Harmony and I

Remember when I said I don't relate to my main character Sparky and my self-insert Qibli? Well, there emerged an unlikely connection — I relate to Harmony.

Harmony's journey in Spy School can be seen as two parts. First, she learned to make friends and stopped being possessive. Second, she overcame her impostor syndrome, the fear of not belonging at Ministry Affiliate.

Both of these journeys resonate with me. I had never known how to make friends; I was shy and I never reached out. And I get jealous when my friends have friends. Y'know, having a life of their own. And I've always felt like a kid in an adult's skin, always anxious at my peer's achievements, thinking I don't deserve to be among them.

But of course I had to rip all that away from her as the culmination of her development — developing real friendship with Jelly and successfully carrying out their mission — turned into her fatal flaw because Sky needed to teach them a lesson in not only agent handling, but in obeying the Ministry. But that's another topic. And it's not like her development was undone by that event. Her development made the event possible.

What I'm really interested in was not how much I relate to Harmony, but why I related to her. And I think it's because I actually took out my trusty keyboard and wrote the damn story, even if it were only three chapters. When planning the story, Harmony had not been this relatable. I had the idea of her arc being about impostor syndrome, but that was it. The friendship arc — or hell, Rose as a character — was not even conceived of before I started writing the story. Even some of the later stuff, after they grew into adults, also resonated with my feelings of old friends growing apart and estranged. Writing the story made me feel closer to Harmony than ever.

But that doesn't really check out, since I wrote a couple chapters of A Nuke From Moreland too, but I never felt this close to either of the four friends. So what changed?

No fucking idea girl. But let's celebrate Tofu finding resonance with a fictional character. I'll be up there with the yumeshippers in no time.

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