While there are some benefits to writing a prequel to a story, one of the problems inherent in them is that your characters have to end up at a specific point when the story concludes. This isn’t always a problem, especially if the character is sufficiently ambiguous (or there’s a length of time between the end of the prequel and the story it precedes). But it can be difficult (if not depressing at times) writing a story while knowing that the story may very well end on a downer note. No doubt this is an issue that cartoonists Emily Brady and Ally Nuttall have faced while crafting the comic Magical Transvestite Cherry, which focuses on the only sympathetic member of the School of Marketable Magic (aka, Magical Girls) in the webcomic Footloose, seeing that when we first meet Steve (aka Cherry), he’s pretty much the reluctant minion to Footloose’s initial antagonist, Sparkle.
The foundation for Steve’s fall has already been laid, with Sparkle having acquired his father’s e-mail address and blackmail material, though to be honest, I’m not sure how Steve’s dad could do anything to him while he’s in Faerie… and I easily thought of a half dozen ways for him to sabotage Sparkle’s blackmail preemptively. Undoubtedly part of the reason he hasn’t is because he is destined (for a short while at least) to become Sparkle’s reluctant lackey. What’s worse, he’s found himself caught in the middle of the struggle between Sparkle and Daniel’s sister Jin; on the one hand, blackmail… the other? Sparkles (as opposed to the magical girl Sparkle), which are the bane to anyone in a cartoon environment. (I mean it. Keti suffered sparkles over An, and caused no end to the mischief inflicted on her in the first book of Footloose.)
In essence, Magical Transvestite Cherry is the story of Steve’s fall… while Footloose showcases his redemption (of a sort). It’s a rather depressing thought when you consider it. But we do know that Jin considered Steve decent enough to warn him away from Sparkle after the whole Failium incident rather than get him thrown out of the Dojo… and for more affectionate feelings to blossom between them. For MTC’s story to be complete, we would need to see not just his fall, but his redemption… which happened after Keti’s arrival. I must admit it would be amusing to see parts of Keti’s tale from Steve’s eyes, along with what it was that finally brings him and Jin together.