#wow look at me talkin like a bigshot BWAHAHAHHA

[yestrday]

could I ask how you start your research / brainstorming for your hybrid au? I wanted to make a hsr hybrid au for my own self indulgence, but I'm kind of stumped on how to think outside of the "common" hybrids (like cat, dog, bird, etc) :(

I think you've answered smth similar before, and iirc you mentioned how you start by basing it off of either their element or region, before going into more trait and personality type stuff? but do you have any other advice :o

every time i start writing the headcanons, i always bring up the chara's wiki and give it a read over. after that, i usually search for animals centered around that region. so like for kazuha i was searching for japanese animals and came across the flying squirrel, which i decided to use for him because anemo = fly my logic is just very brain dead HAHAHAH

but when it comes to characters who have a legendary background (zhongli, neuvi, xiao, venti), i tend to stick with their original animals already and classify it as mythical (so that i don't have to do much work). in hsr it would probably be like dan heng's imbibitor lunae. if the character already has animal motifs i tend to stick with them too (itto, gorou, childe...)

traits and characteristics of animals also factor in, but for me it's mostly about how i make them work. scara's jobitaki form is small and weak, paralleling to his canon backstory of being born defective. it's really up to you on how to make the animal and the character go well together, and not just use the animal simply because they're hot.