All art is at once surface and symbol

( Puri tries to think of ideal voice actors and seiyuu for her novel characters with Jean )

And then chat went dead, haha. XD Guuuuh, I really should be working on my novel again, but depression is a pain in the ass. :(

You ever have those songs that you've listened to for years, then when you go revisit them, you think, "O SNAP IT'S SO-AND-SO'S THEME SONG"? 'Cause I got that moment when I checked out Meryl Streep's take on "Stay With Me" from Into the Woods.

The main villain of the novel I'm working on is a nutcracker named Dr. Medlock. He's kidnapped one of the main characters, Raggedy Ann, and is holding her hostage while using her candy heart for an experiment he's working on. Said experiment is him trying to bring his lost daughter back to life; a ballerina doll named Clara that he took under his care until the day she disappeared in a fire reminiscent of the one from "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." Basically, he parallels Johnny Gruelle (creator of Raggedy Ann & Andy) and his grief over losing his daughter Marcella... except Dr. Medlock is a hell of a lot more psychotic and abusive. In spite of the verbal beatings, manipulation and punishment he administers, he develops a bizarre attachment to Ann as though she were Clara herself...

Here's a list of all my unfinished fanfiction and plot bunnies! Bear in mind that if a story has a title, it's definitely not its final one. I'm just naming them based off what their filenames are called.

( Without further ado, the list from hell. )

Raggedy Ann & Andy are tricky to make customizations of at things like doll-maker sites, mainly because they tend to wear bright old-fashioned clothing that nobody wears anymore (ex. Andy's goddamn pants). It's difficult to match their outfits with their hair, especially since I try to avoid giving them dreadlocks when I humanize them. The results I make are usually awkward and don't look that great. Thankfully, Ann & Andy seem to be built for the Animal Crossing world, 'cause they look absolutely adorable there. ;;



Allow me to demonstrate.

I'm not that far in the game yet and I've only just unlocked Kicks' shop, hence the lack of striped socks and Andy's less-than-accurate pants. You can't design pants in this game, so I still have to buy pants that match the color of Andy's overalls perfectly. I know he technically doesn't have straps, but what the hell, I can take artistic license. Same with Ann here; the stitched heart on her apron is something I added for my novel version of her. :3

( Want to dress as America's Favorite Ragdolls? Here's the QR Codes! :D )

Those with tumblr can reblog my codes from here. :3

This article is making me think about certain story-telling elements.

I don't necessarily agree with everything, but it does bring up some interesting points. Like how the "fantasy" elements in fantasy novels are usually depicted as "ZOMG-SOOOOO-MUCH BETTER!!11!1" than the real world, aka "boring ol' reality." The Hero's Journey has lately become a tale of leaving the "banal" world behind and embracing the supernatural. The author argues that this is the hero's way of "refusing to grow up."

Where I disagree is that while a Hero's Journey doesn't always have a "return," it doesn't mean that they're bashing reality. Take two of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales, "Thumbelina" and "The Little Mermaid." Thumbelina doesn't go back to her mom, and the mermaid doesn't go back to sea. But they're still bildungsromans in that they're newly formed "adults" trying to find their place in the world, with varying degrees of success. Thumbelina (and Disney's Ariel) make it, but the original mermaid wasn't so lucky. Their journeys are about finding a place they can return to.

That said, there's the treatment of adults, teens, and children in stories, and why I feel so alienated from a lot of YA and children's books lately.

There's this pervading feeling I'm getting that adults = bad, children = good. I know, I know, Adults Are Useless has been around since the beginning of time, but bear with me here. There's a lot of conflicting messages in society that vary from "Jesus, grow up." and "Childhood is the most magical age! I wish I were a kid again!" Hell, I've indulged a lot in the latter thinking. As a kid, I went back and forth between wanting to grow up or staying young forever. I'm almost 25 and I feel like I act younger than my age, and I don't know if it's a good or bad thing. I'm uncertain of who I am and I don't know everything like an adult "should." So when I read a YA or children's book that says, "Ugh, adults are stiff and unimaginative scum who are too old to understand anything, children are pure and awesome and know things older people can't possibly conceive!" I feel like a bunch of kids are frowning and pushing me off their sandbox saying, "Go away, you're grown up. We don't want you here anymore."

I'm not sure if I got the impression that adults were evil as a kid. When I was reading Dahl's books, the mean adults were punished because they were assholes, not necessarily because they were adults. You still had adults like Miss Honey and the Narrator's Grandmother from "The Witches" to look up, and I'm certain the bugs in "James and the Giant Peach" were grown-ups who adopted James. In Narnia, the adults weren't oblivious so much that I got to share a secret that only the Pevensies and I know. (That said, Lewis's dismissal of Susan in the last book pissed me off. How dare she try to build a life outside of Narnia, especially after the tragedy that befell her family!) In fact, through life, I got the impression that adults and children were capable of both good and evil.

I think that's part of why I love Lord of the Flies so much. Golding had the guts to say that not only can kids be bullies, they can be downright sadistic due to their undeveloped empathy. From what I learned in psychology, children have a "ME ME ME" mindset that makes it hard for them to understand complex emotions or see themselves in "another person's shoes." They're extremely literal. I still haven't finished reading Peter Pan, but I get a creepy vibe from Book!Peter because of his inability to grow up. To quote a review of the book: "Barrie loves the Child, but he does not hide its foolishness, its selfishness, its ignorance. The Child in this is almost pre-moral. They have some understanding of villainy, but do not grasp the virtue of a hero. Barrie deems a key attribute to being a child as being heartless." Hell, Battle Royale is engaging for me because it's about a bunch of high schoolers and the various "adult" choices they have to make against a violent dystopia.

While working on my novel, I found myself dealing a lot with the subject of childhood, nostalgia and growing up. In a way, a child who stops playing with a toy is an allegory for a toy beginning "adulthood." Eventually, you will be outgrown, and stop being played with. There's absolutely no stopping this, and that's okay. Now you have the freedom to learn, explore and grow, and that journey is never-ending. It's not easy, but life has its balance of ups and downs, and all of them worth experiencing. The book is about Ann & Andy's life after Marcella, and what happens to them. Maybe the novel is my way of helping myself adjust to adulthood and finally discover my place in the world. Hm.

DON'T MIND ME, JUST BABBLING.

Hey nightflight! Ninten came in the mail today. He's so cute! ;; I've set him up in my room so I can see his smiling face greeting me~ ♥ Thank you so much!

I saw a guy at the library who looked like Marius! Had the same hair style, though he was blond instead of brunette. He even had a vest! I think he was helping an 8-year-old boy with his homework or something. Aww. I would've loved to take a picture of him, though I don't want him to feel like I'm stalking him. Your looks just remind me of one of my novel characters, that's all! ;;

Other than that, I'm just feeling really blah. I want to play Animal Crossing: New Leaf with everyone else, but I don't have a 3DS yet. :( I could watch more Anime, but everytime I do, I'm always having trouble getting the damn TV to work, and then after that, figuring out which remote lets you move between DVD options. Ugh. That and my Mom and Dad watch TV all the time, so I could get kicked out at any moment. This goddamn sucks.

Why is it that I get fic ideas for Kink Bingo when I'm not in Kink Bingo, then as soon as I sign up for a round, my motivation dries up like a puddle in a desert? 'Cause I wanna do an "OFF" fic where Zacharie gives the Judge a bath (and maybe Valerie) for the washing/cleaning square. I've also been listening to a lot of Radiohead because it provides an OFFy atmosphere.

Back to sleep until tomorrow then.

So this is the longest Writer's Block I've had in my life. Let's assume that IRL stress/crappy and uninspiring environment/being in close proximity aren't major factors (which I know they are, but let's pretend I'm at an awesome creative place and I'm not burdened by family problems). I really want to work on my novel again, and I brainstorm and run scenes and character development in my head every single day. But the problem? I don't know where to start. I don't even know how the story begins.

I can't just skip ahead and write later scenes either. When I try that, I find myself feeling lost and I feel like I've skipped over pages and pages of character development so I don't know how I would write these people in their current situation. If I at least know how my story starts, then I'll be able to pave my own path and actually progress.

So here's the gist. In the beginning, I have to establish the following:

- The setting. What is the Nostalgia House? A labyrinthine museum full of bizarre collections including toys, puppets and dolls. I can't just describe the museum from the get-go though, or else the novel will go to a screeching halt at the first sentence and people will get bored after the first paragraph.

- Oh yeah, toys come to life when humans aren't around. How do I establish this without confusing the audience with too many details at once or stretching for paragraphs on and on before we get to the actual story?

- Introducing our protagonists (Raggedy Ann & Andy), delving a little into their personalities and making us give a shit about what happens to them. I want to start the novel after the kidnapping has already happened, so the audience will be as confused as our heroes are. Which leads to my next question...

How does the kidnapping even happen?

If I don't know this, I don't know how the plot begins. And I can't carry on from there. Here's what I know:

- Our antagonist, Dr. Medlock, wants to make as little fuss as possible. His target will be sitting in their usual places one day, then *poof* gone. Nobody sees the kidnapping happen, so no one knows who the kidnapper is. Nobody knows who they're up against or what happened to the missing victims, leaving everyone baffled and uncertain. Nothing Is Scarier, right?

- Dr. Medlock is supposed to be intelligent. He needs only Raggedy Ann for his experiment, but if he left Andy behind, it's no doubt that he would cause trouble, so he would need to be captured too. But somehow, his plan botches up and Andy's still out there. Andy's a fugitive for nearly the entire novel because Dr. Medlock is determined to carry through with kidnapping him. Which leads to my next problem...

- How the hell does Ann get captured, but it fails with Andy?

Dr. Medlock sends his experiments and Marius to do things for him while he's working in the lab. The closest I can think of is that a monster or Marius are picking up Ann & Andy while they're still asleep, but then they think they're being caught and hurry off, not realizing they've dropped Andy. That way, Andy could later wake up, realize something's wrong, then freak out when he gets back to the rocking chair and finds Ann is missing. I'm just trying to figure out a way for Ann to be captured and Andy to have gotten lucky without it looking like ~*~convenience~ or the villains being total morons.

I've just become a complete picky perfectionist that I lock up and never write anything because I think everything I attempt is crap. Working on another novel will NOT help, especially since I haven't even written anything for this one at all. In forever. The more I neglect writing my novel, the worse it'll get for me.

Just dear god. I need someone to look at this without my distorted viewpoint of thinking everything is wrong from the characters/prose/set-up/etc.

Remember when I said I was trying to look for the Broadway soundtrack of the flopped Raggedy Ann musical? I got some good (bad?) news! The guy who played some songs for me on Livestream uploaded them all for download!

The zip includes the demo and "official" versions. I haven't listened to the entire thing yet (I'll traumatize myself another day), but I jumped to "Rag Dolly" 'cause that was the one I was most curious about. The musical only shares two songs from the movie, "Blue" and "Rag Dolly." The latter has different lyrics, so you end up having three (four if you count the awful "Disco Dolly") versions of the same song.

"Rag Dolly" in the movie is cute, but it worked better as an instrumental. It doesn't tell us anything new about Raggedy Ann (whose character was already established through "I Look (And What Do I See?")) and it didn't do anything to advance the plot except for the Captain trying to fix his spyglass, and his sneeze fit interruptions were annoying. Broadway!"Rag Dolly" on the other hand? It's about a sad and lonely Raggedy Ann questioning her worth as a toy. No kidding.

The version I'm sharing the lyrics for is the demo, which had an intro that got snipped from the final version. I uploaded the song as a single Mp3 so you don't have to wait forever on the zip. Feel free to correct me on lyrics, nom. Behold! Raggedy Ann at her low point while stuck in Dr. Medlock's lab. :o

( I'm just a ragdolly... )

I feel like an egotistical prat whenever I make stuff involving my own characters, including icons. Which is something I need to get over. Ugh.

I'm still feeling down, so have a song related to the character instead.

I'll have to ask for more time to finish my friend's fic. ;; Technically, I could finish it today, but I'd rather send her a late quality product than one that's on-time-but-shitty. My friend deserves better than that! ;;

So here's what I got so far:

- "The Fantastic Adventures of Unico" and "Unico in the Island of Magic" DVDs
- "A Clockwork Orange" DVD
- "Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon" on DS
- "Sgt. Frog" #1 from Sis
- A copy of "Aesop's Fables"
- The Norton Critical edition of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" containing both the 1890 Lippincott's and 1891 versions.
- A gilded book containing four complete novels by H.G. Wells ("The Time Machine," "The Island of Dr. Moreau," "The Invisible Man," and "The War of the Worlds."
- Cutie Mark Crusaders Wedding Flower Fillies set
- Target card with $150
- Soft Hello Kitty! shorts
- A six-month paid DW account from Sara Jaye. ;; And icons to go with it!
- A Red/Lucas ficlet from Hikaru, nomnomnom~
- Chocolate snowman. Nomnomnomnomnom.

From Yuletide, I got an Earthbound story about Jeff. ;; I also got a gorgeous fanart of Andy & Marius drawn for me by Zar. ♥

I'll make Yuletide recs later. I still have a bunch of stories to read and so little time. ;; I've also been gathering a bunch of toys and stuffed animals to donate to the women's shelter today. Busy busy busy!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you~ ♥♥♥