Reflections on Original Stories

As the title may suggest, these are some reflections about my original stories–and maybe some fun facts thrown in later. I don’t know yet! All such things shall be listed by story title (followed by a brief summary and some of the main characters with facts about their conception and development). In case you care!

MILES 7
-A story of a young man learning the secrets of the sheltered life he once led, the truth about the people he never noticed, and the deep lies woven into the past of his city’s darkest member-

• Mortek – “Tek” for short. Tek came about almost COMPLETELY out of nowhere. I decided one day to create an original story in which Lakai could feature (I had just watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which somehow influenced me), but suddenly a male main character struck me as a good idea and Tek was born. I kind of based him off of an old, small-time anthro character of mine who was created for a story that literally went NOWHERE, but he quickly became his own person (an easy task, considering I never worked on that anthro character at all). He was originally a beanie-wearing, glasses-less young man who was extremely stubborn. Throughout the writing of Miles 7 he’s changed a lot, so going back and reading the beginning of the story was an alarming process for me (nothing like reading about Tek sleeping on his bed when I later establish that he exclusively sleeps on his couch due to a mound of TRASH, CLOTHES, AND CRUD all over his bed). He’s endearing in a personal sort of way–I think he embodies me in some ways, and so I really love him.
• Lakai – A character almost as old as I am. Lakai was actually named by my friend way back when. Lakai was originally my name when the whole anime-loving-japanese-sounding-name-thing was popular (and I kept her name, as it fits in the style of the names in Miles 7), but the character has gone from my Sailor Moon character, to a whole slew of fancharacters, to my anthro character, to the Lakai I know and love today. She’s grown from a very silly, gothic representation of me to a mature, complex young woman in her very own story. She’s even changed since the beginning of the story. She’s become deeper, more thoughtful, less mysterious-for-the-sake-of-being-mysterious. In my opinion, she’s much more realistic now. She’s one of my absolute favorite characters, and I suspect I’ll grow more and more attached to her as I write the story (and that’s saying a lot, since I really feel like she’s literally a part of me).
• Chaelar – Almost as old as Lakai! Chaelar has always been my villain, evil-jerkface homeboy, and most complicatedly named character (I used to delight in asking people to guess on the spelling of his name, pronounced “kay-lar”). He started out as a generic villain character who did generically evil things in generically plotted stories, but I started fleshing him out forMiles 7. In some ways, Miles 7 acted as a big, old reunion for me. The three main characters were pulled from old, flat characters and were revived to become real people, instead of just frivolous characters. Chaelar is probably the second-most revamped character (Tek being the first); his original design was a weird demon who took the form of an anthro cat. He was tied in with Lakai’s past when he cut off her tail (I think that’s all he did–it’s lame, I know). To say the least, he’s become much more complicated (and less lame)–and, in consequence of that, become much more evil. I may not like Chaelar very much as a person, but I’m proud of the character he’s become.
• Noirei – Noirei was a new character for Miles 7. He has changed IMMENSELY from his original concept sketch. I really love looking back at the first drawing I ever did of Rei–it not only shows the improvement in my drawing skills, but it shows how the concept of Rei has changed. He started out as, if I remember correctly, a petulant tribe-leader who was skinny, scrappy, and not very nice. His current form is that of a loving brother beneath a facade of cold, statue-like distrust of most people (so he’s still not very nice). I originally made Noirei with the intent of not liking him very much, but he’s become one of my favorite characters. He’s a blast to write, and I absolutely adore his relationship with Lakai. If I had to pick one relationship that I was both surprised and extremely proud of in Miles 7, it’s the sibling relationship between she and Rei–it’s much deeper than I ever expected it to be.
• Victorhea – Ohhh Victorhea. Our dear hateful Victorhea was ALSO an old character of mine. She…hasn’t changed much, to be honest. She started out as a villainous wench of a woman who hit on Lakai’s love interest (who was kinda a schmuck in that tiny plot–think Tenchi Muyo-style hapless young man, but I digress). I can’t recall if she worked with Chaelar or not, but I don’t believe she did. She has always had long, two-tone hair…but I changed the color for the sake of making sense in the plot of Miles 7. I think that was a good move. I’ll be honest; Victorhea is probably the character who has given me the most problems. In my quest to make her out to be the horrible witch she is, she has stumbled across the page as a snobby woman who is actually doing something good (still working on fixing that problem, actually), a disinterested woman (not nearly evil enough), and multiple other things. She’s crucial to the antagonist side, but portraying her exactly as she is supposed to be–manipulative, selfish, jealous, ruthless, and maliciously upwardly mobile–has proved difficult. Despite this, I’m sort of fond of her hatefulness. I would never want to meet her, though.
• Ichi – Ichi is a mystery. She, too was based off of an old character. There was a short period where I dropped Lakai as my main persona and created a different character named Ichi. When I readopted Lakai, she fell by the wayside, then she regained a personality (but she went from a dark rebel to a bubbly young girl). I decided she needed a place in Miles 7 as much as any of the other revived characters, but she went down an even stranger path than before. She has taken on a role as the village elder. She’s mysterious, extremely powerful, but very wise. She doesn’t jump into problems just because she can read minds and therefore knows what’s going on. She leads people along the right path, but lets others work out their own issues. The strange thing about Ichi is that, at any point, she could easily solve a lot of problems for Tek and Lakai. But she lets them figure it out on their own. She’s very cold on the outside, but in fact she cares a lot about the people close to her. She cares enough to teach them life lessons in her wisdom. She’s taken some understanding, even by me, but there’s something about her enigmatic self that I really like.
• Caes – What can I say about Caes? I wanted Tek to have a sister, and Caes blossomed out of nothing. She’s probably the character most unlike my usual creations; she’s bubbly, silly, colorful, friendly. She’s devoted to doing radically good things, even at the expense of others’ opinions. And parts of her are based on people I know and things that have happened to me. She started off resembling my extremely close friend (and general partner in crime), Grace. As she was written in the story, however, she started to take after a wonderfully flamboyant friend of mine from my school’s theatre department, Liz. And little things that happened to me through the course of writing Miles 7 added to her quirks. She was the most unexpected character in the cast, I think, and I love her all the more for it.
• Minor Cast – Almost the entire minor cast was based off of existing things. For example, Inx, Wei, BB, and Rose (who has yet to appear, actually) were all named after cats I have known (Inx was named after Inxs, my friend Grace’s cat; Wei was named after We, my step-dad’s cat; BB was named after my cat; Rose was named after my other cat, Rosie). Some of the yet-to-be-met half-demons were named after random names I liked or old characters created by friends of mine. Chiaki’s name came from one of Grace’s characters. Shiiro was one of my really old characters (from the age of characters from whence Tek, Chaelar, and Victorhea came) who was fleshed out to be a counterpart for Caes. The ninjas were sorely lacking in some concrete characters. I love all of these characters just as much as I love the main characters. They’re very dear to me.

Cursed
-This could be the story of what leads to an end.  This could be the story of what one young man did in a poorly-planned moment.  But while what you do has consequences, how you deal with them is an entirely different story. -

• Calen – Coming Soon!

More later! Time for bed.