So I kinda went down the rabbit hole with creating my Choices MC's portraits. I haven't finished reading (or re-reading) all of these books (except TFS). Will probably (most likely) create more as I read more books lol.
Main portraits are created on Picrew using sushicore! アイコンメーカー! by alohasushicore then edited through Canva.
This is Boria Litvasch, another member of the Colossus Project brood in development. His unit number and elemental designation are still being decided.
Despite his fearsome appearance, he is a gentle soul who is very proud of his handsomeness. He goes through a lot of hair products to maintain that mane, and has been known to twirl his coeurlstache when deep in thought.
So this is an old oc I’ve mine that I recently changed the design to. And the little girl is actually a newer oc. And yes, they are from the same story I’m working on. ^^
Aera has never missed a single Horror Mafia show. Big or small, she’s always there. As Kaitlyn’s fiancée, she gets a free VIP pass to every single one but she never sits there though. At first, Kaitlyn and the band didn’t get it. They tried convincing her over and over, but Aera always just smiled and said no. Eventually, they gave up.
The thing is, it’s not just about not wanting to be in VIP. Aera has this thing she does where she trades her VIP pass with a fan she spots in the crowd. She doesn’t overthink it or plan ahead. She just picks someone who catches her eye and hands over the pass. That means Aera’s seat is always random. Kaitlyn originally found it impossible to spot her cause she's always somewhere random. After a certain point, she started asking the crowd to point out Aera to her and eventually they started doing it for her voluntarily. The fans prank Kaitlyn sometimes though.
For Aera, it’s not just about supporting Kaitlyn. She loves talking to Kaitlyn’s fans, hearing their stories, and learning how the band’s music has inspired them. She thinks it’s incredible how art can connect people and change lives, and she loves being part of that.
The fans totally adore her for it. They even started calling her an honorary member of the band and have a running poll trying to guess where she’ll sit at the next show. A lot of them even started reading her books after meeting her.
Just throwing this out there, Aera is probably blind af without her contacts or glasses. She’s 100% that girly who ruined her eyesight as a kid by reading under the covers with a flashlight at night. She also constantly loses her glasses and can’t find them because she needs her glasses to actually see them so she just stands there helplessly so she doesn't bump into things while Kaitlyn finds them for her.
I imagine my Desire & Decorum MC, Cecily Winslow, to basically be a cottage-core x dark aesthetic sad, moody lesbian but make it 1800 Victorian England.
Basically, she'd be the kind of girl (in modern society) that'd say things like:
"The stars don't care about my feelings but that doesn't stop me from screaming at them."
"I'm not avoiding my problems, I'm just letting them figure it out themselves first before I jump in to help."
"You can't spell melancholy without 'me.'"
"I'm sad... let me make a moodboard aesthetic of out this."
Which is basically (in 1800 Victorian England version):
"The stars care nothing for my troubles, yet that does not stop me from railing at them as though they might listen."
"I am not neglecting my problems; I am merely allowing them the chance to resolve themselves before I must intervene."
"One cannot spell ‘melancholy’ without ‘me,’ and how fitting that feels today."
"I am overcome with sorrow… I shall arrange my belongings into a tableau that reflects my despair with suitable elegance."
While writing my MC profiles, I'm just noting (mostly for me to remember) that (TFS MC) Aera Chen has published a few books and other personal projects.
Aera loves exploring the full spectrum of human emotions in her works. She emphasizes the power of relationships and the lack thereof. She writes in a way that doesn't shy away from raw, unfiltered emotions to the point that it's sometimes uncomfortably honest but that's also one of the things that makes her writing real and relatable.
I'm noting down some of the books she's published, some blurbs on those, and other personal projects she's doing that helps her with her creativity and writing.
Aera's Bibliography:
1. The Space in Between
"Love and loss aren't simple. They're messy, painful, and sometimes so fucking overwhelming. But in the spaces between them, life quietly persists."
When Elois Lam unexpectedly loses the person she loves the most, her world fractures into raw emotions—guilt, grief, anger, and everything in between. Struggling to make sense of her loss, she turns to writing as her lifeline. Through a series of stories, essays, and poems, she processes her pain, unearths bittersweet memories, and learns to piece herself back together. Told with unflinching honesty, The Space In Between explores the messy realities of grief and the beauty of healing in the spaces we often overlook.
2. The Language of Silence
"Not every story is told with words. Sometimes, the most meaningful connections happen in the quiet moments—in the unspoken, the unsaid, the spaces we share in silence.
Silence can speak louder than words. It can connect us or separate us, comfort us or fill us with longing. In The Language of Silence, Aera Chen explores this paradox through a collection of deeply moving, interconnected short stories. From a pianist who learns to rediscover music after losing their hearing to a widow who creates a dialogue with her late husband through the photos he left behind, each story delves into a quiet yet powerful way to explore love, grief, and hope. This book is a poignant reminder that in the lack of sound, we often find the truths we've been searching for.
3. Letters to the Ones I Left Behind
"There are words we write and never send, thoughts we cling to and never say. These are letters to the people I left behind—the stories of love, regret, and hope of being understood."
Some letters are too heavy to send, but too important to leave unwritten. Letters to the Ones I Left Behind is an emotional, intimate exploration of relationships, identity, and the things we leave unsaid. Through a series of unsent letters, Isabela Santos confronts unresolved stories in her life: a childhood friend she abandoned, a parent she never fully understood, a first love she couldn't hold onto, and even the person she used to be. Each letter is a confession of love, regret, anger, pain, hope that bridges the distance created by time, silence, and boundaries. As she writes, Isa begins to confront truths she's hidden from herself, finding clarity in the words that she once couldn't say out loud. Letters to the Ones I Left Behind is a journey of self-discovery, reconciliation and healing, a testament to how writing can help someone heal what's in their hearts, even if it never leaves their hands.
4. Fragments of Us
"Every person we meet changes us. In the laughter, the heartbreak, the love, and the silence, we leave fragments of ourselves in each other. And it's those pieces that make us whole."
We are all mosaics, made up of pieces we leave in others and the fragments of others that we carry with us. In Fragments of Us, Aera Chen creates a tapesty of interconnected stories following the lives of five seemingly unconnected individuals from different walks of life and distant corners of the world. As their journey unfolds, each character grapples with love, loss, and quiet transformations brought about by the people they meet. From the fleeting romance between two strangers on a train to a decade-long friendship tested by distance, each story reveals the profound and often unseen ways relationships shape us. What begins as separate narratives slowly intertwine, uncovering mysterious and unexpected connections that link the characters in surprising ways. Fragments of Us explores the echoes of human relationships—how they linger, transform us, and leave lasting marks we don't always recognize.
5. The Art of Choosing Joy
"Happiness isn't always easy—it's a choice made through tears, struggles, and sacrifices. But it's a choice worth making."
Happiness is often portrayed as a fleeting feeling, something that happens to us in perfect moments. But for Liyana Ahmed, happiness is something far more complex: a deliberate act of defiance. Forced to flee her home as a child, Liyana now lives in a bustling city far from the life she once knew. Working in a bakery by day and studying at night, she dreams of becoming a teacher and creating a space where hope can flourish for children like her. Along the way, she discovers that happiness isn't a simple choice—it's a journey of resilience, hardship, and finding joy in the smallest acts of love and connection. In the Art of Choosing Joy, Aera Chen takes readers on an emotional journey through Liyana's life, revealing the sacrifices, struggles, and bittersweet moments that shape her path. From the acts of kindness shared with strangers to the beauty of rebuilding life after loss, this story is a testament to the transformative power of gratitude and the strength it takes to choose happiness, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
Aera's Personal Projects (Outside of her published works)
Aera has a blog. It's pretty much a place where all her creativity finds its hope. She has different projects and collections on there from her travel blogs to random thoughts or blurbs to some of the personal projects that she wants to share to the world.
1. Travel Blog
Aera likes traveling to gather inspiration from different places. She also travels with Kaitlyn and her band whenever they have shows. Being a freelance writer, she can do her work from anywhere she wants and she enjoys getting to see new places, getting to meet locals, and just the experience of it all. She keeps up a blog for all the places she's been to and basically narrates how her trip went.
2. The Postmarked Places Collection
Aera's Postmarked Places Collection is an ongoing project where she collects postcards from every city she visits. Each postcard includes a handwritten short story, poem, reflection, or interesting conversation in the back that she personally wrote. Over the years, this project has become deeply personal and reflects her growth as a writer and as an individual.
She tries to make sure that no two postcard images are the same since there are cases in which she returns to the same city more than once. She asks locals for postcard recommendations and actively tries to search for those that are unique, rare, and have a story behind them like those with landmarks, historic locations, etc.
Since Aera is basically the biggest groupie and is always seen present in Kaitlyn's shows, Horror Mafia's (Kaitlyn's band) fans know her very well and have dubbed her "The Postmaster General" within the fandom. Some fans make it a point to search for postcards to give her when Horror Mafia is in their city, some even going as far as handcrafting and creating unique artworks of their city for her to use in her collection (which she does and she has a separate section dubbed "Fanmarked").
3. Scattered Thoughts Project
Aera's Scattered Thoughts Project is an extension of her creative spontaneity. Whenever inspiration strikes, she jots down a thought, a story idea, a snippet of a poem, or a fleeting conversation onto whatever is nearby. The back of receipts, napkins, scraps of paper, even her own hand or arm. Rather than holding onto them, she leaves them behind, sometimes tucked into books, left on café tables, pinned to community boards, forgotten on park benches.
For Aera, this project is about embracing the impermanence of creativity and the randomness of human connection. She leaves behind her blog info in case someone wants to contact her but she also knows these notes might be thrown away, overlooked, or lost forever, but someone might also pick them up, read them, and find a little piece of magic.
Aera takes photos of these scattered thoughts before leaving them behind and shares them on her blog under "Found and Lost." Fans and readers love this project for its raw, unpolished charm and the sense of mystery it creates. Aera often receives messages from people who've found one of her notes, sharing how it impacted them or how they added their own continuation to it.
