To answer your question, Vyreia: This is why I think I wrote myself into a corner, and why I think the initial idea for Diego is not appearing to work all that well.
Speaking as someone who have been a foster kid myself, I know from experience that one of the prevailing emotions that many, if not most foster kids struggle with, is fear. It feels like their parents didn't try enough, didn't love them enough to try. Unlike me, however, who ended up in a foster home due to a dysfunctional family, Diego's parents abandoned him. I mean, we can quibble about what to call it, and if they had a good reason for doing so, well, that could be explored somewhere down the line, but from *Diego's* perspective, his own parents didn't want him, so why should anyone else? And this idea that there was something wrong with him, that nobody would ever want him, well, that was reinforced every time a new Muggle family sent him away.
Do you remember I told you I envisioned Diego having a breakdown when a Hogwarts teacher visited his group home to deliver his letter of acceptance? It's because it felt like a cruel joke. This person shows up, and he gets sorta hopeful, maybe it's someone wanting to give it a go, and then he finds out its just an invitation to go to school? At that moment, Diego sinks back down into that big, gaping hole of hurt, and tries to convince the good professor that the school don't really want him as a student, they just think they do. "How would you like it, if nobody wanted you? If all anybody ever saw was the bad in you, and they couldn't wait to get rid of you. I'm no good. That's why nobody wants me." That's what he would've said, until the teacher who delivered the letter patiently allowed him to vent out his frustration and finally managed to convince him that he should at least give Hogwarts a chance before making up his mind. And that, of course, is what he eventually decided doing.
But a lad in Diego's situation wouldn't realistically embrace school life. He'd be constantly walking on egg shells, terrified of just the possibility that he will somehow reveal that something that made those foster parents send him away, and would dread the revelation that he didn't really belong there and that he would have to go back home every time a Professor or a Prefect asked to have a word with him. That's why I tried to set up the plot idea where he got a prospective/future adoptive sibling, preferably brother, at Hogwarts. Diego's first instinct would be to isolate himself as not to burden people by just being there, but it's a bit difficult to get away from people you share a dormitory with. That'd be what kept Diego going. This one friend at his dormitory who didn't allow Diego to shut himself in entirely.
Then he would be fostered by wizards this time, who understood and helped him in ways Muggles couldn't, and that would be the start of Diego's progress from his scared, lonely little boy where he would grow into a young man who finally made something of himself, with friends and family to lean on whom he knew would never turn their backs on him. It seemed so - simple, in a sense. In my head, I mean, writing the app. It had worked on that other board, which is smaller and had fewer members, so I figured that they, surely someone would be up for it? Then I made my connection classified thread, and I know it's only been about 24 hours since I posted it, bu since then, 40 people have read the thread. That's a lot of people to read the idea for my intended character development and being disinterested in it. And here I am, feeling bloody naive for having just gone with the plot idea from that other board.
I could throw Diego into a thread, but there's no way Diego would be anywhere near other students unless he had someone practically dragging him along with them. It just wouldn't be realistic. Should've made Diego a character in a much less precarious situation, but nope, didn't think that far ahead. So here I am, wondering if I don't have to re-write the whole character and un-complicate Diego Devante and make him more of a run-of-the-mill rebellious youth who bitterly defied the system by running away from foster homes and being a bit of a juvenile delinquent, hoping his parents would come for him one day, as opposed to setting him up to be just the opposite. Sorry. :-(
I don't know if maybe I'm counting all my owls before they've landed, but you know, it's a bit disheartening.
Speaking as someone who have been a foster kid myself, I know from experience that one of the prevailing emotions that many, if not most foster kids struggle with, is fear. It feels like their parents didn't try enough, didn't love them enough to try. Unlike me, however, who ended up in a foster home due to a dysfunctional family, Diego's parents abandoned him. I mean, we can quibble about what to call it, and if they had a good reason for doing so, well, that could be explored somewhere down the line, but from *Diego's* perspective, his own parents didn't want him, so why should anyone else? And this idea that there was something wrong with him, that nobody would ever want him, well, that was reinforced every time a new Muggle family sent him away.
Do you remember I told you I envisioned Diego having a breakdown when a Hogwarts teacher visited his group home to deliver his letter of acceptance? It's because it felt like a cruel joke. This person shows up, and he gets sorta hopeful, maybe it's someone wanting to give it a go, and then he finds out its just an invitation to go to school? At that moment, Diego sinks back down into that big, gaping hole of hurt, and tries to convince the good professor that the school don't really want him as a student, they just think they do. "How would you like it, if nobody wanted you? If all anybody ever saw was the bad in you, and they couldn't wait to get rid of you. I'm no good. That's why nobody wants me." That's what he would've said, until the teacher who delivered the letter patiently allowed him to vent out his frustration and finally managed to convince him that he should at least give Hogwarts a chance before making up his mind. And that, of course, is what he eventually decided doing.
But a lad in Diego's situation wouldn't realistically embrace school life. He'd be constantly walking on egg shells, terrified of just the possibility that he will somehow reveal that something that made those foster parents send him away, and would dread the revelation that he didn't really belong there and that he would have to go back home every time a Professor or a Prefect asked to have a word with him. That's why I tried to set up the plot idea where he got a prospective/future adoptive sibling, preferably brother, at Hogwarts. Diego's first instinct would be to isolate himself as not to burden people by just being there, but it's a bit difficult to get away from people you share a dormitory with. That'd be what kept Diego going. This one friend at his dormitory who didn't allow Diego to shut himself in entirely.
Then he would be fostered by wizards this time, who understood and helped him in ways Muggles couldn't, and that would be the start of Diego's progress from his scared, lonely little boy where he would grow into a young man who finally made something of himself, with friends and family to lean on whom he knew would never turn their backs on him. It seemed so - simple, in a sense. In my head, I mean, writing the app. It had worked on that other board, which is smaller and had fewer members, so I figured that they, surely someone would be up for it? Then I made my connection classified thread, and I know it's only been about 24 hours since I posted it, bu since then, 40 people have read the thread. That's a lot of people to read the idea for my intended character development and being disinterested in it. And here I am, feeling bloody naive for having just gone with the plot idea from that other board.
I could throw Diego into a thread, but there's no way Diego would be anywhere near other students unless he had someone practically dragging him along with them. It just wouldn't be realistic. Should've made Diego a character in a much less precarious situation, but nope, didn't think that far ahead. So here I am, wondering if I don't have to re-write the whole character and un-complicate Diego Devante and make him more of a run-of-the-mill rebellious youth who bitterly defied the system by running away from foster homes and being a bit of a juvenile delinquent, hoping his parents would come for him one day, as opposed to setting him up to be just the opposite. Sorry. :-(
I don't know if maybe I'm counting all my owls before they've landed, but you know, it's a bit disheartening.
