Get to know the mun through three things they enjoy about their characters/franchises, two things they enjoy about their writing and one thing they want to explore!
Three things I enjoy about my character/franchise(s):
Mercy’s unapologetic femininity and herself. One of my absolute favorite things about Mercy is that she refuses to tone down her girliness for anyone or anything, not even demons. At first glance she reads like the archetype: the “spoiled fashionista,” the “queen bee,” the girl you expect to see in a pink convertible instead of a vampire nest. But that’s exactly what I love. She is living in a world that wants her to be grim, hardened, and practical… and she says “no, actually.” She’ll slay demons in bubblegum gloss. She’ll fight for her life in a designer skirt. Mercy is the definition of the girly bruiser: soft aesthetics, hard reality, no compromises. And I honestly love that for her. I love that she can be emotional, vain, stubborn, scared, brave, and violent, all at the same time. She’s not a perfect hero; she’s a young woman trying to survive a world that constantly demands more from her than she should ever have to give. (More than she ever wants to give) She wants to live, love, dress up, and be normal… but destiny keeps dragging her back into the dark. That tension is just fun to explore. And I will say this, Mercy can be very blinded by her own desires. She isn’t quite the perfect hero. (Nor does she claim to be.) She is just herself, trying to do well. She has always good intentions, but more often than not, those tend to blow up in her face. 2. She’s built from the media that raised me. Mercy is heavily inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed, both shows that got me through really rough parts of my life. There’s something comforting and empowering about supernatural stories led by powerful, complicated, beautiful women saving the day. But honestly, just as much of her DNA comes from my comfort movies: Clueless, Bring It On, Mean Girls, and even Ginger Snaps and Jennifer’s Body. I gravitate toward chick-flick energy and horror led by fierce female characters, and Mercy is basically the fusion of all of that: the girl who can destroy you but look flawless doing it. (Honorable mentions, Sailormoon, Totally Spies and Winx club, because I would be lying if I claimed those didn’t raise me.) 3. Mercy’s origin story is absolutely unhinged in the best way. (How the character itself came to be a thing) This one is a deep dive. Before Tumblr, I roleplayed on a local site (RIP, forever missed), and that’s actually where Mercy was born. Back then she wasn’t nearly as developed, personality, lore, aesthetics, nothing was as refined as she is now. (Hell, at the very start she was an actual Winx OC before I wanted a darker route) And the inspiration for said OC actually came partly in the form of a song. ( If we are talking personality wise) You’re all going to laugh. Mason vs Princess Superstar – Perfect (Exceeder). That song was an absolute banger way before Saltburn ever graced the silver screen. (And no, before anyone asks: Duffy’s “Mercy” had nothing to do with her creation. Ironically, I have a headcanon that Mercy hates that song because she was probably teased with it one too many times growing up.) Her name has always been Mercy, though she went through several surname evolutions on that old site: Mercy Lowland → Mercy Nadeshiko → Marceline ‘Mercy’ Moreau. Now she finally feels complete, but it all started with a random club track and a spark of “ditch the glittery fairy wings and get onto girls killing monsters.”
Two things I enjoy about my writing:
1. I love blending genres. My favorite thing is mixing horror with girly aesthetics, romance with violence, softness with brutality. I love when a something can be beautiful and terrifying in the same breath, that “pretty but deadly” energy. And I love writing girls, the horror of girlhood and the absolute tragedy that comes with womanhood. 2. Characters always come first for me. I enjoy digging into emotional layers, making my characters flawed, reactive, scared, hopeful. Now, I have many OC’s though so far those tend to be either background characters or characters I use for my fanfics. (I write those yeah, but it is more a hobby than anything else.) Even when things get supernatural or dramatic, I write them like real people dealing with impossible situations. Feelings matter, motivations matter, consequences matter.
One thing I want to explore more:
I want to dive deeper into Mercy’s darker arcs, not in an edgy-for-edginess way because I never cared for that, but in the sense of exploring what being a Slayer actually does to someone who is so desperate to stay soft. The trauma, the pressure, the guilt, the way she clings to beauty and femininity as if they’re armor. I want to explore the ways she breaks… and the ways she refuses to. Perhaps also how she would operate when it came to an actual apocalyptic situation. Much like in season 5 of BTVS, because truth to be told, Mercy doesn’t strike me as someone who would be willing to self sacrifice. (Yeah that makes her selfish in a way, but then again, Mercy isn’t the pure hero archetype, she is flawed and can be selfish. I would even argue that on the Buffy and Faith spectrum, she would lean more towards Faith. Down to the core, she just wants to be left alone and live her life. She doesn’t want to follow someone else their journey made for her, whether that is her destiny or even her father pushing her to seek a career in the world of arts) I also want to push her into situations where all her strength, training, and stubborn optimism simply aren’t enough. Moments where she comes face to face with something truly beyond her, a Glory-level threat, an ancient vampire she physically cannot stop, or even a person she tries to redeem who ends up proving beyond doubt that they are unredeemable. I want to explore what happens to Mercy when her instincts fail her, when her optimism betrays her, and when the world reminds her that even Slayers can be powerless, that down to the core, she is just a girl and another name in the long slayer line. In the end, she is just a moral being, she might have all these advantages but that doesn’t mean she is unstoppable.
Tagged by: @newmexicogothic ( Thank you!) Tagging: @floripire @infernoblessed @sinndbleds @zairemalak @crownofcaine @soil-from-slaghtaverty (And anyone who wants to)
