Image Incorporated
patreon
Personal creative thoughts 3-29-25
🕑 Added 2025-03-29 17:26:59 +0000 UTCThis writing is going to discuss two of my main side characters, Star AKA Super-Star and Wendy AKA Miss Monsoon. This is to discuss my mindset in creating two of my female characters.
When first conceptualizimg these characters I was only gonna do Star, but a freind of mine convinced me to add another character. I’m glad he did. Because I think having a good trio of superheroes (with Image being the leader) Rounds things out very well. Though, I want to get into the characteristics of these characters, and mindset behind making them.
Let’s start with Star. When making this character, I wanted to make her very sweet and bubbly, also motherly in how she cares for those around her. Basically, a more traditional female character. Something we get very rarely in the west, as far as entertainment is concerned. I had the personality pictured in my mind, but I thought about giving reason for this. Why is she like this? With this question, I conceptualized a backstory for her. When she was very young, her mother died giving birth to her baby brother. Ever since then, she took on responsibilities to help take care of her brother, to the point where her brother sees her as a sister, but also as a mother. Star also sees herself as a bit of a mother too. (Even her father jokes about that). This is where she gets her motherly personality. In my story, what makes her become a superhero is pretty simple. A world with powered men, but no heroes among them, it’s become a dangerous place for her brother to live in. Image seeks to change this by introducing powered heroism into the world, but she realizes he can’t do it alone for very long. If Image is going to stand a chance in facing off against powered groups, he’ll need a partner. For her, it’s a lot of responsibility, but if it means making things safer for her little brother, then It’s worth it.
So when creating Star as I mentioned above, I made her lean very much into having traditional feminine traits. I may not be too experienced in the realm of storytelling, but if I’m going to do it, I’d like to fill in places that aren’t being filled by modern culture and storytellers. I feel good storytellers are a lot like inventors, in the sense that they see a need, and fill a need. Starla being that concept realized. She cares about others and isn’t obsessed about what others owe her or how the world has wronged her. She also would like to be a mother for real one day. A trait that seems to be frowned upon in modern culture. She’s also a character that knows she looks very “feminine” and isn’t the least bit ashamed of her beautiful body.
Her flaws being that in terms of the superhero life, she can be self deprecating when she screws up or makes a mistake. It happens due to her being responsible for her brother from a very young age, as that can be a lot of pressure to put on someone so young, now with the added pressure of being responsible for the protection of others. However in those moments of self doubt, I wanted to make Image the voice of reason for her. We’ve all had moments where we get in our head, believing that we aren’t good enough,that our mistakes are signs that we should quit before we do any more harm. Image will come in, at those moments, and keep pushing her to try. I want to make it to where Star relies a lot on Image for guidance in the realm of superheroing. For modern writers, it’d be too irresistible to make a character like that in charge and take the lead of the story, especially since I’ll start her off having little to no control of her powers, but have her work her way up to being a very competent superheroine. However, I feel a character like this works best being secondary, having the main character be her guide for her flaws and navigating the ways of being a superhero.
Now on to Miss Monsoon.When making Wendy, admittedly I didn’t put too much thought to her at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw an opportunity to do what Stan Lee did with Ironman, which was take a cultural bad guy and make the audience love him. With Wendy, I want to do the same concept. Her personality is that she’s crude, she’s straight forward, hot headed, (so far doesn’t sound like what we’d consider a current cultural bad guy, but just wait) and of the three, Image, Star, and her, she’s the most powerful of the group. At the start, she’s overconfident thinking that she doesn’t need Image or Star and that she can do the superhero thing herself. Now this sounds like what we consider the current cultural bad guy. Basically a Mary Sue. Someone who’s powerful, and overly sure of herself. However, she’s going to lack a factor that all Mary Sues have. And that’s reality is not going to agree with her, in that she will be humbled. She is the most powerful of the group. But there’s two problems with that. Power doesn’t guarantee an outcome of a fight, for there’s always someone more powerful with the ability to knock others down a peg. Not to mention She has an Achilles heel that can be easily exploited if she’s not on guard for it. This contrasts with Image as he has dealt with enemies more powerful than him but has come out on top. I want to make it to where Wendy has to face the fact that Image has experience she needs and that she’ll have to swallow her pride and accept she can’t do what she intends to do alone.
Like with Star, I want to give a reason for why Wendy is like this. And that’s for one simple reason. Control. Wendy has faced tragedy after tragedy, losing her parents in a car wreck, and her grandmother passing away, leaving her grandfather the only family she has left. These tragedies have made Wendy feel like life was never in her control, due to these tragedies being events she could do nothing about, making her feel like a powerless victim to life’s circumstances. When she got her powers, it didn’t mean too much to her at first. But when her grandfather is badly wounded, due to being caught in the crossfire between powermen fighting it out, Wendy sees this as an opportunity to take control of her life for once and go make the powerman responsible for her current tragedy, pay. Image and Star intercept this, to prevent her from taking a step she can’t come back from. Eventually she finds a purpose in her powers, and uses them to stop Powermen attacks, and as a result, stop others from experiencing the tragedies and lack of control she’s felt her whole life. It’s cathartic for her.
Her Achilles heel is her Bo staff. Her power has to do with controlling wind, and she uses her Bo staff to do it. If it’s taken away, or she doesn’t have it on hand, she can’t conduct her powers. This is a mental thing for her. The Bo staff she uses, belonged to her father, and this gave her some feeling of control, as it felt she had a piece of him with her, and that life failed to completely take him away from her. In short, to her, that Bo staff is her private protest against what life has put her through. Her private victory if you will. Without it, she doesn’t have the same feeling of control or confidence on the field. This is a weakness of hers that Image will guide and advise her to work around. I want image to be her rationale. She’s a hot head, and is more about using muscle than brain. Image will teach her that in the instances where she loses her staff, and when she can’t fight harder, she needs to fight smarter. Fight cleverly, use elements around her, or retreat if she can.
This is my mindset in creating my female characters. Does this sound appealing to you guys? Any suggestions or areas that could use improvements? Write down below and let me know.
