#my beautiful gremlin son rooting around in the underbrush for bugs

[messengerhermes]

Thinking a lot about that one post about "make your OCs a hotter cooler version of yourself" and I want to show y'all something:

I'm writing a novel right now that started as fanfic, but got so distant from the original source material I admitted to myself this story is now it's own beast. On the surface, it's erotica about polyamorous witches harnessing magic via BDSM. But it's also about taking your agency back from oppressive governments, family legacies, and your own traumatic past in order to become a more whole, alive version of yourself. These drawings are of one of the three main characters. On the left is how he starts the series, and on the right is how he ends it. He begins the first novel In a Bad Place. He's been exploited and institutionalized for several years and essentially turned into an instrument by having his own desires used against him. This has eroded his sense of self worth quite a bit and a lot of his arc in the first book is about relearning the basics of "you are allowed to say 'fuck that' about shit you don't want." By the third book, his arc becomes, "Living for yourself, even when it makes other people uncomfortable, does not make you selfish, or unworthy of the things you want." Now, none of my characters are complete self inserts, and none of them have the exact same problems I do. But one of the most effective ways I have found to write characters that feel real is to channel shit I've felt, gone through and experienced through another lens. So, Story Time: --CW: domestic abuse, emotional and verbal-- About two years ago, I got my shit together and left an abusive relationship that really devastated my self image and my ability to trust other people. My partner, who has a lot of trauma themselves and I think coped with that by being manipulative as hell, was very good at using my shame against me, and playing a game of ping pong with my emotions---I could rapidly go from their dream come true to the destroyer of their heart, often in the span of a few days, or even hours. In a single night, they could make fun of me for my gawkishness, my clothes, my inflamed skin, and also berate me for a stranger flirting with me without me catching it. --end the abuse bits-- It was rough.

Since leaving that relationship, I've been doing a lot of what I'd call, "catching up" in terms of owning my own dreams for myself and reshifting my life to put me at the center. It's been really difficult, especially as shitshows unexpected have made me a primary caregiver for an aging loved one. But it's also been incredibly freeing to let go of trying to be someone who is lovable and just loving myself. As I go through this novel, a lot of T's character growth stems from him needing to figure out what "being himself" looks like outside of being useful to someone else. Part of being himself includes taking care of his body. Traditionally, especially in romance genre work, I feel like the "glow up" a character whose struggled goes through is often about them getting more conventionally beautiful. For men, that often means getting leaner, more ripped, and more manly. But (as I've seen many folks on tumblr point out) often times healing means getting softer and yes, fatter. And that is beautiful too. This is a T4T4T love story, and the trans woman in this series starts the series fat and stays fat, and she is loved and desired the entire time. In T's case, he starts the series with a lot of chronic pain and fatigue, and while he is thin and muscular, he doesn't have stamina to really enjoy the things he used to love. Regaining weight over the course of the series is about him regaining connection with his body and strength. It also is him literally learning to take up space again in his life, regardless of what other people think of him taking up that space. (and yes, admittedly I do love men who are built like refrigerators, and writing what you love, especially in romance, I think is a key to making work that's enjoyable to read) And the funny thing is, writing T this way is helping me as I go through my own healing. My body has changed *a lot* thanks to choices I've made, and even as I feel the fear of "will anyone else want me" I am compelled by how much more comfortable I am in my body and how much I find myself desirable in ways I never did before. And writing a character going through similar changes, letting him get bigger and louder and bolder as the story goes on, and writing a life for him where that makes him more and more desirable to people around him, yes is a wish fulfillment fantasy. But also, it makes that fantasy feel much more possible. T is a weird little guy who loves bugs and carrion birds and scavengers and likes growing plants and singing offkey as he gyrates in his kitchen. He's kinda clammy all the time and his skin gets green around the edges and he's got a pudgy belly to match the thighs that wear through his jeans. He also knows who he is by the end of the series, in a way that makes him the sort of confident that gets beautiful people to sidle up to him from across a crowded room. He's also funny and caring and fun to be around in a way that makes his lovers travel across the country to get him back when he's snatched up from their bed. He's messy, and he's loved. Just as I wish to be. Just as I am capable of being. Just as you are capable of being. So I dunno, maybe have fun with your OC, let them be a hotter, cooler version of you. But don't let predetermined ideas of what hotness is control that. Dig around a little, push against the ways you've been shamed into feeling ugly. Feeling too much. Let your character be all those things you were made to feel embarassed about. Let them be that even more than you allow yourself to be. Then imagine a world where they're even cooler and sexier because of those things.