Happy 4/13, nerds.

So! New format for chapters. This is going to be basically what I've been doing for a while now, with the character art and then a bunch of me talking about them. However, "ramble" chapters will go more into the details of a character or certain topic. I don't know how on topic I'll actually stay, hence *rambles*, but they're just fun to do because I write this type of stuff up in my head all the time anyways.

Hopefully this at least illustrates (bad pun) how much I overthink my characters. 

so to kick us off and to prove that the art will in no way be the center focus of this chapter, have some incoherent doodles of Twitch. As you can tell I'm still dragging myself out of the recesses of an art block, in which I've attempted at least five times to draw vent art to make me feel better and then realized that I can't even do that. It's... frustrating. Usually my art block is characterized by me not being able to draw my characters consistently rather than a lack of ideas.

For a quick introduction to Twitch, or at least Twitch as he exists in the new!Canon: Twitch is a Teeyu, a species based heavily in soul elemental magics. Teeyus are similar to 'sparks' of magic, and generally have weaker personalities and are prone to lower intelligence and/or completely losing it, especially when the magical biosphere is affected in some way. Teeyus are popular as dragon companions, and Twitch so happens to be the companion of a dragon named Thistlepatch, who named him after his first companion and continues to think of Twitch as a replacement. Twitch cares deeply for Thistlepatch, who is essentially his only friend, and studies relentlessly to try to in some way match up to the dragon's intellect. Thistle's cold attitude and general disregard for the others manifests in a deep-seated quiet loathing in Twitch, who is unfortunately loud and blunt where Thistlepatch is quiet but blunt. He gets into fights with some of the more popular Defenders, says some stupid things he refuses to takes back, and has entered a no-holds-barred feud with Fyera by the time Gale and Rena (the main characters) enter the Defenders. Suffice it to say, he's not doing too well.

(oh yeah and regarding some of the captions above: the Defenders have written shipfic about thistle and twitch before and they both hate it but twitch is easier to piss off) 

The above picture is mainly fun expressions and five-second doodles without much regard for proportion or... anything, really. Key word is 'fun'. However while the anatomy is jacked I did want to try to figure out what Twitch's more distinctive features would be, seeing as I'm trying to avoid sameface syndrome with my characters. He somehow inherited the bandana from Gash, and while I may not keep it, I think I could work with it. One of the above pictures seems to imply it was from a Plague victim, I might go with that.   As for actual facial features, I wanted to give him a smushed muzzle because it really adds to his child-like proportions and makes him seem, well, smaller. He's really small but he can and will fight you. That's Twitch. I was also playing with his forehead a little although the effect is overshadowed by how big his eyes were. I might also keep the soot-like markings beneath his eyes, they hearken back to his fire elemental status (elemental status is a big deal for Teeyus) and it makes him look tired. 

One of the details that gets bought up but not really fleshed out in The Cities Have Fallen is that Twitch spends a lot of his time studying, to the point of staying up far later than any of the other Defenders to read this or that story. Since he's not powerful physically he thinks he might be able to garner some respect intellectually... and he doesn't.

Ouch.

'Ouch' would probably be the best word to describe Twitch as a character. He was made as a somewhat malicious joke, and while I've gone on and on about how much I regret writing him the way I wrote him, I've also come to appreciate him a lot more than even most of the other Defenders. I still love the whole Defender group but there's a lot to do with Twitch, from his unfair and often abusive relationship with Thistle to the pressure put upon him by the brevity of his lifespan to how his insecurities end up creating all the problems he's worried about having. If all of this seems interesting to you, unfortunately reading The Cities Have Fallen won't get you your fix, because he's a villain the whole way through. In fact, very little of his character is expanded upon at all outside of him being a cocky prick or everyone talking about him.

(One of my bigger goals for the rewritten The Cities Have Fallen is to fix up the dialogue and character arcs. While Twitch is the BIGGEST victim of "I was an eighth grader and couldn't write three dimensional characters outside of my mains" syndrome, he wasn't the only one. Fyera and Flare are going to be a couple (which will be explored more), Axel and Kairu's parentage will be explored more, the relationships between the Defenders will be explored more, Auma's relation to Avery will be explored more... well, you get the gist.) 

There's a lot of nuance I have to work with in the TCHF rewrite because I don't want to retcon him into someone who is blameless because he got kicked around. I want to rewrite him in such a way that it's clear that his origins were REALLY harsh but they don't excuse his actions (which are also going to be expanded upon because the Defenders are soooo petty in the original) and that he's not necessarily good or bad but just a kid who got caught up in a war when his situation was bad enough already.

Twitch is somewhat akin to Avery in terms of character development, where they both started out being somewhat important (???) but on the lower side of characters I actually care about but as I revised their stories I ended up caring about them way too much. With Avery, it was because I was going through my "traditional femininity is boring" phase and making her a ditzy airhead was my special way of pushing her into the background. The difference between them would be that I want to keep Twitch similar enough to his original to be identifiable. The only reason no one ever complains about the huge changes I made to Avery is because she was so hollow as a character that there was nothing significant to miss. 

(Now that I think about it, Rose is a way better progression for DR! and Retold!Avery than TSBS!Avery. She gets to keep the maternal, leader-y air and gets to make everyone else get shit done, which was the only thing Avery was good at in Double Rainbow. Rose Eudica is great at everything though. Rose Eudica is one of the best characters I've ever written. You know how I said it might not be worth reading TCHF? It's totally worth reading Roses and Thorns. It does everything I tried to do with TCHF better, save for Gale/Sirius (yes they're the same heartline). Go read Roses and Thorns. Please I'm desperate.)  

Now that I look at this the ramble ended up being a lot more about my plans for revising my stories/TCHF than Twitch but whatever. It's a ramble. I don't fucking care 

aaaand to close things up have a really ugly realistic Twitch. rest in peace me 

topic suggestions below. i mean, you all already know how bad my track record is, but feel free to suggest whatever anyways