Question Who's your parent?

Kind of stuck on who's raising a kid for my Christmas Winter story; Father is a B- villain and had a run in with a Mystic who some how fracked up his ability to manifest a shell. Kid is born and to protect the baby girl the father has her turned into a boy, with the effect to end when she manifests.

I'm just not sure who to have raise the kid, as the father can't, and I'm beginning to think the mother is dead. Any suggestions?

When I saw it was for Christmas Winter I was going to recommend Elves... but it might be better to use someone related to the kid. Perhaps grandparents... or maybe Elven Grandparents... You could also go with Wolves or Apes if you're not afraid of being too cliche.

Insted of Elves, have him/her raised by Elvis.

OR, said Villain could foist the kid off on a Superhero to raise, only to return in a Darth Vader outfit and rasp, "Matthew... I am your father...."

I was going to suggest that they get put up for adoption and taken in by a rosy little man named Ernie who runs a small family bakery. Elvis is way better though. But would it be the real (under-cover?) Elvis, or just an impersonator? Maybe he's the real Elvis pretending to be an impersonator, and the protagonist doesn't know about that at first.

What's the father's backstory? Is there someone obvious in his old life to leave the kid with?

What about the mother? Did she have someone she left behind?

Any cousins? Grandparents? Godparents?


This probably isn't the direction you were planning on going with the character - but I had this idea that the shapechange left the girl identifying as female despite being physically a boy. She thinks that she's a normal transgender until she learns about the shapechange, and it's expiration date... but she's a late manifestor (or if you're feeling really mean, not a mutant at all) and has to live with the hope and fear that that brings.

One option if the father has no control of who raises the kid, say if he was arrested and the babysitter eventually calls the police because the father did not return and then they call social services....

Two the father calls cashes in his Syndicate insurance and that network places the kid with a family.

Three the kid is raised by a loyal minion/retainer/girlfriend.

Why hide the gender? Maybe to stop magic from finding the child? Is their a reason someone is looking for the child that hard?
Maybe the father is a really nasty piece of work and he promised his first born daughter as a bride to some evil nastiness on her X birthday. So the hero changed the gender of the innocent till after that birthday to make the contract unfulfillable?

The Dursley's? An Aunt and uncle who to to deny his father is a villain etc.

Crypto, what you need to do is ask yourself 'What sort of parent suits the story I'm writing?'

The Dursley's work within the Harry Potter continuity, because they're just so bloody awful that you can't help but feel for Harry, and they set the contrast between their rabid rigid orthodoxy and the wild, free-spiritedness of the Wizarding community.

Are you going for contrast? 'How can I be the son of Dr. Bloodclaw, the horriffic Satanist? My father is Reverend Goodhope!'

Are you going for a strange sense of elevation? 'What? You mean that my father's really the dashing rogue the Crimson Pirate? I'm NOT genetically compelled to abide by the stifling Disney Chaneel ethics that my foster parents have been pushing down my throat?"

Are you going for genetic horror? "What you you MEAN my father is Ripclaw the Evicertor, the misshapen thing that tore Captain Purity apart on TV? I'm going to inherite THOSE genes?" Or since this is Whateley, 'What do you mean, my FATHER is Bodacious, the Supervillainess that every superhero wants to thwart? I mean, my father?'

What is the dramatic purpose that the foster parents serve? Are they the Good Parents, the Bad Parents, the merely ordinary parents, or what? When you've got that, Crypto, then the answer should be obvious.