You know what? For Mother's day, shout out to Quentin's mom Iris. She was such a loving, queer friendly, and all around wonderful person. She helped Quentin become the wonderfully kind and tolerant person he is at the start of Infernal Serenade. Here's a little snippet of her from the first book, a memory of her sticking up for Quentin after he got into a fight with an ableist and homophobic peer in high school:
I still remember how my mother looked back then, hair cut though she was letting it grow out, with a business top and slacks. At the time, I had grown used to the sight, not realizing she would quit that job in only a month’s time.... ...I would have laughed at the loud, whiny voice coming from the other line if it wasn’t directed at her. From the entryway, I could only hear a few choice words and they certainly weren’t pretty. Still, she nodded along, looking as intimidated by it as a dog was to a tiny grasshopper. That is to say, not in the slightest... “With all due respect, Mrs. Bria, if your child wasn’t calling mine…let’s see, what did he say again? Right, he called him a loony and a faggot, [Quentin] probably wouldn’t feel the need to retaliate...But, if I’m going to talk to my son about it, the least you can do is talk to your son about the language he is deciding to use with his classmates...No Mrs. Bria, I don’t think it has anything to do with them being boys. Could you please just talk to him?”
You know what? For Mother's day, shout out to Quentin's mom Iris. She was such a loving, queer friendly, and all around wonderful person. She helped Quentin become the wonderfully kind and tolerant person he is at the start of Infernal Serenade. Here's a little snippet of her from the first book, a memory of her sticking up for Quentin after he got into a fight with an ableist and homophobic peer in high school:
I still remember how my mother looked back then, hair cut though she was letting it grow out, with a business top and slacks. At the time, I had grown used to the sight, not realizing she would quit that job in only a month’s time.... ...I would have laughed at the loud, whiny voice coming from the other line if it wasn’t directed at her. From the entryway, I could only hear a few choice words and they certainly weren’t pretty. Still, she nodded along, looking as intimidated by it as a dog was to a tiny grasshopper. That is to say, not in the slightest... “With all due respect, Mrs. Bria, if your child wasn’t calling mine…let’s see, what did he say again? Right, he called him a loony and a faggot, [Quentin] probably wouldn’t feel the need to retaliate...But, if I’m going to talk to my son about it, the least you can do is talk to your son about the language he is deciding to use with his classmates...No Mrs. Bria, I don’t think it has anything to do with them being boys. Could you please just talk to him?”
Ah, got it. Unicorns, pegasus, alicorns, and honestly, that show had lots of cool creatures! It's a great source of inspiration.
And that would be the Striants. They're the creatures of Desiderius, the demon of lust. They're basically these adorable black puffballs with red shimmering accents. They can capure pure soul energy from other entities and store or transfer it. Also they produce like rabbits, so there is a bunch of them in Des' realm lol. They are the creatures of the demon of lust, after all.
Dark but oddly adorable fact, Striants bleed but they can not actually be killed. They bleed to scare off annoying predators via playing dead. When they're safe, they literally play in puddles of their own blood, not understanding how dark that is because they do no understand death. Des often tells the rest of the cast that to stop them from finding Striants adorable. It's impossible though. They are, at the end of the day, cuddly puffballs (that just so happen to also play in their own blood).
I'm late, but happy worldbuilding wednesday! Any favorite animals who've created or modified for your story?
Thanks for the ask! Also late, haha.
I've created creatures inspired from various animals. Now... favorites? Hmm... Do dragons count? I only have: a anime typical half-jaguar oc; a raccoon skull in the design of a giant; dragons, dragon people, dragonborn, dragon inspired designs, original fantasy dragons, etc.
*None of the real life examples above appear in a WIP I'm currently working on.
My favorite animals are black jaguars, dogs, corvids, raccoons, cats and blue whales.
My top favorite fantastical creatures are: dragons (the broad, ineffable definition) and ponies.
You know, while I'm on the subject, I think a really fascinating thing about Infernal Serenade is knowledge of the soul, accuracy wise, is basically in reverse to what you'd respect. An old scholar has more accurate information on souls than any modern spiritual or religious beliefs about the soul, because there was no societal pressure to come to one conclusion, nor would it be quickly dismissed like that type of thought often is in modern times.