I've always been pretty good at dreaming. I've been a spy, an (unsuccessful) assassin, once I dreamed a house in the woods for myself. I can remember what the heated floors felt like and how the layout of the house made no sense. I took things a step further with the idea that someone could dream the future, and then had a vague notion of this person being unable to go out and do things like a normal person, so they lied about having to go to a mountain or something just so they could get out for once. That was as far as the idea got for years.

Once Melissa started solidifying into her own person I started working on my Dreamer concept. I knew I wanted her to be younger, but couldn't decide if she was a teenager or a preteen. She was originally going to constantly be sleepy and always have bedhead. I stuck a bunch of clothes on her and said she was trying to look like a pirate, which is I guess how she ended up being eleven years old. I streamlined her costume a lot because it was Too Much, but I do miss that the medallion she was going to be wearing was a complete red herring. She found it on the ground once and thought it looked neat and decided it was important to her because she's just a kid.

I made her blonde because it looked like a fun color to use.

She's named after the English queens because I felt like it, and Porter is intended to be a common and low-class surname. She and her mother are in a high station solely because of her abilities.