Lullaby of Awakening edit

Ok, I've been putting off this post because I know it's going to be a really long rant.
So, for starters, I went back to that story "Lullaby of Awakening." With Brenor and Feather Dance and Kimia. Because "Of Spirits and Demons" Relied on this 15-page "legend" for the grand finale and for Briena's background. Cause Bree is pretty much reincarnated from Brenor, which is why she's so good at magic.
I went back to Lullaby and went through the whole thing doing major editing. I think it still needs a lot of work... I don't know what to do with it... Grumble.
So, I was hoping to try and add Lullaby into Spirits so anyone who reads Spirits would sort of know what's going on... even though it kind of grew when I went back to edit it. And it seems like it's... well, sort of rushed. I don't know. It still feels like it needs work. Anyway, I said this already.
I'm not sure whether to put a shortened version into Spirits, or put the whole thing into spirits, or to re-write the whole thing longer so it's more like a book on its own...
Anyway, I'll talk about some stuff in it.
Well, let me start by saying this. I wrote Lullaby very randomly. I had no idea I'd be basing one of my three main planets off of it. But I decided just to use it cause I didn't want to create 200 alternate earths. Two is enough (Well, 3 I guess). And in general, Magic-Earth turned out pretty well. And later on, I decided to connect Soreina to the two Earths. But there was some random details about Lullaby that I didn't want to remain for the rest of Magic-Earth, so I went back and changed some. And some of these random ideas sort of morphed into my image of Magic-Earth. So, I'll go and rant about some of them.
First of all, white hair. Why the heck did I choose to give mages white hair? Heheh. It's pretty stupid actually. For my first three or so stories (Cliff, Grip, and Lullaby) I just borrowed my character designs from video games. Well, these three happened to be Pokemon video games. Heheh. I'll post about that when I'm done here. So, anyway, Brenor's model came from the boy in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. The boy's name is Brandon (Hence Brenor) AKA Ruby in the manga, (The girl came from May, AKA Sapphire). And Ruby (I keep thinking that's a girl's name. Why'd they name a boy Ruby?) has white hair. Though I later found out that Ruby's "white hair" was actually a hat. But the white hair stuck for my mages. It's sort of interesting to have an indicator of strong magic that kids can look forwards to. It's also a bit ironic since most people dread finding their first white hair... though I didn't notice that till recently. Kids in Magic-Earth want white hair. Weird... but interesting... Whatever.
Another thing. Lining up times. Lullaby is supposed to take place a couple hundred years before Spirits. But my original version of Lullaby sounds like it takes place in the present. So, I went back and made it impossible to tell what time it is when he visits Technology-Earth. Because Briena needs to live in the present in order for my much larger, more important stories to work. Since I did change Lullaby so much, I kept one pristine copy of the original Lullaby. Maybe I'll put it on the blog. I haven't put any of my stories yet.
Other stuff that morphed into Magic-Earth. Using herbs for spells. I changed that a bit. Now herbs aren't essential for spells, like they were in Lullaby. Herbs just help you complete spells faster and easier. Same with saying magic words. They help, but they aren't completely necessary.
And animal partners. In Lullaby, I had everyone have animal partners. Just because animal partners are awesome! In the newer version, only some mages have animal partners (Plus in "Moon Dragon" everyone in Draykia has an animal familiar).
Oh yeah. One note, just to make things clear. Yes, Brenor does sort of have a crush on Kimia. No, Briena does not have a crush on Kimira. They are both girls in their reincarnation. And they're just good friends. Someone mentioned this to me (I think it was Kelly's friend Crystal) so I wanted to make it clear.
Oh, And one last thing. I found this absolutely frightening and hilarious at the same time. It's another one of those freaky predictions about the future that I make. I'm pretty darn sure I wrote Lullaby before Howl's Moving Castle came out. And as I re-read Lullaby, I found one of eh scenes in it was pretty much exactly like the scene where Sophie meets Howl. The girl's in trouble, the guy comes in and rescues her, and then they fly up into the the girl goes "OH MY GOD!!"
Heheh. Weird predictions. Howl stole my idea!

401

We have 400 posts! Wow!
Ok, I'll do brief captions to Ellen's pictures. Although some of them are labeled already.
OK, first is Zuben and Shalia. It says that on the picture.
After that is Nexsidus, Ellen's creepy blind character. Hmm. I always pictured him as being blonde. Oh well.
Then we got Saleera with the first version of her cool sword.
Then Arith and Shalia.
Then Arith with his trusty bow.
And this is a cute picture I told Ellen to draw of young Senri. Aww.
So, two nights ago, I asked Ellen what her dragon would look like if she had one. So, I questioned her and got her to draw one. She still hasn't come up with a name, but she has decided to make him a boy. (We did one of Nicole's dragon too. She said his name would be Taylor! It was a while ago. I wonder if we ever put Taylor on the blog).
Then I had Ellen draw my dragon. Heheh  I stood there saying, "no, the arms are too long. The neck is a bit shorter. She should have feet like this and wings like this." It turned out really nice! Thanks Ellen!
And then a while ago, I asked Ellen to draw Briena. She did the left half of the cloak all foofy, and then Nicole went "Oh, it's like a wing!" so Ellen went and made the other side all foofy. It looks cool! (Same time as the little Senri picture).

Drawings

So these are some of the drawings I've been doing, they are pre-cartooning practice, cause I know I mentioned cartooning in my last post ^__^ but Tara wanted me to upload these pictures and I had my sketchbook so here they are! ...Tada! :D

Heyoa

Briena

2 random pics

Yes, random.
I love this Ponyta! Got it off Deviantart.

Miyazaki pic

Heheh. This is really the only picture that came out from the Miyazaki interview. At least I got one, even if it's a bit blurry.

MI-YA-ZA-KI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got to see Miyazaki!!!
He gave in interview in Berkeley 2 days ago, and a friend of ours got 2 tickets even though it was SOLD OUT ages ago! She got tickets just a couple hours before the event too! She knew right where to go to get those last 2 tickets! It was awesome! I'll have to see if any of my pictures came out. I'll put them up if they did.
KWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!
I's excited!!!

Figures!

I want them!