't like that as much)
Iolanthe is the last living descendant of said ancient witch and Anemone’s thematic foil. this is because she has similarly mediocre magic when she should be very powerful. unfortunately she is in denial about this and still believes she has yet to earn her magic (magic in this world is both inherent from genetics/chance and earnt based on strength/resilience. Ane is very privileged and emotionally weak so she doesn't have strong magic, Selma is much more emotionally resilient so she does have strong magic etc etc). this means Io spends all her time in her workshop paid for by her richass family trying to make the perfect piece of magical jewellery which she can form a conduit bond with (you can magically bond with a piece of jewellery which will massively amplify your power if you earn it, usually done by making it (like Selma, who Io is very jealous of and inspired to make jewellery by), finding it or buying it with money you worked for). then near the end of part one the questing gang (Ane, Teagan, Selma, Mel, Enith and to an extent Isther) show her the jewellery they've collected which was all made by her ancient witch ancestor. she becomes convinced that she needs these specific pieces of jewellery to become powerful, but obviously they're bound to various members of the questing gang. everything spirals from there. she seems really dull and a bit entitled but on the inside she's making such leaps to conclusions that she is my secret favourite
Melyde is a street singer who, at the start of the story, earnt a conduit bond with a necklace made by the ancient witch (someone threw it at her when she was performing). previously she had no magic (quite rare to have NONE most people just have very weak) but after forming the bond she became about the second most powerful witch after Selma. unfortunately she had precisely zero control over it and accidentally lured half the city to watch her perform and give her money, so Selma and the gang (just Ane and Enith at that point) had to step in and get her to join the gang so Selma could teach her magic properly. you can tell Mel and Selma are in love because their colour schemes make up the lesbian flag. melyde's whole shtick is being very brave and stubborn and while she may be the most pointless character of the gang she means a lot to me
Enith (with a VOICED TH) is the gang's navigator and the first person Selma and Ane recruited to join them. she is from the deep ocean and has an unfashionable haircut because she's making a statement! and I love her. she spent her childhood mapping out the cave system behind her house and when she was older she moved to the capital city to run a tour guide and map making shop because she didn't want to work in her parents' glass making business. she's also got no magic of her own. she's very kind and friendly until her parents are killed at the end of part one (spoilers) after which she becomes angry impatient and withdrawn. I got her name by misspelling enid as enidd, which my brain read as enith because of welsh phonetics. love her!!
Isther (isster) has I think the most duality out of the characters. she fluctuates between poor little traumatised baby and lying vengeful murderous little shit. the gang found her when they accidentally got into the huge sealed-off cave where all the sea monsters were imprisoned after the big attacks 15 years ago and for some reason she was imprisoned there too?? how odd. they freed her and she joined the group. she's actually the witch who controls the sea monsters though she doesn't know that until the end of part 1 and she wasn't born murderous.. unfortunately still a liar and she does end up being (one of) the actual villains even if she was manipulated into it a bit. she could've been ok. she could've been ok!! Ane could've fixed her honestly there's something a little jackieshauna about them (pink and green, homoerotic friendship ended by violent betrayal)
Calen is Anemone’s older brother and the king. he's not a main character but I feel obligated to mention him. he has Issues about his mother. probably the closest to morally grey out of all the non-villain characters because he ends up using child soldiers because he can't beat an angsty 17 year old and her 5-6 uncreative sea monsters
that's them!! thank you for asking about my goobers
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I think we need to get more comfortable with the idea that sometimes shitty, racist, homophobic, bigoted people are still incredibly talented.
I feel like every time I see a post addressing someone’s shitty behavior the post also takes the time to mention that they’re not even good at [x] anyway. And that’s just not always true? Equating being good at a skill as being morally good is just not necessary. Someone can be a fantastic writer, can have a beautiful singing voice, can create breathtaking artwork, and still be a horrible person.
I know part of this is probably just the instinct to dislike everything about a person when you dislike them, but I also think this mindset leads to people defending creatives way past where they should, because if bad people create bad art, then if this person creates art that I like and resonates with me, then they can’t be a bad person!
And you know. That’s just not true. Those two things are simply completely unconnected and I think it’d be healthier if we all started disconnecting them in our heads.
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