Note [#0003]

 

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2/13/25

I think I like the idea of there being things in the other dimension that correspond to feelings or states; things that would give the ‘Others’ something to do. Though whether it would be little objects, critters or something else I’m not sure. Maybe it could just be all of the above lol. 

It makes me wonder, supposing I go with the “inspiration” route of things; maybe they’re something the ‘Others’ really like, almost crave.

Actually, maybe I *can* go w/ all of the above for the previous thing I said, but branch off of that.

Maybe there can be objects *and* little creatures, but the objects normally correspond to something good, something the ‘Others’ would want to find, maybe even fight over. Whereas the critters normally correspond to something bad, something that kind of just barges in or causes chaos.

That brings me back to one of the first things I was thinking of when trying to figure out the whole “other dimension” thing. Because Mark and Colin are often traveling around, I thought it would be interesting if their ‘Others’ were doing the same thing. Maybe their ‘Others’ purposely look for those objects, or even ‘hunt’ the critters? Something to ponder.

Initial brainstorming for Winter’s ‘Others’:

How He Sees Himself(?)-

A very mischievous Other, quite the menace but very clumsy, gets in the way of things quite often or messes with things they don’t mean to.

How He Wishes He Were(?)-

A perfectionist, almost to a fault. Very responsible and charming, often comes around to clean up messes.

Winter is very troublesome even if he doesn’t try to be; he gets into trouble often but shakes things off through good ol’ denial. He tends to seem like he’s enjoying himself but sometimes feels like a screwup, especially next to his responsible brother who never gets into trouble and often lectures Winter. Nicholas had taken up the ‘parent’ role for many years but Winter still gets annoyed by it. Mmh, gotta love complicated brother relationships. The perfectionist ‘Other’ is slightly based off of Winters tinted view of his brother. Almost his mocking image of him; the person who’s “always trying to control his life,” whether that’s actually the case or not.

2/14/25

Trying to figure out how the landscape of the other dimension is. Now I know it’s supposed to be quite random so it’s not like I’m thinking of every tiny detail, it’s more so that I need to know whether the ‘Others’ have homes or places they tend to be at. Points of the landscape and whatnot, because otherwise I can’t really think of them doing anything when I don’t know where they would be doing said thing, if that makes sense.

Like my brain keeps trying to make some type of cityscape, which makes me think that’s what would work; but it’s to the point that I keep trying to formulate some kind of legitimate society or something, and that’s *not* what I want. 

It also brings up the problem that with not every person in the world having an ‘Other,’ a city would be quite bare, it wouldn’t feel lively at all; so I once again find myself stuck.

———

Characters with ‘Others,’ and *extremely* rough titles

Winter Finnegan:

Troublemaker and Perfectionist

Mayor Cathleen Amberose:

Mother and Leader

Mark Harvey:

??? and ???

Colin Gray:

??? and ???

Jennifer Halloway:

Optimist and ???

Monica McKinley:

??? and ???

_________________

2/15/25

I think to kind of solve my problem of the landscape, I’m going to create other little creatures to live in it. This helps with the issue of a cityscape being too big for the amount of creatures that would live in it but a more spread out landscape of random doodads being too scarce without much specifically. I’m thinking the creatures are more so blobby little guys that kind of just go about the world doing things without all that much happening in their minds. They don’t really have a personality or anything, they just exist to do their jobs and fill up space. Which then got me thinking on if that’s how all the ‘Others’ start out, before they get connected to an actual person. The blobbies can just be something of a blank slate that can become something more once a concept is bestowed upon them, so to speak.

Which also made me curious on the way that an Other comes around. Like I kept having to remind myself that the Others are based on a mindset that came from an actual person, but they are far from acting and thinking the way that the person acts. I have to stop myself from constantly being like ‘oh but the person wouldn’t be like that!’ When it’s like, yeah, what of it, they’re not supposed to be the same. The Others are just like concepts and mindsets blown out to a large degree to the point that it makes up most of their acting and thinking patterns. 

This also means that, when you think about it, the Other comes around by a way of someone’s views of something in a sense. This means that because the persons views and mind will be shifting and always has time to grow, you’d think their Other would be the same. However the Other doesn’t necessarily do that, which means they come from a point in time when a person was a certain way, and that’s as far as their connection to the person goes.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be something that could happen that changes an Other, maybe another could even form, we don’t know at this point. But essentially, the Other doesn’t form at birth, as the person wouldn’t be developed enough for that; this means that the dimension doesn’t just immediately connect to someone as soon as they enter the world, which means an Other doesn’t just poof into existence at a specific time. Adding to that, it means someone could not have an Other right now, but may form a connection through some type of mindset at any time of their life. I find that thought interesting.

2/16/25

I think I should give the ‘Others’ a few themes to go off of, something to help with the design process.

I’ve kind of settled on the concept of them being still humanoid in terms of form, but where I can still be very fluid and distinct with their appearance; like, I’m following the human form only down to the silhouette.

And because I plan on giving this a cartoon style, I can be a lot more exaggerated.

That’s the plan anyway.

Expanding on the concept of Others being formed from random periods of time in a person’s life; I think that actually opens up a lot of possibilities for variation. 

I think I’ve settled on one Other being a spectrum that varies on how the person sees themselves to a subconscious image of their self; or how they did at the time anyway. 

E.g. Winter sometimes sees himself as someone who causes too much trouble or isn’t good enough. Mayor Amberose, even in the position of power she’s in, first and foremost believes she is just a mother. Mark Harvey has two Others in this category, where one half represents his childlike soul, but the other half represents how he felt like he was treated like a kid who couldn’t take care of himself.

The second Other could vary from how they wish they were to things they just deeply admired (or despised). 

E.g. Mark and Colin both have an Other that kind of represents each other’s personalities because they both admire each other so much, though not in a jealous kind of way. Jennifer has an Other slightly based on a role model of hers from when she was a kid, while Winter has an Other that’s slightly based on traits he despises from his brother.

Notice Monica wasn’t mentioned at all, that’s because I haven’t figured out much about her 🫡

I tend to like to think about dynamics for characters first and foremost to make sure I get a variety of personalities, so Monica is probably going to just end up being a blank slate I can work with for whatever would be best paired with Jennifer.

__________

Right now I’m going with the assumption that one person has two-three ‘Others:’ they can all be out at the same time but don’t have to be and aren’t often; it tends to depend on which is the more dominant one at the time, sometimes having to do with the situation, series of events, or even how the person they come from is feeling. E.g. (and still using placeholder names) Troublemaker is out way more than Perfectionist is, they are more of the dominant one even though Perfectionist easily takes control when they want to, the fact is they don’t always want to. There are even cases like Colin’s Others, who currently have a strange relationship where one normally does what they can to make sure the second Other doesn’t come out. Or Mark’s, that just takes a lot to get to come out.

The Others are weird in the sense that because a pair comes from the same person, they are often seen as ‘two halves of a whole’ while at the same time being their own completely different being. Honestly they can probably be best seen as siblings to each other, or at least begrudging relatives. So Perfectionist is typically seen as being a part of Troublemaker while at the same time not, it’s just that you often don’t see one without the other, so whether the Others like their halves or not, they are explicitly connected to each other and share the same ‘core’ they were created from (the blobby guy they used to be, I guess you could say).

To wrap it up, Troublemaker could be the only one present in a situation, and Perfectionist could come out whenever they wanted to. At the same time, Troublemaker could leave and only Perfectionist could be out; or, they could both be out at the same time. But at least one or them needs to be out at any given time. One could also force the other back in, or force the other out, etc. etc.

If that’s confusing, I guess just think of it in the sense of, one or the other being out or gone at any time makes sense so long as they are close enough to each other, and so long as at least one is out.

Note [#0002]

 

All images found on Pinterest 

_______________

2/11/25

I’m wondering if maybe the ‘Others’ should carry certain characteristics to the planet they’re ’inspired from,’ give them a reason to match more with the other side of things. For some reason the more I try to think of them, the more they start appearing more puppet-like in my mind, I think that’s mostly because of the little boy’s plushies; not sure how I really feel about that since I don’t know what their dimension is really like right now.

Also I keep calling them the ‘little boy,’ but in my mind he’s at least around 10, which isn’t necessarily ‘little,’ he’s just the youngest out of the cast so far.

When it comes to the little boy, I keep thinking of him and a possible life for him; he’s probably going to end up being an orphan/adopted; yeah, yeah, typical. But I’m not sure I want to think about what makes him different in terms of the other dimension and try to connect it to family relations. Plus, I don’t *normally* go the orphan route, I often try to incorporate actual parents into things (well actually, Cristin doesn’t have parents and Kasi’s gone without any most of his life….. that’s different though, that’s culture things); plus, he’s still going to have plenty of adults in his life. I imagine he’s one of those characters that most people know. I like the idea that he’s what you would normally see as the ‘weird’ kid, but he’s so friendly and approachable that most people know him, and most people like him. Okay, probably not everyone, but you get the point.

He enjoys talking to people connected to the dimension the most because he has a bit of a telltale sign on how they are feeling; he also just finds them interesting.

_____________

Tossing around some names because Mark Harvey can’t be the only one:

Codey means “helpful”, that might be a good one for the little boy

But I already have a Cody lol

Maybe Corey? Uuh, the meaning doesn’t really match. But do I care that much?

Sonny?? I don’t think I’ve used that name before, I feel like it might match his vibe lol

…

Switching to another; Mark’s friend.

Maybe Colin, I think I like the sound of Mark and Colin

Colin Desmond?

Colin P. Westforn…

Colin Gray….

Mark Harvey and Colin Gray? 

Hmmm

Mark Harvey and Christopher Gray?

Chris. Mark and Chris?

Mark and Anthony

Anthony Gray

Donovan?

Mark and Don

Mark Harvey and Donovan Gray

Don, Donny and such

Okay.

I’ve gone back to Colin

Colin Gray it is.

…

Little boys friend:

Iris Chamberlain

Easiest one so far

Troublemaker:

 

Winter?

Nickolas

Nicholas

Nicholas Finn

Nicholas Finnegan

Winter Finnegan?

Maybe Nicholas can be his brother

…

Sonny Cooper?

Eli?

Maybe just Eli?

Eli Cooper.

Elliot Cooper

I dunno, Eli almost makes him sound too young

Jaime?

I do think the possibility of the three of them being named Sonny Iris and Winter funny tho

I might do it just because of that

…

Mayor:

Mayor Amberose

Mayor Cathleen Amberose

…

Teen girl 1:

Jennifer Halloway

Teen girl 2: 

Monica McKinley 

Why are the girls so much easier 

___________

Iris is the daughter of someone who works for whatever police or authority is in the Fishbowl. She looks up to him. She follows Sonny around as he does random stuff, likes to feel like she’s “protecting” him. She’s probably 16-17 yrs old.

Winter lives at a building that is part coffee/tea shop and part apartment. His grandmother owns it. His older brother co-owns it and honestly does most of the work. Winter is 14.

“Come on Sonny, literally all you do is hunch over this mound of yarn; what are you even making with it? Another one of your freaky little toys?”

“Actually yes, this one’s for Winter, it reminds me of him.”

“Oh for crying out- give me that.”

She pulls on the string of yarn and the stitches unravel.

Sonny stares at the twisted unraveled yarn.

“Oh, well now it reminds me of you.”

___________

2/12/25

Thinking about the ‘Others’ again, I’m still having issues with them; I’m just not thinking about them, which is normally a telltale sign that something’s not working. I think I need to figure out some things to build off of, problem is I don’t really know what I want right now.

So say this is a pocket dimension, akin to the Land of Odd. The creatures that live in this dimension are connected to, I’ll just say ‘actual people,’ and they represent different facets of that person, normally pertaining to their mental images and feelings about themselves. I know I don’t want them to be human looking (they’re probably going to be human*oid,* just not ‘human with a few none human features’ if that makes sense. Part of this is because the Oddities are already very human-like with other themes, and I want something different. Plus, I’ve always wanted to make a few characters with vastly different proportions and stuff. Something to keep in mind is that Sonny makes little crafty versions of them, though he obviously takes lots of creative liberties with it.

I also know that it’s going to be a similar world to Odd in the sense that most things don’t make sense for anyone who wouldn’t be originally from there. This is the place where all the weird stuff in this story comes from after all. 

Each ‘Other’ is going to have at least two versions of themselves based on their ‘person.’ The original plan was for one to be what the person wishes they were like, and the second to be how they see themselves, but that’s going to be both extremely specific and constantly changing, so that’s probably going to just be the core theme; and more so than not the two versions are probably going to be opposites of each-other.

I think one of the main things I need to work out is how exactly that dimension works in terms of plot; and I know that sounds kind of strange considering there isn’t really a plot, but let me explain.

So the main world is very simple in terms of plot, yes? The characters in there are really just going to be going about their lives in probably a comic strip like fashion; and I wish for that to continue. Now me knowing myself there’s a big chance something’s going to randomly click in my mind one day and suddenly, wow, look at that! A plot! But that’s not something I want, it’d kind of mess with the vibe. Now at first I figured I’d just use the ‘Others’ dimension as something I can pull all my plot making tendencies into, that way I can still create a plot of some sorts for this story while keeping it out of the Fishbowl. Problem is I’m not sure I really want that right now; what plot is there to be had in a dimension where not much makes sense, you know? A plot normally involves something that implies that there is both a start and an end, right? Or am I just thinking through this too much…

Let me explain this from another angle. Right now, there are two different dimensions centering roughly around different versions of said characters. Now what are they doing in one world? Normal life. What are they going to be doing in the other world? I don’t know right now, and that’s what’s causing the traffic jam of inspiration for that world. I can’t just have two versions of a story where both of them go through the same things. 

In the Land of Odd, the Oddities are often just doing random shenanigans. The thing about them though is that they have an underlying purpose for the things that they do. Not the specific things they do… who knows why they do those things. But they don’t just spend their lives visiting each other and being consistent nuisances wherever they can. They do so simply as a way of waiting; waiting for their next visitor. And that’s what they actually do things for. That’s their purpose. As messed up as it is, it’s what keeps their dimension spinning and working.

Now am I saying the ‘Others’ dimension needs some other side to it that sucks people in to their inevitable demise? Nope, not in the slightest. What I’m saying is I need them to having something they do that drives them. Their own inbuilt “plot” that keeps things happening in a world that otherwise doesn’t make sense.

Now can I technically create something of this sort by connecting it more to the Fishbowl? Yes, yes I could, but that’d be really counterproductive to what I’m wanting to accomplish with this.

The worlds aren’t supposed to be that connected, it’s as simple as that; and yet it makes things so much more complicated as well.

Basically, I’ve gotten nowhere, how fun.

[END]

Note [#0001]

 

All images found on Pinterest

———————————

2/8/25

I’m thinking it’ll be about maybe four POVs

I want it to have this SolarPunk theme to it, but with a lot of weird and wacko shenanigans and undertones somehow incorporated

The ‘main’ character is this little boy who likes to crochet funny little characters, him and his friends have lived in a small community surrounded by a large bubble. It almost has a terrarium kind of look to it.

They can come out of it, but it encapsulates their heads in their own little bubble.

I say ‘main’ because it’s not like he’s the main focus or anything, there are lots of others who are just as focused on, but he’d definitely be the face of the story, if any of this makes sense

I guess you could say he’s special.

Characters:

POV 1:

Little boy

Little boy’s friend

Troublemaker

POV 2:

Mark Harvey 

Mark’s friend

POV 3:

Teen girl 

Other teen girl

Possible third character 

OTHERS:

The Mayor 

I fully expect this to go through some wild changes for a while, considering it’s so new

2/9/25

One of the main themes I wanted it to focus on, if not *the* main theme, is the difference between who you are as a person, who you wish you were, how you see yourself, and how others see you.

When I was initially going through possible things I wanted in a new story, the first things that were coming to mind were things such as dimensional travel, characters with alter egos, or just a singular character that can be envisioned in several different ways.

The dimensional travel was quickly trashed because I decided it would be too big on a world building scale. 

I still liked the thought of having characters in almost AU kind of settings, but decided not to go for that either.

One of the first obscure images that popped up into my head was a few kids with packs and traveling gear walking through a vegetated area with bubbles over their heads.

The second one was two girls dancing on top of a shabby roof in overgrown greenery with an old looking mechanism reminiscent of a Walkman. One of the girls had a mechanical leg.

The third image was of two adult men walking over a weirdly glass platform talking to each other, one of them had a pole and sunglasses; he’s blind (that’s Mark Harvey. The only dude with a name currently)

If it wasn’t obvious at this point, this is a fantasy world.

2/10/25

Due to two of the three ideas being immediately scrapped because the vibes were not vibing; I decided to move back to the only other one; the alter ego idea.

Look, I keep seeing marvel rivals and therefore superhero stuff, the Superman movie’s coming out at some point (I’ve seen it circulating) and I’ve gotten kind of excited for the Fantastic 4 movie, sue me

The thing is, I don’t want a superhero story, and I don’t want my characters to be hiding some kind of alter ego.

The more I tried to think of something in terms of plot for these characters, in this fuzzy idea of a world they live in; the more it just doesn’t seem right. I much more like the idea of these characters just going through their lives, and you get little glimpses into that; just normal stuff (for their world anyway).

Thinking then, how do characters have other versions of themselves without, well, having other versions of themselves lol

Right now it circles back to the initial theme.

Who you are, who you wish you were, and how you see yourself.

There you have it; and the world you see where ppl going through their lives are their real selves.

Then I’m thinking there will be some other place, some kind of pocket dimension maybe; very similar geography to the Land of Odd in the way that it’s not quite an actual planet.

And in this place will be these creatures, these little guys lol, who are almost other facets of different ppl, these enigmatic and eccentric personalities that mirror ways of visualizing ppl mentally.

Now I know how it sounds, and it’s not going to be as literal as that, it honestly can’t; otherwise I will feel entirely restricted to making these characters as realistically sound as possible, and that’s not what they’re supposed to be like. So it’s probably going to be more so you can pull out a general theme that a character seems to have without it making them up entirely; it’s almost like they are centered around something specific, but have grown into their own thing. Does any of this make sense? I hope for my future brain that it does.

One of the only things that made me iffy on this concept was the fact that I’ve already created a story in which there’s this weird split between one dimension and other where there are creatures in one that each person in the other is connected to; and that’s ECHO, but I’m not sure I can go back on this concept anymore, so hopefully it’s different enough. I guess I just like that kind of concept 😅

A main difference between the two however; is the fact that in ECHO, the Split Dimension is literally half of their planet, and the ppl in that world have a pretty nice chance of getting into the Split Dimension.

Frog in a Fishbowl is not like that; the other dimension is completely cut off from that world, no one even goes to it, or knows about it. Well, almost no one… I’ll get to that. Essentially 

Hold that thought; I’ll come back to it I promise but I think I just solved an earlier problem I was having with this story. You see due to spending basically no time yesterday writing notes I had found myself having an entire backlog of things I thought about that I’ve been just now writing down in here. Honestly that’s one reason it probably seems more systematic. But I digress; this may not make sense right now but stay with me. Groups, what if the characters are matched up in groups based on the planets they come from? See an issue I was having was that the more I thought up things for this story, what with the two dimensions and stuff, the more it felt like I was created two completely separate stories. Why was I creating an entire Solarpunk themed world with its own fantasy setting when I was going to create an alternate area very different from it and try to sandwich them together? Like at that point I felt like it would’ve been better if the setting was just placed in a modern world and then the alternate dimension would be the main focus? But I was already getting attached to my barely visualized unnamed characters that would be the main focus; and they were metaphorically and literally born in this SolarPunk world, and wouldn’t work in a modern setting (I don’t even like modern settings, the closest I have to that is Echo’s setting and I do not need another similarity); gosh, it wouldn’t even be able to be called Frog in a Fishbowl anymore (as silly as that name is). There was one connection already, which was the little boy, who happened to be able to see these creatures (right now their placeholder name is just The Others), and liked to make little goofy crocheted versions of them; but that just didn’t seem like enough to me. See I already knew that the Dimension was completely separate from that planet, so it just made it weird to me that the Dimension was exclusive to that world. Because,  why? You know. It’s barely connected by story.

So now I’m thinking, maybe it’s not just that world connected to it; which I did wonder about, but didn’t want to go with it because that would mean connecting more worlds to it, and I don’t want another universe thing, this is a pocket dimension, not a galaxy. But that’s the thing, it doesn’t have to focus on any other planet or dimension, just the Others that exist from it. Maybe there isn’t an ‘Other’ for each person from each world, just a select few. And maybe those select few are grouped together due to it. This means that the main group can just be the ‘Others’ that come from that SolarPunk planet, and any other group there is would be from any other world or dimension, but you don’t have to know in what way, you’d just know the ‘Others,’ not where they come from.

The only thing about this is it does seem to be leaning towards a similar concept of the Oddities, what with their Patches and groups and stuff, but I don’t really know what else to do.

Sighhhhhhh

Alright, I’ll put it on the back burner for now…

_______________________

“Why do you look at some people like that?”

“?? Like what?”

“You look like you’re staring into them, it’s kinda creepy sometimes.”

_______ shrugs, “Just gathering inspiration I guess.”

“Uh huh, okay then…”

Notable places (with placeholder/possible names):

The Fishbowl:

A moderately sized city filled with vegetation and surrounded by a large bubble protecting it from the outside world. It is very Solarpunk themed. It is ruled by the Mayor. POV 1 is found here.

The Bench:

A rusty hand-built bunker of sorts, filled with all sorts of trinkets and mechanisms made by an inventor. POV 3 is found here.

The Glass Sky:

A large winding pathway hovering above the ground, it looks like glass. It leads to many a place including the Fishbowl. POV 2 is found here.

[END]