luna-azzurra:

Your character doesn’t need to be likeable. They need to be legible. The reader needs to understand every decision they make even when it’s wrong, even when it’s ugly, even when they want to shake them. Likeable is easy and forgettable. Legible is what makes someone stay with you for years. Make the logic of every bad choice visible. The reader doesn’t have to agree with it. They just have to follow it.

first two sentences i was like “ok this is an interesting tip for conlang alphabet creation, but what are the criteria for characters being legible when you’re still inventing the system for reading them”

And then i was like “oh that kind of ‘characters’. Ok this makes some sense, even though it’s not what 'legible’ would usually mean to me”

And then i was like “also… I think the reader doesn’t necessarily have to know THE reason why a character does a thing, but it should be at least possible to theorize potential reasons”

And then I remembered my main OC is named after the asterisk, for multiple reasons, but partly because in programming it’s a wildcard character that can mean anything

…And then things all fit together VERY pleasantly.