More propaganda for Naphtali! I thought I'd share a little of his Origin Story (in a meta sort of way).
So, way back in January of 2020 (before the world went nuts), I was playing around with these music challenges. You know, create a character from a shuffled playlist kinda thing. I was working off of this one in particular:
First song (the appearance one) was the freaking Grinch song. And not just any version, but specifically the Jim Carrey Grinch song.
(That's where the weird looks and features came in: I decided to take as many of the lyrics literally as possible. I accidentally got a bit of personality too, in that he's very pleased with his looks. He also does silly voices.)
Second song (the personality one) was "Grim Grinning Ghosts", and specifically this version:
(VoicePlay was a huge favourite of mine for years - thanks to this video, a lot of the ghost characters look like the members of the group!)
So from here, I got that he was spooky, and a bit silly and mischievous, but maybe not even really realizing he was spooky? And that he lived in a haunted house and socialized with ghosts all the time. (When I first came up with it, his now best friend was a ghost too!)
The third song (the rather vaguely worded "partner relationship" one) was just called "Enchantment". No lyrics, just music and whispery sounds. Like so:
I don't know why, but the vibe I got was "housekeeper".
At the time, she was just his assistant or something, but she was under some kind of enchantment, and also whispered a lot. Nowadays... most of that is still accurate, I guess. Except that now, there's a LOT more to their relationship than just assisting. ;)
By now, I was starting to get the idea that this was an unusual guy. Grinch, ghosts, AND enchantments.
But then I hit the "family" song.
And suddenly, this monster guy with a haunted house and an enchanted housekeeper has three 1970s kids showing up on his doorstep, and he has no idea what to do with them.
That's when it started to stick.
Then, fifth and finally, I had the name song. This one took a good bit of research initially, but I took my cue from the title:
"Prometheus" and "Flint" seem to have always been around (both having to do with fire). However, his middle name was harder. I almost named him "Corydon", "Baltair", "Boris", or (I can't believe I considered this one) "Alphonse".
In the end, I finally settled on "Naphtali". And am I glad I did!
It's funny, though, because after I gave him these names, I started thinking. I like tying in names with themes. But what happened was that, not only did I find themes to tie in, I ended up discovering some extremely vital plot points, the makings of the book, AND the very title of the story: The Prometheus Curse!
Of course, he's gone through a lot of changes since then (I think I was initially getting the vibe of some spooky supervillain way out in his haunted house all alone - back before I drew him, anyway!). And everyone else has changed and grown too. But I still love this story, and this world, and especially these characters.
In a way, this silly challenge gave me the entire story.
Or, it might be more accurate to say, if Naphtali hadn't come along, dancing to the music of these five songs, The Prometheus Curse wouldn't exist.
Vote for Naphtali, y'all! Keep him going to the next round! :D
