Anonymous Coward · 9mo
Hello! I hope it would be alright for me to ask? I apologize if this is an odd question, but I was re-reading your Star Wars AU, and I was wondering about Zhongli's master Belial and your inspiration for him? Was it any existing character in Star Wars or Genshin? Or perhaps one of your personal works? Very heartwrenching story, by the way. Amazingly done. Belial intrigues me so much, he reminds me a bit of Yan Dooku with a bit of Qui-gon? I have to wonder if you've written him in any other AU other than Life, Death and the Force of it All. I understand that you focus on canon characters mostly, but your OC(?) Characters feel very fleshed out. Belial in particular stuck out to me. And- just out of curiosity, but do you perhaps have any concepts on Guizhong's or Marchosius's masters that went unused?
I didn't create him with any specific inspiration in mind, tbh; I just wanted him to be an old, grizzled, jedi master who doesn't like or want authority, and is more along the gray Jedi route. Like, he just wants to help people and doesn't care much for politicking, or bureaucracy-- which is why he eventually takes the spot as an Archon.
I wouldn't say he's like Qui-gon-- Qui-gon is a die hard sycophant for the old Jedi ways, and Belial is far more loose-goosey (like, for instance, he turned a blind eye to a lot of things Morax did/expressed, and just warned him to be careful). If anything, he's more like Obi-wan ( a little rebellious, understanding of the fact that a person can't easily turn off human nature and follow those teachings, etc), only he doesn't abandon the order, he stays because his entire vibe is, "Well, might as well be the only sane one here".
I don't often right OC's because I don't really have a lot of faith in them? I don't know how to describe it, ahahah. I do write plenty of original work, but I've always been more comfortable using media that already exists, so if I can use existing characters for a fanfiction, I usually will. Belial was created specifically for 'This Brightly Burning Galaxy', and I hadn't really thought much of using him anywhere else, tbh. I picked his name because of Genshin's use of the other high demon names (Morax, Paimon, etc etc), but yeah, he was written primarily to be a little bit of a juxtaposition compared to Morax in that fic. I hadn't thought much of any other masters, but I would say that Guizhong, being raised in the order from birth, likely had a master similar to Qui-Gon's personality.
I'm really glad that you liked him! I know that his presence isn't like... heavily included in the fic, but he's there enough to have an impact, and I'm honored that he intrigued you so much. I can definitely think about shoehorning him into other stories, maybe, ahahah.
Also TOTALLY okay to ask about these things! I love chatting away about this stuff and people do not often ask!
