Number 79 for either of you that wants to answer and any of your characters.
79. What is a humanising thing about a villain/antagonist/generally horrible person character that you have?
OK, I'll start with Julian, who lies somewhere in the realm of generally horrible person character 😂 I honestly think something random about Julian that I find really humanising about Julian is actually his soft spot for a girl called Amara Bright. Usually, after knowing someone about a week, his soft spot for them will lessen (he usually has them upon meeting women more than men, because of his mother and sister, I would say), but with Amara it absolutely does not. He's also so gentle and understanding with her despite the fact she annoys him sometimes and he puts genuine effort into trying to help her. I've never entirely understood why, but he does. He's also very good with children which humanises him a lot, and for some reason always develops a genuine relationship with animals whether or not he actually likes the animal in question despite his best efforts to ignore them. He's also good at giving people advice, and if someone he hates comes to him asking for advice he will still help them—I think it bothers him when other people don't know that to do and he'd rather have their problem solved. When he makes bonds with people, as well, they're usually very intense and he's always extremely close to them, so he always has one or two friends with whom he shares a relationship that's really revealing and real for him.
As for Derrick, I'd say his most humanising trait is how much he loves Auberon. He does love his little brother, and he does put as much effort in as he can with making sure that Auberon knows that (although personally I think Derrick does it a bit wrong but he tries and that's fair enough my dude).
- Annie 🤓 The Beyond Academy
Fernando is considered quite a horrible person, but more importantly in both books can be considered an antagonist on some level, at some point in the plot. Although Fernando can be characterised as selfish, narcissistic, downright cruel at moments and occasionally just plain mean, there is a more human side of him. Although he always tend to do quite bad things, Fernando always genuinely believes (or is trying to convince himself) that he's doing the right thing, and if he thought he wasn't he probably wouldn't have done it. He's generally an altruistic and compassionate person, only losing that as he grows and becomes more and more drowned by anxiety, which is what humanises him, I think. He isn't bad for the sake of himself, not most of the time; he does it because he's thinks he's doing the best thing for everybody in the long run.
There's also Hisoka, who isn't an antagonist in either story, I wouldn't say (in fact, in The Beyond Academy he plays the role of mentor to most of the characters), he is just generally a bad person sometimes. It's hard to pick a specific thing that's humanising about him, because really it's so many little things put together. He's in love with Fernando, and can be very soft over him a lot of the time; his choice to ignore the king's biased and unfair laws and give people a place to go, and look after them and mentor them (in The Beyond Academy); other than that, he's just pretty likeable as a person despite occasionally being mean and self-centered. Hisoka has been through a lot (for example, in both stories he was forced through conversion therapy, which he managed to get past) and because of that is cynical with a large dose of trust issues, but he doesn't really want anybody to be hurt and is rarely malicious (except at Fernando sometimes, because he's petty), which I think humanises him as well.
- Molly 💖 The Three Princes and The Beyond Academy
