Mermie

4. And reverse, which one of the four things did you struggle with the most? (In pertaining to: "What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?")

I'm still struggling with Demi's personality and role in the story, even though she is essentially the main character hahaha....

Idk personality has been all over the place through past iterations. I want her to be kind, but not too kind so she knows not be walked over. But I don't want her to come off as mean or curt because of that. It's somewhat of a fine line to walk since she's a female character and people can be dumb when interpreting them... lol.

For her role, obviously I have one and it's big, but I guess I struggle more with her role when it comes to her backstory. 🤔 That part of her is completely new and I'm still working it out. Figuring out her fairy culture and how they treat her because, spoiler alert: she doesn't have her wings while growing up amongst them and that's very important to their/her identity.

(Figured I should share something about the story instead of talking about it vaguely all the time, lol)

19. What is your general favourite thing about the character? What is your least favourite?

My favorite thing about Jùrén is two recent developments: His "scales" and how much of a yearner-boy he is, lol.

He didn't have his spotted skin pattern until pretty recent and BOY has it done so much for his design. I love, love looove it. Makes me wanna kiss him on his cheek. 💙

And while he's always been down bad for Demi, his personality was a bit more rough around the edges back in the day. 😅 He definitely acted more akin to Booktok/Romantasy love interests' being all snarly and possessive, where now he's almost pathetic, lol. She is not his; he must pine for her. 😤💖

My least favorite thing is ironically.... his build? Lol

"But Mermie, you drew him that w--" Yes, I know!! I know it's technically something I can fix but it's a love-hate kind of deal. 😫 Contrary to popular belief, I actually really don't care for the tall vs small trope that comes with romances, but that doesn't mean I'm not susceptible to it every once in a while.

Jùrén and Demi have always been this way, and technically Demi is not actually small-small, she's 5"4. Jùrén is just freakishly tall, coming in at 6'4. But I've brought those numbers down from 7"2 so cut me some slack!! 😤

I'm also not a fan of how muscular he is but I think that partly has to do with my own skills, as well as it plays a part in the story. He is a fighter (his job is actually an entertainer in a battle arena) so it's kind of difficult to not make him muscular but I often think about slimming him down to something more realistic. My anatomy has definitely improved over the past few years, but I still need to study how to make muscles actually look defined vs big.

A moot on Bluesky said to fuse your couple ocs.

5 How did you choose their name and why? Was it simply based on vibes or is there any specific meaning behind the name? Are the reasons behind their name different in- and out of universe?

Demi's name goes along with Jùrén's.

Jùrén means "giant" in Chinese (if Google's not lying to me, lol.)

Demi can mean "small" or "half."

Essentially, they are big and small. Not really deep, lol, but Demi's name used to be "Honor" (before she was a fairy) for no reason other than I heard it from a sitcom and thought that was cool. 💀💦

Also, Demi sounded pretty 'fairy-ish' to me so it fit well! ✨️