#Land of the fallen fairies

[celestialsun123]

PEOPLE OF THE INTERNET

GUESS WHAT

@waitingforthesunrise @sm-writes-chaos @holdmyteaplease @full-on-sam @osbob-the-existent @awleeofficial @clearcloudlesssky @gummybugg @sleepy-vix @starryeyeddarlings @sea-dwelling-wizard @snowpoet123

NOTEBOOK

(DW, I got permission lol)

[sm-writes-chaos]

Too many notebooks?

Yet not enough??

Then here’s the perfect opportunity to add to your collection!

Bonus for fans of The Land Of the Fallen Fairies by @anulithots

Includes cute little doodles and thoughts in the margins

In just TWO DAYS

Even grumpy pants Norah approves, so what’re you waiting for? Support an amazing writer today!!

—

(Examples of pages:)

[anulithots]

The characters who are so used to feeling/being awful that the moment someone gives them a little compliment/start feeling just a little nice, they immediately cling to that person.

... Anywho this is Kamari.

Ankh told faer that fae should sing more and that phrase will never leave Kamari's head.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the tag list! <3

@waitingforthesunrise @sm-writes-chaos @holdmyteaplease @full-on-sam @osbob-the-existent @awleeofficial @clearcloudlesssky @gummybugg

[thissliceofnonsense]

Wow look, more drawings!

Here's Anuli, the main character that would be better off a side character, or not a character at all as far as fae is concerned. Fae doesn't know why fae can't just read other's stories and not have to deal with faer own. Why can't fae just be without messing something up?

Also also, fae is very much in faer head and has the. hardest. time. trying to stay present and aware, leading faer to use storytelling metrics to fill in the gaps and make sense of the world. Fae has been told that fae acts clueless or doesn't care and fae doesn't know how to fix that.

And fae thinks fae might be a fallen fairy - doomed to destroy everything around faer. Anuli is trying to get faer own redemption arc to justify staying alive, but its.... difficult. Fae thinks fae may just have to run away.

Here's the quotes because handwriting is hard to read.

"I can fix my mistake, get you the happy ending I ruined."

"I know I sound delusional, but delusions are how I make sense of the world"

"What do you want me to say?" (Anuli is not that great at keeping conversations that don't somehow get faer in trouble. Fae often has to ask what the other's want faer to say. Otherwise fae will infodump, and that never ends well.)

"No. I'm not upset because of overthinking. My thoughts have crashed. Overthinking is my usual."

"No need to explain yourself. Just tell me the moment that defined your backstory (childhood) and I'll understand."

"The world makes more sense in my head"

"I would like to make the disclaimer that....yes. I am 'that clueless'. It is not an act. " (Fae doesn't know how to act anyways, and fae gets nervous and acts overdramatic anytime fae is nervous, leading to everyone else thinking that Anuli is trying to be lazy or has some ulterior motive. Fae doesn't. Fae is just eternally confused and doesn't want to be a bother.)

"Sometimes I wish I could read this story instead of participating in it."

"If I hurt you, know it was unintentional but should be expected" (Fae makes so many disclaimers about faerself and yet other fairies STILL get upset. Anuli thinks fae may need to find a better strategy)

"I don't know how I messed up. I just know that I became their antagonist"

"Wait! You can't stop now! I DESPISE open-ended stories." (unless it is faer own and fae doesn't have the motivation to finish it.)

"Don't listen to my nonsense, okay?" (Fae likes talking to faerself as if fae were talking to others because it feels nice to sort out faer thoughts but then the others think fae is trying to start a conversation).

[kkglinka]

Finally twigged what rwby (+small animal companion) are walking through the field of red plants toward the red prince's castle reminded me of. It's the scene from wizard of oz where Dorothy et all are passing through the field of red flowers (poppies?) toward the wizard's city.

[talesfromtheunknowable]

hey! question: how did Anuli come to be?

HIi! Thank you so much for the question.

ANnnnddd... whoooo boi, this is a long and convoluted history of the 'many drafts of the land of the fallen fairies'.

Grab some popcorn, there will be plot twists.

First came up with the 'Land of the Fallen Fairies' idea when I was around... ten-ish. I saw this book called 'the land of forgotten girls,' (just the cover, never read it) and I had watched the movie 'Fern Gully' in school, and had also learned of trees being able to communicate with each other from magic school bus. And thus, ten-year-old me decided to write a story about it, in the way you might imagine a ten-year-old writing a story.

Very overdramatic. No plot.

Basically it was about 'the last tree on the planet' and its fairy. They both lived next to a factory and no one on the plantet knew of thier existence. (Wow, spooky.)

The fairy (faer name was 'Oak'... which was very creative of me.) got stolen by some humans, who were children, but one of them worked for a scientist for some reason? They kept Oak in a jar where fae met the other fairy named Meadow (who was 'Oak's... mother? Or smth.). Oak eventually broke out and went to this 'hidden land' in the Bermuda triangle for reasons. (wow, spooky)

And I stopped at around there because I wasn't feeling nice while writing it anymore.

There are definitely iterations that I don't remember anymore, this is a seven-ish-year long project at this point after all, but here are the major ones.

The Floa and Naegi backstory.

I made these two dolls (that I don't have anymore). Floa was a redwood and Naegi was an evergreen. It was pretty much an 'enemies to best friends/platonic lovers / opposite attracts' sort of thing taking place in that Bermuda triangle island. They both watched the sunset together so yea.

Bloom

Insert the lychee tree that lives in a cave and made a bunch of doohickeys to survive and killed off faer younger 'siblings' accidently with... fire magic? At one point Bloom was a lychee tree and the whole 'fire magic' thing came from Mediterranean cypress's being immune to fire. I also made a doll for this one that started off as this tall and lanky and kind of scary crow-looking thing with long arms and burnt hands. Then it changed to a small deer thing, (Mediterranean cypresses are immune to deer too.) and it's legs kept breaking off.

The black fairy and Squioo

Another scrapped duo! The black fairy is based off the pando tree (and the only one so far that uses he/him pronouns) and the Pando tree is one large tree that looks like a lot of little ones in a huge forest. (It's a real thing! You can look it up.) And I think I had this whole thing where Squioo is another mediterranean cypress and fae died or something? I think at this point the land of the fallen fairies was more of a 'protective group' and fallen fairies were fairies that lost their tree, so they were almost 'apathetic zombies that could be dangerous if provoked'.

the houseplant

This is the iteration where it starts getting to where tLotFF starts looking how it does now. The scale isn't 'across the world' anymore and there is more of a focus on themes and always a protective guardian.

Although for this one the mc was called 'Amaris' and they started off in a houseplant store where everyone else shared memories. There wasn't really anything wrong with this one, I just didn't enjoy writing it.

Guardian territory

This is the previous version, and is also where you get Anuli. I just wanted something that would be easy for me to write, so I had Anuli use story metaphors for everything and be very contemplative, to the point of not knowing what is going on around faer. Fae isn't... 100% Anuli yet, but fae has the bones. In this version, it starts off with Kamari, Anuli and the sibling Maidoe (who got scrapped because fae had no purpose but may come up again later) leaving the 'bad place' to go to the guardian territory. I rewrote that version so many times and got super stressed out every time I wrote it because it had to be PERFECT.

The 'snippet version'

I changed my writing process to be what works for me and started from scratch, and so, after all that, we get to your question.

I wanted to write something that felt nice, that felt like my truth, especially since my life started feeling... monochromatic, and if I had to live for one thing and one thing only, that that thing better make me feel better.

(I just needed an outlet otherwise I would explode.)

And I always loved those 'metaphorical journeys with a very obvious message but it is told in a whimsical way' sort of stories, and I also wanted to tell my younger self to stop driving themself crazy looking for answers on how to make themselves 'better' in order to regain their lost childhood wonder, because 'better' was burning them out.

Also this video -

I wanted so hard to find that thing called 'happiness', to find that happy ending that I didn't let my story play out.

Anywho, I mention this because the writing process I follow is very 'theme based' and I wanted for my story to explore a theme more than anything else. (Think 'Little Prince' vibes mixed with a slice-of-life-children's show so I could be as dark as I wanted to).

Some of my earliest (for this version) planning pages! (I modified the 'Story Genuis' method to work better with my iterative, and impulsive self. Nowadays I write a 'scene' by exploring a sub-concept of my overall point, and writing out all the thoughts surrounding it, in five different pages at once.)

I needed Anuli to represent all of the aspects of myself that were 'too slow for society' and molded them around a bit to fit who Anuli wanted to be (fae wasn't as overdramatic and silly and metaphorical before.)

And as if this post wasn't long enough already, here are some extra things about where Anuli's traits come from <3

Anuli likes morbid stories because my parents didn't like how 'dark' my stories were, and where thinking of something happier and more 'inspirational for kids, new york times best seller', whereas I just wanted to explore this weird thing called existence. I didn't even think that version was so dark.

So I let Anuli tell the darkest possible things that fae can.

---

The Land of the Fallen Fairies slowly changed moreso to a more 'pixie-based-concept' on who is and isn't 'good enough to be part of society' rather than a 'zombie fairy'. I don't fully know what the criteria is for a fairy to be a fallen fairy, for now it's just 'can't keep up with regular society'.

----

Part of the reason Anuli's POV 'style' is the way it is, is because I wanted something that would be easier for me to write. There's very little scene description or character actions, 90% of it is thoughts and metaphors, and it's nice that the 'shortcut' that I put for myself so I could actually write something also works for the character I am writing.

---

For both Anuli and Kamari, both their names come from the origin of the tree. Anuli, the fiddle leaf fig, originates from Africa, and faer name means 'joy'

Kamari, who comes from... northern Africa and surrounding areas if I remember correctly, means 'moon'.

----

The land of the fallen fairies takes place in my backyard. So I don't really want to move (again... apparently the moving unspoken feelings I didn't know I had got expressed though the LotFF) because all the characters are outside. We got a magnolia, and I have a fiddle leaf inside my house for Anuli.

---

I knew I didn't want to have Anuli describe any feeling, not even tired-ness with a word. Fae has an internal world filled with sensations and emotions fae does not understand and uses faer stories to create faer own 'shorthand' for how to describe them. I really really like this aspect of faer, because it makes communication that much harder for faer, but that much easier (hopefully, I've been told that no one understands what I write.) to understand what fae is thinking. Fae has built up quite the shorthand over the course of the backstory, none of faer thoughts are understandable without context.

----

Anuli ended up liking sunflowers completely on accident. I needed to have something for Kamari to notice and prompt Anuli to tell stories about, and there was a small sunflower patch near the magnolia.

---

Character design is a whole other thing. Before I made the doll, I drew a bunch of sketches based off all the character design videos I could find.

(The ones with the horns were designs for the 'Amaris' previous iteration.)

Oh wait! I remember this iteration. Anuli read the memories of dead pollywiggins for some reason before everyone else told faer that was bad and creepy.

These are some of my favorite Anuli drawings. I made a sticker out of the 'Responsibility' one.

Anuli had a hoodie for some reason, I don't think most fairies wear clothes other than for accessorizing or practical purposes. I may have Anuli wear a cloak when fae comes out of the archives because the weather is changing to fall now and @imjusthereforeternity happens in real time, and Anuil is not meant for cold weather.

getting closer.

Last sketch is from @mylee-sketches for Maidoe. This was around - I think - the time I started making Anuli the doll, which was impulsive as I did not have some of the materials I wanted (it worked out in the end) and I did not plan out sizes.

Anuli the doll took three long months and fae is MASSIVE. (I ran out of the color for faer face and had to improvise with other colors to make faer body match). Fae is around the size of a newborn/1year old CHILD. I can hold faer while I'm writing stuff and fae can stand in my lap and be up to my chin in height. The biggest thing I will ever make and I do not think I'll be doing something of that caliber again for AWHILE at least.

I got a desk recently and fae stands on that now.

Fae also sits nicely on a bookshelf.

... I think that's it. As far as progression from idea to now over the past seven-ish years, this is about everything.

Thank you so much for the ask! And for reading this LONG post!

[celestialsun123]

So this is what I do with my Lotff notebook

I dishonor Anuli 🥲

That drawing could've been so much better.... Oh well, it's been done!

@anulithots

[anulithots]

@yesireadbooks and to you, thank you so much for your words.

And here are the possible plotlines you have avoided!

Tbh, I prepared very very badly for how to run an Unfiction chapter (did it impulsively after writing up stuff at two am, before remembering I had all these possible plotlines I wanted to test out. )

Nonetheless, I like the way it is going and how much Anuli has changed from beginning to now.

So the first "major plot point" would depend on the 'lights' that Anuli mentioned a few times. They either would come and crash into Anuli's 'subconscious' from faer dissatisfaction, or they could stop at some point. If they did crash, Anuli would've destroyed that mental recluse of faers, and 'woken up'. (To Kamari still being there, which would have an ongoing storyline going into the 'present day' Land of the Fallen Fairies, where Anuli still has to travel with Kamari and live with the extra guilt of a thing I cannot reveal yet.)

Since they stopped, (due to your all's wonderous words), Anuli continued onwards to overcomplicate basic instructions in faer head, making the lights come again. Fae has also not been able to sleep since fae got there. (Which I've 'brushed under the rug' with the idea that fae can sleep now, because it seems like Anuli miiigggghhhhttt not be waking up. Maybe.)

Then comes the music! And when Anuli's world turns into a fuzzy version of faer home, if fae had been in the same state then as fae was when fae came... fae would've destroyed this out of fear that fae doesn't deserve it. This would've led to a 'ending' where fae would've woken up in a 'fallen fairies' dumping ground, where fae would've been aware of the... very graphic fate fae should've gotten.

And this was supposed to be my 'major arc' for this chapter, and I would've tried to find a way to end it around there,

BUT NOW THERE'S ART!

What's the ending you've avoided with this question?

Anuli has the option of two possible hyper fixations, the one that was avoided was the one where fae stays, and gets hyperfixated on the idea of WANTING things, like art and stories, and the 'sensory area' you mentioned, fae ends up figuring out some worldbuilding tidbits about the more 'mental/magical' parts of the archives, and would've become so dissatisfied with how much fae wants but doesn't have that the lights crash in and the 'tether breaks' and Anuli would 'wake up'.

The arc we are on now?

Prepare to have your notifications spammed.

What if I left - not the archives! obviously - but here... maybe maybe, and I could find other art things?

... err... but what if I can't find here again? And the lights are right outside and I....

... no no no, I don't... it could happen again.

.... I'll ask. You all know the archives better than I do... being pixies.

[anulithots]

Hello lovelies!

yes I like that term of endearment.

notebook propaganda written on tumblr: an anuli thot in your honor

200 followers: my favorite Anuli snippet as an ebook.

10 reviews: A 'proof of concept' lotff snippet. (as in, I will read out a scene audiobook style, add some lotff visual novel visuals, along with some soundtrack things I love from the music licensing website I use

Notebook here

Progress:

200/200 followers COMPLETE HUZZAH EBOOK IS TO COME

0/10 reviews

As always, any and all support is much appreciated!

Original is here <-- intro post. It will return soon.

Thank you to everyone who reads my ramblings and likes my stories, you all mean the world to me and I can't thank you enough. <3

The dearest, most wonderous people, otherwise known as the lotff tag list:

@waitingforthesunrise @sm-writes-chaos @holdmyteaplease @full-on-sam

@osbob-the-existent @awleeofficial

@clearcloudlesssky @gummybugg @sleepy-vix @starryeyeddarlings

@sea-dwelling-wizard @snowpoet123 @ashirisu 

lmk if you'd like to be added or removed <3 🌿

[thissliceofnonsense]

How to care for your fiddle leaf fig dryad.

[talesfromtheunknowable]

I think you're the kindest sweetest most imaginative soul I know! I love your little universe and the fact that you've been with it for so long is so wholesome!! I love the different blogs you have and I would love to understand Anuli more! Fae are absolutely adorable and I relate to faer philosophy so like please I will absolutely fan around your finished WIP :D

ALSO the fae pronouns are so creative and it adds on to the magical finding yourself undertones of The Land of the Fallen Fairies! I love them a lot

- Anonymous ;D

THAT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME THANK YOU SO MUCH <3

(I don't know how to communicate how I stop and smile at each and every ask. How it makes my nights of worrying and frantic rewrites, hoping to the stars that this turns out nice. How it casts my internal world, the majority of myself that honestly is my sanctuary in such a wonderous way that I loose any words to express that feeling.

But I can say thank you.

So thank you. It's absolutely wonderous,)

And as for Anuli:

Anuli character sheet <- Basic info and little fun facts

'How did Anuli come to be?' <-- Original character sheets and general LotFF iterations

Lot's of info on Human AU's, Anuli and Kamari, and a philosophical infodump <--- has some more 'philosophical' Anuli info

General tag

ANNNDDD: @imjusthereforeternity

Anuli in general was supposed to be a character that is (a) easy for me to write - so not a ton of actions and as many thought processes as I can get - and (b) represents that need to chase happiness, to fix yourself so you deserve that happy ending.

And part of that is because of stories themselves.

Little me trying to navigate a world they didn't understand found that stories were... not a perfect framework, but by stars did they help. How to be funny. How people think. And most importantly, WHY. Why any of it works the way it does.

And yet, both stories, and the entire universe, told me that 'good things happen to good people'. That those who have a certain attitude, that those who believe certain things or have a certain lifestyle or go through a certain arc will have that whimsical happy ending I wanted so bad, it hurt.

Anuli was my companion, in every time I cycled over to the beginning, throughout all of it. It got to the point where I would accidently call myself 'Anuli' in my head because at times, when I needed a coping mechanism, life was simply story fodder.

... That was a slightly unrelated rant.

Anywho! Anuli's philosophy and internal dynamics.

Anuli does not remember faer tree, or being tethered. Just that fae has been tethered, for as long as fae could remember.

(This is definitely not because I didn't want to write these parts because it was boring in previous iterations... totally not. /j)

But at least fae had stories. Stories, and Kamari. The Place of Tethers may be a villain out to get faer. It may have bright captured stars that scream throughout the night in static, but Anuli has stories. Fae has Kamari. Anuli would have a happy ending someday, because of Kamari. Kamari promised. Fae promised.

And Anuli had glimpses of the happy ending already. Fae knew what it would be like, for fae had already felt that sort of elation. All fae needed was for faer tether to be broken, for the Place of Tethers to be vanquished forevermore.

And Kamari promised. Anuli had Kamari, so it would be okay. The Place of Tethers was bearable because Kamari was there.

...

So anywho, Kamari disappeared for a day.

(I'm probably going to fix bits and pieces of this draft, since it's the first thing I've written for this iteration, and it was difficult for perfectionistic me. Kamari probably told Anuli that fae may be gone for longer and Anuli would get distracted in preparing a story to tell Kamari that fae forgot that Kamari wouldn't be there.)

And Anuli ended up breaking faer tether.

Great!

Fae defeated the antagonist. The Place of Tethers was gone. They had a happy ending now! Kamari would be ecstatic.

Kamari was not, ecstatic.

All this is to say that Anuli had a happy ending before, and fae didn't truly enjoy it because fae thought it might get better.

Then fae ruined it.

And fae's been chasing that happy ending, what fae had before, what fae could've had if fae had just waited, if fae wasn't a fallen fairy, ever since.

This is that sort of 'I CAN FIX ME' that Anuli runs by.

Villains don't get happy endings unless they have redemption arcs. If Anuli had a redemption arc, if fae could only get rid of all the bad parts of faerself....

ALSO ALSO!

I want to try to make the bulk of the Land of the Fallen Fairies fairly episodic, so I can explore a different aspect of this concept each 'episode' and leave myself open to writing as I please.

So I want to try out different episodes. Specifically, 'metal adventure ones', like those where you split yourself into all the different aspects of your personality?

That, but Anuli tries to 'rid' of all the 'evil ones'

And the 'fix your past' episodes? Not time travel, but 'change your memories so they don't bother you anymore.'

The opposing aspect of Anuli is the 'I waste love' part.

And I always have the hardest time describing this in a way that feels how it is in my head. It's not 'hurting others'... more so 'not being able to repay them', they have sacrificed their lives, their time, all their love, for your betterment, for your happy ending, and all you give them is regrets.

And they will feel betrayed by that.

They should hate you for that.

But no, they still want you to get better, they still love you.

And that hurts more than anything else.

So Anuli's character becomes this contradiction of 'wants to change self for a happy ending' and 'me being around others... forget about happy... would ruin everything.'

WHICH BRINGS ANULI TO STORY CYCLES.

It gets worse and better then worse again. An aha moment that unlocks a so-close-to-the-happy-ending one day, then a dark night of the soul the next.

Because stories are by no means linear. There is regression at times... as painful as that can be to admit, and that 'trying to tame your garden' is absolutely exhausting. At that point, is happiness - this abstract unknowable feeling - worth it anymore? Especially when it feels so strained, so empty, on the rare occasions fae does feel it.

All I can offer to this is that... it's a garden, it's a story. It will cycle, all of nature does that. Stories end right after the happy ending, and you have to find another story. And that... well their cycles are not as painful as life itself, because by no means are you a character, you're just reading.

Life could be like that too.

---

As of the current arc of @imjusthereforeternity, Anuli thinks that its faer nature for faer stories - and faer life - to spiral into darker, more morbid storylines. THANKFULLY.

OUTLINES.

(I went on the planning obsession and sold my soul to the underworld trying to follow it to a T, so this will be fun.)

And Anuli keeps making disclaimers, these are new beings, they can be saved. If they are warned, they can be saved from trying to want anything from Anuli, from rooting for the antagonist.

Hopefully.

The archives excite Anuli quite a bit, fae's fixing faerself, this will work! Fae will never have to be an antagonist because Kamari's having faer happy ending and Anuli is completely rewriting faerself to follow these outlines.

I mean, sure, fae's having trouble getting faerself to do some of the things, and is getting distracted by other ventures, but the outlines will stop anything from getting too plot-ruining.

It has to.

---

Thank you again for the ask! I'm so so glad you like the Land of the Fallen Faires.

[anulithots]

Anuli has such a rhetoical device filled potetic style that makes every other thought like five paragraphs but it;s fine because I'm enjoying myself

Full offense but your writing style is for you and nobody else. Use the words you want to use; play with language, experiment, use said, use adverbs, use “unrealistic” writing patterns, slap words you don’t even know are words on the page. Language is a sandbox and you, as the author, are at liberty to shape it however you wish. Build castles. Build a hovel. Build a mountain on a mountain or make a tiny cottage on a hill. Whatever it is you want to do. Write.

[celestialsun123]

So this is what I do with my Lotff notebook

I dishonor Anuli 🥲

That drawing could've been so much better.... Oh well, it's been done!

@anulithots

[anulithots]

Proud of the expressions on this one. YEE. I'm getting better with them.

Mouths are hard

video these were used in

[thissliceofnonsense]

I have to keep making things. I'm not productive enough to justify taking a break. I think I've done all the things I was supposed to, but here I am. Everything I pride as my own is nothing but unfinished nonsense, and I've been trying for so long. So I can't stop. I have nothing of my own to prove I deserve a break where I do nothing.

How terrifying would that be? To stop and let the others see?

The Land of the Fallen Fairies

[anulithots]

IT"S ANULI IN QUOTES

Fyodor Dostoyevsky // Alanis Morissette