Making a Meliae, Part I

The first rule in making a meliae is: there are no rules for making meliae.

Really. The "rules" I tried to follow were the rules of narrative: what makes a story (conflict), what makes a story interesting (main characters the reader can identify with), what makes a story kinky (not the orgasm, but what comes before, nudge nudge wink wink). The exposition Tomoe spouted came from the story I wanted to tell. Dee's journey, Galatea's confrontation with her own inner child, Black Cherry realizing what she really wants, Ursula finding her other half, Yves' saving the world by becoming a killer--all that came first when brainstorming the story, the rules for how meliae "worked" came afterward. And Dee and Galatea just kept coming no matter what I put in their way.

The rules of meliae-making in IAT were setup to create kinky relationships, kinky conflicts, and kinky romances between characters. That's why, when readers ask me what a particular flavors of meliae would be like, my first questions are always: what do the meliae-makers want? Or, even better, what do the makers think they want, and what do the makers secretly want?

I meant IAT to be a morality play in the vein of the Monkey's Paw, Creepshow, Tales from the Crypt, or Twilight Zone (just with more explicit sex)--meliae makers get the meliae they deserve, their just desserts. Now, the morals of the IAT universe are, naturally, skewed. After all, what did Dee do to deserve all the incredible things that happen to him? What prompts him to go to SRU in the first place: he wanted to write fetish smut for his friends.

Sounds like fanfic wish fulfillment character, aka, a Mary Sue, right? Well, he ain't my Mary Sue, because when I wish, I wish big. Dee, Yves, and Ursula together are my Mary Sue. I took separate aspects of my personality and built characters around them. This is what every author does for every character in every story they ever write. If you can't find a Mary Sue character in a story, that just means the author was good at dividing himself or herself up between various protagonists. Galatea can split up, Dee can change his mind, but Black Cherry cannot do either. Black Cherry cannot switch personae. She only has one, and it's Mary Sue. But she's not the best, most important, most caring, or most desired person in the story. So Black Cherry is a Mary Sue denied her Mary-Sue-dom: bat-shit insane.