Writing Needs

 I was watching a video by Fiannawolf and she was talking about writing from an economic standpoint or writing as a labor of love. If you want to focus on making money then you would try to write a lot of content that would fit into popular wheelhouses in the mainstream. Naturally, I would want my writing to be a career, considering the current economic and political situation it may be the only job an outside force can't take away from me. So logically I would make work that fits into the popular wheelhouses of the public and market it as such. 

Star Warden however was not born from such a mindset, it was born from a love of writing and to fill certain needs. Needs that modern entertainment was not addressing. This blog isn't for talking about Dead or Corrupted IPs. So today I will talk about what were the needs that lead to the creation of Star Warden. 

1. Heroic Needs
2. Romantic Needs
3. Villain Needs
4. Terminator Needs.

Heroic Needs

Star Warden fulfills my heroic needs. I honestly see too much of Mary Sues or Anti-heroes with chips on their shoulders. Others are condescending teenagers who care more about what someone said on Twitter or disrespecting older more established heroes. If they are not just gender/race/ swapping them altogether for political brownie points. While I like Shield Hero and there are in-story reasons for his personality, Naofumi is another cynical, standoffish anti-hero. Considering people like copying things that are popular ala the Boys and Watchmen, I obviously need to make my own heroes that act as a counterweight. 

So I created characters like Sam Bailey and Princess Kaguya along with many others of their like in Star Warden. Sam is a somewhat cocky, nice guy, Kaguya is the nicest person in the universe, and while they both have been through personal tragedies they never let it color their perception of the world. They are heroic despite what has happened to them and what has happened to the world around them and fight to fix it. Even if the reward for their efforts sometimes appears impossible they keep fighting for it. The darker the world the brighter a hero must be.

Romantic Needs

Most romances I see are either harems or highly dysfunctional couples. Some just keep breaking up and getting back together for drama while others have both characters just be too shy or embarrassed to just admit the truth. Until they finally do it by the end of the story. Luckily there are other examples of healthy couples in media like Sword Art Online, Record of Lodoss War, and My Love Story; a romantic comedy about a couple with no internal drama. (Also watch My Love Story great anime heavy on sweetness.) 

This inspired me to create an established couple within Sam and Princess Kaguya along with other married couples that appear in the series. This allows me to put lighter moments in the series and shows that a supportive and communicative couple can work. Also, it's just nice to write about it and creates another example for people to enjoy and be inspired by. 

Villain Needs. 

I could make a long list of villains who have become boring sympathetic antagonists and point out the pattern that western cartoons seem to want to pass out redemption like candy. But I rather focus on how Star Warden handles the Villain part of the wheelhouse and yes Villains not antagonists. There is no gray morality in Star Warden it's clear black and white. 

Daimos fills the role of the honest to God, pure evil, love to hate villain that you don't see anymore because such characters are now "bad writing." For good writing, the villain must be the hero of their own story, or have a sad backstory, or redeeming qualities, or just be a moron. Daimos rejects those things and is just a pure out and out villain with his own goals and motives that are not relatable to the average person. I don't want to get too detailed on him since the first book does plenty of that. But I can say he is competent and highly self-motivated. 

Something else to think on, how many of the "badly" written villains are remembered? How many people remember Naraku, DIO, Skeletor, Dr.Eggman, Megabyte, Mumm-Ra, etc, etc? If you can remember those names off the top of your head. It proves my point on how dastardly villains can stand the test of time due to their great contrast with an aspirational hero. Daimos will join that list. 

Terminator Needs.

This last one isn't really a super important need and is just me wanting to do the war against the machines scenario. Terminator had that chance but Salvation didn't do well enough and Dark Fate effectively killed the franchise. So this is me just bringing back something that a Dead IP is no longer using, also I tend to like the machine uprising scenario in my fiction. (Sonic SATAM needs more love)

Conclusion 

I have honestly no idea if my pulp-inspired, sword and planet, sword and sorcery, raypunk sci-fi story will grab readers. It is honestly a niche product and goes against a lot of the grain. But I keep writing because I love what I made. I know close friends of mine like reading it. So I have hope that this will go well, I just need to put in the work. Because in the end, it is not just for me it is also for that one reader out there that needs some hope in their life as well. 

Someday I'll probably be someone's favorite writer. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day and it might come sooner than even I think it will. 

Fiannawolf's video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRu6ThvSKFw