[jigsaw voice] hello stormy. 1, 3, 4, 6, and 12 for Melios please. and 17 for Niamh
HELLO ROZ... i wanted to be fully awake for the melios questions bcs they're GOOD so i apologize for the delay!
1. what was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?
it's really interesting, honestly, because melios, for the longest time, started off as a character that i offhandedly doodled wayyyy back in 2018.
(this is that drawing here...)
i had a habit then of just drawing random people with no real intentionality behind it outside of playing, honestly. he was just Some Guy that i made and then promptly forgot about for another year until i remembered that he existed. i drew him again in 2019 and gave him his title of "the idiot merchant." i did name him back when i first drew him and i really wanna say that i did draw a couple of pictures of him traditionally but i wouldn't have the faintest idea of where they would be in my twin paper towers of terror.
i THEN drew him again in 2023 bcs i was browsing through my art folders, thought his design was fucking dope, and that's pretty much been his main mercantile outfit ever since!
(here's the most recent pic of him i did in color for comparison!)
3. what was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality, or their role in the story?
by virtue of melios' initial creation, his appearance was definitely the first thing i decided on! he's seldom had any character design changes since his initial drawing, honestly, which i consider a design win. personality was second, as i think it's pretty apparent that he's a cheeky motherfucker in that first picture, which is still a character trait of his today... he's definitely a teaser. name was the third thing i decided on, and dead last was his role in the story, bcs for literal years, he was storyless. i initially wanted to make him a deity of sorts, but i kicked that to the curb when i decided that he'd be part of an alien species that relies entirely on trade rather than commerce, which i thought... was cooler!
4. and reverse; which one of the four things did you struggle with the most?
sorta answered this in the last question, but the story did give me a bit of a hard time... i was able to figure it out with the advent of willow, though... awesome woman coming in clutch
6. what was the thought process behind their appearance? did you go mostly for the aesthetic, or are their other reasons they look the way they do?
it's really interesting, bcs when first drawing him, like i said before, i was playing more so than actually creating with true intentionality, so he definitely started off as a character whose design basis was purely within the aesthetical realm. over time, however, when i started building his character and the world in which he lives, i applied more meaning to his appearance.
he's a voyetian, a species of humanoid alien that's cool-toned in skin hue range (think of like, most of the bottom half of the digital color wheel), and his eyes (black irises with red pupils) are commonplace, in the sense that voyetians usually have a color pupil instead of a color iris. he's gained more scars as time goes on, and that's in part due to his reckless nature as a merchant; he's an adrenaline junkie of sorts and loves being in danger, much to his own peril and detriment. he gets better about this as time goes on. his overall fem presentation is bcs voyetians, while having incredibly loose gender parameters, do have gender categorization. feminine men and masculine women exist in droves on voyeol novest, and melios is very much the former. definitely a case of contextualizing appearance with the presence of more of his own kind!
12. do you have a playlist for the character? what songs do you associate with them and why?
I DON'T HAVE A PLAYLIST FOR HIM UNFORTUNATELY but i do have songs i associate with him!
united in grief by kendrick lamar, the collector by nine inch nails, cuts you up by peter murphy, sexy naughty bitchy by tata young, and boa by megan thee stallion. (these are taken from his characterhub profile.)
they're generally a mix of fun and saucy to somber and despairing in some instances. i'm very much a fan of characters who are seen as generally fun and lighthearted having a dark interiority about them. when melios was younger, he was definitely a lot more open about that kind of darkness within him, though he said it with a smile and a laugh—that sort of attitude. he did not have a happy home life growing up, so he dipped when he was like... 1,200 or so (human equivalent of 12) and he was generally very suspicious and untrusting of other people bcs he only know folks who continually broke his trust time and time again... again, this is something he gets better about. I ❤️ Stories About Healing.
AND NOW. FOR NIAMH.
17. are there any motifs or symbols associated with the character? how are they represented? in their design, personality, or in some other way?
MY WEREGOART. niamh's status as such is apparent in their human design with their pointy ears, darker fingernails, and square pupils. their irises also got darker, and their hair turned a stark white due to the initial transformation (they were also very hairy before the transformation LOL). and how could i forget.... the humble goat tail.
it's funny, bcs niamh being more ornery and grumpy is more due to in part the fact that they're even a weregoat at all and the trouble that causes him, but niamh's definitely gotten more of an urge to just straight up hit people with horns that they don't have in their current form. they also find themself chewing on shit more. they're so awesome.
also, before i forget, the coat that niamh usually wears has a sort of fluffy fur lining that's indicative of their weregoat status as well. i need to draw it, still, but that exists as a bit of symbolism too LOL
