Tag: Shard-verse

Bonfire Hearts and Fool Waters (Shard-verse)

Word count: 2151. Rating: all-ages

Summary: before Daisy Hart became Wild Heart, she was just a strawberry blonde in high school. And the Ginger Royals recruit from all red-heads…

Content notes: mild-ish verbal abuse from a parent, fatphobia, alcohol, implied underage drinking, realistic depiction of drowning (everybody’s okay), possible implied violence

Note: the gang’s name alternates freely between Ginger Queens, Ginger Kings, and Ginger Royals


Daisy wiped the water out of her eyes and pushed herself out of the pool.

“Hey Daisy, can we talk after we change?”

She glanced up – it was Lily Mills, who was the fastest swimmer in the class, had red hair that glowed like fire unlike Daisy’s pale strawberry blonde, and was a senior.

“S-sure!” Daisy was a sophomore and she’d taken swim and water safety instead of basic PE because she had thought she was already a good swimmer. Turns out she was only okay – too buoyant after a puberty boost that had turned her from round to curvy, undisciplined, and out of condition. And then she had almost no friends – her best friend ever had moved away last year after middle school, her second best friend had found cooler people to hang out with, and her other friends had so many others that Daisy was lost in the crowd. Which lately was kind of okay, because once she hit puberty her dad had changed from ignoring her to yelling at her. She looked too much like her mom, he said. Why didn’t he take care of herself? She was fat and stupid. And it was harder than ever to act like everything was okay, and school was harder, and she was just hanging on. So it would’ve been nice to have one class that she could ace.

Read more


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Donville’s Morning Prayer (Shard-verse)

CW: mentions of violence, gangs, and religious violence. I did a write-up of Nursgil earlier if you’re curious. Like any religion it can be followed by good and bad people.


Margarida Abreiza Samema Donville said the same prayer every morning. The prayer her aunts had taught her, that their mothers had taught them, probably all the way back to the when Nursgil was brought to the old country.

As she washed, she prayed to the gods: Dunu, protect me from harm. Aldu, guide me with your wisdom. Taus, lead me to where I should be and home again. Lords of creations, send your guides to me and keep me from weakness. And as she dressed, she prayed to the guides: Angels, lead me to reflection and not to self-flagellation. Devils, lead me to passion and not to disgrace. Spirits, lead me to knowledge and not to isolation. And to her saints, as she brushed her hair (and this is where she suspected her aunts would disapprove): Cheinte Samema, as you fed the people, let me too be fed. Cheinta Abreiza, as you led the children, let me too lead my people. Cheinta Margarida, as you guarded your town, let me too guard my streets. Cheinta Samtoma, as you destroyed the unbelievers, let me too destroy my enemies. And she pinned up her hair and set out her cosmetics as carefully as she burnt incense and lit candles at the temple. Dunu, send your angels with health. Aldu, send your devils with passion. Taus, send your spirits with enlightenment. With a steady hand and a firm heart, she lined her eyes with wings as sharp as thorns and painted her lips dark as blood. Amen.

She nodded to the mirror. Time once again for Rita Donville, Odd-eye, Bad Penny, Bloody Rita, to lead the Donny Boy’s gang to the destruction of all other gangs and total control of Shard City.


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Nursgil (Shard-verse worldbuilding)

Nursgil is the 5th largest religion in the world. The three gods – Dunu, Aldu, and Taus – worked together to create the world and the heavens, and now watch and send help, but can no longer directly influence creation. Each of them have their own guides. Dunu is the god of the sky and sends angels; Aldu is the god of the waters and sends devils; and Taus is the god of the land and sends spirits.

Angels promote healing, stillness, meditation, and learning, but can also cause indecision, stubborness, conservatism, and complacency. Devils promote growing, sharing, action, and emotion, but also aggression, short-sightedness, and tribalism. Spirits promote thought, experimentation, open-mindedness, but can also cause hoarding, selfishness, and anti-socialness.

There have been lots of avatars, teachers, saints, etc as helpers, teachers, and incarnations. Priests are meant to guide one to balancing the influence of the different gods and their guides.

The focus is morality in the world. Different sects have differing views on what happens after death, with some thinking there is an afterlife and some not. There’s a long tradition of preserving knowledge, with several different monastic traditions. Nursgil has a large amount of recorded stories, teachings, commentary, and history (not a strict canon like Christianity).

There are lots of different sects with different focuses. In the AMF (the country the shard-verse is mostly set in) and other industrial nations, there’s a big ‘prosperity gospel’ theme lately – you get what you deserve in life and that’s proven by being wealthy, healthy, and successful. There’s a lot of syncretism of Nursgil with local religions and traditions, some of which has become cults or religions considered separate from Nursgil itself.

Nursgil has spread across the world and has a tradition of ‘sharing stories’ that has at times become a crusade. Like any religion, it has its extremists and those that use it an excuse or shield for their immoral behavior. But it is generally considered a religion of caring for the community, sharing knowledge, and thinking deeply about the world.


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


The White Knight #1 – Devotion

Content warnings for talk of police corruption, references to military service, chronic illness, hospitals, shooting (nothing graphic), blood and medical issues, prejudice against fictional people, talk of gangs, non-graphic violence, mentions of drug and alcohol addiction, misgendering (in the context of someone assuming the gender where it’s not known), mention of spiders and rats, smoking, and swearing.

Many thanks to LB Lee and KristyCat for sensitivity and beta-reading. Any mistakes are my own.

Please let me know if you see any typos or other mistakes. Thanks.


Shard City doesn’t love anybody, but I can’t help loving it. It has its bright spots but unless you stay in those small oases it turns into a very ugly place at night, The cops hardly try anymore – too many crimes, too many gangs. It’s funny how you get used to it. Used to watching out for the sun setting, for the alleys like open mouths, for the people with gleaming eyes and hidden weapons. I’m sick of it. And I mean to do something about it.

My name is Delia Tyelu. I’m the White Knight.

 

* * *

A family photo - a tall white, blond man in doing bunny ears to a shorter, chubbier white, blonde man, who is holding the hand of a short Asian woman. She has her arm around her teenage kid who has his arm around her shoulders.
Left to right: Leonard Burton, Nathan Burton, Delia Tyelu, and Joel Tyelu-Burton. Picture taken on Joel’s 19th birthday.

Read more


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Character Writing #8

#31. Is your character right-, left-handed, or ambidextrous? More complicated than that?

  • Wild Rush – left-handed. Can shoot and throw with either hand.
  • Daisy – right-handed, unless she’s been around Wild Rush for a long time (I’m really trying not to spoil stuff about her but it’s haaaaarrrd…)
  • Delia – primarily right-handed, but good with either for sports / fighting stuff.
  • Joel – taught himself to be ambidextrous, but better with his right
  • Charles – right-handed
  • Andre – right-handed, somewhat ambidextrous. Can shoot with either hand.
  • Techrat – ambidextrous, a little better with his right
  • Gimmick – left-handed

#9 Who do they trust?

  • Wild Rush – not very many people and he’s fast to distrust. He trusts Daisy unconditionally and pretty much trusts Charles and Andre.
  • Daisy – Wild Rush, Charles, Andre. She’s pretty quick to trust, even though she should know better.
  • Delia – Depends on the situation. Joel, of course. Her business partners and friends, if it’s not superhero stuff. The police chief, Donna Cooper.
  • Joel – his mom, most people
  • Charles – Andre & Daisy, not a whole lot of other people.
  • Andre – Charles & Daisy, not a whole lot of other people.
  • Donna Cooper – she only trusts people so far, because she’s been burned so many times. It take a lot to earn her trust and not a lot to lose it.

Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Character Writing #7 (or so)

I misnumbered one last time and had a mini, but we’ll call it seven.

Yeah, been a while since I did this. I’m trying to do Camp Nanowrimo and don’t really feel like working on the story I was trying to do, so I’m doing this instead. And counting it.

It occurred to me a few days ago that Wild Rush’s grey skin could be related to argyria (tw for medical stuff and eyes in that link). He got splashed with some sort of chemical in a robbery gone wrong and a patch of skin turned grey and then spread. Now, he stayed grey and turned completely grey because he wanted to, so his powers made it happen. But. I dunno.

I’m currently trying to find out if it would turn his tongue and around his eyes grey too. (The pictures I can find of people with argyria aren’t very clear). It looks like it’s worse where light hits it? So the inside of the mouth probably wouldn’t be affected? (Unless I decide it is…)

But. To the actual character writing.

#29. How does your character smell? Do they wear any perfume / cologne?

Wild Rush – like wool and aftershave

Daisy – I’d imagine she likes flowery scents and would wear perfume. If she hasn’t put any on, she smells like jasmine or something from her shampoo.

Delia – when she’s superheroing, like leather and metal. Otherwise, probably likes spicy scents.

Joel – he burns incense a lot, so he smells like that

Leonard Burton – cotton, leather, and motorcycles. Just good man smells.

Charles – ne wears perfume, something spicy and flowery.

Andre – he wears a subtle cologne, something with a vanilla undertone

Techrat – like cotton. Doesn’t wear anything. Often sweaty and metallic smelling from working too long with electronics.

Gimmick – if he’s working, like metal and sulfur and other electronic smells. If he’s showing off, like nice cologne.

Swordcat – like a cat. Kinda a dusty musk.

Mask – not good. Wool, with b.o. He doesn’t sweat and hardly has a sense of smell. He does his best, but it’s an uphill battle.

 

 


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Snippet – Wild Rush does not react in a healthy way

TW: abuse, assault, threats, threatening with knife, blood, victim blaming

(I’ve decided Charles’ pronouns are ne / nem / neir / neirself)

Wild Rush had the habit of threatening / yelling at / blaming / etc Charles and Andre before Daisy came along.

They’d been expecting it. The boss was predictable about a few things at least. And when they heard his office door slam against the wall, they glanced at each other and dropped their mugs in the sink (less chance of them getting broken that way – they had to replace dishes too often already).

Now Wild Rush has Charles pinned down against the table, one of his knives that always seemed to appear from nowhere pressed against the back of neir neck. It was kind of amazing that the boss could so easily take down someone as big as Charles. Mostly terrifying, but kind of amazing.

“You told me it was guaranteed,” Wild Rush growled.

Andrew watched the sweat trickle down Charles’ neck. “Practically guaranteed. How was I supposed to know that Tectrix would decide he wanted it?”

Charles thought it was funny that of all the things that gave Andre panic attacks, getting chewed out wasn’t one of them. And he’d been the one with a knife against his throat or a gun against his chest plenty of times. Ne wasn’t laughing right now, of course. Ne’d gone pale – you’d think they’d get used to it – and ne was trying to breathe as little as possible.

“You’re supposed to find out these things. What am I paying you for?”

The knife twitched. “Gimmick said-”

“What are you doing?” Daisy shrieked. She pulled Wild Rush off.

He blinked at her. “I- they- we were just talking.” He sounded way too reasonable for someone with a bloody knife dangling from his fingers.

Andre pressed a clean washcloth against Charles’ neck as ne sat up. “It’s not bad,” he whispered.

“You were not!” Daisy said, her voice only slightly less high. “Why would you do that?!”

“They screwed up.”

She made a pained sound and pushed past him to them.

“It’s fine,” Charles said. “I’m fine.”

“No, it’s not!” she said. Andre glanced at the boss. He’d expected him to be pissed, but he just looked confused.

Wild Rush put a hand on her arm. “Daisy…”

“Don’t touch me!” And she fled. Wild Rush glanced at them, still puzzled, and went after her. Andre heard a door slam.

~~~~~

Andre scowled as he heard the door unlock. He’d just finished bandaging Charles’ neck – it really wasn’t that bad, hardly worse than a papercut, but it’d bled a lot – and the andrenline surge was dying down.

The boss perched on the chest at the end of the bed, bent all in angles. “Why is she upset?”

“We’re not exactly thrilled either,” Charles said coldly. Andre squeezed neir hand warningly.

“So what? Why is she upset?”

“She likes us,” Andre said.

Wild Rush’s brow furrowed further. “I like you too. So?”

“Generally people don’t assault people they like,” Andre said, suddenly tired.

“If you hadn’t fucked up-”

“Yeah, we know that,” Charles said. “She doesn’t. She hasn’t been here that long, remember?”

He pursed his lips, then said, “She won’t talk to me.”

“She probably needs to calm down,” ne said.

“From what? I didn’t do anything to her!”

“Didn’t her dad used to hit her?”

“Yeah, but…” He glanced away, his eyes crinkling as he thought. “I won’t let anything hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“You’re missing the point,” Andre said.

“She knows I wouldn’t hurt her.” He looked back at them. “Doesn’t she?”

“I don’t think that’s the point. She probably doesn’t like to see her friends get hurt either. Most people don’t.”

“And there’s a difference between knowing something and, y’know, feeling it,” Charles said.

“But you fucked up,” Wild Rush said.

“Yeah, we know,” Andre snapped. “You don’t have to threaten us. We know.”

Wild Rush frowned, apparently still baffled. “Okay. Talk to her, okay?”

That was the last time he pulled a weapon on one of them.

I don’t think Wild Rush fits any specific diagnosis. (I’m not doing any research for him at least). He considers Charles and Andre his closest friends and he’d be upset if they got injured or killed, but only to the extent of how someone would be if their favorite shoes got ruined. ‘Well, shit, how am I going find some that good again?’ But he’d be wrecked if Daisy got killed.


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Character Writing #5 – Phobias

(Trigger warning: abuse)

Does your character have any irrational fears?

Wild Rush – not entirely irrational as parents abused him, but he hates everyone in his family

Daisy – scared of heights (except under certain conditions which are spoilers.)

Delia – centipedes, millipedes, and other things with WAY too many legs

Charles – I can’t think of anything. Cows. I’m going to say cows, because why not. And moose. And other large animals.

Andre – claustrophobia

Techrat – phobic of being restrained

 


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Character Writing #5

… I’m not doing these in order. These are supposed to be #28 and #21 of the 30 questions (a few of which I’m not doing at all)

If your character’s life was a genre, what would it be? (I’m thinking of this as from their POV)

  • Wild Rush – action, probably with lots of explosions. Maybe action comedy
  • Daisy – romance or romcom
  • Delia – probably a sitcom? Maybe?
  • Charles – action thriller
  • Andre – spy thriller
  • Techrat – horror
  • Swordcat – live stream webcam (… that’s probably a copout :P )

Does your character have a symbol or would they pick a symbol?

The one’s that actually have a symbol:

  • Delia – white knight (chess piece type)
  • Wild Rush – cards
  • Daisy – two hearts
  • Techrat – barcode
  • Mask – his mask, obviously :P
  • Joel Burton – a black rook (chess piece)
  • I swear Gimmick has one, but I can’t think of it
  • Jill – a ferret’s bandit mask
  • (there are a bunch more – pretty much all the Name Criminals have one, as you might expect)

The one’s that don’t:

  • Andre – hibiscus flower, like off a Hawaiian shirt
  • Charles – a bullet casing, I think
  • Mick Adler – a battery

 

 


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Character Writing – Mini #1

I felt like talking about a few other people’s sexual orientations.

– Techrat: sex-repulsed. If he didn’t find contact with people and, basically the human body, viscerally disgusting, he’d be straight and allosexual (non-asexual). As it is, he’s celibate and almost libido-less. (He’s got serious mental problems that would probably respond better to therapy and drugs if he didn’t think he knew better than the doctors and was actually compliant. But nothing is going to get rid of it entirely).

– Swordcat: straight, but to a species of space cat people that haven’t existed for millions of years. You can imagine what this does to his love life. Before he got turned into a cat person, he was straight, in a normal way. He’s got a daughter and ex-wife that he gets along better with now that he’s a cat person (he was a jerk; now he’s a lazy tom cat).

 

(I need to write more people who have serious problems that aren’t criminals. A lot of the criminals with problems – like Techrat – aren’t bad people and I have criminals that don’t have serious mental conditions, like Mask – who also isn’t really a bad person. But. I still need to have civilians and good people that have serious mental conditions that they struggle with.)

 

(And, unrelated to anything else in this post – I suspect at some point somebody is going to ask/think that Wild Rush is autistic. I’m going to say right now, no, he isn’t. Not because there’s anything wrong with being autistic, but because they deserve better than Wild Rush. I’m not writing him to represent any particular condition – I think borderline personality disorder is the closest, but even that doesn’t fit very well since he truly and deeply loves Daisy. He’s kind of a horrible person. He can be charming, he can be entertaining, but he’s very dangerous and his only truly redeeming quality is loving Daisy. Although he puts on a hell of a show.)

(About the only character that has no redeeming qualities at all is Tectrix. I’m writing him as that guy you love to hate. Silver Dollar is also pretty awful and Gimmick is completely self-absorbed.)


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Character Writing #4

I’m being lazy and only doing one question today.

 

(trigger warning – character death / murder / torture)

#7 – Is there an event in the character’s past they’d like to erase?

Delia – her husband being killed is the obvious one. Her brother dying in the war is another.

Wild Rush – basically his entire childhood outside of school

Daisy – her mom leaving

Charles – if he hadn’t met Wild Rush his life would probably be a lot more peaceful.

Andre – I can’t think of anything

(trigger warning – torture)

Mask – getting attacked by a rival gang, tied up, and lit on fire would be an obvious one…

 


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


White Knight Art

Finished the reference sheet for White Knight. Yeah, Delia Troy Burton is under there. Also, my first image for the OCTP meme. Next is them holding hands.

I need to do a whole bunch of designs for Wild Rush’s clothes, because otherwise they all end up looking like this. (He wears solely shades of yellow, black, and red, but I could get a lot more patterns and such in there.)

And you get to see the White Knight logo. Like most comic book logos, the color changes to match the cover.

White-Knight-v4
The White Knight, reference sheet

WR&D
Wild Rush and Deuce of Hearts

 


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


Character Writing #3

(Trigger warning: light misgendering, senility, food mentions, disability, scarring & tattoo talk, murder)

I’m adding three more characters. I’m also going to do the questions for Charles and Andre (I need to look up their last names, but it’s on the other computer) and then a random character that will probably change for each question.

Character’s relationship with parents:

Charles – (I haven’t decided pronouns, so for now I’m going to use zie/zir for zie) Zir parents were really conservative, but trying. They were fine with zem being gay, but confused by zem being non-binary. For years they assumed that meant zie wanted to be a girl and would buy zem typically female-assigned stuff. That was partly okay, because zie does like feminine stuff, but they overdid it. Zie’s got two sisters and their family didn’t have huge amounts of money. Zie gets along fine with all of zir family, although zie often finds zir parents tiring.

Andre – he was spoiled rotten and getting out on his own was a huge shock. His mom would do all his cleaning, food prep, etc, so he didn’t know how to do laundry, cook, etc. Charles thought that was funny and helped him learn when they were in college. His dad has gone senile and Andre finds visiting him very sad, but tries to go at least once a month. He has a younger brother that takes care of his parents (they’re in a nursing home) and he doesn’t approve of Andre’s career and won’t take any of his money. But they’re polite to each other, in a somewhat awkward, prickly way.

Joel Burton (okay, I’m giving myself an easy one :P ) – seeing as his parents have more than plenty of money, Joel’s got a fairly easy ride. Which makes dealing with his disability a lot better. (I can’t remember the name I gave the disease – it’s similar to Parkinson’s). His dad would spoil him and his mom was stricter, but overall it balanced out.

Most prominent feature:

Charles is huge. Like tall, massive, generally huge.

Andre is very classically good looking.

Techrat – his shaved head. Not like fuzzy shaved. Bald shaved. And not cuz he’s balding. Aside from that, probably the barcode tattooed on the back of his neck.

Scars:

Okay, so medical technology is more advanced than in our world, so people generally don’t get scars from surgeries, etc. People get the normal day to day scars, which can be removed easily if they want.

Charles has a puckered sort of scar on his right shoulder where zie got a tattoo removed. Zie was really young when zie got it and a friend did it with a homemade tattoo gun. Zie keeps the scar as a reminder that we all do stupid things sometimes.

Andre is one of the few people that the scar removal tech doesn’t work on. He’s got scars all over his chest and arms from the various fights he’s been in.

Delia would have a c-section scar if not for the technology.

Gimmick has heavy calluses behind his ears from the hearing aids he wears (of his own design). He’s also got a faint white mark on his left shoulder that is all that remains of the surgery scar when he got his rotator cuff repaired.

How vain:

Charles thinks zie’s pretty good looking, but zie’s not vain about it.

Andre loves to primp, but he keeps it private (cuz Wild Rush is a lot more vain than he is and will throw a tantrum.)

Techrat absolutely hates how he looks. But he has serious issues, in that he wishes he was a machine.

Sexual Orientation and history:

Charles just loves the dudes.

Andre is closer to being bi than gay, but identifies as gay. He’s slept with people of all types, but is only romantically attracted to men.

Leonard Burton (Delia’s brother-in-law) loves the ladies. He’s aromantic and just wants sex and to spoil his (current) girlfriend. He stays really good friends with past girlfriends, in a completely healthy way (he’s not a nice guy™, he’s actually a really nice, giving guy, who just likes to sleep around).

How easily does your character make friends? Are they well liked?

Charles makes friends pretty well, but drops them quickly too if they say anything even remotely bigoted.

Andre is more forgiving, but has a harder time making close friends. He has a huge number of acquaintances who think they’re closer than they are.

Gimmick doesn’t really make friends. He’s got a giant ego that doesn’t make room for anyone else. One of his closest friends is Techrat, because they share a love for technology.

Techrat also doesn’t make friends, but that’s because he finds people disgusting and annoying.

Describe your character’s happiest memory

Ugh, I hate questions like this. Either you get cliche answers (when they met their spouse, when they got married, when they had their kid…) or you get spoilers.

Delia: One of those cliches. She was deeply in love with her husband. Probably also when the company she worked for (that she co-founded with friends) took off after all their hard work.

(Trigger warning: murder)

Wild Rush: probably the one he values most is when he killed his parents, although probably falling in love with Daisy is happier.

(end trigger warning)

Daisy: learning to drive, falling in love. I dunno.

Charles: meeting other non-binary people for the first time.

Andre: graduating college

Gimmick: when he got his first hearing aids and then when he made better ones (the money he makes off the patent doesn’t hurt any either)


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi


White Knight notes for later

This is mostly a note to myself and lots of rambling.

I want to revamp my character diversity – I have a huge number of characters, but there are a lot of diversity categories not represented or poorly represented (like, there are a lot of Asian characters, but very few black people…) (I don’t know what the breakdown of ethnicities actually is, that’s just an example). My plan is to basically use random numbers to fix this (I already use a random generator to determine relative weights, heights, and some other things).

Percentages I’m going to use: (I’m intentionally inflating numbers to increase representation)

  • Intersex: 1%
  • Transgender (binary): 4%
  • Non-binary: 15% (I truly believe that a lot more people would be non-binary if it was more widely known and accepted – which it is in my story) (I’ve decided Delia is a demi-girl, and one of Wild Rush’s henchmen is going to be non-binary)
  • Neurodivergent: ???
  • Invisibly disabled: ???
  • Disabled: ???
  • Race categories… (gonna get the statistics for the US and round up)
  • I’m not sure what else?

Plan for the generator:

Have list of categories, with what numbers mean the character fits in that category. For example, race/ethnicity* could be White, Native American, Black, South Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, East Asian, etc, and by having a list people could easily be more than one ethnicity.

Like any generator, results will probably be tweaked by hand.

* obviously for this, I’d use the words that fit my actual map, since there isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between my fictional world and the real world.

Diverse characters I know I have:

  • Lt. Aurita – cop, black / Pacific Islander,  Caling, an ethnic group that whose average height is under 4 feet Pygmy (I can’t tell from googling if this is an offensive term or if there’s alternatives – she’s not a little person, because she doesn’t have dwarfism, she’s ethnically a Pygmy) (Seriously, if I’m screwing up here, let me know). (Edited 4-27-14)
  • Mask – Middle Eastern, disabled (I need some Middle Eastern characters that aren’t criminals – don’t judge me for that, the majority of my characters are criminals.)
  • Delia Troy Burton – Asian, demi-girl
  • Joel Burton (Delia’s son) – Asian, disabled (fictional disease similar to Parkison’s)
  • Emily – Latina, Selective Mutism (I’m not sure if that’s neurodivergent, disabled, or both…)
  • Charles – (Wild Rush’s henchman) gay, non-binary
  • Andre – (Wild Rush’s henchman) gay
  • RV – black
  • (Since Ostanes is set in the same universe, I can count Iosis & Ostanes and their mom for Asian, and Dr. Maurell for asexual and Latino) (basically I already diversitied-up that story, so I’m not worrying about it)
  • (I really need some more asexual characters)
  • (I swear there’s more, I just can’t think of them right now)

Characters that I’m not counting as diverse:

  • Swordcat – multiple, through alien intervention (I need some naturally multiple people)
  • Wild Rush – neurodivergent, mostly likely diagnosis is sociopath (it’s more complicated than that and I don’t want to try to count him as representation of anybody because he’s a really terrible person)
  • Tectrix (I think that’s what I’m going to call him) – Middle Eastern (although that might change. He’s currently problematic and I’m trying to figure out how much of that is stuff I need to change about him and how much can be fixed by having other characters as counterweight) (He’s really just kind of a horrible person and I might just make him white, because making white people horrible doesn’t say anything bad about white people.)

I swear I almost should just make all the really horrible people white, because I’m totally racist against my own race. (That’s mostly sarcasm). (Anyone who non-ironically mentions ‘reverse racism’ will get laughed at and banned. Not kidding.)


Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi