User:LilacRTL/Characters/Sarah Marine/Author Notes+

Concept
Sarah Marine, as character, is some sort of character recycling, also made by Ryū, originally called as Marine Fairlight for the cancelled work known as Invocation of Twilight, the original universe for some concepts used on DragonStar.

The concept takes inspiration from existing characters as well, such as Schala from Chrono Trigger, Zelda from The Legend of Zelda series, mainly Breath of the Wild, and backstory based on StarCraft, as well Freedom Planet.

Sarah was also built to not be a brawler, superhero or master in magic, going against the tendencies for female characters. Also away from the cliche of being the kidnapped maiden, only waiting for be rescued. In fact, this only happened once, and at the end, is shown that she's not defenseless, but the one who holds a possible way to free people from an external control that inhibits them from exerting their free will.

Appearance
The first design for Sarah Marine, was being developed since the character creation, but using Airlemi Linth's artwork by Tyson Tan, as base and first concept, but never being something official. Because of her heavy inspiration on Schala, have a Water Dragon with aquamarine skin and blue hair, was a direct reference to the princess of Zeal. Tyson Tan's art was showing that with perfection, even knowing that it wasn't an art of Sarah herself.

For the final design, features from airlemi were authorized to be kept by the character owner, as long as the final design be different enough. Things like the four horns, aquamarine skin (without the markings), a dragon snout and the slightly chubby look were kept. And was decided since the beginning, that Sarah would wear different clothes than Airlemi, and she passed to wear the same clothes as Alice, from Bakugan. The new design was sent to Cloudi and the first artwork of this character was created.

Original ideas were used as well, like make Sarah's skin a single, solid dark aquamarine color, with lighter areas for her palms and feet, giving the feeling of black people, but not so black. Still in a cute and beautiful way for the aquamarine dragon.

Personality
Sarah's personality was a mix of Schala's and the character author himself. Because of this, Sarah sometimes may have a similar attitude to Lilac, because Ryū confesses that he identify himself a lot with the purple dragon. Besides that, Sarah seems to have a different personality for her counterpart outside Avalice Online, being more confident and aware of her abilities. However, she never uses them unless overly necessary, as excuse that a character built for use of power, is a character built for Power Playing.

Now about Sarah herself, she has a habit of write everything she learns, or her ideas, in a paper notebook. This makes reference to what Professor Pierluigi Piazzi taught.

This idea of using a paper notebook to write Sarah's ideas, is also reflecting what the author oftenly does. Writing his ideas and works in progress somewhere.

Skills and Abilities
Looking to create a character who is considered at the same time, powerful and underpowered, this balance of powerful magic abilities with physical, mental and emotional limits, gives a new purpose for Sarah as character. Ditching completely Power Playing, sometimes giving the impression that she is, indeed, underpowered, besides being a dragon. This opens the possibilities for situations, where you need a character who is more analytical, and less a hero protagonist, who defeats all the villains.

Backstory
With a concept that the Ancient Dragons are possibly, the very first race to travel to the stars before everyone, and millennia of accumulated knowledge, one point to destroy all the possibilities of make Sarah, a Mary Sue, was destroy her memories with absolutely no possibility of recovery, being necessary learn everything again, as if Sarah have just born. This is also a plot relevant point, for the Ancient Dragons of the Before Time, are a very vague subject, left open on purpose by the developers of GalaxyTrail. It's still unknown if they will be further explored in the games, creating another reason for making Sarah, lose all her memories, including her own name. This new beginning is referenced by DragonStar's first plot arc, named as ReGenesis.