I then proceeded to method act as a villain who leads the protagonist away from the truth he should’ve figured out in episode 1 through various machinations leading up to a dramatic reveal 30 episodes later after making him jump through all sorts of hoops.
Ft @siempreseresol with @startsbeatboxing cameoing
Bonus lazy doodles because I love my curly haired bi friends who use multiple pronouns and sometimes speak Spanish to varying degrees of fluency very much:
analyzing my old writing is how I realized I was aromantic you're totally valid. I treat my middle school original work like it's the writing of a subject of a sociology study
I truly am my own favorite object of study, I love analyzing my own character
OK SO quick context for everyone, Gentle Flower as a whole concept originally came from a dream I had from a nap in my car during my family's trip in Florida to visit my cousins. This dream included me and two of my friends. This is important because I had placeholder names for the OG trio.
Water Lily and her first name Marie were PLACEHOLDER NAMES that STUCK. As you guys know, my online alias is Lily Curo. Ok that explains the Water LILY part, what about Marie? Quick lore drop, OG!Lily's middle name is Marie (this was also kept for Obey Me!Lily). Unfortunately, I kept the placeholders for so long that I couldn't change it after a certain point👉👈. So yeah, Marie was based off my perspective in the dream, I put things with me as placeholders, and they stuck for too long. As for Angson, this last name was made after a specific character trait I gave her which is that she is. Not the best at names and combines words and existing names to give things names. With the context that Marie Angson is the civilian name she chose for herself and that, if I were to make this a full story, Marie Angson and Water Lily being the same person would be revealed later on, I needed a last name that sounded normal enough to not be looked into too deeply but also was something that carried that trait of being combined out of two words. I might elaborate on her backstory later and why she chose this name she created, but I will say that the two words that make up Angson are "angel" and "arson" if yall wanna try to dwell on that :)
Now, Marcus's is um. Really funny actually. So again, the concept is based off of a dream, right? The person Marcus had as a base for his character is my then-friend now-best friend-and-partner @siempreseresol and I had used their irl name as a placeholder. As I was creating Marcus, I wanted him to be (or at least feel) very basic, normal, a number, someone who could be found anywhere as that was a very important aspect of his character and his insecurities. THAT SAID, his original last name I came up with in the shower was like one of the most basic Hispanic last names I could think of. Unfortunately, a day later I realized that um. That was also @siempreseresol's last name. I just gave this character bro's full name on accident. So naturally I SCRAMBLED to find a name that was different but also similar enough to me that my brain could easily accept the sudden name change. Marcus had two letters kept and Ramirez had the same first letter. As for his alias, "The Gentleman," lowkey I don't remember the exact details. I knew I wanted something that gave a mysterious hitman/spy feel, like those nicknames that are just a title. This name also came up early in conception when I already knew Gen's powers and vague early personality. However, when I later started writing some small fanfiction snippets and stuff to get a feel for my characters, I found myself. Really annoyed by bro's name. Like. It's so longgg I'm not typing all that, which is why I just have the team refer to him as Gen as a nickname.
2. Some retconned Gentle Flower lore?
Ok so I can't remember everything, but here are some things I do remember:
The number one funniest thing that got retconned real quick to become the Gentle Flower you all know and love today: Marie and Marcus were originally meant to be just friends. That's right, my main couple, as their biggest supporter, were not supposed to be together in their original conception. They were supposed to be shipping bait but were never meant to be canon, that was the whole point. And then I MYSELF fell for my own trap and the rest is history.
I've made art of this before, but Water Lily's opossum plush from Gen, Jimmothy, had to be retconned due to some changes in story and also cuz I had a cooler idea for symbolism purposes. Jimmothy's original role, currently, is being replaced with a plush scorpion named Stigma. However, I could not bring myself to take him out completely so for now, Jimmothy is a normal plush Marie has.
Marie used to be much more expressive than she is now, both verbally and in her facial expressions. She was also more impulsive when it came to her fights with Gen. I decided that didn't fit what I wanted for her character and I also wanted to separate her from the Lily Curos who share these traits (lol I'm talking about them like a species). She and Gen still fight and she still ragebaits him, but it's with a more straight face and her words are less immature than I originally wrote her.
Marcus is scared of cats, which is still true, but this was originally because of an incident where he ended up all scratched up as a kid by a feral cat. One day, Marcus and his older brother are at their grandmother's house and either she or their father warn his older brother to be careful outside cuz there are feral cats out. As kids are, his older brother (who does not like Marcus) naturally is like "Hey lil bro, you see that cute cat outside? Wanna go pet it :)" and let's Marcus out and he comes back crying all scratched up. I later realized this moment was inconsistent with Marcus's power that literally prevents physical harm like this from happening to him as his body would've dodged it. So I've changed it to his body jumping and spinning really quickly as this was before he learned to control his movements, so the sudden uncontrollable movements would be overwhelming and dizzying to a young kid. So the outcome of him crying coming back from a "prank" his older brother put him up to would remain the same.
Marie was originally a choir kid in high school and that was how Marie and Marcus knew each other. Marcus is still in choir but currently, though this is in limbo and may change again, Marie in high school is a theatre kid. Specifically worked back stage because I liked the idea of her putting in a lot of effort backstage and being a core pillar of the operation but staying kinda in the shadows and not being seen and appreciated for her work. This would also contrast her suddenly being in the spotlight with the team's Captain (still don't have a real name for her) and being praised, even if more than she should, which makes her uncomfortable. Currently floating the idea of having her be in band or orchestra, with the metaphor of her being seen as her instrument. We'll see what this evolves into.
Ah, thanks for asking! Same as any other week honestly haha. You know, go to RAD, get a pop quiz, internally die during said quiz, barely pass, go to stop Mammon from gambling all his money, fail at stopping Mammon from gambling all his money, almost get eaten by a monster- Oh! I saw a duck earlier! That was the highlight of this week :)
