April 10, 2023 - Cait Ending, April Introduction

So I forgot about exams/spring break when I was making plans for my March posts… But that’s okay. No need to dwell. This post is going to include a short story post for Cait and the April introduction post. Two for the price of, well, four weeks. Shhh, we’re keeping that a secret.

CAIT - PERFORMANCE

–

A girl takes her position in the center of the stage. The fading streaks of the orange and lavender sunset illuminate her poised silhouette. A violin begins to play from speakers on the front corners of the stage, and she begins to dance. Her pale purple tutu and leotard match spots of twilight in the sky, and as she moves, it looks like the sky is moving with her. Thirteen people (all but one who were strangers to her) sit on black folding chairs in the grass around the stage, watching silently. When it’s over, they clap and each hand her a lilac flower. The one girl she knows gives her a silent hug before offering the flower. She’d practiced for this show for months, and it came and went in all but a paragraph.

She leaves with a bouquet of lilacs, a smile, and an odd pit in her stomach. She doesn’t know what it means.

Postscript: The Whispers (The Evils are leaking In)

A silent show for (almost) strangers

who are here because they’re supposed to be.

I leave empty handed (with only flowers I see every day)

yet carry a cramping something as I walk away.

What could this be?

*whispers*

Laune-lee-ness?

What does that mean?

*whispers*

Oh.

How peculiar.

–

I offer no further explanation.

–

So I made the character design for this month a few days ago, but I seemed to have forgotten to download the image. As I was remaking the design, I changed a few things about the character that just weren’t working for me, which meant I had to re-write this introduction that I’d written last week. Sorry if this is hasty.

If an animal has many different species, there are often both scientific and native cultural names for the different types. In Japanese, the word “benigoi” literally translates to red koi (although I think there are like six different words for red). But I didn’t want to do the color red because I try to wait six months before repeating a color, and as I was scrolling through Pinterest, I found a very pretty drawing of two orange koi fish in a pond so I started researching what they were called as character name inspiration. I think I went a bit on the nose, but meet Benny Koi:

I used the same character maker that I used for Ellie Emerald in November because the doll maker I’ve used doesn’t really have modern clothing - most of the clothes are a bit old fashioned and extravagant for my purposes. But imagine Benny in that same position - eyes closed, facing forward, a passive and less cartoonish-looking smile on her face. Benny is a potter/ceramicist for two reasons - I was looking up Japanese handicrafts for her Talent and I was debating between origami (kind of basic, in my opinion) and pottery (I saw a lot of pottery-related entries in there). Then yesterday I passed a pottery studio and I decided it was a ✨sign✨ to make up my goddamned mind and commit to an idea for once go with pottery.

Also I accidentally made her sweater brown but it is supposed to be white. Bear with me here.

I will try my best to have more posts this month - I just need to post this one before I can do any others.

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