A Big Dumb

OKAY SO I NEEDED SOMEBODY TO BOUNCE DESTINY OFF OF, IN A FUN AND SILLY WAY. a character who is in many ways her opposite but still hits that vein of being very silly and over the top and nostalgic.

and there is this whole genre of cringey 12 year old oc that i havent even really touched with her which is like. when you make a guy with THE MOST TRAGIC backstory who is WRETCHED and MISUNDERSTOOD and THE WORLDS SADDEST AND MOST MISTREATED ANTIHERO

so i returned to the Evil Name Generator and got:

MALICE WINTERFANG

-She was born to a pack of werewolves who ABANDONED HER to die in the cold of the winter because she was The Weakest and they couldn't spare the resources. also it was a LUNAR ECLIPSE or something and i bet werewolves hate that, probably.

-but she was saved by an EVIL ICE ELEMENTAL on the condition that she make an EVIL BLOOD PACT to carry out his EVIL DEEDS in exchange for EVIL ICE POWERS

-so she does that and the EVIL ICE ELEMENTAL raises her to be EVIL but she doesn't REALLY want to be evil.... BUT she doesnt know any other WAY...... her life is HARD and everyone HATES her because she is doing EVIL ICE MAGIC STUFF in the dang woods

-until one day she has ENOUGH and she KILLS her EVIL ICE ELEMENTAL DAD and it is VERY EMOTIONAL and her feelings are SO COMPLEX AND DARK AND MYSTERIOUS.......

-anyway she gets to keep his EVIL ICE POWERS after that but who would ever befriend her when she is so MISUNDERSTOOD AND SORTA EVIL.......

anyway i guess shes like. kinda feral and existing on the fringes of society when destiny Encounters Her and mal is sees destinys whole deal and is like "truly we are enemies on so many levels. are you here to duel me. all i know is COMBAT and LIVING IN THE WOODS and RANDOM PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL ME BECAUSE I AM AN EVIL WARLOCK." and destinys just like. "well not really. im just out here doing some kind of assignment for Magical Girl College. but i AM told that magical girls and evil warlocks are usually enemies sooooo like how evil are we talking?"

i like to think they have kind of a slow MORTAL ENEMIES to acquaintances who kind of dunk on each other to friends to ????????? sorta arc to their relationship

this one is more to do with the way they react to attempts on their agency.

jade is honestly willing to tolerate A LOT if it comes with the assurance that everything will work out for the best in the end. like she just sort of gets put to sleep and stuck on a lonely 3 year journey through the void and then mind controlled and then put to sleep again. and within homestuck's narrative, she doesn't reeeally get a chance to fight back against any of the forces that hold her back for so much of the story. she's got this immense power inside her that she basically never gets a shot at unleashing without somebody else being in control of her. and she really only gets the chance to take on any Real Goals of her own (even if it's just helping out in the final fight with jack and pm) after davepeta shows up in the furthest ring and kisses/stabs her awake? basically jade is done pretty dirty by homestuck and i dont think that's a particularly hot take lol. but it IS also an anthy vibe

so there are these visual parallels that won't leave my brain, between the thousands of swords bearing down on anthy at the end of rgu/the thousands of aradiabots being wiped out by jack right before they enter the kids' universe, AND ALSO anthy in her coffin/aradia in the crypt at the core of derse's moon.

aradia does want to protect (or like, Avenge) the people she cares about. i mean that's kind of the whole impetus for her being killed initially. and she gets put in that crypt for it and then she dies a million times, across a million different doomed timelines. of course all her friends ALSO die in those timelines, but yknow. she could've just hung around until she quietly ceased to exist. INSTEAD though, she goes back in time and suffers a predestined violent death at jack's hands in order to make it all mean something, and to protect her friends in the alpha timeline from becoming doomed themselves.

and it all leaves her as the kind of person who is prepared to just watch with mild curiosity as reality literally disintegrates around her (which.... like anthy, is, to a certain extent, a façade. i mean i don't think aradia's curiosity about the end of reality is fake, but also she SAYS she's not going to participate in the Lord English fight and just let whatever happens happen, but then he kicks Tavros and she immediately jumps on his back and chokes him out so like. do we REALLY think she is 100% free of emotions about all of it?)

anyway aradia megido has suffered more than jesus.

there's also the whole. like. having this dude who really does not indicate that he sees her as a person At All try to trick/force her into a romantic relationship with him?? and her status on alternia at the absolute bottom of the hemospectrum. the little crisis we see her have about just being used as a tool by the whims of fate and the alpha timeline. anthycore af

and then there's jade! jade is incredibly incredibly brave and she wants to do right by her friends. she is EXTREMELY fucking powerful and she is not willing to take bullshit from anyone. she could absolutely open that fuckin coffin.

and she also has a lot of fairytale imagery that i think goes very much hand in hand with utena's whole prince deal. she has her whole sleeping beauty, princess trapped in a tower on a deserted island theme going, and she just... never really leans into it. other characters around her seem to expect her to lean into it sometimes! and utena is constantly bombarded by other characters telling her it would JUST be easier if she was a princess and let herself be saved by a prince. but ultimately jade and utena are just out here living their lives without all that because it doesn't actually resonate with them.