#faer name is squioo

[anulithots]

My dear, you are so perfectionistic it's eating you up inside.

My dear, your emotions fluctuate and that is okay, they are not to be managed and controlled, analyzed to tiny pieces, cut up with a knife so they may be 'right'. The more difficult, the icky ones which clog and clump over every available area are not to be scraped away so the remaining edges are raw and bloodied. It is okay, it is okay, little one, to let them remain and let them be. Beasts of sorts. That's what they are, behemoths to be observed from afar

My dear, not every word has to be presentable, not every action and every expression and every day of lazy butterflies must be boxed so a bow of loose glitter may be placed atop. You are allowed to exist. You are not a waste of space. For the stars, black holes, galaxies and colorful nothings fill it, yet the space remains regardless of its wonders. You are not what you can give, nor do you give little. This does not justify your existence because your life does not need justification.

My dear, what is this life if not a collection? Why must you gather all the lights and scatter them across the aesthetic pages of a worn sketchbook and call that worthwhile? Why when it brings you nothing but burnt hands and a sky without its stars. Is there not something poetic within this, icky and almost-disgusting as it may be? Does there need to be poetry in this? Ah, I see you write this down but even so does it need to be in fancy words? Is there not something beautiful in it when you step away for a moment to gaze upon what has amassed?

My dear, this body has emotions and those emotions fluctuate and what is it if not a dance of sorts? Breathe and let yourself rest. It is okay.

[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.

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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'.

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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.

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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'.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!