Sir Maxwell Octavius and Shaw

basically...these are for mom and aunt Vickie
If you are confused what this post is, then go read the first one from yesterday.

Sir Maxwell Octavius

Role in Story: Mirabel’s best friend

Occupation: octopus

Physical Description: Max is a stuffed blue octopus about 12 inches long that Mirabel has had her whole life. He wears a floppy top hat, monocle, and mustache.

Personality: Sir Octavius prefers to be referred to by his title by all but his closest friends. Mirabel is the only person allowed to address him as Max (though he wishes she’d call him Maxwell). He is a stickler for etiquette and formality. He and Mirabel frequently butt heads as he cannot approve of her “ends justify the means” life philosophy. That said, he is terribly loyal and under questioning by the authorities he will always back her up. He, like Mirabel, struggles to be taken seriously by the people around him. No one but her is able to look beyond the fact that he is a stuffed octopus and appreciate anything else he has to offer. He is, in fact, extremely intelligent and particularly good with the more complex, nuanced ideas Mirabel is often guilty of over-simplifying

Habits/Mannerisms: I’m not sure yet

Background: Sir Octavius was given to Mirabel’s mother by one of her friends from college when she announced her pregnancy. He was the first and only animal to be born of a sewing passion that quickly settled on clothing over toys.

The Tooth Fairy

Role in Story: antagonist? Anti-hero?

Occupation: collecting teeth

Physical Description: dark slinking creatures with long skinny arms and knobbly joints, particularly elbows and knees. Their hands are long, flat, and thin to slide undetected under your pillow. They have incredibly hard, broad, pointed teeth made of something not quite metal nor quite stone, but something in the middle, that is able to crunch up human teeth, and acidic saliva that helps to dissolve the bits. Their bodies are squat and pear shaped. They look like an orangutan mixed with a spider with the hide of an elephant. Their eyes are large, extremely pale, and sunken. They have no hair at all.

Personality: What we call “the tooth fairy” is in fact a race of demons known as Hortz Demons, which eat human teeth as their primary food source. They are extremely solitary, and each has its own territory that typically comprises 200-300 children (as population density varies, so does the geographical size of the area covered by each demon to take in enough children) and if another demon tries to invade their territory they have been known to get into fights—the goal of which typically is to break the other’s fingers, which are very long and spindly, as this virtually guarantees their opponent will not be able to successfully collect any teeth till they heal.
The particular demon of this story is named Shaw. I don’t know precisely who Shaw is yet

Background: In the Dark Ages demons were hunted and despised. As folktales and superstitions waned amongst humans, however, demons were forgotten or rejected. Wary of returning to the days when they were hated and hunted, demons typically encourage the skepticism of humanity. Co-opting stories like the toothfairy have allowed them to eke out a subsistence below human radar. Most of them don’t even leave the money for the teeth anymore as parents, rejecting even the harmless mythos of the toothfairy, have begun taking on that job. Those demons who DO leave money typical steal it out of purses and wallets or under car seats.

External Conflicts: Shaw needs the teeth to stay alive. He also needs to remain hidden from the humans. He has to find some way of stopping Mirabel from discovering the truth about “tooth fairies”.

Notes: I don’t know yet if Shaw is going to be a legitimate villain or if he’s going to be sympathetic. Part of me wants to go unabashedly scary, but part of me wants him ultimately to team up with Mirabel.  

Mirabel

Whilst I was in Oregon over Easter weekend I got this idea for a story about a little kid who gets freaked out about the idea of the Tooth Fairy.  I, of course, did nothing about it, but last night as I was falling asleep I suddenly got this idea for just a moment out of the story.  I swyped it into my phone and fell asleep, but tonight I decided to pull out Scrivener (since my mom so very kindly bought it for me last Christmas) and see if I had any more ideas.  And it turns out that if you open a story document in Scrivener it has all these nifty little writing tools, including character sketch sheets.  I just now roughed out my main character, her best friend, and the tooth fairy.  It was great fun and since who knows if I'll ever come back to the story again (my enthusiasm for projects is all too often terrifyingly brief), I wanted to at least share little Mirabel with you because I think she's kind of fantastic.  So here's a cut and paste of her "character sketch" straight from Scrivener.  Perhaps, if anyone wants, I'll post the other sketches later.

Mirabel

Role in Story: protagonist

Occupation: 5 year old child

 

Physical Description: very compact child, small for her age, but solid. Like a little brick. She has very short curly brown hair and grey eyes.

Personality: intense and businesslike. She doesn’t like people talking down to her or not being taken seriously. She has a nose for condescension and flimflammery. She is shrewd and curious and pragmatic to the point of seeming cynical. She wants to know how and why before she does anything.

Habits/Mannerisms: she pulls on her right ear when she gets frustrated. She shakes her head violently when angry. She has a very slow, rare smile. She walks just a little sideways and clutches a stuffed octopus in her left arm. He goes with her everywhere and is her most trusted confidant.

 

Background: Mirabel was born on September 1, 2010 just before 8 am. She lives in an as yet undetermined city with her parents in an apartment downtown just a block from the city library. She has three older siblings, Joshua, the eldest boy who is 15, 13 year old Anne, and 9 year old Schroeder. Schroeder should have gotten over it by now, but he is still a little bit resentful that he is no longer the baby of the family (in fact, in many ways he still is, as Mirabel has no interest in being coddled). As such he tries to ignore Mirabel whenever possible. Mirabel’s mother teaches 2nd grade and her father works as a middle manager in an advertising company. Mirabel has just started kindergarten this year and is not entirely sure how she feels about it.

Internal Conflicts: Mirabel is very confident and sure of herself, but no one, not even in her own family, takes her seriously. She can’t figure out how to make them listen to her. In her attempts to gain legitimacy she once took her mother’s sewing scissors and cut off all her hair after she heard someone say it made her look like such a doll. This has gained her a reputation as somewhat of a problem child and, contrary to her hopes, did not inspire the people around her to treat her like an adult.

External Conflicts: Mirabel is very uncomfortable with the idea of someone or something coming in the night and stealing away her teeth, even if it does leave her her some spare coins in exchange. Thus, on the verge of losing her first tooth, she is on a quest to discover just who or what this tooth fairy is and what exactly it is doing with all these teeth. 

The Objective Value of Strength or How I Discovered I Am Just Like Spock

So I had an interesting experience last week and I'm not entirely sure what to think of it so I'm going to post it here in the hopes that someone will have some sort of revelatory insight to offer me.

I don't know if I had mentioned that the reason I have been able to go see ye olde therapiste is because my ward was covering the cost.  But with the decision to officially emigrate out of the old ward it became necessary to broach the topic of continued subsidization with the new administration.  

So last Wednesday I stopped in to visit with my new bishop.  Aside from a brief handshake and hello my first Sunday, this was my first introduction to him.  After the obligatory "getting to know you" chitchat I broached the topic of Alan and my enigmatic therapy.  

It must here be noted that I have remained somewhat ambivalent about my therapy with Alan.  The man himself is perhaps the second sweetest and most earnest man I've ever met (the first being my Russian 101 professor Tony Brown).  But I have struggled to quite get a handle on his therapeutic style from the beginning.  And when I brought this up with him again during our last session we momentarily touched on the possibility that his laid-back style wasn't quite right for me.  But every time I've considered that idea I've left the thought with a vague feeling that I should give Alan's style a little more time.

Which brings us back to my meeting with the bishop.  When asked how I felt therapy was going for me I completely unsurprisingly struggled with my answer.  Which is why I was so surprised by the visceral reaction I had to my bishop's statement that he thought I should "give Alan the boot".  I immediately started feeling anxious and a little panicky.  When I finally made it out to my car I started crying.  Driving from church back home I proceeded to have a micro anxiety attack.

I must, however, again pause my narrative for another bit of background.  I had spent some time last Sunday considering my relationship with the divine and I had come to the conclusion that, while I have a somewhat unorthodox (for a Mormon) relationship with God, my personal system of applied belief rather skips over the idea of Christ.  When I pray I pray to God; in the idea of heavenly communication God is the one I am talking to and listening for.  It occurred to me, then, that perhaps I should look into cultivating some sort of direct relationship with Christ.  Mormon theology places him as the intermediary between God and man, after all.  

So, returning to last Wednesday night, as my anxiety persisted it seemed as good an opening as any to begin that cultivation.  So I sat down on my futon and said a quick prayer.  It consisted essentially of me telling him I was upset, I wasn't completely sure why, and I needed some help.  And in a true New Era moment, I can honestly say that I stopped crying almost instantly.  

I cannot say, however, that I necessarily felt comforted.

What I felt, for lack of any better way to explain it, was more like myself.  

See, the thing about me is that pretty much all of my adult life I've felt like I'm really two very different, almost opposite, people crammed together into one.  One half of me is the person who comes up with the topics for most of my blog posts--all about my insecurities and worries and struggles.  It is the part of me that is responsible for the infamous anxiety.  It is all sensitivity, passion, insecurity, and fear.  Fear of so very many things.  The other half of me is the one who takes all those whinging neurotic blog topics and writes them either with detached analysis, or makes them funny.  In simplest terms, it is the Vulcan part of me.  Because I just realized literally as I was writing that sentence that I'm basically Spock, divided between emotion and reason.  This second half of me is logical and reasonable and calm.  And most of all, it is strong, with a burdensome strength that never allows me a moment of cathartic emotional weakness because it sees no purpose in such indulgences.  At the end of our meeting the Bishop mentioned how surprised he was at the topic of our conversation; I was much too calm to suffer from anxiety.  He said this to me as I was in the initial stages of an anxiety attack.  

Which is what I mean when I say that, after I said my prayer, I felt more like myself.  I stopped crying.  I stopped panicking.  I stopped caring at all about what would happen if I stopped going to see Alan because I knew that I would be fine either way.  Because I'm always fine.  I felt, for a little while, like half of myself...wholly.  If that isn't too confusing.

It is important to note here that the motivation in many of my decisions lately has been a desire to better balance of these two halves of myself.  Not to be too dramatic about it, but I feel like the emotion and sensitivity of the one is being slowly smothered beneath the rigid stoicism of the other.  Only the most negative aspects of that part of me make it out at this point.  The insecurities, anxieties, and fears.  They are the only parts strong enough to break through.  So, as I said, I'm trying to find some way to relieve some of the pressure.  Because sensitivity and emotion aren't bad, are they?

And that is why I am confused.  Did I receive a true answer to my prayer?  To a person who can't say with surety that she's received an answer to her prayers since she was a teenager, that would be momentous.  But if I did, what does it mean that that answer was to be snapped back into my Vulcan self so hard the other self was practically gone (if just for a while)?  Have I been working toward the wrong goal?  Instead of trying to cultivate a balance between Vulcan and Human should I simply be striving to become pure Vulcan?  

I honestly don't know.  I'm hoping that one of you will have an idea that will help me to make some sense out of it all...