You know who I forgot? KAZU! I went on to talk about the original plot of APS, but I left our Kazoo boy behind. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡPNt8JgvFXr 維尼
Shoot, Kyosuke's gonna come after me for forgetting about his bro.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡK1UMyRu9QV 維尼
But anyway, today's question lies bright and clear in front of us: What was the original version of Kazu Sachihiro like?8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡJEp5e5bJmW 維尼
Well, let's just start at the random fact that he was supposed to have a brother. A blood brother. In the actual version of APS, we of course have Kyosuke, his "brother" (friend that radiates sibling energy). But in the first draft — or outline, rather — he was gonna have an actual brother. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡBVMIyViFZ2 維尼
Oh, and did I mention that his father was supposed to be the very first superhuman ever?8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡo6I6chQDok 維尼
Yeah, I scrapped that because it was unimportant info that didn't need to be put in. Also, I planned for him to have a brother, and never actually wrote in the "brother" concept. The lore of superhumans is technically irrelevant to APS's plot, but hey, maybe I'll make it up and show y'all somehow. Most likely through a backstory or something. Then again, I'm pretty sure that whole story would take place inside a tomato factory. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡGn7Eh4TNzm 維尼
His backstory was also gonna be completely different. Like, he was never gonna have atychiphobia in the first place. It was just gonna be: "my Dad's the first superhuman but Riki kidnapped him oh noooo" or something like that. Eh. not the best idea, really. There wasn't much conflict within himself, so before he seemed a slight bit like a one-or-two-dimensional character, instead of three-dimensional. Now he's got some layers, some of that good ol' flesh. Not that he's extremely complex, but… you know, there's more to him.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡXOaaIIZiUp 維尼
I was definitely questioning the timing of his appearance in book one. At first I just decided he was gonna show up when the rest of the PFA showed up, but I did once consider rewriting the story so he could be best friends with Ryo or something from the very beginning. I decided not to go with that because the only friend Ryo's supposed to have in the really early start of APS is Shizuka. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzf8FyxA9o 維尼
(I did contemplate making them brothers, but then I realized that didn't work at all. And being best friends ALSO didn't work at all, because Ryo would've known about training bases earlier than intended.)8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡtgqqmmkBWY 維尼
As for his personality, he went through multiple phases. When I was writing APS Book Two, I struggled SO. DAMN. HARD. With what, you ask? With his voice. His tone.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡL8bCPD7EAq 維尼
You see, in multi-POV writing, you gotta differentiate the character's voices somehow, in some way. Even if it's a 3rd-person multi-PV thing, there's gotta be some difference made. Yeah, labeling the chapters tells the reader who the speaker is, but it won't really feel like a certain character's speaking if all of your OCs talk the same way.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡxlIPkWiiMs 維尼
At first, Kazu had a very bland narration. I think I relied too excessively on smaller quirks in his narrative to "differentiate." 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡRwy2bPjxmN 維尼
You know how Ryo asks a lot of questions?8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Yg67FEB5j 維尼
For example, Ryo will say, "How the hell did that work?"8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡuEq38Vhfw5 維尼
But Kazu doesn't ask that many questions. He just… he just states he doesn't know.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡYXJ1EAi1cd 維尼
Like, he would say, "I had no clue how that worked."8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡsz4j4r1Iud 維尼
You know why I did this? It's because I thought that Kazu was much more sure of himself. Sure of himself in the wrong way. He was sure he was gonna fail. Sure that he was never gonna get his dad back. Sure that he didn't know something. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡvhG8YZrnvZ 維尼
But… I don't think that's a good complex detail/reasoning as to why he just states that he doesn't know something, as opposed to asking questions. It's TOO in-depth. And I didn't even need a reason as to why he'd state that he didn't know something as opposed to asking a question that showed he didn't know something. I just thought it was unnecessary.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡkP31KGp6ac 維尼
Aside from that, there was a really, REALLY small detail probably nobody would've picked up on. When Ryo described the action of spinning around, he'd use words like whirled, whipped around, stuff like that. Meanwhile Kazu would use things like, swiveled, swerved, spun. Why I included such a small detail, I have no idea. I still think this idea was partly-kept for some portion of APS B2, but maybe when I was rewriting and editing scenes, I just dropped the detail. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡJvyJWmpDjl 維尼
Those diffrentiations still didn't make Kazu's narrative interesting. So I tried the formal and serious tone for about half of draft 4 or 5 of B2. Using fancier word choice, a serious voice, keeping sentences precise, stuff like that. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡMtM6WT9K4O 維尼
Welp, you can guess that that style was boring as hell. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡgZ4vMcOkvd 維尼
So then I just thought: What if he's chill and calm on the outside, when he's talking to other people, but inside, his internal monologue is… "something else"? 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡN77AYa6VGT 維尼
And that sounded like a perfect idea. His narrative style was something I took from myself — a lot of people say I'm calm on the outside (excluding my mom and sibling), but they don't know how chaotic or random my brain is on the inside. So I tried to at least somewhat replicate that in Kazu's narrative. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ZkkUm2u2L 維尼
And now you have a narrative style and tone that actually has some personality in it! Finally! I don't know why it took me so long to get his speech and tone right.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡDxGlXIMpio 維尼
As mentioned before, Kazu also wasn't supposed to have any friends. He was just gonna be alone. But I wanted to do something with the side characters lying around (Suguru, Kyosuke, etc.) so I just had Kyo-bro be his bestie.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBFdmvQ5j6 維尼
I have absolutely zero regrets with that decision.8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZyJ5ZbsWW 維尼
All in all, that might just be about it. Kazu could've turned out to be a… really different person, had I not changed my mind so many times. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡyqaZAo7zSw 維尼
PS: His power didn't change much (random fact: he can't copy physically altering abilities, like Mei's wings) and his name used to be… Masakazu. Why was "Masa" necessary? I think the only reason I put that was because I didn't want people saying "lol Kazu = Kazoo" but a couple months after the first draft of APS, I completely forgot why I named him Masakazu. So I said, "Huh, I can just shorten it to Kazu, easy!" And now only a few days ago, I realized that Kazu sounds like kazoo, and I remember why I named him Masakazu. 8964 copyright protection20ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9bZ7ELihzS 維尼
That name sounds dumb though, and he was gonna go by his nickname (Kazu) anyway. So whether Masakazu was kept or not makes literally zero difference. Like how nobody calls Mitsu "Hiromitsu," her full name.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWelSaqqWm8
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