#(it is about all the animals of the forest coming together to make soup. btw)

[frecht]

the problem is that because i was above my reading level like my entire childhood i have no scale of what age is what audience for books. im making a picture book for my book arts final and my teacher asked me what the audience was and i was like i odnt know. 5 year olds?

[ripples-in-the-river]

Ideas for writing because GUESS WHO'S WRITING HER OLD STORY DESIGNS AGAIN? HECK YES IT'S ME, YOU GUESSED IT.

"From the dust of the stars"

STAR is someone whose biggest trait lies in her escapist fantasies. She learns languages, makes up worlds, creates creatures and fake situations in her head just to live closer to the reality she desperatly wishes to be in. She's already taken great strides in her autonomy by taking time to enjoy nature and taking long walks in and out of school. She spends most of her time exploring, and since she's started to spend more time outside, she's been smiling way, way more. Her previous persona was a broody, silent traveler, with a dark cape full of the night's mysteries. She didn't speak, didn't really have time for people. She felt angry and resentful and preferred to spend time on her own. She'd make some small jabs at them under her breath. She wasn't very approachable, but she did look absolutely badass. Now, she's opened up her face and she's always smiling. She's taken to being polite in class but she's stubbornly refusing to listen at the teachers anyways. She spends all her time daydreaming and doodling, or occasionally, writing about foreign worlds. She's become more candid and unabashedly herself, she'll laugh at the sky and smile at the rain, and even if people don't care for her much now that the mystery is over, she's happy being on her own and cannot wait to go on an adventure for real. She's had a few thinking sessions and realized she loved adventure more than anything else, so now that her parents are thinking of letting her stay away for a while so they can pay the rent better, she doesn't even pretend to be sad, and her biggest concern is whether or not she should take her dear plushies with her on her trip.

ÉLOANE, commonly mistaken as --and almost officially renamed -- "Solveig" since nobody can pronounce her birth name properly, is more of a hothead, definitely more brash, but unmistakenly someone fun to be around. She's got tons of energy, which she's trying to apply to woo everyone else around her. She loves making others laugh, making friends, and running around town showing off her latest goofy exploit -- especially to those cute girls with the most adorable laugh are involved, whereas she's guaranteed to go all in to try to impress them. She's never been this way before, though. She's never taken to the lesbian label and always described herself as bisexual, but that was admittedly back when she had her hair long and straight at her side and her face was grim and her eyes were heavy. She used to be all about looking serious, but, well, that's over now. She's still seeing herself as the rude, judgemental teen she used to be -- with the same chic clothing, the same powerful but terrifying aura, the same quiet knowledge, and silent threat she used to have. Even after trading this look with a more fun and giddy personality, she still finds it hard to part with certain things she used to believe she was, notably to admit that her latest crush is NOT the kind of girls she's into, and it's not that the brunette is bad -- cute nerds with short hair and glasses that make the cutest sound when they clink together -- she's really stuck in her ways. She's honestly very rigid, she'll tell you that herself. She's learned to laugh at herself since she learned most of her bad habits come from whatever garbage her mother fed her and called it parenting soup since she's been a baby, and it's not really been a fun ride since then. After ditching the bisexual label with great remorse, she decided to ditch her parents too. Now she takes to creating, creating, creating. She's rediscovering herself, and she's angrier, fiestier, and stabler than she's ever been. She just wishes she had someone at her side to share the story with.

ACACIA is someone who likes dark rooms and steamy tea and also those little fish eggs she would totally eat all the time if she had enough money to buy them in tons. It's for the mood, though. She's quiet, sad, and not always by choice but because she's depressed as the fish whose eggs got taken away to make that dish she feels guilty for eating. Which id also the second reason she dosn't eat a lot of it. Biology textbooks taught her a lot about the animal kingdom, and it's also given her more stuff to cry about, so that's lovely. She's always reading, and she doesn't know why, except she thinks it's great. She'll probably say something like "I want to survive" and never know what that even means. She does know some stuff, though -- that she's totally rad with glasses, that her hair really doesn't curl, and that's okay, and that short hair is colder but at least it's not as sticky anymore when she works out, right? She hasn't been doing much with herself other than finding something else to be than depressed. She's been sad and hurting for over a year now, and it's been a long trek from then to now. She's trying to redisvover colored clothing, but she can't figure out which ones she likes. She's currently obsessing over the idea that if she uses fabric someone else likes, she'll steal their gimmick and they'll be emotionally ruined forever and she'll also die for some reason, so she's decided to hide in her room and never confirm to her parents that she needs glasses until she can figure out if she likes the color. She prefers contact lenses anyways, but since they're useless in the forest, she's supposed to find some. So she's currently trying to find out how to choose a color scheme that works -- and also how to pick good berries, and good food, and how to hunt, and also feneral physics and math because screw everything, she's a sucker for knowledge. She's somehow managed to find the self-esteem necessary to be the nerd she always wished to be, and she's acing it. She worries she comes off as rude, and she might, but honestly? She'd rather be rude but useful than to feel like she didn't help anyone in her life, so she's searching and searching like her life depends on it. Which it just might. She hates being bad at something, ans also being called a perfectionnist, but she never knew why until... Well, you'll figure it out. Oh, and she's also gay, because she's been doing research and graphs since last year and she can tell you exactly what attraction she feels and when in the day she feels most giddy when meeting the cute redhead at school. But she's not going to have fun figuring out if she likes her back, though.

ANGÉLIQUE does not care about anything other than what's necessary. She's been surviving since forever ago and she knows eveything. She also hates everything and she also loves people so she's stuck caring for three idiots that she loves but also hopes don't hate her and the firest sucks and her life sucks and at least she's away so whatever. Also she figured out a way to pee in a can and reuse the water for later with some kind of mechanism that makes it pure again. Don't ask her how it works though. She's always pissed whenever people question her techniques, be it that or throwing knives at squirrels to hunt them. It does work somehow, so that's that, but she's honeslty just a big sucker for drama and she loves the aesthetic of throwing knives and peeing in a can. Also, she broke her arm and thought it would be dramatic to put it back together herself with a bandage. It wasn't too bad, but that's probably because she was dissociating too hard to feel anything other than hysteria at that moment. She's a lot more like Star than she'll admit, although she swears they're different because drama. All her life is drama gone bad, but also gone good, since, well, it works, you know? Even with knwoing absolutely Nothing ™ on survival, she managed to survive by remembering Minecraft and hoping for the best. Yes, don't tell anyone she plays Minecraft. She still misses her cow farm. Well, you made her cry now. Shoo, I have to comfort her now.

CHARACTER SHEET OF WHATEVER THIS STORY IS CALLED BTW. ORIGINAL CHARACTERS AND STORY BY ME. DONT STEAL, SERIOUSLY, IM STILL HURTING OVER THAT TIME SOMEONE STOLE MY MONSTER DESIGN FROM FOURTH GRADE. DON'T DO IT.