Love Endures (A SV-Original Erotica Quest)

An Off-The-Record Interview With Scintilla Ai
Magica Mag: I'd like to thank you for this rare opportunity, Scintilla. ★Asterism★ hardly ever gives out-of-character interviews.

Scintilla: We're the stars, you know? We're beautiful, but faraway. And none of us really want to deal with being recognized on the street or having people turn up at our houses.

Magica Mag: It must be a strain for you all to maintain not one, but two completely different stage personae.

Scintilla: Not really? Actors often play multiple parts, and it's hardly unknown for idol groups to do costume changes during show intermissions.

MM: I'm already noticing that you seem a lot more similar to ★STARBRAID★ than your civilian persona. You'd expect it to be the other way around.

Scintilla: Both halves of me draw a lot from my experiences. Scintilla's closer to how I was before I joined ★Asterism★: Silver Braid gets the confidence I've earned from my time in show business.

MM: Recently, Reina's seemed to flirt with Silvie at times during your shows. Do the fans just have their yuri goggles on, or is that intentional?

Scintilla: That's intentional. The Magical Girl genre's always had a strong undercurrent of lesbian representation, and now that the band's future is secure, we're able to start taking more risks with our shows.

MM: "More risks", you say. You've already got quick-changes, pyrotechnics, a magical-girl theme and a mysterious masked member. How on earth are you planning to top that?

Scintilla: Let's just say we're entering the myth arc of the band. We've got enough long-term fans that we can start to use all the elements we've established - Reina's recklessness, Vanessa's snobbishness, and Silvie's connection to Black Starfall, among others.

MM: I've been meaning to ask - well, it's clear that your civilian names have meaning to your characters. Reina Shatter is the cocky rebel who does the impossible. Vanessa Moonbow is graceful as a butterfly, and also plays the cello. You're the "heart" of the team, with a shining love that helps others up when they're down. But - what on earth is a "Heartsake"?

Scintilla: Ooh, good question. Silvie will be pleased.

MM: Are you going to answer it?

Scintilla: Yeah, I'm just lining the words up in my head. If I get this wrong Silvie will kill me.

*takes a breath*

A Heartsake is a reason to live. It's something that gives your life meaning.
It can also mean "something painful you treasure"; a keepsake of a heartache, in other words.

MM: Okay, I'm going to ask you point blank: is Silvie Starfall?

Scintilla: *laughs*

How on earth do they appear on stage together, then?

MM: I don't know, magic? Maybe Starfall is from another timeline?

Scintilla: We prefer our magical girl series without time travel. It's too easy for it to make the plot a total mess.

MM: I'll note that's not a denial.

Scintilla: I'm already talking more about Starfall than I should be; I'm not going to give you a straight yes or no.

I will note that she's a full head shorter than our leading lady, though.

MM: It does seem pretty implausible that you could find a body double for her and knock off a foot of her height. After all, magic doesn't really exist.

Scintilla: Are you sure about that?

Both: *laughter*

Scintilla: Anyway, I'm sure you have more to ask about than just Starfall.

MM: Yeah! How's your first studio album coming along?

Scintilla: It's been a pain, especially for Starfall - we're very careful about her identity, so she's had to wear her full visor most days, and it's not really designed to fit in a sound booth.

MM: Who built [the visor] in the first place?

Scintilla: That would be Silvie; she does all our prop and costuming work. That's also why she does the choreography; she knows what's safe to handle roughly and what's not.

MM: You definitely have a lot of talent on your team. Who's responsible for the visual work?

Scintilla: Reina does our pyrotechnics, as I'm sure you know; the digital effects and light cuing are mine.

MM: It's very unusual for an A/V engineer like yourself to be up on-stage with the band. How do you monitor songs while you're actively performing?

Scintilla: I don't. That's why I'm a backup dancer and vocalist, not anything heavier. The headphones built into my costume are sound-cancelling, and I can memorize simple choreography well enough to do it by muscle memory; those bell-like sleeves conceal a set of controls for adjusting and switching between monitors, and the LED star-patterns on the arms and hands give me visual feedback on EQ.

MM: - so the "magic gestures" you do during performances...?

Scintilla: Are mostly so I can look at my board and adjust the monitors, yes.

MM: Silvie really reduced an entire monitor board into a wearable form?

Scintilla: Not quite - some of the things we want in our mix are hardcoded - but it's good enough to let me do double duty when the choreography needs five.

MM: What about when you're singing? You have very unique vocals, but we don't hear them much; is that because it's risky for you to use them?

Scintilla: I can't monitor the mixing at the same time as I'm monitoring my own vocals. That means the EQ has to be handed off to someone else while I sing, and those transitions must be handled smoothly, or they could kill the whole performance.

The advantage is that it lets me cheat.

MM: Cheat?

Scintilla: My voice isn't actually that great; I don't have a lot of training, so my breath control is poor. What I do have is two whole hands full of vocorder controls the instant I stop using them for mixing.

MM: So even your "natural" voice -

Scintilla: - is pitch corrected, yes.

MM: Don't you feel like that's lying to your fans?

Scintilla: I was hesitant at first, yes, but Silvie talked me into it. We're not trying to hide it; after all, my voice is obviously processed. As performing artists, isn't it our duty to use whatever we can to produce the best music possible?

MM: Some people might say you're using it as a crutch.

Scintilla: Yeah! I absolutely am using it as a crutch. Now I'm going to turn the question back on you: Why is that a bad thing?

MM: Because you're... not actually that talented?

Scintilla: Why should music only be the domain of talented people? I agree with Silvie: everyone should be able to make music, not just those who happened to win the genetic lottery.

MM: I think what I meant to say is - you haven't put in the effort to gain that kind of singing voice naturally?

Scintilla: Nobody naturally sounds like a robot.

MM: That's not what I mean!

Scintilla: Yes, I get your point. Not getting proper vocal training is a good way to damage your voice if you're a performing artist. But that's a safety issue, not a worthiness issue.

Magical Girls are about accepting your flaws and aspiring anyway. So what if I have a prosthetic voice? It's still me singing, still me shaping that sound and bringing it to my fans. If you take your argument to its natural conclusion, we'd have to ban amplification, sound synthesis, and in fact any kind of instrument at all.

MM: Okay, let's not let this derail things. I was meaning to ask - do you five ever talk to each other casually, off work?

Scintilla: Not really, no. ★Asterism★ is definitely a passion project, but by the time we're done practice we're usually sick and tired of each other's company. Sometimes we celebrate big news together, but we don't really get together socially. If we're together, we're working.

MM: ... and checking my watch, it looks like we're already five minutes over time. I still have a ton of questions, but I'm sure you have to run. I hope you have a great concert on Tuesday!

Scintilla: Oh gosh, I do need to run. Thanks for having me; I hope to see you there!

MM: I'll be there!

This vote will be open 24 hours.

How many protagonists?
[ ][Plot Threads] We'll have a single protagonist, and focus entirely on them.
[ ][Plot Threads] We'll have two protagonists, and work both ends towards the middle.

Of the high-voted options, who?
[ ][Character] Be Queen Valerie.
[ ][Character] Be Silvie Heartsake.
[ ][Character] Be Isabel Lillian Amber.