For the pt3 of "random shit ive thought about saying" meme- you're writing a book? What is it about?
bestie you have no idea how much this ask cheered me up; i was having such an awful day and this ask made me smile so big, so thank you so much for it! (for reference, the post being talked about is here!)
it’s hard to describe my novel succinctly, but in essence, it’s about these four characters who are trying to find a cure for a supernatural illness and... well, about everything they go through along the way. the plot of the novel operates on a very small scale, with the whole book being structured in a super interpersonal way. there’s four main characters, as i mentioned, named henry, beatrice, danny, and violet, and they all live in the same small farming village. which is cool! because going into the novel, all of them have relationships with each other. henry and beatrice are siblings, danny and henry were childhood friends turned enemies, and violet is the only maid in danny’s household. in the book, you can kind of say that henry is the main protagonist and danny is the main antagonist, with beatrice and violet being, like, the sidekick to either one of them.
the book’s really evolved since i created it at, like, ten years old where all of the characters were based on a video game i liked at the time, and now it’s less like “look what these cool people are doing!” and it has a lot more going for it thematically. a huge theme in the novel is about family, which is a big value of henry’s, but there’s also a really strong theme of letting go of things you’ve previously held dear. a lot of the characters have things they really, really want, and they’re forced to confront not being able to have those things, and moving on from that. sometimes what they want, either from another person or from life, is just completely impossible to achieve. your crush won’t always like you back, you won’t always be able to protect the people you care about, you won’t always find the answers you’re looking for. but that doesn’t mean that life is over. it just means that you have to start focusing on what you do have, and cherishing what relationships and successes you already have in your life. so, thematically, there’s a lot of that going on, too, both within the interpersonal relationships of the characters themselves and worked into the plot of the story at large.
another theme in the novel is about gender roles and how they affect people, which was... actually what i was talking about in the text itself. i was talking about how people might interpret the way i incorporate normative gender roles into the characters; for instance, with henry’s insistence on providing for his family and being “the man of the house” potentially being cast aside or emphasized in ways i don’t personally agree with. that actually happened to me once with a friend of mine, where he said “oh, my headcanon for henry is xyz” and i just... i was so upset. i didn’t say it outright but i was like, no this headcanon can’t work because it doesn’t make sense at all for his character! but obviously, like, everyone can do what they want with the characters! they’re just all so deeply personal to me that i know it’ll be painful to watch if i ever actually publish it. i probably won’t end up reading fanfics or following rp blogs of the characters, it’d be so much. too painful. i can’t imagine,
umm but to cap this off, i actually do write my ocs on an rp blog! it’s a sideblog so i won’t be able to follow back, but the url is hellhaunt! if you find yourself interested in the novel itself and want to know more about the characters, that’s where you’ll find ‘em! not all of the ocs on there are from the novel, but... you know. and of course, thank you again so much for sending this in! i love my ocs and my novel with my entire heart and literally leap at the opportunity to talk about them, so i really and truly appreciate the ask!