How are you all doing this week? I’m doing ok, but I’ve got finals soon so I have to study – the big project is coming along, but might be a bit late due to other stuff going on. I’ve written some new nereid lore, and some of that’s going to come out in the next couple weeks (in the comic.) I also basically realized this week that a lot of TNF is kind of the result of me being fed up with the commonly used ideas in fantasy involving teens nowadays and books with teens in general. A few examples (Can’t list them all, there’s too many to count.):A fair amount of times the main character in YA books either is depressed or cynical in some way, but I’ve made a point to make Theo a very cheerful, childlike character, being all wide – eyed and happy. Theo’s also quite… innocent… on some things compared to a lot of YA protagonists. Take that how you will. Another one about Theo: It’s also pretty common for a protagonist who has magical powers to either be really powerful, or have some kind of destiny to stop some powerful evil. Theo doesn’t have either of that – he’s quite weak (as stated he can’t really use his powers), and he’s not anybody super special in a cosmic sense. He’s just a normal guy who circumstances put in an odd situation. Also, Violet’s a very stereotypically edgy character, with a brooding disposition and an edgy power (rage fits) to match. However, she’s probably one of the cleverest members of the cast (this hasn’t come up yet, but she’s very good at reading people,) and she’s actually got a happy side, so she’s not super angsty all the time. Lastly, and this is a minor one – for some reason, crossbows are rarely used in fantasy in general. I’m not sure if that’s because a longbow is more iconic, or crossbows are too much like guns, but the only time you ever see them is in the hands of some grizzled monster hunter. Also, archers are normally depicted as being weak and kinda squishy, having to hide behind the bigger characters who slog it out with swords. While this is true in warfare – archers would not fare well in close combat – they’re hardly physically weak: A longbow (which is actually 6 feet tall when relaxed – almost all bows used in fantasy movies are shortbows) has a draw weight of 100 pounds – meaning it takes some serious upper body strength to fire accurately. Katrina uses a crossbow (a modern one) mainly for ease of use. She could use an actual bow if she wanted to, (and she did in the very first draft of the story), but since this is an urban fantasy story, I felt that having a crossbow would be more reasonable, and somewhat cooler. However, as I’ve said before, she only carries it when she knows that she has a likely chance to get in a fight (and also only in places where she won’t get arrested), so that’s why she didn’t have it at the comic convention. For this reason, she mostly works on hand to hand combat. (If you were wondering why Katrina had the crossbow when she first met Theo, I can’t really say. Let’s just say she was expecting to run into somebody.