Let's Talk About: Eclair the Rabbit

 

I wanna talk a little bit about this bunny, y'see? She hasn't officially been introduced in the Crossworlds Traveler yet, so there won't be any story spoilers here. This is strictly about character and role development and how I put this rabbit through name change after name change, lobotomy after lobotomy until she found herself where sits today.

Let's begin after the post break,

 

First thing's first, I want to point out that Eclaire wasn't always known by that name. I had never intended on naming her after a food like the current canon rabbit characters in the Sonic the Hedgehog series are. She originally began life as Raiza, believe it or not.

She was intended to be the Ying to Laik's Yang; The replacement love interest for Laik should the plot ever call for Lanolin to take a step back. But the more I developed Raiza, the less and less she fit the role I had intended for her. She was short, loud-mouthed, hyperactive, highly possessive and rude. Girly almost to a fault and was city girl looking for a good, clean, fun time. In the city. Roughing it out on the trail, near the river or fighting Badniks--or worse, Kuthul drones--were quickly becoming things that would be too far out of character for her to be doing if I were to eventually pair the two of them up. 

Realizing I had potentially burnt a perfectly good, cool sounding name on a character who was more like the silly blond girl from a horror movie than the survivor, otherwise known as the 'Main Girl', I quickly course corrected myself and stripped her of the name, then redeveloped her into her own archetype; One that optimized her... bountiful features and energetic form. She would eventually serve as the unwanted third point in a potential love triangle of her own making. Amy Rose, but to an almost toxic level. 

When Raiza the Cat came to be, her design ironically coming to me amid a legit fever dream caused by an ear infection, I knew who'd be getting the rabbit's former name. Initially I'd planned to go with Lydia, but I am simply not fond of giving Mobians human-like names in the slightest. So Lydia was out entirely.

But that's where I flip-flopped, almost gaslighting myself in the process! I kept coming back to Claire, after one of my favorite Resident Evil protagonists. But the use of a human sounding name irked me, and that's when my mind started looping back around to my initial hesitance to name her after a dessert. I could give her a dessert name that also LOOKS human, but is clearly the the food.

Thus, Eclair the Rabbit came to be. Her nickname would simply be "Clair".

I truly hate how my brain works sometimes.