Faerie Dark

After approximately 5 or so months, the first draft of “The City With No Animals” is complete! Yay!

That’s kind of a big deal!

It’s a good story. It definitely needs some work, but I feel like I have a strong foundation to go on. Now – onto building more framework for this project.

Each story has a series of projects to go with it – ways of exploring the world deeper and getting more of a feel for it. I call them “Material Collections”, after the Sailor Moon artbook of the same name. I’ve always loved supporting materials to go with stories – things that help you get further and further into that world. I think this will help make a more entertaining experience, and maybe even help me write better. Now that the first draft is done, I want to set it aside and work on some of 001′s Material Collection. After a series of these projects, I think I can go back and look at the story with new eyes – maybe having learned more about the world and characters than I knew before starting it.

Because this is the first story, it’s going to be some extra work setting up how I want things to look and progress as I move forward. What are essentials for each story? What are my goals? How do I want to express this story?

I think every story should include a character study of the main character(s). I think this is kind of crucial. The City With No Animals is in present, first person point of view – which lends to an intimate view of the world. I love the characters, their affinities, their thoughts. I think it’s the collection of characters and how they experience life that makes me want to write these stories.

As a writer, I struggled a bit with Mylene’s story because I worried she was too much like me. So much of what I was experiencing while writing went into the writing. For Mylene, that works because she is a lot like me – but what about when I want to branch out and work on other characters? Not all of them are going to think and react so much like me – I’ll need to understand their intimate details to be able to portray them well. Character studys are a good way to do this because they’ll help me get into their thoughts, feelings, and understand more of their experiences. It’ll also help me check up on continuity – since I’ll have to link their life history to people and places, I’ll be able to make sure it all fits together.

Another positive about making Material Collections is that writing is really repetitive work – it’s in the head, it’s on the chair, it’s hunched over the computer. I want to be able to create in different ways – so making things by hand or creating things that can be enjoyed other ways than just reading I think will be very balancing and help me become a good artist.

I think each Material Collection should have a cohesive sense of style and aesthetic. I love picking themes, colours, and projects that go with the theme of the story. Choosing symbols and colours for each character, through the character study, will create a pleasing framework to incorporate all the projects of each Material Collection.

The last point is monetization. Creating and selling the books for the stories is one source of income – but I think it’s more reliable and better business sense of to have multiple sources of income. Some of the projects for the Materials Collection can serve as alternate forms of income – since part of my desire is to gain a large part of my income through this website.

My next step is is to pick the projects I’d like to do for Mylene’s Material Collection, a time frame to work on them, and then get started!

I finished watching Paradise Kiss last night. I love it! It’s so inspiring!

Today, I’m thinking about George. During the last few episodes, when the tiara and necklace for the Grand Prix are confiscated – he chooses to dye roses blue to match the dress. When Arashi tells him he should just buy then, George tells him that Isabella put her heart into growing the roses so their use has meaning in their show. At one point, he calls himself a charlatan, showing people fleeting dreams.

George’s dramatic flair is compelling. It shows a commitment to the moment and bringing his dreams into reality.

He says there isn’t anything that’s impossible in the world of art.

Hearing that, I recall moments of inspiration I’ve had – watching a show, or reading something, or listening to something. I wanted to capture that feeling over and over again – being swept up in something beautiful.

It never lasted though. Eventually it felt like I’d have to abandon hope of holding it. I think I forgot that part of that inspiration was enjoying what it inspired me to create. I didn’t just feel good because I had seen something beautiful, I felt good because I also wanted to create something beautiful. That spark that someone else had given me – it could become a seed. I could make it into something more – something that would inspire others and given them that moment of surrender. Nothing’s impossible in the world of art.

Something about George reminds me of Yurome. She has a serenity about her – she’s kind of a background character right now. But underneath is something unsatisfied. Like Miette, she’s looking for something. Unlike Miette, she doesn’t know what it is – or has already started to lose things.

In a way, Yurome is more an epitome of the White City than even Mylene because she has that longing, that wistful air. Of all the cities on this planet, the White City is perhaps the only one that is so close to the past. An entire quarter of their city is blocked off because of it. In other cities, it’s easier to forget.

In a way, I think watching George I can understand Yurome and myself a bit better. That longing for something beautiful, for paradise – that desire to bring your dreams to life.

I’ve been watching so much anime recently – which is awesome and kind of inspiring. But it can be so high drama sometimes. Paradise Kiss is the perfect remedy. Not only is it a bit more down to earth, a more mature story about very cool characters as opposed to magical girls and mecha – it’s also aesthetically very inspiring. The animation is great, quirky and the characters themselves are mostly design students- so they look awesome.

I’ve been having a good writing run recently on The City With No Animals, so much so that I feel like I’m almost done the first draft.

So – what do I find inspiring about Paradise Kiss?

Well, a group of design students working on their own fashion brand for one – totally awesome. Ai Yazawa’s stories always have great fashion in them which I love. Fashion is hugely self-expressive. Watching this makes me want to gut my closet and and start all over again.

The idea of an underground studio with a pink door, a butterfly emblem, and the name “Paradise Kiss” is also just cool. There’s something very inspiring about seeing someone, either alive or in media, making their own space. Something about it makes me feel kind of nostalgic – like I’ve been too serious about some things and not serious enough about others. I think I’ve gotten very comfortable with the way things are…

But that’s part of the reason why I’m writing here, making this website! I’m going to share my stories! It’s something only I can do…

Honestly, Ai Yazawa is very inspiring to me. I want to make something in tribute to her somewhere in the the dark world. Watching this makes me think of Yurome – and how she doesn’t really have a story yet.

We’ll see…

I was playing on Myanimelist.net today, looking up anime that I’d seen and “Seraphim Call” caught my eye. I remembered seeing it & liking it enough to want to watch it again.

Episode 1 opens with a crisis situation on a man-made island. I thought that was kind of amusing. I’m not sure where the idea of the three artificial islands in FD came from, but it may even have been here!

The police wonder where the scientist who can shut the program down is. Turns out she’s unreachable, because her data is gone and she may even bee in an secret lab! Oh noes!

Cut to a secret lab, possibly underground, a girl is woken up by an alarm clock and a female android announcing it’s noon! She’s missed her exam! And the police somehow have tracked down her phone number. Turns out she invented the technology that’s been stolen & is causing a crisis in the city. It’s been used to plant bombs all over the city that will detonate simultaneously at 3 pm! She’s the only one with the DNA passcode who can disengage the program! Oh noes x2!

I like that DNA passcode thing. Something else that’s already been put into D-City, though I can definitely say that didn’t come from here. But I’m kind of excited to watch this all over again, because the futuristic city might give me some good new ideas to play with.

There seems to be some hesitation on Yukina’s part – but she decides she has to do something & calls a friend of hers from school. Yukina shares that she suffers from a phobia of men, which explains her hesitation. They’re interrupted by the teacher, and the connection gets lost. Yukina then decides she can’t sit there worrying – that it’s the perfect time to say goodbye to the nervous Yukina.

Yukina is pretty adorable!

The police are attempting (and failing) to disarm a bomb. Yukina is practicing what she’ll say to the big scary man. Finally she calls the police sergeant but his abrupt behaviour & Y chromosome prove to be too much for her and she hangs up on him, faints, and is spontaneously covered in what appears to be a sleeping bag.

She has a vivid dream in which she steals her brother’s bike and arrives just in time to disarm the bomb, then wakes up. The police scurry around worrying why she hasn’t called back. One of them informs the others that they’ve arrested an uncooperative suspect who won’t tell them anything.

A giant robot that can’t be traced or identified shows up outside. Just as the police are about to fire, Yukina’s voice comes from the robot stating her name and asking to be let through. Turns out the robot is her solution to her fear of men. Unfortunately, the police want to verify her identity. She begs them to let her through. The sergeant is informed of the mysterious begging robot & that they’ve been ordered by their superior to evacuate Central Point. In 30 minutes, the bomb will go off.

Yukina suggests everyone but the commander outside turns around, since she thinks she can face just one person. The commander comments on how cute she is, which of course causes all the police officers to turn and look at her. She opens her eyes, sees everyone looking at her, and poof! Faint & sleeping bag!

The police have moved her sleeping bag in front of the deadly deadly bomb that’s about to go off in 3 minutes. Turns out Yukina’s school friend is coaching the police through a laptop, telling them to stay hidden so Yukina can’t see them. They slide the laptop across the floor. Despite all the tactics the police have used to wake Yukina up, it’s her friend that does the trick by telling her something uber geeky. ♥

Once she’s awake, her friend asks her to stop the bomb. She does so, the police are overjoyed and surround her. She tries really hard not to faint because she still has something to do (presumably apologize for hanging up on the sergeant) but she passes out again anyways. The police misunderstand and freak out, thinking the bomb is still going to explode.

Cut to Yukina building something new… a Yukina apology robot. End episode.

That was… silly. ^_^;

Yukina was pretty cute. Her major handicap added some tension to the episode. But mostly it was silly.

On to episode 2!

Open with – kero kero! Kero kero! It’s Tanpopo-chan’s room and her froggy alarm clock is trying to wake her up! She gets up, gets changed, and starts saying good morning to all the toys in her room. One of which seems to be us. The camera never moves, so it’s implied that we’re one of the toys on her shelf when she comes over and tells us that we don’t have a name yet… After she gets called for breakfast, she decides our name is… dun dun dun… Margarine! Fade out!

Fade in! Tanpopo-chan decides which bow to wear in her hair and froggy clock tells her her first class is about to begin. She hurries to her computer, logs on to her online class, and gets to work! Safe! Fade out!

Fade in! Tanpopo-chan gets email and starts chatting with her friend! Teacher catches her! Oh noes! Fade out!

Fade in! Tanpopo-chan makes up a story about the Kingdom of Sleep for one of her toy friends. Kero kero! It’s almost time for gym class! She gets changed into her school uniform, which shows she attends the same school as Yukina. She notices our eyes from across the room, and picks us up – telling us our full name – Margarine Von Half-Calorie. We’re actually human, apparently, and the Prince of the Land of Dreams. The colour of our eyes is proof. She turns us toward the mirror so that we can see ourselves. We’re kind of cute!

Because we protected the dreams of people, the Queen of Nightmares resented us and turned us into a stuffed animal! That’s why adults forget the beautiful dreams they had as children. She relates a whole fairytale to us, before Froggy reminds her she has to go catch a bus. She places us facing the window and then leaves. Fade out!

Fade in! A bird hangs out with us, we watch a helicopter, then a flying sign, and listen to another toy repeat his catch phrase over a few times. Fade out!

Fade in! Tanpopo-chan returns! She turns us around so we can see the rest of her room! She tells everyone that her friend Chi-chan ahs a crush on a boy. Chi-chan arrives a few minutes later. Fade out!

Fade in! Chi-chan hangs out and gets to meet all the new friends! The boy she likes is Tanpopo-chan’s older brother! He brings Tanpopo-chan crayons, while Chi-chan blushes. Chi-chan comments on what a nice brother Tanpopo-chan has. Tanpopo-chan agrees and Tanpopo starts drawing a picture of Margarine.. well, us. Fade out!

Fade in! Tanpopo-chan reminisces about how Chi-chan used to play Story with her and how she loved her stories. Chi-chan tries to get Tanpopo-chan’s attention and tells her she can’t do this any more. Tanpopo is confused. Chi-chan gets mad, says they aren’t kids any more, and leaves. Tanpopo chases after her. Fade out!

Fade in! It’s much later, Tanpopo-chan comes back and starts relating Margarine’s story again. She asks why everyone forgets, saying that all of her friends used to be able to talk to her toys. She asks why again and when Margarine doesn’t answer her, she drops it… us? She goes to her desk and starts to cry. Fade out!

Fade in! Tanpopo-chan’s computer turns on, announcing she has a voice mail. It’s Chi-chan, apologizing for what she said earlier. She says she might be a little jealous of Tanpopo because she can’t talk to stuffed animals. She says she hopes Tanpopo never changes. Fade out!

Fade in! Tanpopo-chan is back in a good mood and says goodnight to everyone. She remembers we’re on the floor and picks us up, apologizing and giving us a kiss goodnight. Fade out!

Fade in! Kero kero! It’s a new day! Time to wake up, Tanpopo-chan! She gets up and the doorbell goes off! Fade out!

Fade in! The police are in Tanpopo-chan’s room! With a tracking machine! It beeps! It beeps especially at us! Oh noes!

He says our eyes are cameras! Eek! They saw some illegal transmission activity going on. Someone’s been taping Tanpopo-chan through Margarine! The police officer finds the transmission unit and breaks it, saying they’re going to catch the person! Eek!

End episode!

I really liked this one. I liked the challenge of the perspective changing where the toy is moved. The continuity of things in the room is also really good. I noticed at one point that we never say Tanpopo change clothes, but that each time we saw more of it – an arm, her legs – depending on where we were. Eventually in the last few minutes, she starts to change right in front of the camera before the doorbell rings. I think this might have been deliberate. If someone was spying on her, it would up the anticipation, assuming they were doing it for creepy sexual reasons.

I remember really liking this one the first time too, since it was the only story I recall. I’m not sure why. I like the fact that the peeping Tom didn’t catch Tanpopo-chan and I liked the stories she told about her friends. I also liked the mix of online and in person classes.

Aside from that, I don’t think anything else really sticks out to me inspiration wise.

The idea started with a dream I had about a woman turning into a little white mouse with a red scarf. Over time, elements like her being a model came up. I thought the idea of her accidentally turning into a mouse while in a sketch class was pretty cute. Over time, I named her Mylene and developed the idea that there were no animals in the city.

Once I had the idea for the story in my mind, I knew I wanted to start creating a small scale city to figure out how it worked. Other stories took place in other, larger cities and I wanted to start with something a little more manageable to get practice.

I knew the aesthetics of the place. I wanted lots of open spaces with charming details to feed the sensual people that lived there. The city’s aesthetics were really built around Mylene. She was my ambassador, an average citizen. Once I had her voice, I built the city around her. She liked the colours red, black, and grey and she was charmed by beautiful details. I wanted the city to reflect this.

One of my first inspirations for the city was Paris. I’ve been working in a book store and came across a photo book about architecture photos shot in Paris. It was beautiful. I knew this was the kind of city Mylene would live in. I pulled a few elements from the pages that I loved like the wrought iron detailing, the painted signs, and tons of beautiful little courtyards and stonework.

I knew from the stories I was working on that I wanted there to be few kids and lots of greenspace. I didn’t want the population to be too dense. I knew there were no animals and I knew that most of their public serves were handled by administration, automation, and robotics.

Next, I needed to figure out the geography of the city. I started with about 24 acres, but after figuring out how much land that was, it seemed much too small. I decided to pattern the city after the Vatican city and ended up with 800 people on about 1000 acres. From there, I decided that one third of the population would be coupled, and that about 100 of those people would be children.

Real cities are much denser, but because of the history of the place – knew I needed a small population.

After I had my population and size, I had to think about how many buildings I wanted. I chose 300 because it seemed like a good number. Using math and my population numbers, I figured out 140 of the buildings would be a variety of housing for the population – a mixture of apartments and houses. For example, I decided that the apartment buildings would be at most 3 levels, made a third of them one bedroom, a third two bedrooms, etc.

From there, we made a list of the different public buildings the city would need.

- food, sanitation, water
- clothing
- public administration
- entertainment
- career

There are no animals in the city so it was important to remember that when going through the list. Remembering the culture of the city was very useful here. I knew that they needed handmade quality goods, that mass production was unheard of. I knew that they were artistic and had lots of galleries. I also knew that this city had a history as an academy town – the island it’s on was built to house a school and the needs of the students.

From there, I thought about what felt right. I liked the romance of water flowing through the city, so originally I wanted a river. I wasn’t sure of the geographical reprocutions of having a river on an island – so I made them canals instead. My friend who was helping me brainstorm that day asked if there could be covered bridges. I looked them up and thought they’d look lovely with the wrought iron details I’d see in the Paris book, so I added that in.

*** SPOILER ***
Also, since iron is historically said to block faerie magic, I thought it was kind of funny that Mr. Darcy would use it in his reconstruction of the city.
*** END SPOILER ***

By the end of it, I had a reasonable vision of what the city would look like.

Next is hashing out logistics. Because it’s an island, some of the elements that the White City would need would have to be shipped in. Airplanes aren’t really used, so it would have to be by boat. That meant there needed to be docks. I decided that the city would have 3 gates, one of them opening to docks for ships.

From there it was to flickr to look for examples of Paris architecture. As I went, I was inspired by the images that I saw. While searching for wrought iron, I saw frescos and thought they would be an interesting contrast to the elegant stone structures. I could just imagine Mylene thinking them garish and quaint at the same time. I also saw some ruins that inspired me to create a quarter that housed all the old buildings that Mr. Darcy couldn’t destroy. Even if he’s our resident bad guy, I think the psychic taint of so many deaths would be too much for even him to erase.

Now that the city was starting to take shape in my mind, with details and aesthetics, a few story elements that had inspired me before starting connecting with it. I sketched out a rough map of the quarters, blocking one of them off as the dead one.

Next, I needed to hash out the details of what daily life was like.