Or, "how a character I created became my own best inspiration to keep fighting".
The end is near... sorta. I made myself do an outline, even though I hate outlines, and I now know exactly how Scarlett Ember is ending and exactly what I have to do to finish it. And, because I've made this awesome progress, I figure I might as well let myself write about why that project is important to me and why, four years after I originally created her, Scarlett Evans is still the coolest character I've ever written.
Like a lot of the brainpests that have been around for a while, Scarlett originated on an RP site. For a few years, long-post message-board roleplays were the main writing I did (I'm not sure why I walked away from that cold but that is a thing that happened). There are several characters with those origins that I need to use in things eventually, because a lot of them meant things to me, but Scarlett... well. Scarlett was created midway through my senior year of highschool on a site based loosely off of a concept album by a band I wasn't even sure I liked at the time. But it was still a post-apoc site, and I had a ridiculous weakness for those, and then I looked at the canon list (in normal-speak, ideas of characters who had connections to other characters) and saw a face I already wanted to use and I was absolutely done for. (My recurrent Florence Welch situation is a subject for another day -- trust me, that's a post in and of itself.) And not only did the character have a good face, but her setup was awesome and thus one of the best things that ever happened to me was born.
Initially, Scarlett was an ideal version of myself. I'd created characters who were vaguely based off myself before - one in particular, a sixteen-year-old terror child, still stands out - but Scarlett was more who I wanted to be. Scarlett was twenty-seven, the leader of one of the main groups, a certified badass, and prone to wearing pretty dresses and stilettos while still being totally awesome. Scarlett was also deeply insecure, in love with someone who refused to see her, and just a little too impulsive for her own good. But thing was, even with the established flaws, people loved her. Even with the fact that she was prone to doing things that weren't exactly Good Ideas, Scarlett was the most beloved character on the site (at least in 'verse, the OOC antics on that site were legendary and again there's too much material there for this post). And that gave me strength. Most of Scarlett's most amazing moments in that world - and I have them saved on my laptop somewhere because they were that good - were written during my depressive spiral. Even when I was an absolute wreck, I had that outlet. More than any other character I ever wrote during my RP era, Scarlett was cathartic. She was everything I aspired to be, and yet most of that was attainable, and I clung hard.
By the end of the first year, Scarlett had claimed her own little corner of my brain. This was mainly because of her fashion sense - especially in her earlier incarnations, she liked glitter a lot. To this day, when I need to buy a dress for an event, one of the first thoughts that runs through my mind is "what would Scarlett wear for this thing?". I normally proceed to buy the exact opposite, because see above comment about glitter, but it's still a fun mental process. And by the time she died on the site, I was pretty sure she was the most important thing I was ever going to create.
This was before the concept of parallel girls had occurred to me, before I really had anything to cling to. I read a lot of books, but none of the girls in them were like me. I was, for starters, a hell of a lot tinier (lead girls in YA futuristics are always petite for some reason and it annoys me). I was pretty sure I'd never get one person to fall in love with me, let alone two at roughly the same time! And maybe most importantly, I didn't want to stay alive solely on my own venom. This was where Scarlett saved me. Scarlett, 5'8" (yes, the same height as me, shuddup) and comfortable wearing heels and honestly screw anyone who had a problem with that because she had better things to worry about. Scarlett, who spent the better part of a decade pining after the same person and eventually got him because turned out the problem was he was a little overwhelmed by her. Scarlett, who was so full of love for everyone - maybe to varying extents, but still so much more love than hate. I couldn't find an existent role model I wanted, so I created my own.
The funny thing is that almost exactly four years after her original creation, even though she's finally decided to behave herself in a totally different original project, Scarlett hasn't changed much. She's calmed down a little bit over the years, but that's about it. She's still vibrant, vocal, full of love, and prone to wearing too many sequins. Personality-wise, she's still everything I want to be, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I'm not as cool as her, and I probably never will be, but that's okay. I've seen a lot of people who write say something to the effect of "if this story impacts one person, it'll all be worth it". Well, mission accomplished.
Song of the day - "Summertime", My Chemical Romance.
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