#parmesan the snapper

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Work has really been wringing me dry these past few months but rest assured... there will be more silly Parms in the very near future

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How did Parmesan end up in Cinderslag? Not sure if it'd be too spoilery but I'm so curious what happened with his relationship to his family too

That's a good question! He doesn't seem to belong there, does he?

Parmesan came from a wealthy family of nomadic Snappers who travel in a looping path around Sornieth. Whenever a hatchling comes of age, they're sent out to fend for themselves, learning life lessons and independence and stuff until the family returns to the region (which usually takes at least a few years since their migration goes around the entire continent). Parmesan's birthday happened to come while the troupe was near Cinderslag, so he was stuck living there for the foreseeable future.

As for why he didn't just leave... well, it's the same reason as everyone else in Cinderslag: staying there was the safest option. Sure, it's a miserable place to live, but the rest of the Ashfall Waste is so dangerous and inhospitable that only the most hardened survivalists can really thrive there. He's just not cut out for hunting his own food and curling up in a ditch every night to hide from volcanic eruptions, even just for the time it'd take to get to another settlement. At least Cinderslag provides him with the essentials, y'know?

He kind of resents his family for abandoning him, but he also understands that there are no hard feelings. It's a tradition that he's been aware of his whole life, he was given plenty of warning ahead of time, and he knows that it's probably going to be good for him in the long run. Doesn't mean he has to enjoy it, though.

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he's so kittycat...

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28 on the ask game for Cheddar, Parmesan, and Fluffington!

28. What clique would they be in?

Ooh, here's a fun one! Assuming that this is just, like, a modernized high school AU...

Cheddar would be a super preppy cheerleader type who dresses in the latest fashion and is always hanging out with the popular kids. She seems like your stereotypical mean girl, but is actually very sweet, and smarter than she looks; she's just a little oblivious to how things work outside of her social class. Oh, and don't you dare imply that cheerleading isn't a serious athletic pursuit when she's around.

Parmesan would be an outcast loner who Cheddar forcibly adopts as her new best friend. The rest of the popular clique doesn't really like him, and he can tell they're just putting up with him because of Cheddar, but he'd rather be politely tolerated than flat-out ostracized. He probably wears a lot of dark hoodies and sweatpants, just trying to blend in.

It's always tough to answer questions about Fluffington, for... a number of reasons I can't get into. But he'd probably be one of those kids at the top of the class who's engaged in a hundred different extracurriculars. His section of the yearbook takes up a full page with all the clubs he's started and awards he's won. He's too socially-active to be seen as a nerd, but doesn't have any real friends, since he's always occupied with some activity or project. Everyone just respects him from a distance.

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Working on the next chapter and we already have so many all-timer Parmesan faces

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ok i have like. a handful idk actually i cant count. (romeow fr) 1) im so curious your inspiration making this group of characters. did it start with a funny idea of like a sweet tundra being evil ? who/where did it start from? 2) what is 1 symbolic thing for each character? a flower, a season, a color, an item, etc etc 3) how does starsight fit in? he seems fairly uninvolved 4) who recieves the biggest character arc (in a sense of difference from their beginning self) and who gets the smallest one? 5) are there any murders? 6) is fury good at taking pictures and/or do they have any photos kept of them and sable together like fond memory photo pictures? good luck o7

ohhhohoho you have given me a GIFT!!!!!! I'm just gonna jump right into it thank you so much for asking all this:

1.

So my lore has changed a lot over the years, and I don't remember where I came up with half of it originally, but there was always this connecting thread of a clan made up of misfits and outcasts. Never really had an overarching plot and was mostly just an excuse to fill my lair with silly wacky guys. Honestly I think a lot of it comes back to the fact that I named my progen 'Fluffington' as a joke when I first started playing and was too sentimental to change it.

But I'm PRETTY sure this most recent iteration started when I got really into the Hatchetfield series last year. I thought 'man I should write my own horror story about a small town where weird stuff happens', remembered that I had all this unfinished dragon lore sitting around with no plot to speak of, and decided to repurpose it for this new idea! Everything else kind of developed from there.

2.

Cheddar: A hot summer day

Parmesan: Wine and grapes

Sable: A dandelion

Fury: A camera

Moloch: A bull

Starsight: Silver coins

Fluffington: A phoenix or firebird

Wraith: A blindfold

3.

Starsight is an interesting one! More of a supporting character, at least for the first half, but he plays a VERY important role in the story.

He's mostly there to bridge the gap between the two plotlines, helping Sable and Fury with their investigation while also giving some important backstory on Firebird's Roost itself. While he's not actually a member, he does know more about the old factory's past than the average outsider, and ends up providing some very useful hints toward what may or may not be happening there.

There's more - a LOT more - but I can't say much without giving away some major details. I will say that Starsight is one of my favorite characters in the whole thing and I've been having a ton of fun writing for him. He's definitely the character who feels the most like he just walked out of a classic horror movie.

4.

EXCELLENT question!! Oh, if only you could see the pages of character analysis I've written in those private Discord servers...

Obviously, as the protagonist, Cheddar undergoes the most significant change over the course of the story. She starts off all cheerful and bubbly, confident in herself and the inherent goodness of the world, aware of life's cruelty but unwilling to let it break her spirit.

But she's also impatient, and a little bit shallow. Her positive worldview has always come to her naturally, so she assumes it must be the same for everyone else, that being happy doesn't take any effort. Then, when she encounters someone whose problems can't be solved by telling them to stop being sad (like, say, Parmesan), she gets frustrated and assumes they're just being stubborn on purpose.

Eventually, she learns that there's a difference between being nice and being kind, and that true kindness takes effort. If you really want to make a difference, whether in the life of a friend or the world as a whole, you have to keep trying even when it feels like you're throwing yourself at a brick wall. It won't be easy, but that's okay. It's not supposed to be.

The SMALLEST character arc is tough. There are a few completely static characters, like Fluffington, but that's not as interesting to talk about. Maybe, like... Wraith?

It's subtle, especially since she's notably reserved and hardly ever talks for most of the comic, but she does change a little bit from the beginning to the end. And not in a good way. She goes from a noble anti-villain, not enjoying what she does but convinced that the ends will justify the means, to someone completely blinded by devotion.

Oh, Wraith... I really want to make a prequel story one of these days, because there is SO much crazy stuff going on with her and Fluffington behind the scenes.

5.

Yep, at least one person is gonna get murdered! And there's one incident that's kind of a murder but not really a murder but still basically counts for most intents and purposes? It's complicated. You'll see.

6.

Fury basically had to teach herself photography from the ground up, and it shows in both good and bad ways. They've got a great sense of flair and a natural eye for creative framing, leading to some truly unique compositions that a formally-trained photographer would never think of, but sometimes struggle with the more technical aspects. He's honestly not sure what some of those dials on top of the camera are for.

As for the second question, while they do have a few pictures of Sable, they don't have any featuring the two of them together. Actually, Fury doesn't have any pictures of himself. It's just too hard getting the shot right with such a bulky camera, especially since you can't see through the viewfinder while you're facing the lens.

Fury doesn't mind, though.

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Can you please tell me anything and everything about Parmesan he's my favorite of the lore dragons you've shared so far

I can tell you SO MUCH about Parmesan he is one of the guys of all time and I love him so so dearly

Parmesan is one of the main characters of Firebird's Roost, and arguably the emotional core of the entire story. So much of this comic is held together by his development, his relationships with the other characters, and the way his particular beliefs interact with the central theme. It just wouldn't be the same without him!

On the surface, he seems pretty straightforward. He's a former rich kid who got too old to stay with his parents and was tossed headfirst into the real world, where he struggles to understand everyday things like working a day job and doing his own laundry. Because he was so sheltered growing up, he never really learned to deal with hardship, so he tends to overreact and panic when things go the slightest bit wrong (which is usually played for laughs). He's a cowardly, pessimistic foil to Cheddar and her boundless optimism. An endearingly pathetic scaredy-cat. Comic relief, even.

But as the story goes on, you realize that Parmesan is a lot more complex than he looks. For one, he's not stupid. A little naive, maybe, but he's not completely ignorant to how the world works. He understands that his brain tends to blow things out of proportion and is perfectly capable of stepping back to view them through a more objective lens. It's just that... when you're living in Cinderslag, the biggest hub of greed and exploitation in all of Sornieth, you see a lot of genuinely terrible things happening every day. He's not being silly or irrational for always expecting the worst-case scenario, he's just making a realistic assumption based on prior experience. I'm not saying he's right, I'm just saying it's perfectly reasonable for him to feel that way given the circumstances he's lived through.

It's comforting, in a weird way. The less hope you have, the less it hurts when something inevitably goes wrong. Part of him secretly wishes he could just make himself stop caring entirely. Sure would save him a lot of trouble.

(More under cut!! This got long sorry)

His dynamic with Cheddar is also REALLY interesting. One of my favorite parts of the whole story. They think of themselves as best friends, but they aren't actually that compatible on an emotional level. The only reason they're so close is because they were roommates for a long time and never had the chance to make other friends with how hectic their lives were. Don't get me wrong, they do genuinely care about each other, but... once they move to the Roost and actually meet some new people, the cracks in their relationship start to show more and more.

Cheddar is an outgoing sweetheart, always trying to cheer people up and help them with their problems, but she has very low empathy. She doesn't really understand why Parmesan acts the way that he does, so whenever he gets worked up about something silly, she tries to 'help' him by showing him proof that whatever he's worried about is completely irrational. When this doesn't immediately make him feel better (since you can't just logic your way out of an anxiety disorder), she gets frustrated and assumes that he's being stubborn on purpose.

Parmesan, meanwhile, is ridiculously passive and will go to absurd lengths to avoid confrontation. He keeps most of his deeper thoughts and problems bottled up, expecting Cheddar to magically notice when something is wrong, then gets upset when she can't read his mind. And then he refuses to tell her why he's upset, and so the cycle continues. I mean, what's he supposed to do? Instigate a difficult conversation himself? No, surely if he suffers in silence for long enough, then eventually someone will notice and take pity on him.

Neither one of them is a bad person. They're both flawed but well-meaning dragons doing the best with what they have. It's just that their specific personalities really bring out the worst in each other, at least when we first meet them. But who's to say the Roost won't change them a little, eh?

Anyway, I went off on a little tangent there, so here are some miscellaneous Parmesan Facts to end us off!

The fact that he and Cheddar are both named after cheese was a total coincidence; they became roommates because Cheddar jokingly suggested that their matching names must have been a sign

When he was younger, his siblings would tease him for his cowardice by calling him 'Chicken Parm'

Parmesan's family was a large pack of nomadic Snappers who constantly circle the Sea of a Thousand Currents, with children expected to leave on their first adult birthday and settle down in whichever region the family happens to be in at the time (poor guy got the short end of the stick by landing in the Ashfall Waste)

Before leaving Cinderslag, he worked for a construction company, hauling materials back and forth and doing other sorts of tedious physical labor

His favorite food is the humble red grape 🍇

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🌈 for any oc you feel like!

🌈 - Do you associate any colors with them?

For most of the cast, I just associate them with whatever the main color of their design is (Cheddar with orange, Starsight with purple, Luther with gold, etc.), but there are a few exceptions!

The main one that comes to mind is Parmesan. He makes me think of purple - especially a nice rich reddish-purple - since it's typically seen as the color of luxury and he's a fancy little boy. He's also got a lot of grape/wine iconography surrounding him, which connects to the big themes of his story arc: freedom, revelry, and a loss of inhibition.

I didn't do the symbolism on purpose, I just thought the harvest vines and wine glass familiar would look cute, but hey! Worked out pretty well!