I was goofing off with Illustrator and made a quick little Eldora design. After some feedback on deviantart, and a few tweaks, I made it into a shirt design. I’ve always wanted to make some kind of Chio shirt and I’m actually pretty happy with how this looks. :B As an aside, I’ve heard good things from a couple of other artists I follow about this mysoti thing, so I figure I’ll try it. They really can’t be any worse than Cafepress, which isn’t all that bad, either. The one shirt I have from them has held up just fine for the past five years and zillion washes it’s been through, so hooray. Or something.

Anyway, I’ve been pretty amused for a while at how “I’m a brave Chio” has caught on among readers, especially with the fanart I’ve gotten of late, so it’s probably about time to tell the tale of the origin of “I’m a brave Chio.” 😀

Way way back in the day, around when I was just starting high school, I liked to write. I was bored and had a lot of time, and so I started in on this long, rambly thing that eventually turned into Messenger. One of my best friends at the time was also into writing, so we would swap chapters of whatever we were working on and trade commentary. We made “soundtrack” CDs for each other (burning CDs was a new and cool thing at the time) and joined the writing club at school together.

Years later, when we were both in college and I was scripting the original story into a comic, I asked this same friend for some help putting together dialogue for chapter five. I just kept getting stuck on the words despite having all the action outlined. I knew what needed to happen, I just couldn’t make the dialogue flow. No matter what I did, it kept coming out flat and unnatural, and it seemed like an opportunity to stick in something cute or ridiculous, and I just couldn’t get it right. My friend was now a couple of years into a writing major, so I sent off a frustrated “SAVE ME” email, trying to explain my problem. Though I had most of the action and a general sense of what the characters needed to say, he finessed it all together and included the now-infamous “I’m a brave Chio” line. I had a good laugh at simply how ridiculous and perfect it was, and kept it.

We’ve both been joking about it for years up to now; the script was written probably in 2005 or early 2006, but between my long breaks due to college and the page-a-week pace the comic regularly goes at, I didn’t get to touch that section of the story until 2009. It was killing me to sit on that, so I’m doubly amused that it’s sort of a mini-meme now.

Fast forward to. Well. Now. Last year, actually. After spending the better part of forever being best friends, we got married. Aww. We continue to make “I’m a brave Chio” jokes, as well. And if my goofy husband ever has some kind of public web presence, I’ll paste in a link for credit. (Hint, hint :B )

And that is the tale of “I’m a brave Chio.” 😀