Just some Kyleeth character development mumbles, because I keep thinking I should jot them down, but I never do, and right now her blog is sort of becoming “Orko-hot-take-O-Rama” which is great and all, but I feel kind of bad since this is Ky’s blog.
Anywho, I was just sort of thinking about the fact that Ky was kind of MADE to be a character for panfandom/”Spooky Jam Jar” RPs and took advantage of the fact that inter-dimensional storms (and indeed, inter-dimensional toomfoolery in general) were canon in MOTU. I honestly don’t think she’d be that interesting a character if left to her own devices living out the rest of her life in Trolla. She’d probably get pretty damn complacent either with working as an Archivist or going back to doing meteorology work and probably just become a grumpy academic that everybody thinks is no damn fun because she thinks she’s “saner” than everyone else. She’ll get frustrated but she’d never face the kind of shit that would ever make her think that maybe she needed to rethink her attitude and not be so judgmental towards others. She’s established a social station among academic circles and while I doubt many others really like her personally she really doesn’t give a crap.
What happens when she’s dumped in other universes is that she has to build everything up all over again, and most of the times, shes uh... different from most other people there. REALLY different. A lot smaller, a lot weaker, squeaky-voiced, really dumb about technology... it’s fairly natural for a lot of people not to take her seriously, peg her as “goofy and cute looking,” and view her like a child, which of course, makes her indignant. (Yes, she would totally make a sign that says “I DEMAND TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.”) She feels like she has to convince everyone she meets she’s an intelligent, sensible person, not just this cute little thing to look down on but it’s impossible.
This, of course, draws out her more lovely personality traits including the fact that she is more than willing to manipulate someone if they’re that insistent on believing she’s a dummy by obfuscating stupidity to take advantage of them that way. The fact of the matter is, though, despite the fact she often thinks she’s too good for goofy old Trollan society and constant disrespect can draw her into a yelling rage, she hates conflict, doesn’t know how to HANDLE conflict, but most of all, she doesn’t really even MEAN to shut herself off from others. She’s so afraid of opening herself up and trying to learn how to understand others and BE understood... it’s so hard and she’s so afraid of failing. It’s easier to be derisive of others and hide behind books and snark.
As the name of the blog implies, Kyleeth’s best traits come from her willingness to learn, but she has to be willing to put in the effort to open herself up to others to get the most out of her travels and encounters with other beings. She’s managed to work out a comfortable existence on Trolla as an academic but is hardly living to her full potential as a person. She’ll have to be forced out of her literal comfort zone if she ever wants to truly flourish.