Some Great Thoughts - Tumblr Posts
so diego’s wedding is now out, and you know what that means: post-season wrap-up! 💐💍🍰💒
for this season, i have something special to add: i advised the art team on diego and MC’s wedding outfits! MC’s look was based on audrey hepburn’s famous dress from sabrina, and diego’s tailcoat is the almost hundred-year-old original that he mentioned having many seasons ago. i came into their wedding season with a very specific vision, and while the producers and art team still added their finishing touches, it was really generous of them to let me have as much creative input as i did.
a friend of mine once joked that diego “just wants to be sam spade.” it’s funny and true, so i enjoyed the idea of a more old-fashioned wedding for them. but in terms of the writing, MC’s dramatically different look meant more to me than that. i think there’s an important undercurrent in havenfall is for lovers - that MC, in the beginning, felt she’d lost her only chance to transform herself. she was a small-town misfit about to go off to college and get out, and when she had to come home and look after grace, that opportunity died. as she gets involved with each of the game’s LIs, her relationship to that changes. in mackenzie’s route, she finds value and family in the home she already has. antonio introduces her to a world of vampire intrigue. and in diego’s route, she learns that hopelessness has become a comfort zone she needs to break out of - that if she accepts help and love from others, she still has a chance to fly.
vampire stories are always about transforming, both literally and figuratively, and that’s something i’ve tried to stress throughout diego’s route. MC doesn’t just become a vampire. she gets back on the path of growth and self-discovery that her family tragedy put on hold. by the end of season 9, MC has married the man she loves, she’s ready to travel the world, and she even has a few career paths to think about. the fact that MC doesn’t recognize herself in her wedding gown is, if you ask me, just the logical conclusion of that. it’s the first time she’s seeing herself the way she wants to look - free of self-hatred, free of exhaustion and financial struggles dictating her fashion sense, free to live the life she wants and become the woman she wants to be.
there’s a line in diego’s season 4, episode 6 that i always come back to: “don’t assume someone’s never been a caterpillar if you’ve only seen them as a butterfly.” that line has a lot of personal meaning to me, and i loved being able to bring that idea around again. i’m not sure where diego and MC will go next, but i know it’s going to be an adventure. they’ve got a whole world to see, just the two of them, being - in grace’s words - “the cool, mysterious DINKs [they] were meant to be.”
