The Villain Academy: Behind the Scenes
Hi, everyone!
As promised, here's a nice long rambly post on "The Villain Academy." I'm considering making a potential cover with some Sims, but then again it means I have to fight Rex the giant mutant electric squid CAS and that's no fun, especially when I have a chapter to write and all.
So behind the cut there's character breakdowns, reasons for titles (cause I thought it all out, dontcha know), name meanings, and other goodies. Enjoy!
Tori/Aimee/Amy/Whatever Her Name Is In This Particular Chapter
Ah, my lovely protagonist turned villain protagonist turned average person, Tori. She's a very insecure person, especially concerning her identity. She's a person who is dependent on the attention of others. I tried to make that as evident as I could without saying it outright. Like I'm doing now. >_>
Tori is easily influenced and changed. She can be naive and too trusting; in many respects she's like a child still, who needs her parents. All her efforts were to please her superhero parents, which was why she was so betrayed and hurt when it was revealed she wasn't actually their child. So she latched onto the Snowflakes, changing allegiances so fast it'd give you whiplash.
I don't know where the inspiration for Tori came from. The name "Torianne" means "conqueror" or "victory"; I was looking for a hero's name. But Tori continued to change as the novel went along; she really took on a life of her own, which was good and bad. Good because she could change as my frantic sleep-deprived mind saw fit, but bad because it gives her a very confusing character. But of course, none of us have perfect psyches.
Tori's undercover last name, "Parathion," is a pesticide. I thought it worked.
Rune
Shh, but I think Rune is my favorite character. Definitely my favorite villain. Rune is snarky, sarcastic, tricky, a liar, and a perfectionist. Against what he said in one chapter, he's not sure of his status as a villain. It really was just to please his parents, but I think deep down he knew all along nothing he did could win their affection.
I had a very specific image of Rune, actually. With some characters, such as Angie, I flitted around between the image I wrote and the image in my head, which weren't always the same. But Rune's physical appearance was always constant. Why? Well, because he looks like a character from some movie that's always on TV on Halloween. One character is a kid vampire, with glasses and red eyes rimmed with black. So that will always be Rune to me.
Vampires in "The Villain Academy" are sort of like purebloods in Harry Potter. They're obsessed with having the purest lineage. But like purebloods, pure vampires are dying out, resulting in dhampyrs like Rune, or half-bloods in HP.
I don't know why I chose Rune to be an empath. He just seemed like an anti-social type, so I gave him a reason to be anti-social.
I don't recall when I came up with the idea for Rune to manipulate Tori to be sure of her loyalties, but I liked it an awful lot. It makes more sense for Rune to do it because he's an empath, but also because I liked him more than Altair, and thus gave Rune a nice big scene and character development. :P
The name "Rune" means both "rune" (obviously, and it's Norse too), but it also means "secret lore," which I took to refer to the notebook he always has. I guess we'll never know what's actually in there...
Gemelle and Tamsyn
Aka the Snowflakes, our resident creepy psychic twins. They can't read minds (or else Rune wouldn't be useful, can't have that), but they do have kinetics. Which Rune is jealous of, if you'll recall. I like mentioning Rune in other peoples' profiles. :D
Anyway, the Snowflakes were designed to be as creepy as possible, almost like ghosts. Pale, delicate, fragile-looking but truly not fragile at all. When I was creating all the characters, I decided on two boys and three girls, and truth be told I was tired of making up people so I made two of the girls identical twins.
Their design of super paleness came from an earlier story of mine. I think I've told of it before, the story Joy is yoinked from. Anyway, this character was named Juliet and she was a pale girl with blue-gray eyes and white blonde hair born in January. So I just doubled that character and gave both of them kinetic powers. Yay for stories I never finished!
The Snowflakes are smart, cunning, sneaky, and bold. They speak their minds and are like two halves of the same whole. They have a very deep psychic connection, and each can read the other's mind. They're very possessive of Aimee and everyone is afraid of them. I'd say they weild the most power at the Academy.
I don't remember when I came up with the idea to make Tori their sister. But I do remember that when I did I was like "HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE BEST PLOT TWIST EVER!!!1!" I do like the Snowflakes a lot, but they had to die, unfortunately.
Gemma and Tammy, little!Aimee called them. Both names mean "twin," with Gemelle coming from Gemini and Tamsyn coming from Aramaic. Dunno where they got that from.
Angie
Yay for pyros! Angie, or Angana, was the character who was described differently from the image in my head. If you'll notice, I misspelled her name "Angara" once or twice. >_< It's because I was like "Angara sounds a lot better than Angana" and so my brain decided it *was* Angara now. Bad brain! Bad!
Angie, as Altair put it, "shoots first and asks questions later, if she remembers to ask at all." She's impulsive and a bona fide arch-villain. She's described with dark hair, but in my mind she has frizzy red hair. Red like fire! Curse me.
The Angie/Altair ship is a small one, but it's all smooth sailing, unlike the SS Tune, which sank spectacularly and somehow returned to the surface. ZOMBIE SHIP!!! *superfreakout* Anyway, SS Algie sailed off to wreak havoc on the world. I imagine they're supervillains in the epilogue, still in contact with Rune and Amy. You know, they send Christmas letters and such. "This year's flown by so fast. It seems like just yesterday we set off three nuclear reactors in January..."
The name "Angana" means "fire" or "destruction" which I found perfect. But the name "Angie" means "messenger." Messenger of destruction! So perfect.
Altair
In my opinion I failed to properly characterize Altair. He was gone for most of it, and when he came back he was mainly comic relief. Like most villains Altair is sarcastic and always has a snappy comeback. I don't know where he goes off flying, I don't know most anything about him, which is bad.
Altair I imagine has very messy brown hair, always possessing a windswept look. Sort of cute, I suppose, I don't know. Curse my lack of characterization!
The name "Altair" means "flying" or "bird," which was just what I wanted. I didn't like it at first because I thought it sounded too much like altar, but I couldn't find anything else so I got over it.
Uncle Charlie
I feel like calling him uncle, okay? I don't have an uncle named Charlie, so this is my only way to ever call someone that!
Anyway, I liked Charlie a lot. He was the main guilt-ridden comic relief of the whole novel. But even so, I knew he had to die. Writing his death scene was perhaps the most cringe-inducing scene in the entire book. I was flinching as I wrote it.
At first he was Felicity's younger brother, but I decided to make him older for some reason. It just felt right. Charlie's always wanted to be a superhero but his power is lame. So he acts like a hero when really he's regarded as a joke riding on his sister's coattails.
I imagine Charlie like my Legacy heir Charlie, but vaguely. Like, different facial features, namely the nose because Charlie Granger had Nose-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. Charlie has an average person off the street appearance. He's certain of his position on the good side, and is loyal to them to the end.
I don't know where I got the name Charlie from. It just sounded right to me.
Felicity and Edgar
Tori's false parents, the greatest superheroes in the world. Cause nothing says inadequate like always being expected to live up to your parents' reputations!
They're mentioned throughout the novel, but only make an appearance in the last few chapters. I don't know why they were in a hotel or where exactly they were when they got Charlie's message, but I don't think it matters.
The name "Felicity" means "happiness," and "Edgar" means "protector of the good." I named Felicity after my doll. Yes, I have an American Girl doll, from before Mattel bought them and made them awful and overpriced. *grumbles*
Headmaster Sorrell Truculent
I needed a jerk of a headmaster. He trained Rex, the giant mutant electric squid OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. I dunno why, I just thought it was funny and random.
His name was actually a cool move on my part. "Sorrell" means "sour," and "truculent" is an actual word meaning "cruel or savage." The scientist he abuses, Fungible, actually has a name that's a word too; it means "interchangeable." Aren't I clever with names? xD
Joy
Can anyone say filler? Cause I can! Joy was purely filler for that one chapter, "Pride and Joy." I liked writing her memories as she was dying; her whole death scene was really cool for me to write. Yes, I am a bit sadistic, thank you for noticing.
Others
Rune's family: I really only talked about Rune's pure vampire brother, Milovan. I got the name from, I believe, an early book about vampires; it was either a character or the author. I imagine him like Rune, but fat and spoiled.
Felicia and Tamara: Rune and Amy's twin daughters, each one a different mix of their parents. I guess they'd be quarter-vampires, then? Grandparent-less quarter-vampire twins. Their names meant more than you might think. I intended it to show that Amy was still torn between her hero family and her villain one. She gave one a name like her false mother's and one a name like her sister. I thought it was cool.
The Snowflakes and Aimee's parents: They were evil mad scientists. On that particular day they weren't up to something diabolical, but most days they were. Their research on genetically engineering superpowered kids was lost when their house was blown up.
Ideas
I don't know quite where I got the idea for "The Villain Academy." For a while when I was younger I would write stories about boarding schools. I liked the idea, even though I would never want to go to a boarding school.
The first scene in my head was the ninja scene, and it's from a very long while ago. I got the idea for a school for villains a very long time ago and filed it away in my brain for later use. In it my protag wasn't an uncover hero, merely an awkward new student. On her first night a bunch of ninjas would jump in, but another character would simply tell her to ignore them, they were just obnoxious.
A lot of this was written in the final week of NaNoWriMo; almost 30,000 words, to be exact. So a lot of the time, I just took whatever ideas I could think of. For example, Joy and bringing in Tori's false parents.
The last scene in "Finale" was one that settled most everything; Tori/Aimee's loyalties were greatly thrown into question. She realized that neither good nor evil would bring her any happiness; she was hurting too much to change the world for the better or for the worse. I think deep down she always wanted to be normal, neutral, an average girl. So she gave up both her good and bad identities.
Rune was also on the fence, but in a much more subtle way. Good or bad didn't really matter to him. At the Academy, he was, for once, accepted, and so joined up merely to avoid being an outcast again.
A school for villains was my original NaNo idea, but then I got another one that didn't work out. Desperate for ideas, I turned to the Academy, and, well, obviously it worked out.
The Great Chapter Numbering Fail
I don't exactly know how this happened, but I forgot how to count at one point of writing.
I numbered the chapters and ended up with sixteen...because I had named two chapters as fourteen. And I named one chapter "Watch Out for Ninjas" even though the ninjas didn't show up until the next chapter. *facepalm* Well, I caught it in time, but I felt like a nimrod. I renamed the ninja chapter, only to find I'd named a later chapter the exact same thing. Chapter 8, "Thicker Than Water", was originally the title for Chapter 14, which I renamed "Blood, Blood, Gallons of the Stuff."
Silly June is silly.
Chapter Name Explanations
Chapter One- "The Mission": Should be obvious; Tori gets signed up for the Villain Academy secret mission.
Chapter Two- "Spiders and Bats and Bad Weather, Oh My!": The journey up to the Academy is not the best, and the title describes this.
Chapter Three- "What's Your Damage?": We meet the other villains and learn of their "damage," or reasons for being a villain. This chapter has one of my favorite lines: "The bitch gave me a paper cut!"
Chapter Four- "It's Gonna Be a Long Night": Tori's first night at the Academy isn't the best.
Chapter Five- "Class Has Been Cancelled": Tori finds that villains are too good for classes. I didn't want to come up with teachers, but I think it's better this way.
Chapter Six- "Wish You Were Here": Tori is scared and lonesome for her family. I wanted it to be something like "Weather's Here, Wish You Were Great" but it has a slightly different connotation.
Chapter Seven- "The Skeleton in the Closet is Named George": 24 references, yay! This refers to George the Skeleton in the cubby in the abandoned classroom.
Chapter Eight- "Thicker Than Water": A lot of this was the Snowflakes talking about Aimee; it refers to blood being thicker than water, that family comes before friends.
Chapter Nine- "Watch Out for Ninjas": When all else fails, ninjas.
Chapter Ten- "Things Forgotten": Tori forgets to be careful and forgets villains can't be trusted.
Chapter Eleven- "Memory Block": Refers to the memory block on Tori discovered by the Memory Prober.
Chapter Twelve- "Memories Don't Lie": Because they don't.
Chapter Thirteen- "The Storm": Refers to the incoming storm that has been referenced all along. I thought of it meaning the plot, which is like a storm of emotion and plot Velociraptors bunnies.
Chapter Fourteen- "Blood, Blood, Gallons of the Stuff": Charlie's, unfortunately. Also the song which I took the title from, "Blood," has lines like "I gave you blood," which I take to refer to Tori/Aimee giving herself to the heroes because of her parents.
Chapter Fifteen- "Pride and Joy": I wanted to work in Joy's name.
Chapter Sixteen- "Plan B": Charlie's.
Chapter Seventeen- "Finale": Because it is.
Well, that's that. It took like forever because I was doing my history homework too. But I'm so happy I'm done, and I'll be doing NaNo again next year. It was fun, in a panicky "OHMYGOD I WILL NEVER FINISH I MAKE NO SENSE I FAIL AS A WRITER I CAN'T DO ANYTHING I WILL FAIL COLLEGE AND WORK AT MCDONALDS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!"
...
>_>
Quote of the Day: "Is everyone here snarky to all hell?"
~June