#and I'm just: John Silver has a very messy room with vinyls all over the floor and torn up jeans and the aesthetics tells you everything

[awedbyhersplendor-blog]

The character writing meme with john or eleanor or max?

Oh thanks for the ask!! 

Okay so I chose John because I wrote a little more about him than about the other characters!

John Silver

- In the Many Crowns verse, I basically use this photoshoot of Luke Arnold, the one he used for his twitter profile picture, and I just follow the mood (and the clothes) to have a sort of background, aesthetics… I always base characters on some pictures I find so I can go back to the mood, logic of them when I try to write. 

- In Many Crowns, everything, including John Silver, is inspired by my childhood / teenage years in my own little tropical island New Caledonia. It has its own ambiance and some of the people here are just really that kind and ready to take you in and help you with stuff. I picture John like the kind of guy who looks hella cool, parties hardcore, is probably into some shady stuff, but doesn’t take airs or anything. Like he would gladly repair the gate for you and drink whiskey with your grandma after work. He gossips with her and listens to the stories of her youth. Then he goes back to hardcore partying. He probably tears his own jeans and then says it was an accident. (The red speedos totally come from the X-Files btw)

- He wasn’t supposed to be in Why Mr DeGroot stays on the Walrus… but I figured it would be better to have an outsider’s point of view so people who be able to groan with him on the awkwardness of those two nerds in love. I imagined John would totally be the kind of irreverent curious lil shit to snoop around, ask too many questions and poke the sleeping bear we needed to have some answers. John is a keen observer which makes him the perfect witness character. 

- I thought about giving John a sort of backstory for Many Crowns, mostly how he wasn’t actually born in Nassau, but I never found any satisfying backstory for him. I might just stop trying. When I need inspiration to write him, I go back to his pictures or I just imagine his room (Balzac believed the description of someone’s room was a good indicator of someone’s character) and I roll with it. 

- I don’t think I write the most in-character John Silver, I just become naturally very snarky and ironic when I write the not-romance parts so I imagine it somehow fits sometimes. For some reasons, I’m slightly less terrified of writing John Silver than I am when it comes to Flint. I’m absolutely terrified of writing Flint because he’s so unique and layered I have trouble finding a sort of mood or logic that would suit him. That being said, John is not less layered and complex. I tried writing post s2 John Silver in the sub Flint fic (still haven’t written the second chapter aha) but I don’t really know how that’s going along. 

- Sorry for the length, it’s the last point, I promise. One of the most inspiring things about John Silver is the little panicky voice, you know the: “I thought this was how you intended to escape!” / “So I actually have to fight him?” I feel like it really adds another dimension to him? Stressed-out John Silver. Panicky John Silver. He’s panicked about his own life in both those cases, but I imagine he can be stressed out about other things he cares a lot sometimes. So the panicky voice is basically the entire: John tries to navigate his relationship with Flint in Many Crowns (only Abigail is privy to that tho)