It will never not be funny to me that the relationship between Volta and Mabel in GSR happened completely by accident and was not my original intention. My original ideas all centered around Mabel being enamored with Ellen.
But then I simply considered the situation and went to @Syntaxtakes and was like, “But what if this instead?” And here we are!
Funny how characters take on their own lives huh? We’re just along for the ride.
To further reflect:
Mabel and Volta fall into each other for a variety of reasons, and I desperately wanted it to feel organic. I despise forced romances in writing, absolutely make my skin crawl.
The two of them being nerds together, and slowly coming to terms with the fact that they liked spending time with each other, and then that they identified with each other despite the age gap?
I'm very please with how it all shook out truth be told. I am very glad Syn let me play with that doll~!
The idea for Mabel to doggedly pursue Ellen was not helped at all by GSR primarily taking place before Ellen starts "opening up" (post-Carmelle Arc). From a meta perspective, it would have been hard to finagle a relationship into a time period I'd already written a whole lot of stories in without mentioning Mabel's existence (because she started writing around when "All I Want For Korpsmas" came out).
Having Mabel's pursuit of Ellen stymied - and then having Mabel watch as Ellen gets all moony over Carmen, with whom she has a Complicated relationship - is a fun quagmire that we're still writing our way through!
(Relatedly: Ellen was originally supposed to end up with Volta, but as Mabel mentions, characters have minds of their own and it was clear pretty quickly from the dialogue between the two that they see each other more like annoying siblings than anything - which was further solidified in "A Strong Foe"!)