Seeing as I'm nearing the end of my time with the Chimp Gang, I thought it'd be cool to spotlight them. Since I'm doing all 5 in 1 post it is going to be a bit of a long one so bear with me.
I find the chimps an interesting situation personally. Because they were only ever really supposed to be a joke. Even after I had decided to make the Yearbook Edition of the novel I had always just relegated them to that in my mind. I mean Dev is the only one even named in the novel and he's described in very unflattering ways. They were supposed to be characters the reader wanted to avoid. Dev was essentially a stand-in antagonist for the points where Leonora wasn't present. But ultimately they grew to be much more and some of the more emotionally rich characters. I feel like there's so much to talk about I don't even know where to start.
Design-wise I always knew I wanted them in leather jackets because originally they were just supposed to be a sort of reference to Grease. But then that evolved into I want them to each represent a group of people who adopted leather jackets. So Dev largely remained the same he's the embodiment of the 60s and 70s, clean jacket minor customization. The mohawk was a reference to Spike from Gremlins and his name was a take on Chip Dev Skylark from Fairly Odd Parents because he was supposed to be this cool like rockstar sort of character (originally). But as time went on I honed in on that 60s and 70s idea and made him a gear head. With Dev I really didn't know who he was until sort of the very end after his route was said and done. Because I had to actually really sit and think about it. I had ideas certainly, but those ideas genuinely I just threw out when people had started wanting to audition for him. I just made them up on the spot. I just thought about what elements of my life could I use that I didn't give to Star. So unlike with Star where I asked, "what did my parents do?" I asked, "who were my parents?" And listen I was raised by a village, so I have more than one dad, so I looked to my mother's third marriage and my mother's relationships and let that be used as a guide. And I need to clarify Dev's life is not how mine was (not really anyways). But my biological mother is a drug addict and her husband is an alcoholic. So I wrote kind of what I knew in a way. I've seen one of my stepfathers throw my pregnant mother down a flight of stairs, my mother also supported husbands and boyfriends who were fucking deadbeats or was with dudes that made me go like, "why are you with these guys still?" So that's how his story came about. Star ended up the rockstar character, his name even featuring part of my old stage name. His jacket is busted up and customized to hell, he's meant to represent punk rock and rock 'n roll. I specifically sort of modeled him off of the lead singer of Sum 41 hence why in his route you can get him to reference them by their joke name Sum Farty-One. He was probably the easiest one to come up with in terms of backstory as a lot of his story was just my own twisted to be more unique to him, he's also inspired by my old guitarist I think mostly in attitude and definitely in talent. I was a much bigger asshole than Star when I was playing music, the only really carry over I think from me (emotionally) was his quoting of song lyrics to his partner to describe his feelings and his putting of his band first above all else.
Danny-Boy's design is simple, he lacks the color hair, which was to help show the difference between him and the others as he's new to the gang. He specifically was inspired by The Outsiders and Karate Kid. I mean Danny-Boy, Pony Boy pretty obvious. He's the only one though to show that connection to The Wizard of Oz with the Ruby Slipper necklace. Which was the first time I really thought about whether or not the source material should even be referenced and for the first time made me consider how did it relate to them if at all. Which later turns out it relates a whole lot and was a great avenue for explaining why they're called "Flying Monkeys" when they're so very clearly described as chimps. DeLuna is one I still don't know at this point in time, but a couple of things took shape. He specifically is based on goths, and gothic musicians, and bands like Motionless in White. He's got the occult patches to show his ties to witchcraft, and while his jacket is customized it's really reserved much like his personality he being very socially awkward. I made him from the coast just honestly at the time to set him apart from the others, but this later informed a whole bunch of other things, like he and Danny-Boy were friends before he joined the group both coming from the same place. Which then informs their personalities being from the coast they're not as trusting and friendly with the player like the elder chimps are. But being he's been with the gang for a year now, he's quicker and easier to warm up to the player. His last name is a reference to Hocus Pocus. Lee was the chimp I thought I'd have the hardest time with that actually turned out pretty easy. Once again I just looked at my own life and the life of those around me. I took my relationship with my parents (the ones who adopted and raised me) and used that as the groundwork. Lee was the teenager my parents would have wanted me to be, he's who I could have been had I not had the friends I had. He surprisingly kind of hits closer to home than I originally thought he would. Once I got to writing Lee's backstory it all just kind of flowed, I used his relationship with his parents to determine what kind of person he is and what kind of partner he would be. Since he's a dancer I made him the tallest average height of a chimp which is 5' 5". His jacket is like a modern designer jacket which works two-fold one it shows he has a bit more money than the other chimps and two is meant to represent the modern Young Adult bad boy characters. You know Jughead, Hardin Scott, these "I'm so tortured" or like, "I'm not like other guys, I'm weird." I hesitate to say Lee is anything like, but there are some backstory elements that are similar and fit the archetype.
I could probably dissect these characters even more, like the bandana around Star's arm having belonged to his dead brother. The reason Dev wants to see the best in everyone and give everyone a chance is because if he doesn't then that means he has to condemn his dad and say he has no chance of redemption which no child actively wants. Danny-Boy's mother has the other Ruby Slipper necklace because he's a momma's boy and it's them against the world. DeLuna wants to help his mother with her shop because they financially aren't doing well hence why they had to move to Kansas from the east coast. Lee is so chill because he comes from an upper-middle-class family so behavior and ettique was drilled into him from a young age and the only time he can relax and feel like he's not needing to be the golden goose is when he's with his misfit friends. There's just so much I crammed into these guys that again I never expected, I kind of thought they'd all just be goofballs with maybe some backstory. I didn't expect to put so much of myself into them. Anyways I'm going to end it here before I prattle on any further. I hope for those of you who read all the way through found it insightful! These guys quickly became some of my favorites so far thanks to the love all the VAs showed for them, which is like a whole other thing I could even talk about. But I'll save that stuff for the VA reveals. But the VAs is really part of the reason these characters probably did turn out as deep as they did. Because they loved them and believed in them more than I did. Don't underestimate the importance of your VAs they really do bring more to a character than just the voice, I am continually seeing that as this project goes on. Welp! "That's all folks!"
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