Hii! I don't know your OCs at all so dealer's choice for questions 9, 3 and 20?
Hmmmm let’s talk about Zila because I’m thinking about Rift again—
3) What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?
Her very initial conception was for a story that no longer exists in an even slightly similar form to what it once was (terribly cringe fantasy novel series written in middle school, anyone?) but I wanted a character who had some sort of deeply supernatural relationship to the flow of linear time. And then it turned out I still wanted a character like that, just in other projects! She migrated very nicely to the eldritch horror genre :)
9) How big is their role in the story? Do they make a frequent appearance or are they a character with little "screentime" but big influence? Or are they just a favourite background guy?
In the story she was created for, she had very little screentime but served a pretty influential role both in the larger overarching plot and as a non-parental mentor figure for the child protagonist. In Rift, she’s a main character, and I think that suits her a lot better.
20) Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about
Ough I REALLY need to get around to drawing a character design for her… I mostly picked her for this ask because she’s one of the characters that I have the clearest mental image of, even if I’ve never actually done a proper illustration or reference sheet.
Can we talk about the suffocating nature of still fighting for a cause that the people you loved believed in more than you ever did but now one of them is dead and the other might as well be a ghost because that’s it that’s what her entire life is right now. The world is ending and there’s technically something you can do about it, but how much is that worth to you, really? The world is ending and you’re not sure if you care about that as much as you should. You can’t prove there’s allegory in this. Can anyone hear me?