I dreamed of this mask along with two other masks, although I only sketched this one. I remember it was the columbine type, which only covers half the face, yellow with a floral pattern and two flowers with bows at each end.
Funnily enough I can only remember two times in my life that it was actually referred as such.
The first time was when I learned it. Me, my dad, and my brother were coming home from a movie (Transformers, the one with Shia LeBeouf). I asked my dad if our car had a name and he said he named it Teddy. Now years later I can't recall if the name came from anywhere just that it was.
The second time the name was ever mentioned was when the car broke down for the last and final time. I was in 7th grade at lunch. The text was sent in the family group chat. If I were to look back it would just say "Teddy is dead" with a picture of the car pulled over on the side of the road. It wasn't like there was a horrible accident or anything. It just stopped. It was an old car after all. Teddy had always been old even before my brother and I were born. Still after looking at my phone I cried. Not a full breakdown just a few tears. My friends asked if I was okay and i just laughed holding up my phone showing them the message. The rest of day was normal and when I got home I wasn't hysterical just bummed.
Now at 15 i can't sleep without medication. An audio of a rainy car ride pops up on my tablet and i click on it hoping to get some sleep. 30 minutes in I turn on Spotify and put on my most recent playlist on low sound to mimic the radio. This is what makes me think of Teddy. I have driving permit now and I can't help but think about how much it sucks that Teddy won't be the first car i drive to school in. There are probably better words to use than "sucks" but I can't think of any. I can only think about every half asleep fleeting moment I spent late at night in that car.
Writing this is kind of useless, but it definitely helps. On the incredible off chance anyone ever sees this, I hope it reminds you of your own Teddy: something small and insignificant in your life that left a hole when it was gone.
"To say someone is a wallflower implies they are a hidden beauty, quiet and growing on their own without the nurturing or attention of a proper gardener. People look at the wallflower and say, "Look! That flower has grown up the fences. Broken through the concrete, peeking from the bricks. How strong! How resilient! How beautiful that wallflower is!" I was born in between the cracks and admired like that ever since."
Yua Hayashi is a anthophilic girl known for her gentle disposition and continuous care for others.
In the eyes of her classmates and friends she is the one to turn to in times of need. To her father she is a charming face useful for business deals and his political campaign. To his associates she is the middle child who beat the odds for her parents love after the estrangement of their eldest son. To her mother she is a second chance at the life she deserved. To very few she is Yua, with overly flushed cheeks and callused hands.
Born in the country side of Miyazaki, Yua Hayashi is born inhuman; a hana-onna (flower women) of cherry blossoms with wildflowers growing at her wiggling feet and the magic of spring coursing through her young veins. To her grandmother, another hana-onna, this was a welcome surprise. To her mother who craved a daughter, her carbon copy this was a mistep in a greater plan. Yua would spend the majority of her childhood hoping from hobby to hobby, picking up skills and dropping them at the behest of her mother. Later on they would find that she had a knack for poetry and calligraphy along with other elegant hobbies, such as flower arrangement. Her mother takes this as a sign, training out the unsightly characteristics of her husband and failure son from the girl until she had a child so close to herself that it was like she was cloned.
Despite the "close" relationship of Yua and her mother, Yua would grow up closer to her grandmother. As the only other hana-onna, grandma Hayashi teaches her about the world, about religion (shintoism specifically), and most of all magic. (This is the closest Yua would ever get to embracing herself without a full breakdown). At the age of 9 Yua's grandmother dies, she has lost the only other person in her life who knows what it's like to live as she does and with that she quickly becomes sick. Unable to go outside or communicate with her friends her mother capitalizes on this taking care of Yua and becoming her crutch.
At the age of 11, Yua has recovered but cannot figure out why she still feels drained, often sore, and empty. Both her doctors and her parents chalk it up to unresolved grief and growing pains. Over time her body begins to change (as they are prone to do) she gets taller, becomes more like her mother in looks and disposition. However the biggest change is the first day of Spring when she wakes up surrounded by foliage bursting fresh and bloodied from her bruised pink skin. She has overgrown and needs to be cut down. From then on Yua cannot go through Spring without at least one doctor's visit to remove the spreading roots.
At the beginning of 13 Yua's younger sister is born. It is a surprise, but like most things in the Hayashi family it is welcome to somebody. In the same month they move from the countryside to the city. All of a sudden being a politician's daughter matters much more. Yua throws herself into self betterment, into her hobbies and her studies, into caring for her sister, into plans for her future, and building the image of the most stunning wallflower in Japan. She meets many people; one girl in particular who stuns her with light and passion and drive. They become close and Yua gains another person to care for unconditionally. For once Yua knows what comes next and that calms her in ways she could never properly articulate. For once she is comfortable in Saitama in her not-childhood home with her plans and with her life.
In the spring of her 15th year of life Yua gets into Amia's international school for girls. Everything goes to shit.
Uniforms have always been my favorite part of fantasy schools and real life school. I've been wearing uniforms my whole life it's effected my fashion and heavily influenced my love for accessories. So I had a lot of fun designing them.
The uniforms themselves took a lot of brainstorming. Like most things in the story they changed constantly as I continued to iron things out not only around the characters, but also specifically in the worldbuilding.
Past versions
The only way to explain what you see here is 10-year old over ambition. When the original plan was to have How To be a Magical Girl a graphic novel my ten year old self had planned for each of my characters to have their own personalized uniform. This uniformed belonged to an early form of one of my characters, it's riddled with star motifs and her main colors pink and yellow. There are also gold star buttons and what I think are patches on her shoulders along with a bow at the back (idk if that's attached to her blazer or her skirt). At the time my only reference for actual school uniforms were the girl's at my older brother's school who wore the common western styled ones of blazers, button downs, and pleated skirts. (I'm thinking one day I should do a full showing of the others or maybe even a redraw of these cause there are a couple more). For obvious reasons these designs were impractical not only for me as an artist to consistently draw in a graphic novel, but even more impractical as the school itself developed into a more concrete idea rather than "Knock-off Winx school"
These iterations of the uniforms consisted of color blocked dresses and silk capes. I also thought about overalls and including pins with the capes. Although years later after watching spy x family you might notice the resemblance to the Eden's school uniforms. At the time of these designs Amia was halfway figured out. I knew I wanted St. Amia to still be an exclusive and strict kind of private school but uniform wise I wasn't completely sure where that put them. Aspects of these versions of the uniforms drew from Beauxbatons academy from the Harry potter series. Its also around the time when I started gearing the story towards Light academia themes. Now, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with these uniforms. I kept the palate and some structural ideas from this, but as I fleshed out the school again the uniforms needed to change too.
Final Uniforms (For the foreseeable future)
Everything on the drawing is labeled but I'm still going to describe them. In the final version the bell sleeves stay (they just look more pronounced because of how my art style has changed since). The beret stay and so do the bows also stay because I just love bows. There's a new addition of flared pants and a patterned lining along with a practical way to hike them up (see the small snaps on the sides). In a lot of character design videos the thing they press on are "distinct silhouettes". I'm hoping I've accomplished that.
Anyone who has ever been to a school where uniforms are customary, you'd know that no one wears the same uniform. Lots of dress codes allow thing like school sweaters or outside accessories. I personally enjoy wearing headbands and a sweater vest with mine. I like to have some elements of realism in my story and in my character designs (despite how cartoony my art style is). Girls have the option of skirts (of different lengths) or pants. Also since St. Amia campus is on a mountain (and famously called "The Winter Garden") students also have the choice of knitwear overtop their blouses. Each girl wears a different variation of the St. Amia uniform based on their personal style, lifestyle, and characters.
Alice(left) is a girl known for her bubbly disposition and is from Japan. She prefers to wear a bigger version of the standard sweater vest and a shorter skirt meant to be more reminiscent of her old uniform she would've worn before Amia.
Evie(middle) is a druid and botany student. She spends most of her non-core classes in the school's greenhouse right in the flowerbeds. In addition to the usual gardening aprons the school provides she also buttons up her flared pants and prefers the tighter version of the sweater vest.
Abia(right) comes from a more noble background and prefers a longer skirt and a cardigan since she tends to run hot internally but cold externally (lore thing). As an astrology student she also prefers the cardigans for their pockets so she can stash pencils in there for midday classes.
This is an introduction to my original story as the title states. This will not be a comprehensive lore dump just a ramble of what the story is like and the many (many inspirations behind it
Disclaimers: This is a story in EXTREMELY EARLY production, This is mostly for fun and for me as a writer to both build a fanbase around my work and get used to jotting down ideas.
Inspirations:
I'm staring with my inspirations for the story since they heavily explain where I was heading for pretty much the rest of the story.
First really big one is the anime Madoka Magica, so there's a lot of cutesy-ness mixed with body horror and some darker themes too in my writing. This also effects my art style quite a bit if you've seen any of my work on my tumblr page. Of course there's the magical girl aspect and an obvious school setting.
Speaking of school settings my other inspiration would have to be My Hero Academia. I'm mostly referring to the slice of life/school aspects and the earlier class focused episodes. I think the world building in My Hero is really cool and I think it shows quite a bit in my own world. Also the technical aspects of becoming a hero in the earlier episodes have given me a good idea of how I'd like my own story's made up profession to work on it's own technical scale.
Setting/Plot:
How To Be a Magical Girl is a novel in the works centered around the coming of age stories of a large cast of girls (15-16 yr olds) who go to a magical school and as the title states learn how to be a magical girl both as a job and as people.
One really big theme is light academia which includes love of learning, friendship, and overall loving life. Another is also perspective as many of the mini stories are written is different POVs and hopefully if I can get a book or two into the world each one would also be in a different POV. This does lead to a large cast of characters all of which have different backgrounds, cultures, and unique dynamics with each other along with different places in each others stories. This is also one big coming of age story which is very dear to me as I, myself am coming of age as a young author, so this story is a huge reflection on my own experiences. The biggest most prevalent theme besides light academia is trauma and more importantly healing! The main monsters that these magical girls fight in fact come from trauma and each of the girls have their own troubles to work through along the course of the story.
The literal setting of the book is of course the school: St. Amia's International School for girls! Pretty much think Hogwarts but made of quartz. Legit though lots inspiration came from European design and architecture (Scottish castles, French Chateaus, etc.) in alignment with the book's theme.
Here is link to the Pinterest mood board
Worldbuilding:
Obviously there is magic in this world. It takes place a couple hundred years into the future, magic is very well integrated into the modern world, i.e it's used as an energy source, magical creatures are common place across the world, it's even a normal and often required course in schools.
Magic itself is a learned skill that all people can have the ability to advance in and excel at. My best analogy for it is it's like sports, if you run everyday you gradually get better and you could even make it a profession with enough training. And also like sports there are certain skills and abilities that are better for each one, flexibility and strength are both good for all sports but would be best used and trained in particular ones. This also translates over to types of magic and skills.
(These are not the best comprehensive notes of my story's world so I might make an in depth post for the whole thing, tell me in the comments if this gets enough attraction!)
If this post somehow reaches you and maybe you even like it give it a reblog so others can have the chance to find it too in mess of an algorithm. And maybe even leave a comment if you'd like to see more from me!
