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May 2024

I realize that; that's why I put "unique" in quotations. ^^;

The difference is that, 9 times out of 10, a sibling will have some awareness of what's going on in their fellow siblings' lives. They may not know that they were suicidal in high school, for instance, but they'll be able to see their lonely daily activities and their negative attitude while at home.
If anything, if they DON'T notice, it would likely become a point of contention in the story, like a "you call yourself my brother, but you were never there when I needed you; you didn't even care!" sort of thing.

The point is, besides not getting to do things like inventing a brand-new country or family history or fantasy race or social dynamic along with the introduction of such a character, there won't be as many "new" revelations involved in divulging their backstory: there's always going to be that large probability that their sibling is already familiar with what you're about to reveal, and a necessity to write with that familiarity in mind.

Ahh, sorry, guess I just misunderstood the quotations. I would agree there's a good chance of siblings having some inclination what you're going through in a lot of instances, though that likelihood decreases the older the siblings are. (As in my story, "Damsel in the Red Dress" where they are both adults, and her little brother, though they are close emotionally, lives in Mexico, so all sorts of things go down in her neck of the woods in the first book without him even knowing.)

I personally feel like siblings is a dynamic so specific that no other person could possibly fill it (unless they were raised with you, making them your sibling imao):

"There’s nothing there but a Christmas card from Andrew and Jinho, ostentatiously addressed to “Her Majesty, The Queen of Baltimore.”"

*

“Jinho told me to say hello to the Queen for him. Gosh! It’ll be so awesome to see you again. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you since the move. He always says I talk about you like you’re some long-deceased relative and not just a phone call away. But calls are just different. We’ll probably be able to get lunch somewhere, the four of us, at least once before we leave. You, me, Jinho, and Kat. I just realized we haven't even introduced them, yet -"

*
“I’ll text you when we’re back in the country so we can arrange to get lunch - but hopefully sooner if we can. Our schedule has been hectic. P.S. I saw the news report for your exhibit online. I’m totally telling everyone that my older sister is a celebrity! (Jinho says we have to fix your house so we can start name-dropping XD.)”

*

It's just different fam

12 days later

My story has two important characters who are siblings and their dynamic is an important part of the story.

My story has a protagonist, who saves his sibling from fae hands :slight_smile: They are both positive characters (even if overall the novel has a very dark mood).

that's what i want to see more of! great siblings!

Their dynamic is fairly strained as one looks up to the other and wants to be more like him and the others needs her in his life but can't admit it due to the sense of responsibility instilled into him that comes with self-sufficiency at all times.

As an older sibling I feel like light duties are common (from 13 I was "in charge" of my younger brother while my parents were out, which usually meant "don't fight with him and make sure he doesn't leave on his own") but proper psychological "parentification" is a lot rarer as it's a form of abuse to force an older sibling to take on the same duties as a co-parent from a young age. I'm talking being responsible for a much younger siblings food, health, cleanliness, etc regularly to the point the sibling is dependent on you rather than the actual parents.

Like I'm an older sibling but I still had a childhood and space to explore who I am as an independent being from my parents and my brother rather than needing to put my brother first because I'm his carer, and I'm not particularly more responsable than him at heart (I'm an anxious bean who's a workaholic though so sometimes it looks like it). He also often comes off as the more responsable one because he presents as this very serious socially awkward tech dude meanwhile I'm the coloured-hair, delirious from overwork artsy one. More than once at gatherings with extended family people have assumed he's older than me.

Yes, light duties are entirely normal and common. But that wasn't really the case in my childhood, as when my mother was deported, I had to care for my younger sister (specifically haircare) because she was too small to do so herself, and my father has a hand injury that makes it tend to lock up. And before that my mother and I had moved without my father and older brother so I spent a very large amount of time caring for the household mostly alone while my mother went out to deal with other work.

I'm so sorry you went through that 🫂 deportation as a whole is a cruel industry, I hope you've been able to reunite and are safe.

I can totally see why in cases like that the older sibling steps up into a parent role despite it not being fair on them, and the parents letting it happen despite probably not wanting to have to put the kids through that.

19 days later

With my main siblings in "Damsel in the Red Dress" I really wanted to express the struggle of an older sibling in really trying life situations trying to protect their younger siblings from the reality of their lives. My siblings and I have gone through pretty trying circumstances, on memorable night being sleeping in an abandoned building. These emotions of terror, and sadness while trying your best to comfort your younger siblings are the sort of feelings I imagine Alicia having for Andrew as she tried to shelter him from the reality of their parent's divorce as much as she could

17 days later

Spot-light on siblings from large families:

Shannon Carmichael from Damsel in the Red Dress has several siblings, coming from a very large American-Islamic family. Though they're only mentioned in passing, he's the only boy and the only one of his siblings to have gotten a degree

My comic has sibling pairs, with one of them being a pretty big spoiler, and the other being Hugo and his sister. The spoiler siblings are pretty dysfunctional, but Hugo and his sister are pretty fine with eachother even if they’re not exactly best friends.

My siblings in both "Hushabye Prince" and "Damsel in the Red Dress" are pretty close, but things are very different for both sets. Both Alicia x Andrews and Jinwoo x Jimin love each other to death, but one set is complicated by a divorce that meant growing up separately and the other by...spoilers lol

15 days later

An interesting factor of Alicia's (Damsel in the Red Dress) character that I've noted brought out by Jinho is the subtly of the different ways she views things. Kattar grew up with a very loving mom who spoiled him in a lot of ways, and Alicia has commented before that she thinks she's jealous.

But after their parents divorced, Alicia's little brother went to live with their dad and their father's sister, who basically treated him like her own child, babied him, and loved him like a mother, but Alicia never once said she was jealous of anything her little brother received even though she should have had the same.

While she envies other people, she'd give her left arm for her little brother, and so I didn't even realize when I wrote her that he's the person she never comments on being jealous of in any way, though he received a lot she didn't.

This is one of those things about a sibling connection that is very real, and while it doesn't have to be literal siblings, I think really only can be felt in people who have struggled to survive together. While I don't know anyone who is as completely unselfish in this respect as Alicia, this 'I'd sacrifice everything for their sake' mentality that often is written for mothers, is also present in siblings who have gone through a lot together.

1 month later

The leads in my new story "Damsel in the Red Dress," ARE the pair of siblings, but their relationship is entirely the flip of Alicia and Andrew's. I find it interesting to explore the dynamic of siblings who can be 100% furious with each other often, but can always get over that because in the end they're there for each other.

17 days later

I know he’s not interested in talking, but turning the radio on would still feel like telling him to shut up.

I could think of a thousand things to say if left to my own devices - but my body has felt like one big system error for the last five years.

I have a thousand things I want to say and I don’t feel like saying any of them, staring at the back of his curly head as he studies his scrawny arm resting on the windowsill, with something like stubborn pride that unsettles me.

“How do you calculate the length of the hypotenuse?” I blurt brusquely, like it’s a dare.

“I don’t need you to quiz me, Lady Licorice,” He doesn’t turn his gaze from his arm, rolling down his sleeve until it hides his bloodless hands.

“Excuse me for trying to keep you out of summer school,” I sniff with more than genuine vehemence. “Remind me who got a ‘D’ on their last test?”

“I didn’t study for that one. I studied for this one,” he says in an exasperated monotone, crossing his arms over his chest - leaning forward against the seat belt like he’s a ragdoll just barely being kept upright.


This is available for free for everyone to read on my Patreon public posts

Both Dominic and Essence have siblings in "A Dozen Morning Glories" and they are extremely essential to the book.

Dominic's sisters' emotions lead him to better understand and sympathize with the feelings of the female lead, while the difference in the way she is treated versus how her sister is treated is a huge part of what wakes Essence up to the reality that the way she lives is not acceptable.

While these things could technically be expressed with female friends, the impact is different when it hits, literally closer to home. Both watching someone be mistreated your entire life and watching someone be treated better than you for your entire life will have a different impact than just seeing bits and pieces of these realities occasionally.

20 days later

I actually write a lot of siblings! There’s quite a few in Butter Bee but they haven’t shown up yet, Lady Lock even has a little bro xD I think I tend to write siblings with really strong bonds, although I do write some that don’t have very good relationships. As someone who is still roommates with their brother since college, I have a good friendship with my sibling so I like writing dynamics that are super strong and kinda goofy. My brother has been my best friend since we were kids! I also love reading fiction about siblings too.

Here’s some of the ones I have planned for Butter Bee!

@beebutterbee that's so cool. My siblings are my best friends too, and I feel like siblings are often underappreciated in fiction. I have 5, and there's at least one sibling in almost all of my stories.

I feel in general big fiction platonic relationships in general are always put on the back burner :frowning: which is really sad because platonic relationships of all kinds can create really strong support and security for people. So I think it’s sad when it seems romantic relationships are valued more. I think both can be just as interesting to write about it, like I do like some romance but with platonic relationships I feel like I usually get more introspective narratives since siblings usually know more things about their siblings brain. Also, dynamics can be so fun to write in siblings! I really like kinda goofy but caring sibling dynamics, especially when one sibling is extroverted and the other introverted because they can through the same situation but have a total different reaction :sparkles:

Yeah, I have so many stories where I love writing the dynamics of the families, grandmothers, parents, aunts and uncles and such, but I have so many different kinds of siblings dynamics, I write. And I definitely agree platonic relationships are just as important and interesting in fiction and real life as romantic ones. they need more time to shine!

Yesss I love writing family dynamics too! Although sometimes the family members I write about can be pretty cruddy people unfortunately. But I still like writing platonic relationships, I think even I have a good amount of characters that are just really good friends without being related. I feel kinda dorky saying it but the power of a strong friendship is indeed important. And platonic relationships are also complex, so for me they’re just as fun as to write romance.

I probably focus more on platonic relationships in my writing tho, although my current webcomic has a little more than usual. I think it’s because the whole start of Butter Bee was actually poking fun at romance tropes in a silly way, but as I developed it more the romance still stayed crucial the plot xD But really I have stories with no love interests at all.

Same. Not all the families are great, and there are actually a lot of really toxic family dynamics, but some good ones too. Dominic and Cocoa's parents aren't super kind to them or Honey because they are all brown while their parents and brother Ben are fair-skinned, but the three brown siblings are very loving and supportive of each other, and even though their brother Ben can't relate, and they aren't quite as close, they like hanging out with him too, even though they are all adults now. Dominic and Cocoa are the closest out of the siblings, and they are roommates and besties and love cooking, watching movies, making origami and such together, I love designing their interactions

And yeah, I have platonic none related relationships in my stories too, a lot of sets of besties and such, though i'm not sure I have any stories without any couples or romance at lol. Several of my characters have married older siblings, or adult siblings with significant others, or things like that, even if they themselves are single and so on.

My family looks like this too, my dad and brother have darker skin tones while my mom and I are much much paler. We’re all very supportive of each other though! But I know some families can get very toxic, so I write about that too inspired from seeing my friends families and my own extended family lol

And that makes sense to write romance into all your stories, I think romantic relationships are also fun to write and if that’s more your focus go for it! Def write what you love … literally I guess xD

Lol, I think I love writing all kinds of relationship dynamics, so I often have representation of all different kinds at least a little in each story.

It makes sense to me, though it might seem weird for other people how wide an age range I include, or how central parents, or parental figures, are to my stories when anything other than romance and friends tend to not make much appearance in many stories. Parents have a huge affect in all three of my currently releasing novels, because they have a huge affect on who we are, and I guess I just find the anatomy of a relationship, all kinds of relationships, pretty fascinating to counterfeit and weave into my stories.

Ah yeah! You just like to run the gamut of relationships it seems with every story! I tend to focus on a specific type of a relationship for different stories, but that’s usually because my stories are much shorter. I guess with my long webcomic I’m seeing a lot of romance in it because the story stretches on longer? More time to explore different ideas I think.

I have a big age range in characters too! Older characters can be interesting to write because they do often reflect our experiences with parental or mentor figures, which do shape who we are for better or worse :sob:

25 days later

Essence relationship with her little sister is very complicated and it makes it hard for everyone, including Essence, to tell whether Beth really cares about her or not. The long short of it is that Beth would like Essence to be happy, as long as it doesn't cost Beth anything. Unfortunately this has meant Essence suffering the burnout of being the only one taking care of their mother after the stroke, and all she gets from Beth are excuses, but Essence feels the need to excuse and defend everyone else in her life, so she doesn't even really get angry for herself.

17 days later

Have yet to draw Mick's sister and Louise's brother, but both these characters have siblings in the story, Mick's is a lot more relevant to the plot than Louise's though, as the landlady/owner of the apartment complex all the main characters live in.

21 days later

A family Mora used to be friends with, the Rayfords, had quite a lot of siblings, and the two oldest were sort of like a second set of parents because life was so dangerous for all of their kind and they really needed as many mature adult people looking out for the young kids to keep them safe. The oldest Rayford daughter used to tell Mora and her friend Hermoine stories to scare them, but even this she did with a good intention, to try to scare them away from talking to strangers, no matter how sweet or well-spoken they seem

12 days later
19 days later

Have some more.

Dominic's siblings are his favorite people on planet earth


“I knew it! You little sneaks!” Honey is scolding, marching over to the table to snatch Cocoa’s trifle as the two of us raise our eyebrows ‘innocently,’ with our mouths full.

“You were trying to finish it all before I got here!” Honey stamps her foot accusingly.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” I laugh, holding up my hand as if to swear with my fingers crossed. Cocoa starts to laugh as she sneaks another spoonful out of the trifle glass in Honey’s hand but is quickly interrupted by a brain freeze.

“That’s what you get for trying to eat everything up without me -” Honey shakes her head taking a bite, only to immediately fake her own brain freeze with an exaggerated, “Oh ow ow ow. Instant karma. Take your glass back, take it back.”

Cocoa obeys the instructions laughing teasingly, “It seems like karma keeps shortening its processing time.”

“Yeah, it used to take 9 to 10 business years,” I quip, “I’ve been waiting more than a decade for some good karma I ordered back in the ninth grade.”

“Good karma shows itself in the form of ice cream,” Honey sighs, running her fingers through her hair, “That’s why I need yours. Hand it over, Mr. Man. I’ve been having a day.”

The Sun - War of Gods Begins

Synopsis:

In a world where gods walks among the mortals, a young boy named Aryan is unexpectedly thrust into the divine realm, Following an untimely accident, he awakens not as the boy he once was, but as the Radiant Luminary—one of the most being in the world, The sun god- Aurelion Blaze.

As he grapples with his new existence, he uncovers a dangerous truth—gods are not the pinnacle of creation. An ancient race to ascend beyond even godhood has begun, with deities vying to steal each other’s authority.

Amid the chaos, alliances crumble, and a hidden war erupts, threatening to unravel the fabric of the universe. With powers far beyond his understanding and enemies on all sides, Orion must navigate this treacherous path, where even gods can fall. The war of Gods has begun.

I hope you'll give it a try. Thank you :pray:

Lastly, How you liked the cover? Tell me if it seemes cringed.

21 days later

Heloise Rayford always tried to scare her little siblings (and Mora, who was kind of an adopted little sister) but Mora didn't realize she was doing it for their own good:


But as the other girls start cheering on their partners with chants of “Book it Lexi! Come on hurry!” all I can hear is Heloise shouting at us:

“Hustle you three! Run like the snake man is coming for your skin. Do you want to wake up in the freak show with a dozen creepy strangers paying to see you cry? Do you want to be stuck in a tank like some kind of overgrown goldfish? Get a move on!”

Mrs. Rayford used to tell Heloise not to scare us so much, but every time her mother wasn’t around, Heloise would pull us to the side and whisper a horror story in the most chilling tones she could manage.

Her favorite was the one about Vermeil and Carmine.

They went into the woods away from their grandmother’s house, but by the time they got back, there was nobody there.

“Someday,” she would say, in a tone like ice, “None of us are going to be here to take care of you guys. Somebody will find us, and kill us, or drag us away, and you’ll never see us again.”

But I thought I was too smart to believe her.

Oh yeah! That's how it goes...


It's from volkermord....

:zap:️ DO GIVE IT A TRY! :zap:

An action-packed science fantasy like no other—where words and art collide to create something bold and new. Experience a story that pushes the boundaries of storytelling, merging dynamic visuals with a gripping narrative.

:earth_africa: In 2158, the world is on the brink of collapse. :earth_africa:

Global tensions between Arga and Yuropa are about to ignite a catastrophic Third Territorial War, but something far worse strikes first—a world-splitting apocalyptic event wipes out half of humanity, as leaving only chaos in its wake. The survivors are trapped on one side, cut off from the other by a blinding, impassable light. As survivors huddle within Dome cities, monstrous creatures emerge, tearing apart what remains of society.

:boom: Amidst the destruction, a group of soldiers embarks on a dangerous mission. :boom:

Their goal: reclaim what has been lost and uncover the terrifying truths that lurk behind this new reality. With time running out and death around every corner, these warriors must risk everything to protect the remnants of humanity.

:crossed_swords:️ One boy holds the key to salvation or destruction. :crossed_swords:

Darius, an ordinary young man, suddenly inherits the power of a weapon capable of changing everything. But will he rise as the hero humanity needs—or will darkness consume him?

:star2: Destiny calls. Darkness awaits. :star2:

Check out Volkermord on Tapas https://tapas.io/series/Volkermord