A while ago, I received a tip about character creation: In order to help visualize characters, creating them in a dress up game can be super helpful. So, thinking that that was actually a really neat idea, I went and tried that out, looking for dress up games and testing them out to see if they could capture what was in my head. After a couple very frustrating hours, I gave up. I just couldn’t find one that I was happy with.

Fast forward to this past Tuesday, when I was on Tumblr and came across a post entitled “Anime Yourself!”. At the top was a link to a dress up game that makes anime avatars, and below that were all these avatars people had made for themselves. I was like, what the heck, and tried it out. The result was something I liked quite a bit. Here it is:

So, I tried it out with various characters. This went on for about five hours straight, followed by several more the next day as I created a ton of avatars, all of which I was super, super pleased with. Needless to say, the experiment was a success, and that game is now bookmarked.

In honour of the occasion, and also because anime is really cool, I’ve decided to share these in a series of posts (sharing all the pictures in one post would be overwhelming. Trust me. I went nuts), one writing project at a time, with short, teasery descriptions of the characters. And this is the first. :D

The White Changeling series (previously Peculiar Certainties)

That title might change again, just to warn you, but I really want it to include the phrase “White Changeling”, so I’m thinking hard on how I can make that work.

The series as I currently understand it: An outlaw girl and a part-fae boy discover that their pasts are intrinsically intertwined, and the left over magic and misunderstanding could cause their deaths- at each other’s hands.

The world it is set in: It’s a diverse one full of magical beings, nobility that drive in cars, and magic that prefers to play by its own rules. And, of course, secrets.

The first book will be called Hidden in Sealskin, and it’s actually my next planned release.

Adren, aka the main character:

There are two things Adren wants more than anything else in the world:

1. To find a cure for an insane unicorn that she’s known and cared for for as long as she can remember.
2. To live life on her own terms.

If you are a magic being of some kind, you will find her to be the most loyal, selfless, and trustworthy friend you could possibly find. If you’re a human, on the other hand, she won’t trust you as far as she can throw you. The only reason she’ll ever interact with you is if you’re a means to an end, or if you’re in the way of that end. If she can’t figure out how to categorize you, which could happen if you were only part human, then she won’t use you, but she will keep you at a distance until she can figure out how to deal with you.

In case you were wondering, yes, she does consider herself worthy of the kind of treatment she would give to magical beings, despite the fact that she also categorizes herself as human.

Abilities

On the magical side of things, Adren can make herself invisible and/or something or someone she’s touching. This only lasts for as long as she can comfortably hold it, like holding your breath, but longer. It also only works if the person isn’t watching her while she does it.

In addition to that handy talent, Adren also has a connection with the unicorn. They can each tell the other’s location relative to them, as well as feel their emotions. The farther they are from each other, the fuzzier things get. Also, if one is asleep, they don’t receive anything from the other and the other can’t feel much in terms of emotions from them, but this doesn’t affect the sense of location.

On the mundane side of things, Adren has pretty decent self-defense skills, and knows how to hunt using a bow. She can skin animals, too, but she’s pretty useless when it comes to peeling vegetables. Don’t ask me how that happened.

Also, despite being illiterate, Adren is fluent in two human languages (well, dialects. Think the relationship between Flemish and Dutch) and at least five subdialects of what is collectively though of as the magical creatures’ dialect, some of which are extremely close to human speech. In North America, this would be referred to as showing off. Adren would like to ask North America how else she would be expected to travel as often as she does in her search for the cure for the unicorn and not be able to communicate with the people she meets. Geez.

Fun Facts:

She has exactly the right kind of mind for playing chess or Risk. I don’t. It makes for some challenging writing sessions.

If you ever want someone to sugar coat things for you, don’t ask Adren. Adren would be a very bad choice. There will be no sugar. None.

Next Post

I was going to introduce another character today, but methinks this post is long enough. Next time, you shall meet a dude named Nadin who’s from the same series (and who finds himself in the lucky position of a person Adren doesn’t quite know how to categorize yet), and possibly also one other character. Depends on if I can rein in Nadin’s verbose tendencies enough.

If you want to try the dress up game yourself, here it is. But I warn you: It’s really fun. :D

In the Comments

What more would you like to learn about Adren? I will answer all of your questions- minus spoilers, of course. ;)