This is the art I received for my main character.
In a space-age afterlife where your body (and some relevant aspects of your mind) is determined by what your psyche wants, Chris Foster becomes a very young child again so they can deal with trauma. Here they choose the name “Solemn” and embark on their personal journey of self-discovery, mental health tools, and what it means to have real, loving family for the first time.
But when political activists kill off the seraphs (the afterlife’s demigod social workers and keepers of the peace) it is up to Solemn— who for non-convoluted reasons has become a seraph themself— and their newfound family and others who will fight to restore the compassion and dignity of this afterlife.
My novel is in its third draft and it’s super rich and I love to talk about it any chance I get. Ask questions or offer to look at the public draft, please! 💙
hey! sorry replying to this took so long, I have had some mental health struggles.
I can definitely relate to writing about those topics. I feel like it’s a really good way to cope, because it’s what I used my entire childhood as well, but also to explore those issues in a controlled environment. although I wouldn’t call it someone extending “pity” towards you, you’re seeking sympathy, and I know it’s easy to fall into that trap but wording is important!
I used to always write younger characters (though they were always teenagers) being taken care of by an older character, always an adoptive sibling situation, because I have no siblings but always wanted one. parents were never part of it. I think you and I want the same things in our writing – the healing aspect is really important instead of breaking the character over and over, which is something I see a lot of writers enjoy in the spaces I used to be in. it’s something I think is important for people to see (even though I don’t write publicly anymore), especially people who might be going through their own struggling.
I envy your ability to write sci-fi, I’ve never been able to write it in a way I was happy with. my favorite has always been “soft sci-fi” or “sci-fi that makes sense but we’re not going to do any math or science okay?” hahaha. just because unless it’s pretty simple (which yours sounds like it is) my poor single brain cell fries itself trying to remember and parse everything.
when you say reincarnation pods that determine what your new body is based on what psyche wants, does that mean even if people reincarnate, they don’t leave the afterlife? and also, does that mean you don’t really have any control over it? so someone who, say, is not in touch with or not open to admitting they’re something (like take gender identity for example) might end up having to stare that in the face? if so, I think that’s really cool! it makes for a really interesting plot to explore, even if you as the author don’t end up taking that route for any of the characters.
I love that choice for Chris’s new name! Solemn is also just really pretty. the choice to use a name change to represent starting anew is also very nice.
when you say “beefed up seraph”, what does that entail? extra powers?
and can you tell me more about Solemn’s new family? I love secondary/supporting characters. I have a curse with them ending up my favorites.
I’m not currently in a place where I would be very good at reading the WIP, but I do really appreciate you extending the offer. I understand if you can’t reveal too much because of you working on it, too! and of course, I wish you lots of luck and inspiration in that process.
I freaking love to talk about the novel and I will keep talking as often as people ask questions ♥
Okay, so, the computers called KOM-40s actually read peoples’ psyches when those people are in heliapods. There’s no other way to read minds. All the KOM-40s and heliapods are located on Advent Terminus. Only the seraphs know the full tech of both the KOM-40s and the heliapods, and the computers have seraph-exclusive biometric access.
When people die on Earth, their consciousnesses are beamed to a heliapod on Advent Terminus and they are reincarnated. And in the afterlife, if you die, are injured beyond full healing, or if you get trapped, your body dissipates completely and your consciousness gets beamed to Advent Terminus. So if you dissipate/die in the afterlife, you stay in the afterlife.
Now, when people are getting reincarnated— either the first time or any other time— the KOM-40s completely read (or update) the information in the person’s mind and determines what people want to be— and that includes meta stuff like “I want to be this the most; but I have these insecurity issues, so I’m not going to do that yet”. As an example of a meta, in the Reedtree center chapter, an important supporting character shills her book called “The Joys of Gradual Transitioning” to a new arrival who is beginning to fully discover they are trans, but weren’t reincarnated as trans when they arrived. The book is basically about how many people will enjoy the process of gradually changing sex— or otherwise improving your body— over instantly getting the one you want via heliapod.
I would also like to add that seraphs always offer consent to people when in the psychnet before their new body starts being created— not because people would say no to the body decided on, but because people think differently about results if they aren’t at least offered the ability to say “no”. And consent is very important to seraphs, even though they do have to make a few hard rules— especially about planetary placement— to make sure peace and order is kept.
Same powers, just stronger. The idea of new powers might sound cool, but I really don’t want to break my universe’s rules/pragmatism, nor throw a fastball at the readers.
Oh, wow, uh. There’s a lot to say! First is Solemn’s new foster mom, Lu Montsely. Lu always took things seriously and tried her hardest on Earth, and got frustrated when things didn’t go her way. Her dad was also an overbearing parent. When she had her kid on Earth, she was a frustrated parent as well and didn’t understand what to expect of children. So she abused her toddler and one day lost control of her emotions and beat him to death. She was shanked shortly after in prison when the inmates discovered what she did. And when her husband Tony learned of that, he drove off a cliff. Lu has spent the last hundred years on Eleos learning to be kind, patient, and wise— both so she can distance herself from who she was, and also so she can finally be good enough to join her loving husband who ascended to Themis 70 years ago. She’s now fostering Solemn— and soon mentoring her niece Jessi— as her final test. And Solemn didn’t know about Lu’s history until after Solemn was fostered (they learned about it a few days later at their foster party, where Lu’s dad Tom— who resents Lu and didn’t want her to foster at all— harshly revealed it). As Solemn becomes more accustomed to being allowed to have feelings and a say in their life situations, they realize pretty explosively that this foster situation feels unfair to them. I won’t say what happens after, but it’s also an example of how seraphs— while objective, good, and thorough— can’t see the future and still take risks sometimes. Either way, much of Lu’s family still doesn’t accept Lu no matter how far she’s come. Lu works at a community center and charity called The Reedtree, and it’s a super cool chapter and I don’t have time to talk about it in this post. As part of Lu’s exploration of meditation and inner-peace, she got into tai chi and later other forms of kung fu, which she practices along with meditation as part of her daily routine.
Jessi Vargas is Lu’s niece. She’s a Mexican-American chaotic-neutral. She kinda hates people and you really get an understanding of why. She hates authority, she loves thrills, and she’ll risk hers and others’ lives and well-being without a second thought. Because of this she’s actually died doing stunts many times, and no longer fears death. She’s very cool, but she looks down on people who aren’t (including Solemn). Because in a lot of ways she doesn’t care what harm she causes, she lives on Nemesis. She also worked as a low-level security guard at a networking security firm— the one that’s a front for KAPE’s weapons and their research into taking down the seraphs. And she doesn’t know about those details. Now, Jessi hates Nemesis a lot. When the seraphs track the strange weapons back to the firm, they discover that any time they approach it, the seraphs get so disoriented that they have to leave (due to the very tool that will be beefed up to take down the seraphs later). And their scanners are being stopped by the building’s walls. Furthermore, the seraphs don’t want to tip them off to the investigation, else they could move all the data. So the seraphs make a deal with Jessi as a former employee, that if she at least tries to infiltrate and place a scanner inside so they can gather data, they’ll let her try a year on Eleos, even though they believe she’s not ready. And during that time, she’ll also be mentored by Lu. Things go bad during the infiltration, and long story short, the seraphs use one of the stolen heliapods inside the complex that Solemn hides in to transform Solemn into a seraph so they can save their new family. Solemn becomes a seraph— same child Solemn, but now with seraph powers— in Chapter 5 of 20.
There are about a billion Iota androids. Our Iota is wise, funny, and cool. He’s Lu’s home-helper, and becomes a second caretaker to Solemn as well as their best friend. Iotas follow the Laws of Robots, so he can’t harm anyone nor assist in harming anyone. Because of this, later, when the villains’s fighter ships are trying to shoot down Solemn’s family with underdeveloped weapons (this is Heleia after all), they are unable to hit them because Iota is piloting the family’s ship and using his super-calculations to weave between ships and canons expertly. Stuff like that. Iota and Solemn have some really cool and touching moments, but I won’t spoil them in this post (maybe in another).
Tony is Lu’s husband and he’s a smart, compassionate, adorkable spaceship engineer who lives on the utopian planet Themis, where all his ambitions and dreams come true. He raised Lu’s and his son Daniel after both Tony and Daniel died a few months from each other on Earth. He’s got great dad energy, and he spends a good amount of time assisting in the plot and being a fun character.
There are smaller, supporting-role family members too.
Keep asking questions whenever you’re curious to know more! ♥
Also also, I got distracted, but I hope you’re doing well 💙