Lenore Sterling
Alright, let's talk about... Lenore Sterling!
Art by Kuzunue.
I mentioned her in vague terms, which I am aware is its own kind of torture. So... here she is! Or rather, here is the introduction, because I fear the full picture of Lenore Sterling is not something that fits in a single blog post, and I won't try. :'D
Also, feel free to listen to Lenoreβs theme from Crescendo while reading this post!
Lenore as a character goes back to the early 2000s, which means... she has been around longer than some of the people reading this probably? In that time she has been many things: a fan character for several series I love, a character that went through several redesigns...
Art by Nari.
But above all she is a quiet accumulation of characters that touched me over the years: moments of writing that stuck, personalities that lodged themselves in my brain and refused to leave, archetypes I kept returning to because a certain something about them resonated. That said, I hope she came out as her own person rather than a collage.
And this is... quite ironic, actually.
Because, you see, in her own story, Lenore woke up in an alley in Lilium City with no memories, no history, and no identity to speak of. Just her, the rain, the city, and almost unreasonable amount of questions that... she eventually decided to not bother answering. She developed her personality the way a lot of us do: through the people she met, the TV shows she watched, the video games she played... She is, in the most literal possible sense, built from stories. I love that!
Art by Polaric Pie.
Lilium City itself deserves a mention here, because I did write what can only be described as an extremely and overdetailed unofficial ultimania for it. A document that covers geography, history, economy, criminal underworld, culture, and several things I added at two in the morning or even later because I thought they were interesting. No, don't run away, you do not need to know any of that to follow Lenore's story, I swear! I simply want to acknowledge that it exists and I spent way too much time on it! I'll make another entry about my approach to world building, eventually!
Now. Who is she, actually?
Lenore is a force of nature in a long brown leather coat that is constantly getting shot up. She is confident to a degree that occasionally borders on insufferable, has a razor wit she deploys more or less continuously, and treats dangerous situations with an enthusiasm that would concern most reasonable people. She is also fiercely, almost stubbornly protective of the people she cares about, which she would rather you not mention out loud.
Art by Kowai
She likes pepperoni pizza (her pizza debt is legendary!), strawberry sundaes and high-energy music. She is, at surface level, a little bit silly and enormously fun, and I love her enormously for that.
But I love her because she is not only that! There is more underneath, and it shows when it matters. I have always had a deep fondness for characters who seem like they are all style and swagger and then, when something genuinely matters, show you exactly what they are truly made of... and Lenore does just that!
Art by Daniel Deng.
I think Lenore is cool because she's completely committed to who she has chosen to be. She has a past she cannot recall and made peace with that.
She is not haunted by what she cannot remember. She is too busy building something worth remembering.
I've loved her for a long time, across many versions and many late nights and many documents that absolutely did not need to be as long as they became. I hope, eventually, that more people will love her as much as I do!
Art by Stephanie Sybydlo.