(aka Cool Kids because I've never used that song title for some reason? I was so into it for months it's so mellow)

So in the Deja Vuniverse (I hate that name so much that I keep using it) there are technically four 'active' Cherubs who each correspond to a card suit. Anthem is hearts, Shiloh is spades, and the clubs and diamond cherub both exist but I don't talk about them much. The diamond cherub technically gets a load of adults and then the world ends and clubs originally had this whole sequel but then I realized

that's stupid

You'll get it in a few months. Anyways I actually don't want the new clubs kids to BE in that universe because fitting them into a rehash of Deja Vu just ensures they'll never get a book written about them and never had a unique identity, ever, period, because Deja Vu is just too much of a sucker punch. These guys could not live up to it if they tried. 

That said, I still think there's room for quieter or less uh, 

what's even a word for that

Okay. Let me rephrase that. There is room for the The Gardenkeeper's Daughters type of book-

Damnit, I'm overhauling that too.

Final try. If Extraordinary had worked out, it would have been a lot less emotionally potent than stories like The Cities Have Fallen. I'm not saying that you don't want your readers to emotionally connect with your book, but it is okay to write books that are relatively quieter. Those can still be as good or better. Sometimes you need to be a little more subtle-

RIGHT THIS BOOK IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO SUBTLE 

Fuckit, let me just talk about these four. 

I have this issue with "expys" where some of my characters end up similar to other characters and the nameless fighter female from this book is like a human Orcafin with no desire to CONSUME FLESH (not that she's a vegetarian because she ain't). She's loud, over-the-top, self-assured, self-serving, and I don't care because I'm sick of Orca anyways (but don't tell her that). She's on the left. Obviously.

On the right is Sigil and a sketch for her superhero outfit, and by sketch, I mean a really rough-ass sketch. She looks a lot like Serena and she's more privileged than Serena could ever hope to be. In fact, she's kind of the antithesis to what cherubs usually look for: people like Megan and Evan, who really want this and will go along with anything, people like Evan who have nowhere else to go and nothing to do, people like Adam who are directionless... Sigil is not any of these things, but she's got something else.

Imagine magic like video game statistics. Dragons and Sentients would have dozens of magically encoded 'statistics', most of which they're born with, but humans, regardless of if they're in a sealed world or otherwise, get one, and that's potential. It is hard to explain how this potential score works because the factors that go into it range from impossible to detect to completely arbitrary. Megan and Evan have very high potential scores. Amanda LOOKS like she does but she's just very adept with her powers. Adam and Will are middling-high. 

Sigil is off the fucking charts. Her powers are so OP that I can barely PUT her in the DV universe because I don't think any villain could defeat a team with her on it. 

Joel is a nice boy. He also dies. That's not a spoiler because this book is never happening but he gets axed about halfway through and Sig actually brings him back to life as a ghost. However, her caginess and the end of the world being on their shoulders strain their relationship and it becomes more and more obvious that Sig really needs to let go of him because his afterlife is miserable and all he's doing is watching everyone he loves suffer while Sig refuses to tell the other girl (let's call her Sally, for now) and Rick what the fuck is going on.

Rick is weird but I like his awkward design in part because it reminds me of this childhood friend. She was hella artsy. He and Sally are bros while Joel and Sig are bros. The team falls apart accordingly because now Sally has someone who will go along with her terrible ideas and "storm the castle" with her while Sigil complains the whole way.

the team was reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally divided. 

if nothing ever happens to this book I'm taking Joel and putting him in something else 

Sally is fun to draw. In fact, they're all really fun to draw, which is probably why I worked with them for two weeks even though I couldn't see their book happening.