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🕊️ IVETTA · 18 · she/her
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✦ faith: Christian 🕯️ · deeply rooted in grace
╭─── ❖ PERSONALITY ❖ ───╮
⟢ kind-hearted & softly mature
⟢ compassionate
⟢ sweet-spoken
⟢ hardworking · thoughtful
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⟢ complicated simplicity
⟢ delicate strength
⟢ quiet conviction
╭─ 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 ─╮
🌿 her mother — Evelyn
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✎ bio by @thevioletscar 🕊️
- Nicknames: Little dove (coined by Clavis), Plumette (@AthenaPersephone9 on Wattpad, named for the feather duster in the classic Disney Beauty and the Beast movie)
- Politics: Not interested
- Age: 18
- Height: 153 cm (5’)
- Hair: Black, silky, straight, parted in the middle, worn in a ponytail while working
- Eyes: Bright green
- Weapons: A sharp wit, a sharper tongue, and a smile that reduces Chev to a simpering fool (internally, of course)
- Clothes: Stereotypical black-and-white maid uniform (modest); faded, worn green dress for personal use
I changed my mind! Ivetta gets to go next. Woo hoo!
I always gravitate toward the cold, mature, intelligent type of guy with a secret soft spot (see Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing), so I immediately liked Chev as a character, but the main character in the game does not match him at all. She’s way too weak and wishy-washy, and honestly, I don’t see why he becomes attracted to her. She’s also set on changing him and making him realize how important love is, which is a very unhealthy way to approach a relationship.
So while I was reading Chev’s route for the first time, I started imagining a character who would attract his interest. A sassy maid who always knew the right thing to say and do; a hard worker who was only there to do her job and didn’t care about him or his brothers. Someone who wouldn’t chase the princes—they would have to chase her.
And thus, Ivetta was born.
I named her after a waitress I met when I was a kid on a Disney cruise. My family had a mǎitre d' and a waitress assigned to us at the beginning of the cruise, and they followed us to a new restaurant on the ship every night (yes, my grandpa was rich, and I seriously doubt I will ever have this experience again).
Iveta was our waitress. She was a beautiful woman with tan skin and dark brown hair, and she had an accent which I think was Hungarian. I don’t remember exactly where she came from, but I know it was a Russo-Slovakian country.
Anyway, she obviously made an impression on me, and I loved her name, so I started using it in stories. Somewhere along the years, I added an extra "t," which means I misspelled Ivetta's name. Oops. But that's what happened with my name when my mother named me (in that case, switched one vowel for another), so whatever. We’ll call it creative license instead of a mistake.
I almost always write my main character as an eighteen-year-old girl who is an orphan, only has a mother, or, if she has both parents, they're dying. Yep, sad, I know, but it cuts down on the family interactions I have to incorporate into a story, and it gives me plenty of room to make the background up as I go, because I don't plan my stories. As for the age, I started writing for fun when I was twelve, so I guess eighteen marked adulthood for me.
So at the beginning of ADT/ABT, Ivetta is eighteen and has no last name, no family background, and a dying mother. And originally, I didn't want the reader to even know that much. My plan (I use that word very loosely) was to have the story take place in the palace, starting when she walked through the doors in the morning and ending when she left in the evening. The reader would never know more than Chev or any of the other princes until the pivotal point in the story when she ended up in trouble and they found out everything she'd been hiding.
You can thank my mother for talking me into changing that.
Since I don't plan, Ivetta has developed with each subsequent rewrite of the story. She has always been an eighteen-year-old who is much more mature than a typical girl of her age, which is why the princes think she's older than she looks. She's always had long, straight, silky black hair (no bangs, parted in the middle, pulled back in a simple ponytail while she works), bright green eyes, and a tendency to blush easily, and she's always been small (only five feet tall, because I like height differences in romance).
Writing ABT helped me elaborate on her description by seeing her through Chev's eyes. She now has a heart-shaped face, full pink lips, and a slender but shapely build. Basically, she isn't a Victoria's Secret model, but she has enough curves to add to the illusion of maturity. By the time he and his brothers find out she's younger than they thought, they're already hooked.
As for her personality, she's sweet but sassy, naturally distrusting of everybody (especially men), and yet naturally compassionate. She can't help helping people, even when doing so puts her in a bad position. She has a strong work ethic, excellent observational skills, and the ability to make quick connections and fast deductions, so while she's no genius, her above-average intellect allows her to stand on equal footing with any of the princes, including Chev.
All of that means she's well-positioned to catch Chev's attention. He attributes no value to others beyond their usefulness, and from a purely practical standpoint, she's very useful. But she also challenges him. He's used to nobody except his brothers questioning or opposing him, and yet she isn't afraid to tell him what she thinks.
But, as he discovers, her background has wiped out her self-esteem and any sense of hope. She expects abuse, and she believes nobody will help her, so she doesn't bother asking. She deals with trauma by not dealing with it. However, that isn't really mentally sustainable, so the trauma comes back in nightmares.
In a nutshell, she’s a beautiful, sweet, intelligent girl on the outside, but on the inside, she’s an emotional mess. And I really amped that aspect up with my latest rewrite, because there’s no way she could make it to this point in her life without a hefty dose of PTSD. (Sorry, Ivetta.)
So, the only way she's getting into a romantic relationship is if a man works hard to earn her trust. Once he manages that, she'll then think he deserves someone better than her, which means he'll have to help her see her own worth.
In other words, I'm flipping the script from the game and making Chev pursue Ivetta. Because chivalry is not dead, especially for the guy who has the word in his name.
And I am a sucker for a protective, strong male lead rising to the occasion when a strong female lead ends up in a difficult situation.
I think that’s plenty without including spoilers. For ADT/ABT, anyway.
But then there’s AWT/ACT. You know, the version where Ivetta ends up with Gilbert?
I don’t plan my stories, per se, but I have been thinking about AWT/ACT. And I was going to tell y’all a little about it here, but then I realized I would spoil a huge part of the plot by doing so, so nope. Not gonna do it.
Hint: The turning point is when Ivetta is five years old. Her mother makes a single decision, and that changes everything.
I’m so excited to write this story. I have too many stories to write and too little time!
Oh, oh, wait! One more thing. Two more, actually.
I know there are people who don't like age-gap romances, and I also know I've suckered a lot of you into ADT/ABT by not revealing Ivetta's age until after I had you hooked. And I know the age difference still bothers some people even after that. I get it. It's a significant difference. And I plan on discussing that in a separate chapter soon to explain where I'm coming from, because it's a delicate issue.
Also, I want to address consent and treatment of women within a historical context. The princes aren't exactly on their best behavior at the beginning of ADT/ABT, and while Ivetta sets them straight eventually, I think this is another important topic that needs a little elaboration, too.
Later. Maybe next week. We'll see.
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