Here's a little bonus thing to go alongside the seven Team Salmon ideas, because Keys & Kingdoms starts its life as a tabletop RPG rather than a cartoon, and that shall be what it's best known for, one hopes. With rules descended from Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder via the open-source game license, the theme and the setting are heavily influenced by Disney - predominantly fairy tale based, but with aspects from every title and genre Disney has ever tackled (plus a few things sneakily brought in from traditional animated films from other companies; also, the cutoff point will be after Kingdom Hearts III and Wreck-It Ralph 2 are released; we'll try really, really hard to ignore everything Disney does after that so the setting doesn't get too bloated with stuff), all reinterpreted, with their original identities filed away, to become something that makes more sense for an RPG. Something we can legally sell as a gamebook!
So this blog entry is the outline of the Keys and Kingdoms basics, as they stand in my head right now. Let's start with the character classes; I figure the best class list would be made of every D&D class to have been a core class in multiple editions, which conveniently, is also the core class list of 5th Edition, which will be the primary source of the K&K rules, a nice and simple system with some depth. Let's sort them by the edition in which they first became core classes:
1: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue
2: Paladin, Ranger, Druid, Bard
3: Barbarian, Monk, Sorcerer
4: Warlock
More detailed fleshing-out of the characters will be done by an "archetype" system; for instance, a ranger can choose to have their abilities lean toward archery, two-blade fighting, hunting, or beast mastery, just as an example, and have a unique path of abilities based on that chosen archetype while also gaining certain abilities that every ranger gets.
Then there are the core races. I came up with ten archetypes I'd like to be the core races and have been working on building lore around them. Plenty more races will be added in later updates to the game, I'm sure. For now, we have, well, not exactly ten core races - more like eight core races and two concepts I'm still working on but would really like to be options found in the core rules, if that would work.
Human: As in most RPGs, humans provide the baseline, no unique perks or disadvantages besides, perhaps, being short-lived and equally predisposed to good and evil.
Dwarf: The classic RPG dwarves with significant influence from the dwarfs of Snow White.
Elf: I couldn't think of any Disney property that has elves in it, but you can't have an RPG that has humans and dwarves without elves. I think they'll take some influence from the Atlanteans of Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Gargoyle: Just straight-up the gargoyles from the TV show Gargoyles. Taking as much lore as possible from the show and its supplemental materials.
Fairy: There were lots of fairies in the early Disney films - Pinocchio's blue fairy, Cinderella's fairy godmother, the three good fairies of Sleeping Beauty, and let's not forget Maleficent herself is technically a fairy too. Not only do I want these fairies to all exist under a single blanket, inspired by the Children of Oberon from Gargoyles, but also make them a core race. The idea is that while most fairies are as powerful as gods due to their age, your player character is a new fairy who has only just come into existence.
Pixie: Inspired by Tinker Bell and her little franchise, teeny-tiny flying player characters with strong connections to nature and humanity.
Merfolk: Yup, I'm making mermaids a core race. A lot of people don't like the underwater part of games. I'm hoping I can make it interesting enough to justify this core race.
Native: Anthropomorphic animals inspired by Mickey Mouse and his supporting cast. The concept is that while they're not exceptionally common, they're the oldest race in existence and everyone instinctively recognizes them as normal even if they've never seen one. They can resemble any animal; they can all be a single race because, like Walt's original creations, they have no capabilities that resemble those of the animal they're based on; they're very human.
Nemo: One of those that's more a concept than a core race, the nemos are inspired by the Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts. In the K&K universe, a nemo is someone who was brought back from death, but whose soul was used to make an incorporeal undead creature, leaving them alive but soulless. Can't quite count them as a race because this is something that could happen to any of the races. A nemo has elemental powers and difficulty handling their emotions and, well, some incentive to become normal again while also being totally cool to handle as a long-term player concept. Gotta figure out how to balance the advantages and disadvantages.
Heart Construct: This idea I came up with because I wanted a race that could represent characters as diverse as Pinocchio, Tron, Baymax, Olaf - any artificially-created being given life by the love and passion of their creator, whether created through art, magic, or technology. In retrospect, I'm not sure this idea would work as a "race", per se, but I do want such characters to be available as a prominent option for players, so... we'll work on that.
Finally, I want to talk about themes - given the diverse nature of the setting ("all things Disney" does cover a good portion of human existence, after all; to that end, the themes aren't based on Disney so much as genres of general fiction) I want to associate most adventures with one of the following themes, and keep the themes separate for the most part, occasionally bleeding into one another.
Fairy Tales: The core theme, a pseudo-European fantasy place where everything is pretty and has that Disney magic.
Mythic: With roots in more traditional RPG environments and epic historical and mythological stories from real societies, be it Arthurian, Viking, Greek, Egyptian, Arabian, Chinese, Japanese... a mixture.
Pirates: A pirate theme! Caribbean and otherwise. It's basically a genre even if it's never been an especially successful one, but it's fun and doesn't quite mesh with any particular historical era, so it's a whole theme.
Cowboys: The western theme - men with guns and horses. Hey, there's a good reason that's a genre too. Mixing with all the other themes will add plenty of epic weirdness, and most of the Americana in the setting can go under this umbrella.
Tribes: Sort of a Conan the Barbarian setting, with cavemen fighting dinosaurs and things based on real tribal people and their history and mythology; Native American, Mesoamerican, Polynesian, and African primarily.
Aliens: The science-fiction, cosmic side of the setting - spacecraft and lasers, computers and cyberspace, inter-dimensional travel and alien beings. To be kept at arm's length of most of the setting for the most part, but it's definitely there.
Urban: The modern city experience. Spectacular powers might be seen in more of a superhero context here, and this theme is where one is most likely to encounter those fully-clothed mice living on the fringes of human society that seem to be so common in animation. Maybe I should have made them a core race...
Beyond that, it's all just musings. The process will involve watching just about every Disney film ever made and implementing as much of its mythology as possible into the setting, rebuilding it into something original.
UPDATE:
Had one particular idea that was so significant I had to mention it, and I thought I'd throw in a couple of other meaningful ideas as well:
Myshka: The name of the aforementioned race of civilized rodents. Need to come up with a mythology for them. And yeah, they're so common in animation that they really ought to be a core race in this setting. There should also be some sort of insect equivalent (think Jiminy Cricket), and perhaps lizard and bat varieties, as they're rather common in "mouse world" stories.
Carforged: A way to implement, well, Cars, in a spoof of D&D's very own warforged. Not a core race, but perhaps a prominent one.
Monsters: Animated films don't often contain an assortment of monsters to fight, hence why Kingdom Hearts usually goes with the Heartless and associated creatures as its common opponents. The idea I had would be to use common RPG opponents such as goblins, orcs, and ogres, but base their behavior and attire on the various types of Heartless, turning every Heartless variety into a distinct creature of its own, with the illustrations making it clear where the inspiration came from.
Wildlife: Possibly important enough to be yet another theme - both fairy tales and animation frequently feature a look at animal society. Think The Jungle Book, Tarzan, and especially The Lion King. The notion is: every animal family (on the taxonomic level) has a language; it's all but impossible to learn this language unless you've grown up with it, a la Mowgli or Tarzan, and animals, though as intelligent as people, have no means of communicating with them. Transforming into an animal, a common enough occurrence in both fairy tales and RPGs, naturally grants you the ability to speak with them. Certain races might have the ability to speak with certain animal groups. Whatever other concepts I end up going with, it's definitely big enough to merit a theme.
UPDATE:
Feeling the need to keep this blog post current for whatever reason, I've decided that, as the nemo and the heart construct don't seem to work as core races, I'll be replacing them with the myshka and the syrsa, the name for the Jiminy Cricket-style humanoid insects. That leaves three tiny core races... there'll have to be specialized adventures for tiny characters.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Monday, September 10, 2018
Team Salmon #7: Page Turners
This year I shared seven ideas I have for very distant TAPAS productions, most of them in the medium of animation - "Team Salmon" being the hypothetical animation division of TAPAS. The official additions to the blog will, effectively, be the third draft of these presentations, the most current and up-to-date version of the stories that exist right now. The September 2018 version for the historical record.
PAGE TURNERS
The most recent idea among all of these; I didn't think much of it until I mentioned it to Naty and she got all excited and wanted to develop it - so we did, she helped me out a lot, she's very much the series co-creator. The only genuinely kid-friendly idea I've had, inspired by the live-action kid-power stuff of the 80s and 90s.
The Style
2D animation with a lot of motifs from 90s magical girl anime, especially a pastel color scheme and lots of improbable, brightly-colored hairstyles.
The First Episode
We open on a street, full of adult extras, all of them dark-haired. A teen girl narrator says, "Let's play a game. Yeah... a game. How about a quick round of 'spot the main character'?" Cue a girl with incredibly long, firetruck-red hair running through the crowd. This is our narrator, Lucy Lopez, who further explains that she's running late for school, but isn't too fussed about it; she watches a lot of anime and knows that all the greatest things happen when one is late for something. She only wishes she'd had time to eat her toast.
At school, she sits in the back near the window. There's no school uniform, because it's an American school, but everyone around her is still fairly drab. Everyone but Kenji Matsuda, who comes in even later than Lucy, a tall brooding boy with dark blue hair in a ponytail. Lucy's narration fawns over him a bit, denying her own nagging thoughts that she might be idealizing him purely because he's Japanese.
Later, we come upon a few third-graders over at the elementary school, getting ready to leave as the school day ends: Kenji's little brother Gavin, who has a pastel-orange fauxhawk and is fiddling with a lot of gadgets, and aims to impress Piper Silverman, a heavily-freckled girl with curly white hair and a lot of makeup. In the background is Holly Ford, who has pink hair in a bob haircut, but she's not focused on yet in this scene, merely standing out in the background.
After school, all five of them find themselves in the public library, each waiting to get picked up later. The librarian, a golden-haired middle-aged woman named Ms. Chenoweth, looks over the five kids and wonders if they're together. "No. Why?" says Holly. Ms. Chenoweth shrugs.
And it's Holly who first encounters the book - a dusty, all-black volume with no title, and very thick, looking to be exactly one thousand pages long. She opens to a random page and finds a version of Snow White. As Holly reads it, she looks increasingly horrified by how dark the story is, as well as by the fact that the text is zipping by, the entire story fitting into a single page topped by a gruesome illustration. As she finishes the story, the book glows with black magical energy, and Chenoweth comes up behind Holly and slams the book shut. "Where did you find that?" she demands in a hushed whisper. Commercial break cliffhanger!
And we continue.... I'm not entirely sure how. I know that the characters of the grim-dark Snow White story come to life somewhere in town and enact their story. That's the main point; and a few other things need to happen, but I'm not sure of the order of things and what comes in between them.
The kids get a lot of exposition from Chenoweth, who reveals herself to be a fairy, and also unveils her two tiny pixie companions, Nyx and Snowdrop. The book needs a name and a bit of a history; the main point is that it contains every story ever told; it's pure evil right now, and the kids need to go and subdue the characters in order to turn the Snow White page back to good, so that at least that page can be used for a good purpose. There's also something cloaked in shadow that pursues them and wants the book for itself.
Even though I intend this show to be appropriate for kids, I don't want to pull any punches with the grim-dark versions of each fairy tale. A few ways I want to do that in the Snow White episode include: the seven dwarfs being identical to each other and very creepy, with Nyx pointing out that the notion of them having seven distinct kooky personalities was the invention of one Walter Elias Disney. Also, Snow White is seven years old, which not only ups the queen's villainy but also the prince's; Holly reads a passage that tells of how the prince saw Snow White in her deathlike sleep and found her so fair that he wanted to keep her for himself, and the kids are immediately filled with horror about what sort of man would think that about a seven-year-old - we'll leave the implications at that. The prince, therefore, ends up being something of the endgame villain of the episode, with Kenji having to beat him in a swordfight. Kids, as Don Bluth says, can handle anything as long as there's a happy ending; that's why in the end the fairy tale always transforms into a kid-friendly, highly Disney-esque version.
At some point, Holly hands the book to Chenoweth, who instantly disappears along with Nyx. The shadowy thing appears, and from within emerges a Vito Corleone-looking guy who is identified as Don Oberon, the fairy godfather. As it turns out, Chenoweth is an evil fairy who was manipulating the kids because of the rule that fairies cannot take things; she would only be able to get her hands on the book if someone gave it to her without her asking for it. Don Oberon was trying to protect the book and is the one who really wants to turn it back to good. Nyx was aware all along of Chenoweth's evil intentions, while Snowdrop is shocked. A rift is driven between the two pixies, with Nyx staying with Chenoweth and Snowdrop allying with the kids and Don Oberon.
And there has to be some sort of character development - primarily from Lucy and Kenji, with enough from Holly that it's clear she is our de facto protagonist. The book is taken back from Chenoweth, Snow White is saved, her page in the book goes from tattered and scorched to pristine and golden, and all the characters return to the book. Our status quo is then established: Don Oberon guides the kids and Snowdrop from afar as they work to turn the book from evil to good one page at a time, all while having to deal with the warped fairy tale characters and dodge the treachery and scheming of Chenoweth and Nyx. Conclusion... I dunno.
The Setting
A small midwestern town I haven't thought to name yet. Might not.
The Characters
The Kids
Holly Ford: One of the two possible de facto protagonists of the ensemble. A newcomer to the little town where the story takes place, staying with her grandfather temporarily and attending the third grade at the local school. Holly is a big-city girl and is obsessed with exploring the nearby forests and other small-town activities. There's not much more to her than that; she's just an explorer and a daredevil, and becomes the natural leader of the group.
Gavin Matsuda: Another third-grader. Hyperactive and unfocused, he is nevertheless extremely knowledgeable and tech-savvy, capable of coming up with very out-of-the-box methods of solving fairy tale problems. He's a conspiracy theorist, a habit only encouraged by the discovery that fairy tales are real.
Piper Silverman: The last third-grader in the group, a ridiculously popular rich girl. Seemingly only in the group because she happened to be present at the library at the time, she comes across as a useless damsel and it's not clear why she continues to participate. It's eventually discovered that she has a very lonely personal life and this is the best companionship she's ever had.
Lucy Lopez: Another possible candidate for the main character. A high school freshman and obsessive otaku, she structures her entire life around mundane anime tropes and is thrilled to find a fantasy aspect in her life. She journals the group's adventures, and tries to put her storytelling expertise to use in fixing the book.
Kenji Matsuda: The last main character, Gavin's Japanese-born older brother and Lucy's classmate. He tries to act like he's too cool to be interested in anything, unwilling to ever admit knowledge or enthusiasm. Seeing himself as responsible for the rest of the group forces him to break out of his shell a bit.
The Fairies and Pixies
Chenoweth: Originally introduced as the librarian at the local hangout near the kids' school. When the kids discover the book, she reveals herself as a fairy and explains the book's history to them. Just when it seems like the set-up of the show is that she'll be the mentor figure while maintaining her librarian masquerade, she is revealed to be the evil trickster type of fairy, hoping to use the book's evil side to take over the human world. As her fairy nature makes her unable to steal the book outright, she schemes, more or less out in the open, to wrest control of the town to force the kids to give it to her.
Don Oberon: A mysterious figure cloaked in shadow. Chenoweth originally paints him as an unknowable villain before he is revealed to be the Fairy Godfather, a menacing fairy in a black suit, and just as Chenoweth turns out to be the villain, Don Oberon takes the role of the mentor, though he is very distant and has a sink-or-swim approach, very rarely being direct and sometimes impossible to find.
Snowdrop: One of two tiny pixies who accompany Chenoweth when she first reveals herself. About nine inches tall and seeming to be about Lucy and Kenji's age, she defects to Don Oberon's side when she discovers that Chenoweth is evil, and spends most of her time living with Lucy in secret. She is knowledgeable and helpful, but easily distracted and boy-crazy.
Nyx: The other pixie, a boy a bit older than Snowdrop. He knew all along about Chenoweth's true intentions and stays with her, serving as her spy and general mayhem-causer. Despite this, he still has a soft spot for Snowdrop and generally attempts to prevent the kids from being in any real mortal peril, sometimes to the point of being downright helpful.
Other
Stan Ford: Holly's grandfather and caretaker, who straddles the line between main character and supporting character. He appears more often than any other parental figure, but like all of them remains uninvoled and unaware of the magical heroics of the kids. He's a good man and not much more needs to be said.
The Further Story
So far, I haven't come up with any major story arcs, just a formula: Every episode, one of the kids have an everyday problem, attempt to use the book to solve it, the book brings to life some sort of fairytale or other public domain story in a very dark, Grimmified incarnation. The kids battle the characters and forces from the story and learn some sort of moral or life lesson, at which point the story returns to a Disneyfied variant, both the mundane problem and the fairytale problem are solved, the characters return to the book, and one of the book's thousands of pages turns from twisted and evil-looking to shiny and golden.
There will, however, be strong continuity; characters from the Disneyfied fairytales will be (successfully) called upon for help with future problems, the lessons will stay learned and applied to future events, and there will be a story arc every season which is developed every episode. Also, the characters should actually age a year every season, therefore dealing with more mature problems as time goes on.
What I do know is that the story that gets brought to life in the first episode is Snow White, shortly followed in subsequent episodes by Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, providing us a trifecta of not only the first three Disney Princess movies, therefore expressing how our interpretations will differ from what's usually known, but also a Grimm fairy tale, a Perrault fairy tale, and one that's been tackled by both, in that order. An opening scene for the first Piper-centric episode, a bit later in the first season, would be for her to have the book at her place and summoning forth the good versions of the three princesses to drink tea with her, coming across as snooty and irresponsible before it's revealed just how lonely and uncomfortable her home life is.
A drama-bomb dropped about midway through the first season concerns Holly; it's established that she's in town only temporarily while her parents are overseas on a months-long business trip. In one episode, she ponders a desire that she could stay behind and be a Page Turner with the others... and horribly gets her wish at the end of the episode, as she receives the news that her parents have died in an accident. She decides to stick with her grandpa Stan and continue working with the others, taking a very long time to recover.
Some plans include a Halloween episode in which book-faithful interpretations of Dracula and Frankenstein occur in the middle of the day on Halloween; the episode ends at nightfall, with more Hollywood-like versions of the two characters taking part in the dance party ending. Also, a Christmas episode which has the feel of a horror-comedy, in which Christmas Eve sees the town haunted by a version of Santa Claus inspired by the David Sedaris short story Six to Eight Black Men; I don't know how faithful that story is to the actual lore of St. Nicholas, so it might be more the dry comic tone than the actual mythology that makes it clear where the inspiration is coming from. Actually researching all the stories we're adapting will, of course, be a necessary step.
PAGE TURNERS
The most recent idea among all of these; I didn't think much of it until I mentioned it to Naty and she got all excited and wanted to develop it - so we did, she helped me out a lot, she's very much the series co-creator. The only genuinely kid-friendly idea I've had, inspired by the live-action kid-power stuff of the 80s and 90s.
The Style
2D animation with a lot of motifs from 90s magical girl anime, especially a pastel color scheme and lots of improbable, brightly-colored hairstyles.
The First Episode
We open on a street, full of adult extras, all of them dark-haired. A teen girl narrator says, "Let's play a game. Yeah... a game. How about a quick round of 'spot the main character'?" Cue a girl with incredibly long, firetruck-red hair running through the crowd. This is our narrator, Lucy Lopez, who further explains that she's running late for school, but isn't too fussed about it; she watches a lot of anime and knows that all the greatest things happen when one is late for something. She only wishes she'd had time to eat her toast.
At school, she sits in the back near the window. There's no school uniform, because it's an American school, but everyone around her is still fairly drab. Everyone but Kenji Matsuda, who comes in even later than Lucy, a tall brooding boy with dark blue hair in a ponytail. Lucy's narration fawns over him a bit, denying her own nagging thoughts that she might be idealizing him purely because he's Japanese.
Later, we come upon a few third-graders over at the elementary school, getting ready to leave as the school day ends: Kenji's little brother Gavin, who has a pastel-orange fauxhawk and is fiddling with a lot of gadgets, and aims to impress Piper Silverman, a heavily-freckled girl with curly white hair and a lot of makeup. In the background is Holly Ford, who has pink hair in a bob haircut, but she's not focused on yet in this scene, merely standing out in the background.
After school, all five of them find themselves in the public library, each waiting to get picked up later. The librarian, a golden-haired middle-aged woman named Ms. Chenoweth, looks over the five kids and wonders if they're together. "No. Why?" says Holly. Ms. Chenoweth shrugs.
And it's Holly who first encounters the book - a dusty, all-black volume with no title, and very thick, looking to be exactly one thousand pages long. She opens to a random page and finds a version of Snow White. As Holly reads it, she looks increasingly horrified by how dark the story is, as well as by the fact that the text is zipping by, the entire story fitting into a single page topped by a gruesome illustration. As she finishes the story, the book glows with black magical energy, and Chenoweth comes up behind Holly and slams the book shut. "Where did you find that?" she demands in a hushed whisper. Commercial break cliffhanger!
And we continue.... I'm not entirely sure how. I know that the characters of the grim-dark Snow White story come to life somewhere in town and enact their story. That's the main point; and a few other things need to happen, but I'm not sure of the order of things and what comes in between them.
The kids get a lot of exposition from Chenoweth, who reveals herself to be a fairy, and also unveils her two tiny pixie companions, Nyx and Snowdrop. The book needs a name and a bit of a history; the main point is that it contains every story ever told; it's pure evil right now, and the kids need to go and subdue the characters in order to turn the Snow White page back to good, so that at least that page can be used for a good purpose. There's also something cloaked in shadow that pursues them and wants the book for itself.
Even though I intend this show to be appropriate for kids, I don't want to pull any punches with the grim-dark versions of each fairy tale. A few ways I want to do that in the Snow White episode include: the seven dwarfs being identical to each other and very creepy, with Nyx pointing out that the notion of them having seven distinct kooky personalities was the invention of one Walter Elias Disney. Also, Snow White is seven years old, which not only ups the queen's villainy but also the prince's; Holly reads a passage that tells of how the prince saw Snow White in her deathlike sleep and found her so fair that he wanted to keep her for himself, and the kids are immediately filled with horror about what sort of man would think that about a seven-year-old - we'll leave the implications at that. The prince, therefore, ends up being something of the endgame villain of the episode, with Kenji having to beat him in a swordfight. Kids, as Don Bluth says, can handle anything as long as there's a happy ending; that's why in the end the fairy tale always transforms into a kid-friendly, highly Disney-esque version.
At some point, Holly hands the book to Chenoweth, who instantly disappears along with Nyx. The shadowy thing appears, and from within emerges a Vito Corleone-looking guy who is identified as Don Oberon, the fairy godfather. As it turns out, Chenoweth is an evil fairy who was manipulating the kids because of the rule that fairies cannot take things; she would only be able to get her hands on the book if someone gave it to her without her asking for it. Don Oberon was trying to protect the book and is the one who really wants to turn it back to good. Nyx was aware all along of Chenoweth's evil intentions, while Snowdrop is shocked. A rift is driven between the two pixies, with Nyx staying with Chenoweth and Snowdrop allying with the kids and Don Oberon.
And there has to be some sort of character development - primarily from Lucy and Kenji, with enough from Holly that it's clear she is our de facto protagonist. The book is taken back from Chenoweth, Snow White is saved, her page in the book goes from tattered and scorched to pristine and golden, and all the characters return to the book. Our status quo is then established: Don Oberon guides the kids and Snowdrop from afar as they work to turn the book from evil to good one page at a time, all while having to deal with the warped fairy tale characters and dodge the treachery and scheming of Chenoweth and Nyx. Conclusion... I dunno.
The Setting
A small midwestern town I haven't thought to name yet. Might not.
The Characters
The Kids
Holly Ford: One of the two possible de facto protagonists of the ensemble. A newcomer to the little town where the story takes place, staying with her grandfather temporarily and attending the third grade at the local school. Holly is a big-city girl and is obsessed with exploring the nearby forests and other small-town activities. There's not much more to her than that; she's just an explorer and a daredevil, and becomes the natural leader of the group.
Gavin Matsuda: Another third-grader. Hyperactive and unfocused, he is nevertheless extremely knowledgeable and tech-savvy, capable of coming up with very out-of-the-box methods of solving fairy tale problems. He's a conspiracy theorist, a habit only encouraged by the discovery that fairy tales are real.
Piper Silverman: The last third-grader in the group, a ridiculously popular rich girl. Seemingly only in the group because she happened to be present at the library at the time, she comes across as a useless damsel and it's not clear why she continues to participate. It's eventually discovered that she has a very lonely personal life and this is the best companionship she's ever had.
Lucy Lopez: Another possible candidate for the main character. A high school freshman and obsessive otaku, she structures her entire life around mundane anime tropes and is thrilled to find a fantasy aspect in her life. She journals the group's adventures, and tries to put her storytelling expertise to use in fixing the book.
Kenji Matsuda: The last main character, Gavin's Japanese-born older brother and Lucy's classmate. He tries to act like he's too cool to be interested in anything, unwilling to ever admit knowledge or enthusiasm. Seeing himself as responsible for the rest of the group forces him to break out of his shell a bit.
The Fairies and Pixies
Chenoweth: Originally introduced as the librarian at the local hangout near the kids' school. When the kids discover the book, she reveals herself as a fairy and explains the book's history to them. Just when it seems like the set-up of the show is that she'll be the mentor figure while maintaining her librarian masquerade, she is revealed to be the evil trickster type of fairy, hoping to use the book's evil side to take over the human world. As her fairy nature makes her unable to steal the book outright, she schemes, more or less out in the open, to wrest control of the town to force the kids to give it to her.
Don Oberon: A mysterious figure cloaked in shadow. Chenoweth originally paints him as an unknowable villain before he is revealed to be the Fairy Godfather, a menacing fairy in a black suit, and just as Chenoweth turns out to be the villain, Don Oberon takes the role of the mentor, though he is very distant and has a sink-or-swim approach, very rarely being direct and sometimes impossible to find.
Snowdrop: One of two tiny pixies who accompany Chenoweth when she first reveals herself. About nine inches tall and seeming to be about Lucy and Kenji's age, she defects to Don Oberon's side when she discovers that Chenoweth is evil, and spends most of her time living with Lucy in secret. She is knowledgeable and helpful, but easily distracted and boy-crazy.
Nyx: The other pixie, a boy a bit older than Snowdrop. He knew all along about Chenoweth's true intentions and stays with her, serving as her spy and general mayhem-causer. Despite this, he still has a soft spot for Snowdrop and generally attempts to prevent the kids from being in any real mortal peril, sometimes to the point of being downright helpful.
Other
Stan Ford: Holly's grandfather and caretaker, who straddles the line between main character and supporting character. He appears more often than any other parental figure, but like all of them remains uninvoled and unaware of the magical heroics of the kids. He's a good man and not much more needs to be said.
The Further Story
So far, I haven't come up with any major story arcs, just a formula: Every episode, one of the kids have an everyday problem, attempt to use the book to solve it, the book brings to life some sort of fairytale or other public domain story in a very dark, Grimmified incarnation. The kids battle the characters and forces from the story and learn some sort of moral or life lesson, at which point the story returns to a Disneyfied variant, both the mundane problem and the fairytale problem are solved, the characters return to the book, and one of the book's thousands of pages turns from twisted and evil-looking to shiny and golden.
There will, however, be strong continuity; characters from the Disneyfied fairytales will be (successfully) called upon for help with future problems, the lessons will stay learned and applied to future events, and there will be a story arc every season which is developed every episode. Also, the characters should actually age a year every season, therefore dealing with more mature problems as time goes on.
What I do know is that the story that gets brought to life in the first episode is Snow White, shortly followed in subsequent episodes by Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, providing us a trifecta of not only the first three Disney Princess movies, therefore expressing how our interpretations will differ from what's usually known, but also a Grimm fairy tale, a Perrault fairy tale, and one that's been tackled by both, in that order. An opening scene for the first Piper-centric episode, a bit later in the first season, would be for her to have the book at her place and summoning forth the good versions of the three princesses to drink tea with her, coming across as snooty and irresponsible before it's revealed just how lonely and uncomfortable her home life is.
A drama-bomb dropped about midway through the first season concerns Holly; it's established that she's in town only temporarily while her parents are overseas on a months-long business trip. In one episode, she ponders a desire that she could stay behind and be a Page Turner with the others... and horribly gets her wish at the end of the episode, as she receives the news that her parents have died in an accident. She decides to stick with her grandpa Stan and continue working with the others, taking a very long time to recover.
Some plans include a Halloween episode in which book-faithful interpretations of Dracula and Frankenstein occur in the middle of the day on Halloween; the episode ends at nightfall, with more Hollywood-like versions of the two characters taking part in the dance party ending. Also, a Christmas episode which has the feel of a horror-comedy, in which Christmas Eve sees the town haunted by a version of Santa Claus inspired by the David Sedaris short story Six to Eight Black Men; I don't know how faithful that story is to the actual lore of St. Nicholas, so it might be more the dry comic tone than the actual mythology that makes it clear where the inspiration is coming from. Actually researching all the stories we're adapting will, of course, be a necessary step.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Team Salmon #6: Charlie the Chrash Can
This year I shared seven ideas I have for very distant TAPAS productions, most of them in the medium of animation - "Team Salmon" being the hypothetical animation division of TAPAS. The official additions to the blog will, effectively, be the third draft of these presentations, the most current and up-to-date version of the stories that exist right now. The September 2018 version for the historical record.
CHARLIE THE CHRASH CAN
I've been forced to conclude that this one wouldn't work if it was animated - it would have to be a live-action sitcom, for the very reason that the main character works in animation and therefore something would have to distinguish reality from what is, in-universe, animation. So it's a live-action sitcom with a lot of animation in it.
The Style
A single-camera live-action comedy. Animation of many different forms and varieties appears as the cartoons and video games that the main character acts in. There are musical numbers in every episode - initially as songs played by the eponymous band, but eventually becoming more fantastical.
The First Episode
We open on a CGI scene of a goblin fleeing through a dungeon. He is captured by two women, a warrior and a priestess; the warrior starts beating up the goblin while the priestess periodically heals it so it doesn't die and they can continue beating it up. Zoom out to reveal this is taking place on a TV screen, and is part of a video game being played by two young women - C.J. and Marie - in a small, old-fashioned house. The TV, for whatever reason, is mounted behind the couch, requiring them to lounge around on the couch rather awkwardly.
Seth approaches and demands to know what they're doing. They explain that they're torturing the goblin for the joy of hearing its goofy cries of anguish - Seth, it transpires, is the voice actor who provided those noises.
The doorbell rings and Meredith appears, all ready for a date. Her date is... some guy. She introduces him to everyone around, explaining who they are and what they do: Natalie, who is busily typing on her computer in the dining room, is a freelance writer; she barely acknowledges the existence of anyone around her. Danny, sitting in the chair in a corner of the living room tuning a guitar, is explained to be a new friend, who put together the band they all play in. Danny pontificates about the many small songwriting jobs he's had over the years.
Meredith then moves on to C.J. and Marie, explaining that they've just had a sitcom picked up, which C.J. writes and Marie stars in; and finally there's Seth, who is Natalie's husband and a voice actor. "What's a voice actor?" the guy wonders. Everyone tenses up as Seth stands up dramatically and makes a speech: "You ever seen a cartoon? Ever played a video game? Have you ever noticed that there's talking in those things? Voice actor." The guy doesn't understand, even when C.J. and Marie oblige Seth by continuing to beat up the goblin. Meredith hastily ushers her date out of the house.
The second half of the episode follows... some sort of narrative thread. Our setting is revealed: the Vancouver skyline, subtitled "Quincy, Illinois". We see a day in the life of Seth at work, of C.J. and Marie on the set of their show, and of Meredith dating that guy (who, yes, will have a name when this episode actually gets written). Natalie and Danny are neglected by the narrative for this first episode; they're definitely present, we just don't follow them quite yet. There's a musical number in the midst of the episode: all six members of Charlie the Chrash Can playing a song while scenes from the three actual plotlines go by.
In the end, Meredith breaks up with the guy; I'm not sure of the circumstances. It shouldn't be for anything particularly major, but I don't want it to be funny either; it just has to be that the relationship has come to an end and it's very sad. The episode ends with Meredith at work, revealing her to be a hospital nurse rather than an entertainer as all the others are, and the whole group comforting Meredith over the breakup. It ends with Natalie saying that she thought he was a bit of an idiot, which is her only line in the episode.
The Setting
As mentioned, the setting is a city which is clearly Vancouver but is identified as Quincy, Illinois. The fictional Quincy is a recently-discovered hub of low-budget entertainment productions.
The Characters
Our six main characters play in the titular garage band, Charlie the Chrash Can, as a hobby. All but one recently moved to the fictional Quincy and live in very close proximity.
Seth Sage: A voice actor. Very pompous and full of himself, seeing his craft as the peak of performance, other voice actors like him only grudgingly, and even his friends find him a bit of a chore. His seeming love for himself is a mask for his very deep insecurities, as he doesn't believe himself to have an identity beyond the performances he gives.
Natalie Ahlquist: Seth’s quiet and withdrawn Swedish wife, a freelance writer. His opposite, she balances him out by listening to his troubles, and he too is the only one who truly understands her social needs. The least successful of the cast, she struggles more than the others with the cutthroat nature of freelance work.
Meredith: Seth and Natalie’s roommate. Unlike the creative pursuits of the others, she works as a nurse. Rather than being work-focused, her plotlines are generally about her pursuit of a husband. She is the one most likely to have a love interest of the week, though keen-eyed viewers might notice that unlike most sitcom characters she's never mentioned as having slept with a significant other, as it's eventually revealed she's waiting for marriage. A sympathetic and reliable friend, Meredith often finds herself entangled in weird showbiz plots against her will.
Christina "C.J." Kelley: A totally cool hipster girl, college friend of the main three. Stand-up comedian, improv performer, and head writer of the sitcom It's-a Me, Marie! She is the source of most of the snark in the series, often ribbing on the others. She writes the sitcom to be as tacky as possible due to caving in to demands from executives, which makes her somewhat embittered with her career and often in search of something fresh to stimulate herself.
Marie Nilsson: C.J.’s Danish best friend, the co-writer and main star of It's-a Me, Marie! She and C.J. live in the same duplex as the main three, on the other side. Like C.J., she is not satisfied with the direction the sitcom has taken. A prolific character actress, she takes on an exhausting amount of auditions and roles of all sorts.
Danny Ringo: A musician. Most of his compositions appear in cheap cartoons, and it is he who founded the titular band, which is named after a tiny flip-top garbage can he used to operate as a ventriloquist dummy to serve as his childhood band's lead singer. He is the only one in the group who hasn't known the others since college and does not live in the same apartment building, and as such he's somewhat of a mystery.
Supporting Cast
Rolf and Inka: The non-specifically European married couple who run the Mochalotive, the local coffee shop where the cast hang out.
Voice Actors: My hope is to cast many professional voice actors as exaggerated versions of themselves, as Seth's long-suffering but tolerant and kindly colleagues. Some of the main cast see them as celebrities, others as merely Seth's co-workers. Many episodes feature at least one voice actor and their screentime is full of references to their best known roles.
The Further Story
Meh... nothing really. Not yet. It's a fairly episodic sitcom, not very heavy on the story arcs initially. It's a sitcom, so it's more about the humor of the premise than it is about the story. But there will definitely be some stories in there.
One last thing that ought to be mentioned is the series' episode-titling scheme: every episode title will include at least one word which has a "tr" sound in it which is written as "chr", as in the "Chrash" of the series' title. A few episode titles I definitely want to use in the future include "Keep on Chruckin'", "Road Chrip", "Chrick or Chreat", and "Full Creative Conchrol".
Team Salmon #5: Keys & Kingdoms
This year I shared seven ideas I have for very distant TAPAS productions, most of them in the medium of animation - "Team Salmon" being the hypothetical animation division of TAPAS. The official additions to the blog will, effectively, be the third draft of these presentations, the most current and up-to-date version of the stories that exist right now. The September 2018 version for the historical record.
KEYS & KINGDOMS
A series meant to promote the tabletop RPG of the same name. As the Keys & Kingdoms RPG is, in my mind, more important than the cartoon, I'll be including a post about the game as well.
The Style
CGI animation. Fairly realistic with just a bit of style, like a gritty video game or the illustrations in an RPG sourcebook.
The First Episode
We open on a bright stained-glass surface within a dreamlike black void, where we find Kukino, a young boy who looks an awful lot like Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series.
Words appear in the air to advise Kukino on his upcoming journey - but he's too intrigued by the floating words to pay attention to what they're saying. Eventually, this mysterious text-only narrator gets him to settle down and make a decision: a sword, a shield, or a wand. Naturally, Kukino equips both the sword and the shield and tucks the wand into his belt.
The narrator grudgingly accepts this, and continues to give Kukino a tutorial of sorts, ending with a battle against something dark and hulking. It has to be a genuinely exciting, tense battle scene, setting the tone for the future of the series, in which fighting and its effects on people are depicted with at least some grit and realism.
And then, we have Kukino waking up on the beach of his island home. Needs a name. He plays his banjo and sings a little country song about wanting to explore the world beyond his island, singing "This old world... is too dang small." Once his little verse is over, he's greeted by Mizuka, a cute redhead who converts the song to some 80s pop but with the same tone and message, then finally Yamato, a dark and brooding boy with silver hair and heavy eyeliner, switches it to heavy metal, then all three of them come together, blending the three styles into the melody of Kukino's country song.
Once that's over, the trio start collecting materials to build a raft they'll use to sail away and explore the world, in the meantime having some practice battles with some other kids, all very comedic and yet real; we're making fun of all these events, but at the same time, the audience is invested in Kukino and his friends and his world. At the end of the day, the trio watch the sunset.
Then, the focus shifts to elsewhere, to the castle of King Moishe, where Kalle Anka, the rather duck-like court magician, discovers a letter from the king and rushes off to tell guard captain Dingo about it.
The Setting
The RPG campaign world of my creation, tentatively named Cosmos, a world with a globe we'll have to create, maybe even a galaxy or at least a solar system, with various locations corresponding to the seven "themes" of the RPG, scattered all around the planet.
The Characters
As you may have gathered, the cast of the Keys & Kingdoms cartoon is a direct one-for-one translation of the cast of the Kingdom Hearts series. We'll always have to figure out how to put an interesting, amusing, copyright-friendly twist on each and every one of them. Let's focus on the six main characters of the first game:
Kukino: The equivalent to Sora. Depicted as a clueless but well-meaning country bumpkin who lugs around a banjo everywhere he goes in addition to his magnificent key-shaped sword (I think I'm going with Soulkey as the name for the setting's Keyblade equivalent - and you can bet it'll be an item in the RPG as well). While easily distracted and not especially competent, Kukino is not stupid, able to analyze people with his simple-minded wisdom. His lack of finesse with his weapon will be emphasized and be the subject of a lengthy character arc. Musical segments associate him with country.
Yamato: The equivalent to Riku. A brooding, gothic boy in heavy eyeliner. His struggles with the dark side are emphasized a bit, constantly simmering with angst and anger - actually doing that, rather than merely being accused of it by the fans. His musical genre is heavy metal.
Mizuka: The equivalent to Kairi. Her personality is stronger than it is in the series, just as sassy and flirty as she was in the first game, and maintaining a glimmer of that throughout everything she goes through. She wears an excess of makeup and speaks in a New York accent. Her musical genre is 80s pop.
Kalle Anka: The equivalent to Donald Duck. As in the KH canon, he is court magician of his kingdom. In this depiction, he is also a morally-gray vizier motivated entirely by pragmatism, and voiced with a thick and sinister Swedish accent.
Dingo: The equivalent to Goofy. As in the KH canon, he is captain of the king's royal knights who fights with a shield. This is a much bigger part of his personality in this portrayal, abiding by a knightly code of honor and espousing the pacifism that his shield represents. He is voiced in an impression of Sam Elliott.
Hanzo/Thanatos: The equivalent to Ansem/Xehanort. A villain cloaked in shadow throughout most of the early portions of the first story arc. His nature as the setting's equivalent of a Heartless is represented by being fully ruled by his emotions, which swing wildly.
The Further Story
The original plan was for a ten-volume series, with each volume corresponding to a game in the Kingdom Hearts series. I don't want to do that anymore. While I still want the characters and locations to very obviously match up to those of Kingdom Hearts, I no longer want the story to do the same. So, the time must come to come up with an actual story for this. Even the first episode may no longer correspond to day one of Kingdom Hearts. But the concept is the same: we're making fun of Kingdom Hearts with music and silliness, but also taking advantage of KH's setting and concept in a better, smarter way than the series ever actually has.
KEYS & KINGDOMS
A series meant to promote the tabletop RPG of the same name. As the Keys & Kingdoms RPG is, in my mind, more important than the cartoon, I'll be including a post about the game as well.
The Style
CGI animation. Fairly realistic with just a bit of style, like a gritty video game or the illustrations in an RPG sourcebook.
The First Episode
We open on a bright stained-glass surface within a dreamlike black void, where we find Kukino, a young boy who looks an awful lot like Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series.
Words appear in the air to advise Kukino on his upcoming journey - but he's too intrigued by the floating words to pay attention to what they're saying. Eventually, this mysterious text-only narrator gets him to settle down and make a decision: a sword, a shield, or a wand. Naturally, Kukino equips both the sword and the shield and tucks the wand into his belt.
The narrator grudgingly accepts this, and continues to give Kukino a tutorial of sorts, ending with a battle against something dark and hulking. It has to be a genuinely exciting, tense battle scene, setting the tone for the future of the series, in which fighting and its effects on people are depicted with at least some grit and realism.
And then, we have Kukino waking up on the beach of his island home. Needs a name. He plays his banjo and sings a little country song about wanting to explore the world beyond his island, singing "This old world... is too dang small." Once his little verse is over, he's greeted by Mizuka, a cute redhead who converts the song to some 80s pop but with the same tone and message, then finally Yamato, a dark and brooding boy with silver hair and heavy eyeliner, switches it to heavy metal, then all three of them come together, blending the three styles into the melody of Kukino's country song.
Once that's over, the trio start collecting materials to build a raft they'll use to sail away and explore the world, in the meantime having some practice battles with some other kids, all very comedic and yet real; we're making fun of all these events, but at the same time, the audience is invested in Kukino and his friends and his world. At the end of the day, the trio watch the sunset.
Then, the focus shifts to elsewhere, to the castle of King Moishe, where Kalle Anka, the rather duck-like court magician, discovers a letter from the king and rushes off to tell guard captain Dingo about it.
The Setting
The RPG campaign world of my creation, tentatively named Cosmos, a world with a globe we'll have to create, maybe even a galaxy or at least a solar system, with various locations corresponding to the seven "themes" of the RPG, scattered all around the planet.
The Characters
As you may have gathered, the cast of the Keys & Kingdoms cartoon is a direct one-for-one translation of the cast of the Kingdom Hearts series. We'll always have to figure out how to put an interesting, amusing, copyright-friendly twist on each and every one of them. Let's focus on the six main characters of the first game:
Kukino: The equivalent to Sora. Depicted as a clueless but well-meaning country bumpkin who lugs around a banjo everywhere he goes in addition to his magnificent key-shaped sword (I think I'm going with Soulkey as the name for the setting's Keyblade equivalent - and you can bet it'll be an item in the RPG as well). While easily distracted and not especially competent, Kukino is not stupid, able to analyze people with his simple-minded wisdom. His lack of finesse with his weapon will be emphasized and be the subject of a lengthy character arc. Musical segments associate him with country.
Yamato: The equivalent to Riku. A brooding, gothic boy in heavy eyeliner. His struggles with the dark side are emphasized a bit, constantly simmering with angst and anger - actually doing that, rather than merely being accused of it by the fans. His musical genre is heavy metal.
Mizuka: The equivalent to Kairi. Her personality is stronger than it is in the series, just as sassy and flirty as she was in the first game, and maintaining a glimmer of that throughout everything she goes through. She wears an excess of makeup and speaks in a New York accent. Her musical genre is 80s pop.
Kalle Anka: The equivalent to Donald Duck. As in the KH canon, he is court magician of his kingdom. In this depiction, he is also a morally-gray vizier motivated entirely by pragmatism, and voiced with a thick and sinister Swedish accent.
Dingo: The equivalent to Goofy. As in the KH canon, he is captain of the king's royal knights who fights with a shield. This is a much bigger part of his personality in this portrayal, abiding by a knightly code of honor and espousing the pacifism that his shield represents. He is voiced in an impression of Sam Elliott.
Hanzo/Thanatos: The equivalent to Ansem/Xehanort. A villain cloaked in shadow throughout most of the early portions of the first story arc. His nature as the setting's equivalent of a Heartless is represented by being fully ruled by his emotions, which swing wildly.
The Further Story
The original plan was for a ten-volume series, with each volume corresponding to a game in the Kingdom Hearts series. I don't want to do that anymore. While I still want the characters and locations to very obviously match up to those of Kingdom Hearts, I no longer want the story to do the same. So, the time must come to come up with an actual story for this. Even the first episode may no longer correspond to day one of Kingdom Hearts. But the concept is the same: we're making fun of Kingdom Hearts with music and silliness, but also taking advantage of KH's setting and concept in a better, smarter way than the series ever actually has.
Friday, September 7, 2018
Team Salmon #4: Whirlwind
This year I shared seven ideas I have for very distant TAPAS productions, most of them in the medium of animation - "Team Salmon" being the hypothetical animation division of TAPAS. The official additions to the blog will, effectively, be the third draft of these presentations, the most current and up-to-date version of the stories that exist right now. The September 2018 version for the historical record.
WHIRLWIND
Whirlwind is the animated adaptation of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign I've been playing with McKenzie and Nathalie. It's going to need to be licensed, or else we'll have to change the names of all the D&D gods and monsters... hopefully, we can both get the license and be given the creative freedom to keep it perfectly faithful to the campaign.
The Style
The best thing I can compare the aesthetic to is Sofia the First, which is CGI-animated with cel-shading and painted backgrounds so that characters from both 2D and 3D Disney films can fit seamlessly into the world. So, a Disneyesque look... but with all the gritty realism, gruesome injuries, and spectacular beefcake/cheesecake you'd expect from a D&D story.
The First Episode
The story of the first episode can be found here. I'm writing a novelization of the campaign and posting it on fanfiction.net; that will serve as the basis for our cartoon scripts. Following that link you can also find the rest of Whirlwind's story - four episodes of it, as of this writing - and, well, the rest of my fanfic career, which I'm varying degrees of ashamed of.
The Setting
The story begins in the city of Sheradon, a pseudo-medieval town with motifs both Greco-Roman and modeled after modern-day Greece and Italy. Someday soon, the entire rest of this magical world and universe, taking elements from every D&D setting I'm aware of. Exactly what's out there, I haven't fully solidified yet.
The Characters
Anwen Ma'Sijor: McKenzie's character, a half-elven ranger. Orphaned years ago, Anwen has grown up on the streets of the worst neighborhood in Sheradon, defending it from crime.
Pelora Newserge: Nathalie's character, a half-elven cleric. Daughter of religious pilgrims, Pelora has traveled to temples all over two worlds but seldom seen anything outside the walls of the family wagon.
Others: There are plans for at least four other player characters to join the party. Depends on the availability of whoever might play them.
The Further Story
Volume 0: The first four episodes, the part of the story we played a couple of years ago. Anwen and Pelora are shaken out of their daily routine by Semaj Oklahim, a mysterious and obnoxious investor who wants them to become a team of heroes called Whirlwind. After a battle with some giant bugs attacking the neighborhood and a few run-ins with a skull-faced gentleman known only as Bone Mask Guy, they begin to consider taking this step outside of their usual life.
Future: It's hard to say; at the moment, we're in the middle of playing the sixth episode. I plan for there to be another 30 volumes corresponding to the 30 levels of gameplay. And I've certainly got enough ideas to fill 30 story arcs, but as I am but the DM, who knows what direction it'll go?
Bonus Chapters: I intend to end every volume with a bonus chapter, a one-shot story set in the same world, nearby but only slightly connected to the main storyline, played by a revolving door of other friends and contributors and starring the characters they create.
WHIRLWIND
Whirlwind is the animated adaptation of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign I've been playing with McKenzie and Nathalie. It's going to need to be licensed, or else we'll have to change the names of all the D&D gods and monsters... hopefully, we can both get the license and be given the creative freedom to keep it perfectly faithful to the campaign.
The Style
The best thing I can compare the aesthetic to is Sofia the First, which is CGI-animated with cel-shading and painted backgrounds so that characters from both 2D and 3D Disney films can fit seamlessly into the world. So, a Disneyesque look... but with all the gritty realism, gruesome injuries, and spectacular beefcake/cheesecake you'd expect from a D&D story.
The First Episode
The story of the first episode can be found here. I'm writing a novelization of the campaign and posting it on fanfiction.net; that will serve as the basis for our cartoon scripts. Following that link you can also find the rest of Whirlwind's story - four episodes of it, as of this writing - and, well, the rest of my fanfic career, which I'm varying degrees of ashamed of.
The Setting
The story begins in the city of Sheradon, a pseudo-medieval town with motifs both Greco-Roman and modeled after modern-day Greece and Italy. Someday soon, the entire rest of this magical world and universe, taking elements from every D&D setting I'm aware of. Exactly what's out there, I haven't fully solidified yet.
The Characters
Anwen Ma'Sijor: McKenzie's character, a half-elven ranger. Orphaned years ago, Anwen has grown up on the streets of the worst neighborhood in Sheradon, defending it from crime.
Pelora Newserge: Nathalie's character, a half-elven cleric. Daughter of religious pilgrims, Pelora has traveled to temples all over two worlds but seldom seen anything outside the walls of the family wagon.
Others: There are plans for at least four other player characters to join the party. Depends on the availability of whoever might play them.
The Further Story
Volume 0: The first four episodes, the part of the story we played a couple of years ago. Anwen and Pelora are shaken out of their daily routine by Semaj Oklahim, a mysterious and obnoxious investor who wants them to become a team of heroes called Whirlwind. After a battle with some giant bugs attacking the neighborhood and a few run-ins with a skull-faced gentleman known only as Bone Mask Guy, they begin to consider taking this step outside of their usual life.
Future: It's hard to say; at the moment, we're in the middle of playing the sixth episode. I plan for there to be another 30 volumes corresponding to the 30 levels of gameplay. And I've certainly got enough ideas to fill 30 story arcs, but as I am but the DM, who knows what direction it'll go?
Bonus Chapters: I intend to end every volume with a bonus chapter, a one-shot story set in the same world, nearby but only slightly connected to the main storyline, played by a revolving door of other friends and contributors and starring the characters they create.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Team Salmon #3: Our Pack
This year I shared seven ideas I have for very distant TAPAS productions, most of them in the medium of animation - "Team Salmon" being the hypothetical animation division of TAPAS. The official additions to the blog will, effectively, be the third draft of these presentations, the most current and up-to-date version of the stories that exist right now. The September 2018 version for the historical record.
OUR PACK
A series about the Armored Anthros, ordinary animals granted the ability to transform into magical warriors and defend the natural order. Our main characters are six beloved pets who have been granted that power by chance and must learn the ways of the Armored Anthros.
The Style
2D animation, with the animals rendered very realistically. Anime motifs, with bright colors and thick outlines.
The First Episode
We open in media res, captioned "a short time from now". A woman walks through an empty courtyard in the middle of a city. A spaniel follows her at a distance. She assures the dog that he has no reason to hide from her. The dog agrees, and transforms into a bipedal, armored warrior. "And why not?" he says. "You're not even a real human." She grins at him, her eyes glowing red, congratulating him for noticing.
The next scene is captioned "two months ago". The spaniel, Sawyer, watches through a window as a car full of unseen people leaves their large estate in the middle of the woods. Grumbling to himself, as apparently the human family he loves leaves him alone with the other pets on a regular basis, he heads out into the backyard where his fellow pets are playing a game with each other; the two large dogs, Rufus and Boo Boo, attempting to take treats from the cats, Billy and Sacha, hindered by the cats dropping buckets full of snakes on them. Sawyer sits down beside the last pet, fellow small dog Sebastian, watching the game as it goes on. Sawyer resists all attempts from Sebastian to bond over their shared lack of enthusiasm for their fellows' roughhousing.
Later that evening, the six pets eat their food out on a second-floor balcony, watching the sunset. The moment the sun dips below the horizon, there is an explosion of light that knocks them all out, and a big deep voice explains to them in their dreams the origins of the Armored Anthros thousands of years ago, and that the power is now theirs. Sawyer is the first to awaken, and finds himself clothed, and his physiology much more human-like. "Dear God, I'm a furry," he blurts. "We're all furries!" As the others come to, they find they are able to shift back into their normal animal form, and all are left very confused.
The next time card reads "around now". Sawyer once again watches the unseen family drive away and curls up in front of the fire - which he lights himself with the pyrokinetic powers he now possesses. His rest is once again interrupted by the sound of the other five pets having a noisy game with each other in the backyard - this time, dueling each other using their powers. We learn that each of them has a different elemental energy: fire, shadow, plant, wind, ice, and lightning. Sawyer is roped into participating in the final duel, his fire against Sebastian's lightning. Though Sawyer has not practiced with the others over the past two months, he easily defeats the meek and cautious Sebastian.
A cat appears over the backyard fence; Jessie, an ordinary cat, a stray from the neighborhood. She congratulates them on having progressed as Armored Anthros without any formal training - and states that she just might have caught wind of a mission for them. And there the episode ends.
The Setting
A big house in the woods outside of a village called Edgewood. In this setting, animals of all sorts can speak to each other and we never actually see any humans, though they're mentioned often and pets hold them in high esteem.
While the animals are more intelligent and capable than they are in real life, they're still very much animals, somewhat realistic in their limitations; but what's quickly discovered is that this world is home to an order older than humanity called the Armored Anthros, animals who transform into a clothed, humanoid figure armed with a weapon and a specific magical power that suits their personality. Building amazing structures out of the "diamond dust" that exists in all earth, unseen by humans, these Anthros defend the natural order from all manner of threats.
The Characters
The story centers around a group soon to be known as the Edgewood Pack, the six beloved pets of a wealthy family. With no connection to or knowledge of the Armored Anthros, the six are randomly given the power, and a small smattering of the lore, from a big voice coming from the direction of the setting sun.
Sawyer: The leader of the pack by virtue of seniority and the main character. A fluffy cocker spaniel, when transformed Sawyer wields a staff and has the power of fire. Very abrasive and irritable, Sawyer initially resents most of his packmates for having ever been adopted and has no interest in the Armored Anthro powers, before coming to appreciate the others as a team and their interest in pursuing the mysterious responsibilities they now have. He's still not the best at diplomacy and very contrary when dealing with anyone outside the pack.
Sacha: A very thin and sleek gray-furred cat, a Siamese/Russian blue mix. When transformed he wields a flail and has powers of darkness and shadows. Sacha and Sawyer were both born and adopted on the same day and are as close as brothers despite the massive contrast in their personalities, Sacha being very boisterous and friendly.
Rufus: A massive Doberman Pinscher. When transformed, Rufus wields a huge axe and has power over plants. Rufus is simple-minded and has no agenda, generally agreeing with what anyone tells him. When pressed to show it, he is very affectionate but also extremely dangerous in combat.
Billy: A plain black cat. He wields a katana and has wind powers. More cat-like in his mindset than Sacha, Billy is inscrutable, with a suspicious mind and a peculiar sense of morality, while also being warm, friendly, and funny.
Boo Boo: A large mixed-breed dog, appearing to be mostly black Labrador with elements of pit bull, boxer, and Dalmatian. The only female in the pack, Boo Boo wields a broadsword and has ice powers. Having been abandoned and rescued in the woods rather than formally adopted like the others, Boo Boo often feels isolated and is loud and vehement, though fiercely loyal.
Sebastian: The youngest of the pack, a fluffy Lhasa Apso/Bichon Frise mix. When transformed, Sebastian wields a tiny hammer and shield and has lightning powers as well as healing abilities. Sebastian is quiet and introverted and has few close relationships even among his packmates.
Wasp: A yellowjacket whom the pack find injured in the street during the first story arc, Sebastian takes pity on him and heals him. Now enjoying an extended lifespan, Wasp decides to follow the pack around, providing a snarky running commentary and occasionally an eye in the sky, eventually being accepted as an honorary seventh member. In Season 2 he is granted the Armored Anthro powers, gaining a rapier and power over earth and stone.
Clover: The most recurring character outside of the pack, a hermit crab who runs a weapon shop in a secret Armored Anthro village in the backwoods of Edgewood. He wields a mace and has power over water, and knows many of the secrets of the diamond dust. He helps the pack with figuring out their place in the world and the ways of the Armored Anthros, while having a very antagonistic relationship with Sawyer in particular.
The Further Story
I initially envisioned each season as a video game encompassing six boss battles each. While I intend to re-structure the series to be a bit less action-oriented, it still more or less follows this formula of a lot of travel connected by these six confrontations.
Season 1: Our Pack: The story of the first season is told mostly through flashbacks, first to the night that all the pets were given the Anthro powers. In the present day, some ordinary animals in the neighborhood approach the pack with a mystery for them to solve, involving the kidnapping of some rare turtles by the pack's very own pet-sitter. Over the course of the story, Sawyer flashes back to the days when every individual member of the pack first joined the family, seeing them all in a positive light for the first time as they battle other Anthros who are in on the conspiracy. The final boss is the Sitter herself, the only human in the series who is ever seen clearly, and even she is revealed fairly early on not to be human at all, but some sort of demon.
Season 2: Era of Rodents: Having adjusted to the Anthro life and taking regular missions, the pack discover a plot by an army of Anthro rodents to conquer the world. Teaming up with a more experienced, more ruthless group causes friction among the pack. The final boss is John, the heavily-armored, scythe-wielding rat who leads the army.
Season 3: Dark Plants from Another World: An invasion force of alien plant creatures appears on Earth, knowing what all invaders seem to know: to target the Armored Anthros in secret before making their way to conquering the human world. Joining the efforts to repel the invasion, the pack realize for the first time just how large-scale the Anthro order is, as they join a fleet of technologically-advanced airships from all corners of the world, as they eventually are the ones to make their way to the inside of the massive alien mothership and battle the plants on their own turf. The final boss is the Mother Root, the giant queen of the plants.
Season 4: Endangered Species: A mission takes the pack out into the wilderness of the Americas, allying with a pack of non-Anthro wolves and numerous sea creatures against an assortment of animals, some Anthro and some not, who are sabotaging some land developers and are against humanity as a whole. The pack have to grapple with their own protective love for humans and the reality of the way humans harm nature. The final boss is Fumiko, a great white shark who is not an Armored Anthro but still manages to be the most dangerous individual the pack have ever faced.
Beyond: I have no plans for a fifth season, only that there will certainly be one. The mystery of just what makes the Edgewood Pack so special needs to be addressed. The Sitter and her demonic nature also need to be explored further. And the nature of dragons, who are often spoken of but not yet been seen, also has to be delved into. And from there, well, there needs to be some sort of conclusion.
Way Beyond: The six members of the pack are based on the real pets my family owned somewhere in the vicinity of 2008. Of those six, Sebastian is the only one still a part of the family, and as he's currently a very old dog and has acted like an old dog since before he was fully grown, it's hard to think of the fictional Sebastian the way I conceived of the character, as the youngest of the group instead of the oldest. As such, I sometimes envision a spin-off set ten years after the main series, starring an elderly Sebastian, the only member of the original Edgewood Pack still living and serving as a mentor figure to a cast which includes the family's other current dogs, Clovis the American Eskimo, a handsome and experienced Anthro who might debut in Season 5 or even 4, and Poppy the Pomeranian/American Eskimo mix, a very young newcomer to the order.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Team Salmon #2: Iris
This year I shared seven ideas I have for very distant TAPAS productions, most of them in the medium of animation - "Team Salmon" being the hypothetical animation division of TAPAS. The official additions to the blog will, effectively, be the third draft of these presentations, the most current and up-to-date version of the stories that exist right now. The September 2018 version for the historical record.
IRIS
This story has gone through a lot of permutations, especially recently. The original goal was to create an original story which could be used to repurpose all the ideas from the Maximum Ride fanfiction I wrote when I was in my late teens. The biggest stroke that came in setting it apart from Maximum Ride was to take it away from a modern setting and into what I call a "post-post-apocalyptic" world; the world as we know it is gone, but the human race has bounced back and become something new over thousands of years.
Iris was the story most influenced by Rooster Teeth Animation, which I discovered last year and inspired the grouping of all of these ideas under the Team Salmon banner. I figured Iris would be a successor to RWBY, a CGI anime where every weapon is also a gun. But then I saw the film Fire and Ice, a 1983 animated film by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta inspired by the works of Robert E. Howard, and I really wanted to create something inspired by that kind of barbarian genre, and I realized it would actually fit in really well with Iris to make it unique - there'd be no need to make a successor to RWBY, which already exists; everyone who wants to break into web animation from now on will do it with a successor to RWBY. So now, through many disparate influences, I really had something different.
Then, just a few days ago, I discovered there was a Maximum Ride movie released two years ago. I immediately dropped everything to watch it, and while it wasn't a very good film, I loved it anyway. It reminded me of my passion for one of my first truly life-changing artistic influences, so... now I'm committed to bringing some of the Maximum Ride atmosphere that I'd taken out of Iris and putting it back in. And so we have come full circle.
The Style
Rotoscoping. See, traditional animation is all but dead, probably because of the time and effort required, but rotoscoping has always been said to be much cheaper. It seems a bit counterintuitive to me that filming a scene and then animating it is cheaper than animating it freehand, but that's been common animation wisdom since the 1930s, so I'll take their word for it. Maybe rotoscoping Iris could be just as easy as flash-animating it! Or maybe, despite being inspired by Fire and Ice, it'll end up looking more like He-Man, but that's okay, that's a solid influence too. Gritty 80s rotoscoped animation is the atmosphere we're going for.
The First Episode
Iris sleeps, seemingly an ordinary girl in an ordinary bed. She tosses and turns, having a nightmare about being experimented upon in a Victorian-era-looking steampunk lab, having her hearing and vision tested with unnecessary pain. She wakes up, and finds that she's in a strange dungeon-like room with a mysterious light source. Not recognizing her surroundings, she searches for a way out.
In the tunnel-like hallways outside the room, Iris runs into Doc Morgana, who wears the same long white robe as the people who were experimenting on her. He tries to calm her and explains to her that she is no longer at Longsaddle University, a notion she can barely process. He invites her on a tour of the facility: outside the tunnel is an amazing cavern of reddish stone, crossed by many walkways, lit by sunlight from many openings in the cavern's roof, with water below filled with fish and other life; people are bustling all around. Doc explains that they're called Gaia, and that they are a secret organization out to save the world. Iris takes in none of this, only seeing the sun; she spreads her huge bat wings and attempts to fly away, but is stopped by the call of a familiar voice, that of Alton.
Calmed by the sight and sound of her friend, Iris halts her escape attempt. Now that she's pacified, she starts to actually process what she's been told. She's approached by Marty, the elderly wheelchair-bound cyborg who leads Gaia. He explains that Longsaddle and Gaia are enemies, but managed to work out the exchange of a large sum of money for the five mutant teens; down below, Lydia is speaking before a crowd of Gaia members, explaining the powers and abilities of Raquelle, Sequoia, and Meggi as the trio demonstrate.
Iris wants to know what the teens owe Gaia, and Marty hastily assures her that it's nothing at all; they are free now, and permitted to live in the Gaia base or be protected wherever else they'd like to go. While four of them happily accept this, Iris doesn't seem to buy it. More details about the facility are revealed; most prominently Antonio and the rest of the security team, raising the question of how exactly Gaia goes about saving the world; and Tina, the alien who has supplied Gaia with the technology that powers their base.
A private conversation between Doc and Marty reveals that the two have different perspectives: it was Doc who orchestrated the purchase of the teens from Longsaddle, and is very eager to employ them to Gaia's advantage; Marty, however, went through with it out of the goodness of his heart, and reminds Doc that the teens have every right to refuse to work for them, and he doesn't want to spring the notion on them too early.
A slip of the tongue from Lydia reveals to Iris that certain people expect the teens to fight on Gaia's behalf. Her suspicions confirmed, Iris takes to the sky again, finding that the base is beneath the ground in the midst of a massive, barren desert. In despair, she tries to kill herself by flying as high as she can then going into an uncontrolled dive; but Alton, his own wings unseen up to this point, flies up and saves her, bringing her to one of the lone trees dotting the landscape. Iris has made up her mind that this new situation is not an improvement over their old one, but submits to Alton when he pleads with her to give it a try.
The Setting
The central setting is the snazzy base built into the desert cave system, as previously described. Little by little, details of the post-post-apocalyptic setting are revealed. While it initially seems to be a constructed world with real-world parallels, it turns out to be Earth in the year 7099, exactly 5000 years after an apocalypse wiped out much of humanity and changed the world's geography. Primarily this just means that every continent except Africa is now smaller, but there are a few other eerie details such as the fact that the Mediterranean is now a desert instead of a sea, and that no place that gets visited is really recognizable as Earth, all landscapes being spectacular and somewhat alien.
There are a handful of countries in the world, I've been working on constructing them and their histories; no two nations border one another, it's just a planet full of no-man's-land dotted with occasional small countries. Most places have a Stone Age aesthetic, but it's strikingly inconsistent, with societal and technological levels varying from place to place, from the Stone Age to the Cold War, with occasional glimmers of purely science-fiction elements like laser guns and hovercrafts. Fashion is very Stone Age.
Gaia's mission is one of peace and justice, and they regularly send people out into the world on behalf of that mission. Themes of the story include depression, growing up, and societal justice.
The Characters
The series starts with ten main heroes. Ultimately, it'll be a massive cast where people regularly join up, leave, or are killed off. There's also a substantial rogues gallery. For the purposes of the cast list, let's focus on the ten main heroes:
The Eyes of Gaia
The five mutated teenagers purchased from Longsaddle University by Gaia. Each an animal hybrid, the group were born and raised in Longsaddle's laboratories. Gaia offers the teens as much freedom as they can possibly give, while also inviting them to become the Eyes of Gaia, the face, and elite strike force, of their cause.
Iris: Our protagonist, a 17-year-old girl. Her animal hybrid is a bat; she can fly, provided enough space for her enormous wings, has bat ears the size of her head that don't miss any sound, and most of her body is covered in thin brown fuzz. She has brown hair, short but thick and sometimes used to hide her ears, and large black eyes. She generally wears the slave-like outfit that the Eyes wore as lab subjects. Due to being the oldest of the experiments and having been alone longer, Iris is the most psychologically damaged, suffering from depression, bipolar disorder, and a tendency towards addiction. Deeply cynical, with no love for the world or faith in humanity, she is initially completely against joining the organization, and when persuaded she does it only for the adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment rather than any feeling that she's doing the right thing. Due to her depression, any character development she undergoes tends to be undone by the slightest snag. Despite this, she's valued as a fighter and leader due to her logical and perceptive cynicism. She generally fights only with knives, not allowing herself any long-range capabilities due to her thrill-seeking and disregard for her own safety.
Alton: A 15-year-old boy with owl DNA. He can fly silently on his great gray wings and see in great detail even in the dark. A gray-haired, yellow-eyed pretty boy, he has a muscular, feathered body. He dresses in tight-fitting, dark clothing, and often goes shirtless to make the use of his wings easy. He is the only person who can reason with Iris, and deal with her with unlimited patience and understanding. He comforts her, caters to her, and she occasionally seduces him. As good as he is for her, the fact that he has no interests outside of Iris speaks to his own psychological issues. He backs her up in combat, using a high-tech crossbow of his own design.
Raquelle: A 14-year-old girl with polar bear DNA. She is incredibly powerful, able to lift immense weight, kill with a single punch, and shrug off any hand-to-hand blow. A curvy blue-eyed blonde, she wears goth attire and makeup. Her fingers end in black claws, and she's coated in white body hair. Raquelle is snarky and irreverent with confidence and swagger, seemingly unbothered by the group's lab-experiment past or the battles of the present, but grows fiery and dangerous when things get personal. As part of her overconfidence, she fights with an electrified whip and a handheld railgun rather than anything that would benefit from her strength.
Sequoia: A 14-year-old boy with wolf DNA. He can run for hours at very high speeds and can compete with Raquelle for keenness of hearing and scent. He has a dark complexion of an unclear ethnicity, with long black hair tinged with the silver and brown wolf fur that covers his body, sharp ears, and prominent teeth. His clothing sense is best described as nondescript. He's a hard guy to read, saying very little and wanting very little. He is insightful and will speak up if he spots something that no one else has, and is prone to huge expressions of sincere gratitude. He has a well-hidden whimsical side, enjoying simple toys and games. His weapon of choice is a death ray disguised as a yo-yo.
Meggi: A 13-year-old girl with swordfish DNA. The only one of the five without significantly heightened senses, but she can breathe underwater for several hours, can swim at immense speeds, and as a natural extension is quite strong, fast, and can jump high. A gorgeous green-eyed redhead with wild curly hair, her hands and feet are finned, she has a prominent dorsal fin, and much of her body is covered in blue and white scales. She dresses like she's attending a beach party. A ditzy valley girl who'd spend all her time at a mall if one was available, she hides her pain behind excessive cheer. Befitting her nautical theme, she fights with a trident that occasionally shoots laser beams.
Gaia
Marty Hedrick: Gaia's founder and leader. A brilliant scientist who has a history with most of the evil organizations in the series, he's started his own organization in the hopes of finally doing some good. Following a near-fatal accident in his past, he's a cyborg, though not an especially cool one: only his eyes, jaw, and chest are mechanical, while his arms and legs are still biological and barely work. His withered body resides in a high-tech wheelchair, and he has a full head of long white hair. A distant and mysterious mentor, he's as alive and brilliant as ever, looking remarkably well-preserved for a guy nearly 200 years old; indeed, one gets the sense that he's likely to go down in a blaze of glory.
Doc Morgana: A scientist whose position in Gaia is prominent but unclear. A middle-aged bearded man who wears a white robe, Doc orchestrated the deal to acquire the Eyes of Gaia from Longsaddle. He is able to organize many such deals and offers small advice on every caper the group has. He's willing to resort to underhanded strategies in achieving the group's goals, and eventually seems to display a talent for manipulating Gaia's own members.
Lydia Thom: A therapist who attends to Gaia's members. A young bespectacled woman with black hair and an English accent. Lydia is only 22 years old but has several advanced degrees and is possessed of extreme intelligence and empathy, making her one of the most valued members of Gaia, keeping them all sane even as her own vulnerabilities begin to build up.
Tina Six: An elf-like extraterrestrial, real name Micanevtina Sixavae; an attractive green-skinned woman with bushy brown hair, four all-black eyes, three-fingered hands, and clawed feet better suited for living in trees than on the ground. Her expertise supplies Gaia with technology more advanced than what's available in the rest of the world, and she's a gateway to the cosmic side of the setting: there are very few planets in the galaxy with life, but all of them have an interest in Earth. Devoutly religious, Tina values humans more than her own kind and believes them to be the one civilization in the galaxy with the true potential for good.
Antonio Fratelli: Gaia's chief of security. Distinguished from Gaia's other faceless goons with guns by his more colorful armor, he gradually starts to come out of his shell, revealing long blond hair and a very nurturing, almost motherly personality. He's a former soldier who sought out Gaia membership on his own terms, rather than being recruited at a low point as most members were. This makes him much more well-adjusted than the rest of the membership, and more down-to-earth and relatable than the huge intellects that make up the rest of the leadership. A master of effective tactics, espionage, and teaching others to fight, Antonio is always the first out in the field, armed with a laser rifle and combat knife.
The Further Story
While the particulars have been stripped away by different characters and a very different setting, the first two volumes are meant to parallel the story beats of approximately the first trilogy of the Maximum Ride series, while the third and fourth volumes slightly more faithfully retell the events of my aforementioned Maximum Ride fanfiction. After that, well, I have a feeling there's a lot more Iris to tell. Each "volume" is likely to be multiple seasons.
Volume 1: This volume starts off largely character-driven, introducing us to Gaia's inner workings and the state of the world. Iris and her peers remain largely uninvolved in the early plots, merely being given exposition and shaping themselves into people defined by more than their traumatic past. Another main purpose is to establish a rogues gallery: criminals, aliens, mad scientists, politicians, and finally, the proper introduction to Longsaddle University, who have come to regret their decision to sell the teens and desperately want them back for use as engines of destruction. To this end, they've conscripted Moira, a wolverine hybrid who had a strained relationship with Iris back when they were both captive and now loathes her deeply. With the addition of this personal reason to fight, Iris finally agrees to form the Eyes of Gaia and appear on the front lines of Gaia's battles.
Volume 2: The battle between Gaia and Longsaddle escalates to all-out street warfare. Mysticism begins to become prominent, in the form of ancient practitioners of magic who preserved human knowledge for 5000 years, and aliens powerful enough to be gods. Gaia, and the Eyes in particular, become folk heroes, and amass more allies and enemies all over the world. The volume peaks in a huge, tragic climactic battle, with everything at stake and many lives lost, but it all ends with the Eyes fully in the public eye, being applauded by the entire world.
Volume 3: Their celebrity status opens up the Eyes to a new path in life, and they find themselves in an entirely new world of making public appearances, selling merchandise, and getting a formal education. For the first time, the Eyes deal with the mundane dramas of life, which they find more difficult than fighting evil ever was. And even while they've defeated Longsaddle, there are many enemies both old and new who continue to turn up, most prominently a gang of mutant monstrosities forcibly trying to recruit the Eyes into their ranks, and Jewel, a ruby-encrusted robot whose motives fluctuate from moment to moment.
Volume 4: A time-skip of several years has placed each member of the Eyes in a different place. With Jewel seeking to cull the human population, allegedly to conserve resources but mostly because he enjoys formulating the most evil schemes possible, they decide it's time to find their way back to each other, making their way through a world now ravaged by war.
Beyond: Well, heck, I barely know what happens in the four volumes I've actually planned, much less what happens afterward. It's all rather intricate and reliant on small details that would be tedious to explain here. Ultimately, the whole series is all about seeing how it shapes Iris and her friends; events are secondary.
IRIS
This story has gone through a lot of permutations, especially recently. The original goal was to create an original story which could be used to repurpose all the ideas from the Maximum Ride fanfiction I wrote when I was in my late teens. The biggest stroke that came in setting it apart from Maximum Ride was to take it away from a modern setting and into what I call a "post-post-apocalyptic" world; the world as we know it is gone, but the human race has bounced back and become something new over thousands of years.
Iris was the story most influenced by Rooster Teeth Animation, which I discovered last year and inspired the grouping of all of these ideas under the Team Salmon banner. I figured Iris would be a successor to RWBY, a CGI anime where every weapon is also a gun. But then I saw the film Fire and Ice, a 1983 animated film by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta inspired by the works of Robert E. Howard, and I really wanted to create something inspired by that kind of barbarian genre, and I realized it would actually fit in really well with Iris to make it unique - there'd be no need to make a successor to RWBY, which already exists; everyone who wants to break into web animation from now on will do it with a successor to RWBY. So now, through many disparate influences, I really had something different.
Then, just a few days ago, I discovered there was a Maximum Ride movie released two years ago. I immediately dropped everything to watch it, and while it wasn't a very good film, I loved it anyway. It reminded me of my passion for one of my first truly life-changing artistic influences, so... now I'm committed to bringing some of the Maximum Ride atmosphere that I'd taken out of Iris and putting it back in. And so we have come full circle.
The Style
Rotoscoping. See, traditional animation is all but dead, probably because of the time and effort required, but rotoscoping has always been said to be much cheaper. It seems a bit counterintuitive to me that filming a scene and then animating it is cheaper than animating it freehand, but that's been common animation wisdom since the 1930s, so I'll take their word for it. Maybe rotoscoping Iris could be just as easy as flash-animating it! Or maybe, despite being inspired by Fire and Ice, it'll end up looking more like He-Man, but that's okay, that's a solid influence too. Gritty 80s rotoscoped animation is the atmosphere we're going for.
The First Episode
Iris sleeps, seemingly an ordinary girl in an ordinary bed. She tosses and turns, having a nightmare about being experimented upon in a Victorian-era-looking steampunk lab, having her hearing and vision tested with unnecessary pain. She wakes up, and finds that she's in a strange dungeon-like room with a mysterious light source. Not recognizing her surroundings, she searches for a way out.
In the tunnel-like hallways outside the room, Iris runs into Doc Morgana, who wears the same long white robe as the people who were experimenting on her. He tries to calm her and explains to her that she is no longer at Longsaddle University, a notion she can barely process. He invites her on a tour of the facility: outside the tunnel is an amazing cavern of reddish stone, crossed by many walkways, lit by sunlight from many openings in the cavern's roof, with water below filled with fish and other life; people are bustling all around. Doc explains that they're called Gaia, and that they are a secret organization out to save the world. Iris takes in none of this, only seeing the sun; she spreads her huge bat wings and attempts to fly away, but is stopped by the call of a familiar voice, that of Alton.
Calmed by the sight and sound of her friend, Iris halts her escape attempt. Now that she's pacified, she starts to actually process what she's been told. She's approached by Marty, the elderly wheelchair-bound cyborg who leads Gaia. He explains that Longsaddle and Gaia are enemies, but managed to work out the exchange of a large sum of money for the five mutant teens; down below, Lydia is speaking before a crowd of Gaia members, explaining the powers and abilities of Raquelle, Sequoia, and Meggi as the trio demonstrate.
Iris wants to know what the teens owe Gaia, and Marty hastily assures her that it's nothing at all; they are free now, and permitted to live in the Gaia base or be protected wherever else they'd like to go. While four of them happily accept this, Iris doesn't seem to buy it. More details about the facility are revealed; most prominently Antonio and the rest of the security team, raising the question of how exactly Gaia goes about saving the world; and Tina, the alien who has supplied Gaia with the technology that powers their base.
A private conversation between Doc and Marty reveals that the two have different perspectives: it was Doc who orchestrated the purchase of the teens from Longsaddle, and is very eager to employ them to Gaia's advantage; Marty, however, went through with it out of the goodness of his heart, and reminds Doc that the teens have every right to refuse to work for them, and he doesn't want to spring the notion on them too early.
A slip of the tongue from Lydia reveals to Iris that certain people expect the teens to fight on Gaia's behalf. Her suspicions confirmed, Iris takes to the sky again, finding that the base is beneath the ground in the midst of a massive, barren desert. In despair, she tries to kill herself by flying as high as she can then going into an uncontrolled dive; but Alton, his own wings unseen up to this point, flies up and saves her, bringing her to one of the lone trees dotting the landscape. Iris has made up her mind that this new situation is not an improvement over their old one, but submits to Alton when he pleads with her to give it a try.
The Setting
The central setting is the snazzy base built into the desert cave system, as previously described. Little by little, details of the post-post-apocalyptic setting are revealed. While it initially seems to be a constructed world with real-world parallels, it turns out to be Earth in the year 7099, exactly 5000 years after an apocalypse wiped out much of humanity and changed the world's geography. Primarily this just means that every continent except Africa is now smaller, but there are a few other eerie details such as the fact that the Mediterranean is now a desert instead of a sea, and that no place that gets visited is really recognizable as Earth, all landscapes being spectacular and somewhat alien.
There are a handful of countries in the world, I've been working on constructing them and their histories; no two nations border one another, it's just a planet full of no-man's-land dotted with occasional small countries. Most places have a Stone Age aesthetic, but it's strikingly inconsistent, with societal and technological levels varying from place to place, from the Stone Age to the Cold War, with occasional glimmers of purely science-fiction elements like laser guns and hovercrafts. Fashion is very Stone Age.
Gaia's mission is one of peace and justice, and they regularly send people out into the world on behalf of that mission. Themes of the story include depression, growing up, and societal justice.
The Characters
The series starts with ten main heroes. Ultimately, it'll be a massive cast where people regularly join up, leave, or are killed off. There's also a substantial rogues gallery. For the purposes of the cast list, let's focus on the ten main heroes:
The Eyes of Gaia
The five mutated teenagers purchased from Longsaddle University by Gaia. Each an animal hybrid, the group were born and raised in Longsaddle's laboratories. Gaia offers the teens as much freedom as they can possibly give, while also inviting them to become the Eyes of Gaia, the face, and elite strike force, of their cause.
Iris: Our protagonist, a 17-year-old girl. Her animal hybrid is a bat; she can fly, provided enough space for her enormous wings, has bat ears the size of her head that don't miss any sound, and most of her body is covered in thin brown fuzz. She has brown hair, short but thick and sometimes used to hide her ears, and large black eyes. She generally wears the slave-like outfit that the Eyes wore as lab subjects. Due to being the oldest of the experiments and having been alone longer, Iris is the most psychologically damaged, suffering from depression, bipolar disorder, and a tendency towards addiction. Deeply cynical, with no love for the world or faith in humanity, she is initially completely against joining the organization, and when persuaded she does it only for the adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment rather than any feeling that she's doing the right thing. Due to her depression, any character development she undergoes tends to be undone by the slightest snag. Despite this, she's valued as a fighter and leader due to her logical and perceptive cynicism. She generally fights only with knives, not allowing herself any long-range capabilities due to her thrill-seeking and disregard for her own safety.
Alton: A 15-year-old boy with owl DNA. He can fly silently on his great gray wings and see in great detail even in the dark. A gray-haired, yellow-eyed pretty boy, he has a muscular, feathered body. He dresses in tight-fitting, dark clothing, and often goes shirtless to make the use of his wings easy. He is the only person who can reason with Iris, and deal with her with unlimited patience and understanding. He comforts her, caters to her, and she occasionally seduces him. As good as he is for her, the fact that he has no interests outside of Iris speaks to his own psychological issues. He backs her up in combat, using a high-tech crossbow of his own design.
Raquelle: A 14-year-old girl with polar bear DNA. She is incredibly powerful, able to lift immense weight, kill with a single punch, and shrug off any hand-to-hand blow. A curvy blue-eyed blonde, she wears goth attire and makeup. Her fingers end in black claws, and she's coated in white body hair. Raquelle is snarky and irreverent with confidence and swagger, seemingly unbothered by the group's lab-experiment past or the battles of the present, but grows fiery and dangerous when things get personal. As part of her overconfidence, she fights with an electrified whip and a handheld railgun rather than anything that would benefit from her strength.
Sequoia: A 14-year-old boy with wolf DNA. He can run for hours at very high speeds and can compete with Raquelle for keenness of hearing and scent. He has a dark complexion of an unclear ethnicity, with long black hair tinged with the silver and brown wolf fur that covers his body, sharp ears, and prominent teeth. His clothing sense is best described as nondescript. He's a hard guy to read, saying very little and wanting very little. He is insightful and will speak up if he spots something that no one else has, and is prone to huge expressions of sincere gratitude. He has a well-hidden whimsical side, enjoying simple toys and games. His weapon of choice is a death ray disguised as a yo-yo.
Meggi: A 13-year-old girl with swordfish DNA. The only one of the five without significantly heightened senses, but she can breathe underwater for several hours, can swim at immense speeds, and as a natural extension is quite strong, fast, and can jump high. A gorgeous green-eyed redhead with wild curly hair, her hands and feet are finned, she has a prominent dorsal fin, and much of her body is covered in blue and white scales. She dresses like she's attending a beach party. A ditzy valley girl who'd spend all her time at a mall if one was available, she hides her pain behind excessive cheer. Befitting her nautical theme, she fights with a trident that occasionally shoots laser beams.
Gaia
Marty Hedrick: Gaia's founder and leader. A brilliant scientist who has a history with most of the evil organizations in the series, he's started his own organization in the hopes of finally doing some good. Following a near-fatal accident in his past, he's a cyborg, though not an especially cool one: only his eyes, jaw, and chest are mechanical, while his arms and legs are still biological and barely work. His withered body resides in a high-tech wheelchair, and he has a full head of long white hair. A distant and mysterious mentor, he's as alive and brilliant as ever, looking remarkably well-preserved for a guy nearly 200 years old; indeed, one gets the sense that he's likely to go down in a blaze of glory.
Doc Morgana: A scientist whose position in Gaia is prominent but unclear. A middle-aged bearded man who wears a white robe, Doc orchestrated the deal to acquire the Eyes of Gaia from Longsaddle. He is able to organize many such deals and offers small advice on every caper the group has. He's willing to resort to underhanded strategies in achieving the group's goals, and eventually seems to display a talent for manipulating Gaia's own members.
Lydia Thom: A therapist who attends to Gaia's members. A young bespectacled woman with black hair and an English accent. Lydia is only 22 years old but has several advanced degrees and is possessed of extreme intelligence and empathy, making her one of the most valued members of Gaia, keeping them all sane even as her own vulnerabilities begin to build up.
Tina Six: An elf-like extraterrestrial, real name Micanevtina Sixavae; an attractive green-skinned woman with bushy brown hair, four all-black eyes, three-fingered hands, and clawed feet better suited for living in trees than on the ground. Her expertise supplies Gaia with technology more advanced than what's available in the rest of the world, and she's a gateway to the cosmic side of the setting: there are very few planets in the galaxy with life, but all of them have an interest in Earth. Devoutly religious, Tina values humans more than her own kind and believes them to be the one civilization in the galaxy with the true potential for good.
Antonio Fratelli: Gaia's chief of security. Distinguished from Gaia's other faceless goons with guns by his more colorful armor, he gradually starts to come out of his shell, revealing long blond hair and a very nurturing, almost motherly personality. He's a former soldier who sought out Gaia membership on his own terms, rather than being recruited at a low point as most members were. This makes him much more well-adjusted than the rest of the membership, and more down-to-earth and relatable than the huge intellects that make up the rest of the leadership. A master of effective tactics, espionage, and teaching others to fight, Antonio is always the first out in the field, armed with a laser rifle and combat knife.
The Further Story
While the particulars have been stripped away by different characters and a very different setting, the first two volumes are meant to parallel the story beats of approximately the first trilogy of the Maximum Ride series, while the third and fourth volumes slightly more faithfully retell the events of my aforementioned Maximum Ride fanfiction. After that, well, I have a feeling there's a lot more Iris to tell. Each "volume" is likely to be multiple seasons.
Volume 1: This volume starts off largely character-driven, introducing us to Gaia's inner workings and the state of the world. Iris and her peers remain largely uninvolved in the early plots, merely being given exposition and shaping themselves into people defined by more than their traumatic past. Another main purpose is to establish a rogues gallery: criminals, aliens, mad scientists, politicians, and finally, the proper introduction to Longsaddle University, who have come to regret their decision to sell the teens and desperately want them back for use as engines of destruction. To this end, they've conscripted Moira, a wolverine hybrid who had a strained relationship with Iris back when they were both captive and now loathes her deeply. With the addition of this personal reason to fight, Iris finally agrees to form the Eyes of Gaia and appear on the front lines of Gaia's battles.
Volume 2: The battle between Gaia and Longsaddle escalates to all-out street warfare. Mysticism begins to become prominent, in the form of ancient practitioners of magic who preserved human knowledge for 5000 years, and aliens powerful enough to be gods. Gaia, and the Eyes in particular, become folk heroes, and amass more allies and enemies all over the world. The volume peaks in a huge, tragic climactic battle, with everything at stake and many lives lost, but it all ends with the Eyes fully in the public eye, being applauded by the entire world.
Volume 3: Their celebrity status opens up the Eyes to a new path in life, and they find themselves in an entirely new world of making public appearances, selling merchandise, and getting a formal education. For the first time, the Eyes deal with the mundane dramas of life, which they find more difficult than fighting evil ever was. And even while they've defeated Longsaddle, there are many enemies both old and new who continue to turn up, most prominently a gang of mutant monstrosities forcibly trying to recruit the Eyes into their ranks, and Jewel, a ruby-encrusted robot whose motives fluctuate from moment to moment.
Volume 4: A time-skip of several years has placed each member of the Eyes in a different place. With Jewel seeking to cull the human population, allegedly to conserve resources but mostly because he enjoys formulating the most evil schemes possible, they decide it's time to find their way back to each other, making their way through a world now ravaged by war.
Beyond: Well, heck, I barely know what happens in the four volumes I've actually planned, much less what happens afterward. It's all rather intricate and reliant on small details that would be tedious to explain here. Ultimately, the whole series is all about seeing how it shapes Iris and her friends; events are secondary.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Team Salmon #1: Some Sweet Kind of Vampire
This year I shared seven ideas I have for very distant TAPAS productions, most of them in the medium of animation - "Team Salmon" being the hypothetical animation division of TAPAS. The official additions to the blog will, effectively, be the third draft of these presentations, the most current and up-to-date version of the stories that exist right now. The September 2018 version for the historical record.
SOME SWEET KIND OF VAMPIRE
The oldest of these ideas, and consequently the most developed. It's my take on the paranormal vampire romance genre, with the main twist being that it's a light-hearted sitcom rather than a tragic star-crossed romance. Since I wrote most of the jokes in the autumn of 2010, I figure it'll be something of a period piece starting at that point and ending in the summer of 2013, and we can fill it up with elements of whatever early-2010s nostalgia ends up looking like. Given how much work on it I already have, it might make sense for it to be the first Team Salmon project that actually gets developed, except that I really want professional voice talent and licensed popular music in it. But that might be dreaming too big regardless.
The Style
I want this to be an authentic-looking anime, with the hazy watercolor look of a shojo manga. I want the humor to be on-point with that anime style, and I'm not entirely sure how to do that... I'll need some help.
The First Episode
I've actually written the script for the first episode of this series a couple of times over the years, so this is nice and easy, I know exactly how this story goes.
We open on Tom alone in his apartment, watching a movie, seeming very dispassionate about it. His friends - Kevin, Ash, and J.G. - burst into the apartment in an effort to get him out of the house and to spend some time with them; he declines, seeming content to sit around and stew in his own apathy. They mention his new roommate, Harriet, and that he's been living with her for about a month.
We see Harriet herself out in the streets of this sleepy Virginia college town as the sun goes down. Two vampires, Geraldo and Dustin, stalk her from the shadows, eventually attacking her when she passes an alley. She fights back, revealing herself to be a vampire as well, and pins them easily. They all laugh about it, clearly establishing them as old friends, and continue to Harriet's apartment.
At the apartment, Dustin and Geraldo separate, one conversing with Harriet and the other with Tom. Through their conversation, we learn that Harriet has a massive crush on Tom, but is reluctant to pursue him because it would require revealing the vampire world to him; and also that Tom is so dull and boring that no one can really figure out why Harriet is attracted to him. Tom gets up to turn the page of his calendar, clearly displaying that it's September 2010, and accidentally pricks his finger on a thumbtack, drawing blood. Geraldo and Dustin take advantage of this by pretending to go mad with bloodlust and attacking him, requiring Harriet to rescue him and thus make it clear to Tom that they're all vampires. Commercial break cliffhanger.
Tom is patched up at the hospital, where Harriet greets him with a bouquet of flowers. After avoiding the obvious subject for a moment while walking to her car, Harriet confesses that she and her friends are vampires. Tom tries to be okay with it, but a few on-the-nose songs on the radio get him to admit he's not entirely comfortable with this revelation. The mandatory scene of Harriet rattling off a few facts of how real vampires work occurs in the car; in this case, while they sustain themselves on human blood, the three of them who live here in town take only the bare minimum they need from multiple people, not enough to kill or even really inconvenience anyone.
With Tom calmed down, Harriet offers to show him her world, and takes him to Raver's. Surprised to find it a bookshop rather than the nightclub it appears to be from the outside, Tom meets Raver, who gives him a bit more lore as well as very briefly unveiling his terrifying true form.
This shakes him up a bit, and he goes to his friends, now at their own home, immediately spilling to them everything he's just learned. They have no trouble believing, as there's always been something unusual about this town. Rather than sharing in Tom's fear, they're intrigued, want to learn more, and are interested in the implications this has for Harriet's rather obvious crush on him.
Tom retreats, more interested in hiding from this new information forever, but catching a glimpse of a tiny insect-like fairy creature just happening to pass him by makes him realize that now that he's aware of supernatural things, there's no place he can hide from that world. He returns to Harriet's apartment, where she is watching the very same horror movie he was watching with such disinterest and is utterly terrified by it. He sits by her, clearly not going anywhere.
The Setting
Nesme University, a prestigious college in a fictional town in Virginia. As our heroes discover in the first episode, Nesme is a hub of secret supernatural activity, and our protagonist's new roommate is a vampire. Merely by becoming aware of the existence of magic, the normal students become able to see all the other supernatural phenomena around, from fairies in every tree to sea monsters washing up on the beach. They must keep the secret among themselves while dealing with their normal college life and making friends in the new supernatural world they're now a part of.
The Characters
The series focuses on an ensemble which gradually expands over the first season to encompass thirteen characters of various backgrounds.
Tom Burroughs: The protagonist, a 19-year-old guitar-playing arts student. Very dull and emotionless due to the traumas of his past.
Harriet Sheldon: Tom's new roommate, discovered in the first episode to be an 80-year-old vampire. She is somewhat inexplicably crazy about Tom and has a dark past of her own, but remains wholesome and infectiously cheerful, making her well-liked by everyone she meets as she opens up Tom and his friends to this new world.
Kevin Ferguson: Tom's best friend since childhood, a filthy rich kid attending college with him and living in a house that his family had built for him near campus. Tom immediately lets Kevin and his housemates in on the supernatural secret, but their storylines tend to remain outside of it. Kevin is nice enough, but his privilege has left him a bit oblivious and unreliable.
Ash Crawford: Kevin's girlfriend of several years. The two are in an unusually chaste relationship, sleeping in different rooms in Kevin's house. Ash is hardworking and ambitious, with a keen eye for opportunities to broaden her mind and call out injustice, and does not suffer fools or nonsense, making the supernatural revelation difficult for her.
J.G. Crick: Ash's best friend, who bunks with her in the house. A complete kook, J.G. is unpredictable, flirtatious, and always ready with a zany scheme. Seldom involved in any situation apart from those she invents for herself, you just never know what this girl is going to do next.
Raver: The center of the town's unusually-diverse collection of supernatural beings. In reality a nine-foot-tall four-armed demon, Raver appears in the form of a middle-aged Haitian musician, and runs the local hangout, which appears to be a nightclub from the outside but is actually a bookstore and cafe. When visited, he's always ready with a cup of coffee and advice about any mundane or supernatural problem.
Geraldo Clements: Harriet's oldest friend, a 400-year-old vampire of Spanish and West African origins, who took her in when she was first changed. He has taught her and others a unique, peaceful way of existence only known to the supernatural beings of Nesme's particular community.
Dustin Mullins: Geraldo's best friend, a recently-turned vampire. Uninterested in his past human life, Dustin maintains a moody, gothic image and revels in being a vampire. He is the best guy to party with.
Victor Oh: A classmate of Tom and Kevin, founder of the rock band they play in. Unaware of the supernatural goings-on, Vic is a schemer, always changing the band's name and gimmick and arranging bizarre gigs.
Zed Kendrick: Vic's best friend, a middle-aged hippie stoner making an unsuccessful second attempt at going to college. Oblivious to just about everything, he misses all signs of the supernatural despite having lived in Nesme all his life.
Nakaji: A genie in a bottle found by Kevin early in the series. Initially looking like something out of Arabian mythology, she quickly starts styling herself after 90s pop stars. An immensely powerful sorceress, and downright omnipotent when Kevin makes a wish, she spends most of her time enjoying the absolute freedom Kevin grants her, becoming addicted to assorted modern luxuries.
Lily DeLune: Harriet's best friend, a 100-year-old werewolf. Lily is snarky, promiscuous, and not entirely on board with the notion of various supernatural creatures living together. Three evenings a month, she is a gigantic blue wolf, which is intelligent and friendly when she remembers to take her medication.
Jackie Trace: Harriet's nemesis, a beautiful angel. She spends most of her time manipulating and tormenting people, usually Harriet, just for kicks. More dramatic storylines instantly stir her sympathies and loyalty, but once the trouble has passed she's right back to screwing with everybody.
The Further Story
Some Sweet Kind of Vampire is a four-volume story, mostly episodic with occasional multi-episode story arcs.
Season 1: Over the course of the season, the other five characters are introduced one by one and the rules of the supernatural world spelled out. Soon, Tom and Harriet begin to date, only for Tom to break up with her out of fear, derived from his past, that if he doesn't leave soon she'll be the one to break his heart. Harriet is left devastated, and Jackie, whom Tom has never met until this point, decides to spite Harriet by asking him out. In theory, this is a short introductory season, say a typical 13 episodes and covering the last few months of the year 2010, while the remaining seasons contain twice as many episodes and cover events spaced out over about a year.
Season 2: After some time apart, moping and bringing everybody down, Tom and Harriet get back together, where they remain securely for the rest of the series, because I hate touch-and-go tension and I think people in relationships are interesting too if you just know what to do with them. With the two back together, it begins to become clear that the supernatural world is generally not as pleasant as it is in Nesme, with vampires killing freely and most supernatural creatures being unable to stand one another. In a story arc at the end of the season, the town has to face off against Cesar Mesa, the handsome vampire lord who Harriet fell in love with when she was still human, only to realize he wasn't worth it mere days after becoming a vampire for him. Showing up as an authority to inspect the risk Nesme poses to the supernatural world, he arbitrarily decides he wants Harriet back and plots to destroy them all. The group fights back, leading to a few significant moments such as Dustin tending to Lily's injuries, leading the two to strike up a romance after years of being wary of one another, and Jackie being the one to save Harriet and Tom and drive Cesar off. From then on, she and Harriet are friends. The season ends with a huge karaoke night at Raver's.
Season 3: Our third year consists mostly of wacky shenanigans, from camping trips that end in being chased by a car possessed by evil spirits, to a Thanksgiving visit to Tom's family to which Harriet impulsively invites several vampires from her past. Even the climax is rather silly, as a pair of rogue secret agents who have been determined since Season 1 to uncover the supernatural end up besieging it with the help of a freelance inventor and his wacky robots. On the more dramatic side, Kevin and Ash succumb to temptation only once and get pregnant immediately. Given their large support network of friends, some of whom are magical, they decide to take the plunge and finish college while caring for their baby. At the end of the season, Tom proposes to Harriet, and she's so thrilled that she turns him into a vampire immediately, which subjects him to several months as a mindless, violent fledgling.
Season 4: After some time with our protagonist being caged and non-sentient, Tom finally regains his senses in the middle of senior year, and finds he must cram at school to make up for the time he missed. Meanwhile, Cesar has appealed to the Vampire High Council, a trio of complete lunatics as old as civilization, hoping to wipe all our heroes off the map, with the excuse that the vampires of Nesme fraternize with humans and other supernaturals. When it's all over, graduations and weddings for everybody! In the end, Tom's friends are surprised to discover that he intends to stay in Nesme rather than return home, to keep making the world a more magical place.
SOME SWEET KIND OF VAMPIRE
The oldest of these ideas, and consequently the most developed. It's my take on the paranormal vampire romance genre, with the main twist being that it's a light-hearted sitcom rather than a tragic star-crossed romance. Since I wrote most of the jokes in the autumn of 2010, I figure it'll be something of a period piece starting at that point and ending in the summer of 2013, and we can fill it up with elements of whatever early-2010s nostalgia ends up looking like. Given how much work on it I already have, it might make sense for it to be the first Team Salmon project that actually gets developed, except that I really want professional voice talent and licensed popular music in it. But that might be dreaming too big regardless.
The Style
I want this to be an authentic-looking anime, with the hazy watercolor look of a shojo manga. I want the humor to be on-point with that anime style, and I'm not entirely sure how to do that... I'll need some help.
The First Episode
I've actually written the script for the first episode of this series a couple of times over the years, so this is nice and easy, I know exactly how this story goes.
We open on Tom alone in his apartment, watching a movie, seeming very dispassionate about it. His friends - Kevin, Ash, and J.G. - burst into the apartment in an effort to get him out of the house and to spend some time with them; he declines, seeming content to sit around and stew in his own apathy. They mention his new roommate, Harriet, and that he's been living with her for about a month.
We see Harriet herself out in the streets of this sleepy Virginia college town as the sun goes down. Two vampires, Geraldo and Dustin, stalk her from the shadows, eventually attacking her when she passes an alley. She fights back, revealing herself to be a vampire as well, and pins them easily. They all laugh about it, clearly establishing them as old friends, and continue to Harriet's apartment.
At the apartment, Dustin and Geraldo separate, one conversing with Harriet and the other with Tom. Through their conversation, we learn that Harriet has a massive crush on Tom, but is reluctant to pursue him because it would require revealing the vampire world to him; and also that Tom is so dull and boring that no one can really figure out why Harriet is attracted to him. Tom gets up to turn the page of his calendar, clearly displaying that it's September 2010, and accidentally pricks his finger on a thumbtack, drawing blood. Geraldo and Dustin take advantage of this by pretending to go mad with bloodlust and attacking him, requiring Harriet to rescue him and thus make it clear to Tom that they're all vampires. Commercial break cliffhanger.
Tom is patched up at the hospital, where Harriet greets him with a bouquet of flowers. After avoiding the obvious subject for a moment while walking to her car, Harriet confesses that she and her friends are vampires. Tom tries to be okay with it, but a few on-the-nose songs on the radio get him to admit he's not entirely comfortable with this revelation. The mandatory scene of Harriet rattling off a few facts of how real vampires work occurs in the car; in this case, while they sustain themselves on human blood, the three of them who live here in town take only the bare minimum they need from multiple people, not enough to kill or even really inconvenience anyone.
With Tom calmed down, Harriet offers to show him her world, and takes him to Raver's. Surprised to find it a bookshop rather than the nightclub it appears to be from the outside, Tom meets Raver, who gives him a bit more lore as well as very briefly unveiling his terrifying true form.
This shakes him up a bit, and he goes to his friends, now at their own home, immediately spilling to them everything he's just learned. They have no trouble believing, as there's always been something unusual about this town. Rather than sharing in Tom's fear, they're intrigued, want to learn more, and are interested in the implications this has for Harriet's rather obvious crush on him.
Tom retreats, more interested in hiding from this new information forever, but catching a glimpse of a tiny insect-like fairy creature just happening to pass him by makes him realize that now that he's aware of supernatural things, there's no place he can hide from that world. He returns to Harriet's apartment, where she is watching the very same horror movie he was watching with such disinterest and is utterly terrified by it. He sits by her, clearly not going anywhere.
The Setting
Nesme University, a prestigious college in a fictional town in Virginia. As our heroes discover in the first episode, Nesme is a hub of secret supernatural activity, and our protagonist's new roommate is a vampire. Merely by becoming aware of the existence of magic, the normal students become able to see all the other supernatural phenomena around, from fairies in every tree to sea monsters washing up on the beach. They must keep the secret among themselves while dealing with their normal college life and making friends in the new supernatural world they're now a part of.
The Characters
The series focuses on an ensemble which gradually expands over the first season to encompass thirteen characters of various backgrounds.
Tom Burroughs: The protagonist, a 19-year-old guitar-playing arts student. Very dull and emotionless due to the traumas of his past.
Harriet Sheldon: Tom's new roommate, discovered in the first episode to be an 80-year-old vampire. She is somewhat inexplicably crazy about Tom and has a dark past of her own, but remains wholesome and infectiously cheerful, making her well-liked by everyone she meets as she opens up Tom and his friends to this new world.
Kevin Ferguson: Tom's best friend since childhood, a filthy rich kid attending college with him and living in a house that his family had built for him near campus. Tom immediately lets Kevin and his housemates in on the supernatural secret, but their storylines tend to remain outside of it. Kevin is nice enough, but his privilege has left him a bit oblivious and unreliable.
Ash Crawford: Kevin's girlfriend of several years. The two are in an unusually chaste relationship, sleeping in different rooms in Kevin's house. Ash is hardworking and ambitious, with a keen eye for opportunities to broaden her mind and call out injustice, and does not suffer fools or nonsense, making the supernatural revelation difficult for her.
J.G. Crick: Ash's best friend, who bunks with her in the house. A complete kook, J.G. is unpredictable, flirtatious, and always ready with a zany scheme. Seldom involved in any situation apart from those she invents for herself, you just never know what this girl is going to do next.
Raver: The center of the town's unusually-diverse collection of supernatural beings. In reality a nine-foot-tall four-armed demon, Raver appears in the form of a middle-aged Haitian musician, and runs the local hangout, which appears to be a nightclub from the outside but is actually a bookstore and cafe. When visited, he's always ready with a cup of coffee and advice about any mundane or supernatural problem.
Geraldo Clements: Harriet's oldest friend, a 400-year-old vampire of Spanish and West African origins, who took her in when she was first changed. He has taught her and others a unique, peaceful way of existence only known to the supernatural beings of Nesme's particular community.
Dustin Mullins: Geraldo's best friend, a recently-turned vampire. Uninterested in his past human life, Dustin maintains a moody, gothic image and revels in being a vampire. He is the best guy to party with.
Victor Oh: A classmate of Tom and Kevin, founder of the rock band they play in. Unaware of the supernatural goings-on, Vic is a schemer, always changing the band's name and gimmick and arranging bizarre gigs.
Zed Kendrick: Vic's best friend, a middle-aged hippie stoner making an unsuccessful second attempt at going to college. Oblivious to just about everything, he misses all signs of the supernatural despite having lived in Nesme all his life.
Nakaji: A genie in a bottle found by Kevin early in the series. Initially looking like something out of Arabian mythology, she quickly starts styling herself after 90s pop stars. An immensely powerful sorceress, and downright omnipotent when Kevin makes a wish, she spends most of her time enjoying the absolute freedom Kevin grants her, becoming addicted to assorted modern luxuries.
Lily DeLune: Harriet's best friend, a 100-year-old werewolf. Lily is snarky, promiscuous, and not entirely on board with the notion of various supernatural creatures living together. Three evenings a month, she is a gigantic blue wolf, which is intelligent and friendly when she remembers to take her medication.
Jackie Trace: Harriet's nemesis, a beautiful angel. She spends most of her time manipulating and tormenting people, usually Harriet, just for kicks. More dramatic storylines instantly stir her sympathies and loyalty, but once the trouble has passed she's right back to screwing with everybody.
The Further Story
Some Sweet Kind of Vampire is a four-volume story, mostly episodic with occasional multi-episode story arcs.
Season 1: Over the course of the season, the other five characters are introduced one by one and the rules of the supernatural world spelled out. Soon, Tom and Harriet begin to date, only for Tom to break up with her out of fear, derived from his past, that if he doesn't leave soon she'll be the one to break his heart. Harriet is left devastated, and Jackie, whom Tom has never met until this point, decides to spite Harriet by asking him out. In theory, this is a short introductory season, say a typical 13 episodes and covering the last few months of the year 2010, while the remaining seasons contain twice as many episodes and cover events spaced out over about a year.
Season 2: After some time apart, moping and bringing everybody down, Tom and Harriet get back together, where they remain securely for the rest of the series, because I hate touch-and-go tension and I think people in relationships are interesting too if you just know what to do with them. With the two back together, it begins to become clear that the supernatural world is generally not as pleasant as it is in Nesme, with vampires killing freely and most supernatural creatures being unable to stand one another. In a story arc at the end of the season, the town has to face off against Cesar Mesa, the handsome vampire lord who Harriet fell in love with when she was still human, only to realize he wasn't worth it mere days after becoming a vampire for him. Showing up as an authority to inspect the risk Nesme poses to the supernatural world, he arbitrarily decides he wants Harriet back and plots to destroy them all. The group fights back, leading to a few significant moments such as Dustin tending to Lily's injuries, leading the two to strike up a romance after years of being wary of one another, and Jackie being the one to save Harriet and Tom and drive Cesar off. From then on, she and Harriet are friends. The season ends with a huge karaoke night at Raver's.
Season 3: Our third year consists mostly of wacky shenanigans, from camping trips that end in being chased by a car possessed by evil spirits, to a Thanksgiving visit to Tom's family to which Harriet impulsively invites several vampires from her past. Even the climax is rather silly, as a pair of rogue secret agents who have been determined since Season 1 to uncover the supernatural end up besieging it with the help of a freelance inventor and his wacky robots. On the more dramatic side, Kevin and Ash succumb to temptation only once and get pregnant immediately. Given their large support network of friends, some of whom are magical, they decide to take the plunge and finish college while caring for their baby. At the end of the season, Tom proposes to Harriet, and she's so thrilled that she turns him into a vampire immediately, which subjects him to several months as a mindless, violent fledgling.
Season 4: After some time with our protagonist being caged and non-sentient, Tom finally regains his senses in the middle of senior year, and finds he must cram at school to make up for the time he missed. Meanwhile, Cesar has appealed to the Vampire High Council, a trio of complete lunatics as old as civilization, hoping to wipe all our heroes off the map, with the excuse that the vampires of Nesme fraternize with humans and other supernaturals. When it's all over, graduations and weddings for everybody! In the end, Tom's friends are surprised to discover that he intends to stay in Nesme rather than return home, to keep making the world a more magical place.
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