Ask a META question about the OC above!

Is this the first iteration of Lilium's design? If so, have there been any changes you've avoided making? If not, what did Lilium originally look like?

vvv I decided the name Tekuka by combining parts of his name before he died, Kai Teiriku. To be honest, the canon reason isn't far from the truth (in canon it's because letters on a metal plaque reading TEIRIKU, KAI wore away to leave TE   KU KA), in that I started knowing I wanted him to only remember small parts of his name, leaving him with a name combined from parts of the original.

I didn't like the name at first, to be honest. I thought it sounded too clunky or silly, but it was the best I could get keeping the family name first, given name second structure. I almost decided to make it all capitalized as TEKUKA in the books, but decided against it, as generally anything breaking normal structure would become a pain to read, and as it is his dialogue was a difficult balance between necessary spacing and ease of reading.

However, his nickname Teku sounds like tech (テク), as in technology, so I eventually warmed up to it. With ka (か) being a question particle, Tekuka is almost a question of a name in that case, which is fitting for an amnesiac cyborg. 

Thank you so much for asking!!

Kvroii How did you decide on the name Tekuka? It sounds really unique! :^D

He is a custom, yes! I got his inital design from a dftpay in the art fight server and gave it a massive overhaul as seen in his current ref sheet (^0^) I actually used to dislike monocle, but I have now seen the appeal after having my own monocle-wearing character <3

Thank you for the question despite his lack of info! :')

kisshim not much 2 go off, but I dig the monocle.... was he a custom? or, what most drew you to this design?

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The height? Was to contrast Ryn. I wanted them both to be in ridiculously extreme percentiles for male human height.
The guitar? Ryn needed a band. And by extension a guitarist. I assigned Heron guitar because the height differnce is further exacerbated by Ryn (short) playing bass (big instrument) next to someone tall playing a comparatively small guitar. Also because it is fun to reverse the classic stoic/restrained bassist + crazy attention-thirsty guitarist archetypes.

Heron wasn't based on a specific person, though in my later quest to find reference pictures of Extremely Tall Guys With Guitars I chanced upon Peter Steele, who is a similar height and brings an energy which is not entirely dissimilar. This was after the fact.... mainly it's just the height they have in common. I've actually based his appearance from the hips up a little on a pre-nosejob Ian Thorpe, who's olympic shoulders and striking lack of jaw experienced a bout of media saturation during an apparently-critical developmental window of my youthful psyche.

He is indeed my pfp!

Aarix

what inspired you to make him so tall or a musician was it a certain person? also is he the one in your pfp?

v

post punk musicians like people from the cure inspired him. but also he was based off of depeche mode too. tbh i can’t remember his original occupation but i think it was like a waiter or something so that was pretty boring lmao

Was Victor inspired by a specific musician and band? Since he wasn't meant to be a musician at first, what was his occupation when you originally created him?

Pick anyone from here or here!

Since Gabriel was originally designed as a fan character, what motivated you to branch him off into an original story? Were there parts that were hard to divorce from the source material?

I mostly just got tired of the Binding of Isaac fandom, and felt that keeping him and his brothers as fan OCs was holding me back-- TBoI characters, in the source material, have little to no characterisation at all and basically only exist for gameplay purposes. No backstory, no dialogue, no interactions. It wasn't hard to divorce him from the source material at all since it basically only consisted in adding stuff to his characterisation, not changing or removing stuff haha.

Since Gabrielwas originally designed as a fan character, what motivated you to branch him off into an original story? Were there parts that were hard to divorce from the source material?

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Phantom's cautiousness is negative in his case because it becomes a detriment to him. He's so cautious that he pushes others away and isn't willing to do anything reckless, even if his idea of reckless is trusting people who want to help him. He allows it to put him in danger inadvertently, and therefore it takes until he has already been hurt by citizens of Myrios to prove he was framed, as to try to clear his name on his own would be out of his comfort zone. 

As for the name, I named Phantom first (wanting him to have an alias that shares the first two letters of his real name), and found the song after, as the lead singer of the band Saigen Complex also sings Vocaloid covers. The lyrics of the song suited him almost too well! 

As the album art has the Phantom of the Opera's mask, I think the song is in reference to the musical, which I have admittedly never seen. I like to think Phantom named himself after the musical when he decided a mask would be his own disguise, since he canonically used to be a theatre nerd.

His original theme was Hai wa Hai ni by Tennen and Niboshi ft. KAITO, but at some point I had to admit that Phantom by Saigen Complex was too fitting not to have on his profile, name and all.

Thank you for asking!!

Kvroii

I see you've listed his cautiousness as a negative trait! It's one of those traits where the "positiveness" depends on the character themselves, so what part of Phantom's character do you feel makes his cautiousness negative?

Also, is he named after the song in his bio, or was it picked due to his name?

What inspired the unkillable aspect, and has it proven useful for narratives?

v A lot of things built on each other gradually. Their base concept came from a visit to the Tower of London, where raven existed and went about unimpeded; and where I read a plaque about a legend correlated to them. I researched on matters, and learned things in passing; which added to the concept/character to where they are now.

Their concept is so cool! How did you come up with it?

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Why isn't she a normal cat? Cause that's boring XP. Lmao, but in all seriousness I just looked at her pic (originally a wta) and instantly the idea of an info broker came to mind.

And wanted to make her a morally grey character—those are my fav types. She looked aqually sweet and devious which was how the idea of having two personas came to mind.

As for the species and race name, ngl, they were pretty random words. 

The first paragraph pretty much answered why she was the species she is. As for race, I just thought having two forms would better differentiate between her two personas/ demeanours.

Sylvia's species is listed as Xex—Hņum, and her race as Yutkīo-- how did you come up with these names, and the concept behind this piece of lore overall? What motivated you to make Sylvia a Xex—Hņum instead of a regular cat?

Were there any folktales that inspired the witch legend specifically?

v The signage that exists across marine and other locations was an initial thought, aside from later thought about further interest that would result from learning.

@Unapplicable it seems that Moire has an interest in reading and literature, which isn't something i see often in sea creatures! what was your inspiration behind that? :]

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np can pick anyone here! some also have a old concepts/art tab where you can find a little history!

Which of the Odwoods did you come up with first, and how did you come up with the others afterwards? Were they always meant to be a family, or did you create multiple characters then decided theyd be family?
great question! the first oddwoods i came up with were actually oliver and layla [caleb and chip at the time] at the same time! they were originally suppose to be friends at the time, and they met each other during the "end of the world" to retreat in a different dimension [yep. that was the lore-]. layla was actually the original oddwood! she was the one with the surname at the time- tho now i've change it. soon i made her dad marcus [professor oddwood at the time], who was originally a long lost scientist that layla would be able to reconnect with. however at one point, i decided to ditch the "end of the world" concept, and experimented with many different ideas instead for the story. in one of the ideas, i've decided to make marcus a single dad that adopted layla and oliver! it never changed since :]

at one point, i made this version of the oddwoods, which had two new members, bixby [the alien] and llios [the hippogriff]! they were supposedly siblings of the other oddwoods. during this time the story would've been about two human orphans [oliver and layla] who finally got adopted... by a strange scientist. who had a portal that could travel through planets. he's also adopted other kids that aren't really humans. it was gonna be about two kids learning how to adapt to such a strange family. but when i explored the darker topics of the story [trauma, death, etc] i soon realized that i seemed to be more focused on developing the "mental health" and "character arc" aspects more than i did with the worlbuilding and space adventures, and the story i wanted to make could've been done with regular human characters alone. so soon i scraped the sci-fi genre all together in my project, and changed the other species into humans as well! that's how i made lucas and max! i decided to change marcus' job into a farmer/shepherd as well, and that's how you got the oddwoods!

Which of the Odwoods did you come up with first, and how did you come up with the others afterwards? Were they always meant to be a family, or did you create multiple characters then decided theyd be family?

v Oh boy that's a complex one. His official name is Raquel now however I call him Urame....all the time... it's just that the name doesn't make sense anymore in the context he lives in.

Basically it went from Dustin -> Urame -> Rose (Argos) -> Raquel.
1) Dustin is also called Urame, so the "Urame (original)" tab is his. I made him for a very old RP I had with a friend. He was an angel, and instantly became my favorite character. So you know, he had to have a version of himself in every single RP I took part in. That's why I have so many AUs of him, haha.
2) Urame I adapted for another RP, in which he was a God (basically 50% of all characters in this RP were) in charge of judging other Gods who didn't respect Heaven's code. He had a whole Claude Frollo vibe to him. That's also where his personality set in stone (old grumpy man with the biggest ego in the entire galaxy).
3) Rose, I made for a RP about 5 years later. Basically when I was about 13 I watched a movie in cinema I was NOT suppose to watch at that age (wrong rating on the movie), it really scarred me and I adapted Urame's backstory to have elements from that movie, which made Rose. Again Rose was someone in charge of judging "sinners" but she had some aspects of her backstory which matched Dustin's. So she was a mix of 1 + 2 + that horrific movie (tm). That RP was very into psychological horror things, which I liked back then. That's also where Urame went from cis gay man (he/him) to non-binary (he/she/they) for the first time (he was genderfluid then).
4) However I'm not that big a fan of psychological horror anymore? I did like some aspects of the Rose's story, however, so I decided to keep some of them when I adapted Urame for a fourth RP. Raquel is therefore a mix of 1 + 2 + 3. Still the same asshole he always was. I switched him to demiboy (he/she) here tho cause I felt that it matched him better.

There's at least 4 other AUs with Urame in, I just, I love that blorbo so much. Honestly everytime I have a new main RP or story I have to put him in. His personality and relationship with Troy/Temelicus is always similar but there's some subtle changes. I love every version of him, don't really consider any to be more finished/the final one :3 

I'm curious: what was the thought process that shifted Urame to Raquel? Kinda curious as to how this character's development went.

Late response: Ooh, that's a fascinating line of development! Also, hahahaha, yeah, I understand just really, really liking a character that you make like a million versions of them.

NP: Feel free to pick anyone here, if Athelier is not to your liking!

As previously noted, admittedly the main inspiration are the characters I've listed, but also things such as fancy bird types and general magician aesthetic! Also, Fontaine aesthetics.