Today is January 23rd, 2024 and the anniversary of my first long term attempt at webcomic that I started when I was fourteen. Despite having shelved it long ago back in college, I still privately celebrate it every year in my heart as a personal milestone, as the comic in question; "Faeries Bible" was the first time I committed to a single project for any long period of time, running for 7 years with 150 pages plus 2 short 10-12 page spinoffs.
I don't do something every year but decided to indulge myself by drawing a tribute, not of Faeries Bible characters specifically, but a tribute to all the stories and OCs that came before it from the time I was 11 to the time I was 14, at the point I stopped calling each story my first, my second, my third, etc. story. There were many ideas that never left the concept phase, but these were the ones I stuck with long enough to be considered stories.
So this year I decided to indulge some old (fictional) friends.
I am genuinely not sure what is going on here. The character in front looks like Hawk from Faeries Bible but I'm not sure who the other characters are.
A doodle from my brother when he was a kid but also the comic he drew from.
So I had a thing where every summer I was going to take a break and do a comic that wasn't Faeries Bible back in the day. I had decided on a thing where I would contextualize it as these Fairy tale fanfictions starring the Faeries Bible cast in the character roles (As well as other OCs as filler)
The first up was Kichi's version of The Little Mermaid called The Little FishFolk.
(Lily was going to have Beauty and the Beast, Hoshi Alice in Wonderland, and Hiku was initially going to be Puss in Boots but I thought that was too on the nose and figured I'd rethink that when I got there)
In The Little Fishfolk the mermaid AU version of Kichi want's to own realestate and is told no by her adopted father the Sea King who already has many NONadopted and OLDERadopted children in need of realestate. He suggests that if she wants an inheritance then she might as well Marry one of his actual kids to get it and she boogies out of there in disgust to vent to her friend Hoshi the Mer-Anglerfish. They are interrupted by a statue of Prince Trinidad falling into the sea on top of them.
Kichi is enamored by the statue and eventually is lead to the surface where a storm is brewing and a ship is already taken down the prince's ship. Kichi thinks it would be fun to drown the survivors but when she sees the prince she thinks it'd be a waste with him being unconcious and all and takes him to shore to wait for him to wake up so she can drag him back to the sea and drown him while awake.
On shore Kichi is beat off of him by another woman and the Prince lives to see another day, but Kichi is not having that and decides to find Lily the Sea Witch to get a potion that will turn her human so she can go up on land and drag the Prince to his watery death because fuck you that's why. Kichi trades her voice and receives the potion, but it's the wrong one and when she is turned human she also is gender bent into a man who's mertraits become visible in the water so she has to not get caught.
Now Kichi has to try and kill the prince, the prince who is in love with his mysterious savior on the beach, while this...guy (kichi) is seemingly coming onto him and he is totally not having gay/bi panic totally. Eventually Kichi manages to lure him to a cliffside and shoves him into the water with her, and she returns to her mer form (Still male tho) and is incapable of drowning him because Sea Witch Lily mistook Kichi's intent to go on land for love and gave her a potion that when she forces him to drown will turn him into a mermaid so they can be together forever.
By this point the Prince realizes this mer-guy is his savior and becomes the pursuer in the pepe le pew relationship while Kichi is actively avoiding him, making an ending where nobody is happy lol!
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This comic ended up being the basis for a comic called Faeredoux: The Little Mermaid that I was in the concept phases of between 2015 and 2020 and recounting the events of The Little Fish Folk I am actually amazed that almost everything that comic was supposed to include made it into Faeredoux TLM aside from maybe the gender bending.
Faeredoux TLM was more of a romance Drama than a comedy but the skeleton made almost all in there!:
Tidal is a mermaid adopted by the mer King and Queen. While venting about a forced Marriage between her and her not-brother Ruga she encounters the statue of the prince with her mer angler friend. Surfacing, she witnesses a ship sinking and begins to check the sailors only to find them already dead, as she was looking for their souls which she thinks is a physical thing that leaves humans when they die and also the key to getting into a place called "heaven" that Mers don't go to because they don't have souls.
By chance she finds the Prince, Amalbert, aboard the ship alive, but unconscious, and pulls him back to shore to wait for him to wake up so she can personally drown him in belief that such a beautiful man would also have a beautiful soul that could surely get her into heaven, and she intends to catch it as soon as it leaves his body.
Unfortunately for Tidal a passing by woman named Princess Leona basically beats her back into the sea with a stick and saves the prince and not willing to lose Tidal blackmails her adoptive mother (who is actually a sea witch) into turning her human so she can go up on land and kill the prince. The witch is touched, misunderstanding that she fell in love with the prince, and acquiesces, but takes her voice as payment so if she ever came back to the sea she could never speak of her blackmail.
After getting on land in spite of legs being painful, Tidal is found by the Prince and brought back to the palace as he is smitten by her, recognizing that she is the one who saved him even if everyone else says that no, their guest Princess Leona saved him. This is lucky for Tidal. Unluckily though Prince Amalbert's best friend, Frans Ciscor is NOT stupid and pulls a
So as the story goes on Tidal tries to kill Amalbert, while Frans tries to stop her in an almost Looney Tunes fashion, and the two end up having an enemies to lovers situationship.
The story would eventually end with FRANS going over a cliff side and Tidal jumping off to save him. The two would be washed out to sea, waking up below the surface as the spell that turned Tidal into a human now reversed and turned Frans into a Mer, with a sad ending for Amalbert as he just saw his best friend and the girl he was in love with fall to their presumed deaths into the ocean. Amalbert would go on to be a dueteragonist in a sequel based on the Nightingale.
So not getting to Leaf is one of my biggest regrets in Faeries Bible because... well he was supposed to be one of the MAIN characters actually! Right down to him having a character design illustration made by my older sister that was literally part of the set of o.g. character design illustrations! He has existed as early as the beginning of chapter 1. This design was made before Kichi took off his cloak (because I hadn't designed a costume for him yet!) He was literally the fifth MAIN party member!
So the history of this character is that Leaf would have been encountered when the the FB gang eventually makes it to the Orc capital of Druume(?). This was originally intended to be in chapter 3 but legit I have no idea why I thought that was possible considering there was supposed to be the trip to the Elf capital as well as several adventures before getting there, AND a hard page count of 20 pages per chapter!
Regardless after getting to Druume the FB gang would be welcomed by the orcish king Karnak, similarly how they were welcomed by Elf king Fredderick. Parties are thrown, fun is had, a miniquest involving swinging dwarves, the orcish mortal enemy, around by their beards and throwing them, all the fun stuff.
Lily, who is acting as representative of the elves and the Fairies who inhabit the elven lands on Freddericks behalf, beseeches Karnak to join their party to represent the Orcs when meeting with invading humans on the summit of Mount Kiebora. Karnak, like Fredderick though, is quite old, and while Fredderick was spry but not completely there mentally, Karnak was not gifted to be from a race of eternal youth and was physically ailing.
Too proud to show that he was no longer young and healthy enough to make the trip, he makes up some excuse about their own war on the dwarves needing his attention, he introduces several of his sons and daughters to be chosen by Lily to act as representative of the Orcs in his stead.
(Unlike Lily, Kichi could not act as the dwarven representative, as Kichi was an uneducated imp and not of Orcish Royalty.)
Orcs are rather homogenous of a race like elves in the FB world are. Orcs are ALL muscular, averaging at 7' tall. There are two races;
-Green Skinned with Orange Hair and Red Eyes and a black streak in their hair
-Grey Skinned with Red hair, thicker bristle like hair grows from the center creating a mohawk look, and green eyes.
Among the choices Lily notices that one of the kings sons is smaller than the rest, and distinctly not orc shaped. She would learn his name is Leaf Ivyrue Karnakzak, that he is a half orc-half elf between King Karnak and one of his several wives, an elf named Ivy. His mom was mentally ill (Paranoid Schizophrenic) and some decades prior relocated to the Orc kingdom after believing that someone among the elves was out to get her. Fredderick and Lily's father had arranged for Ivy to relocate there where Karnak took her as a wife. For some reason despite orc genes being 99% dominant (Orc+Any compatible race= Orc) Leaf turned out Elf shaped and Sized, but with a Grey Skinned color pallet and mohawk. This resulted in him getting bullied and picked on by his peers, and he seemingly has no future with the Orcs as he's viewed as 'weak genes' in a race that values size and strength.
Lily, taking pity on him and believing that she is saving him from the trauma of being bullied and having to live in the savage land of the orcs, chooses him as representative of the Orcs claiming that his scholarly appearance (Aka ELVEN appearance) portrays a degree of tact and decorum that will be needed in a representative to a political venture such as this one.
This quickly backfires as Leaf does not take kind to pity and the clear racism Lily is exhibiting because while she see's an Elf needing to be saved, Leaf is an Orc through and through. While he can stand on par with herself academically, he is strong and brutal in a combat situation in a way Elves are NOT and the two get off on the WORST foot, Leaf being far closer to Kichi as Lily would learn that aside from blood these two are brothers.
While Leaf takes great joy in the idea of travelling and learning more of the world outside of Druume on this venture he does not let anyone forget he, regardless of shape and size, is a Prince of the Orcs and he represents what an Orc is regardless of his scholarly interests in alchemical studies.
Despite the bad start to their relationship, Leaf eventually ends up Marrying Lily and her fiance Lilac making them the 3L couple.
I believe I mentioned in another post covering Athos and possibly Jalini that there was a planned portion of the story that was to have the four main Faeries Bible characters separated to go on their own arcs and also establish love interests for them.
The original plan for Lily was that she would encounter a set of 'southern elven' twins that had been separated at birth and never knew each other. Hawke was an assassin while Drasil was a mute hero (And obviously inspired by Legend of Zelda's Link).
Lily would eventually get the twins back together and go on an adventure to clear Drasil's name and break Hawke free from an assassination contract keeping him bound to a crime lord.
I don't remember if either was suppose to join the main cast (Most of the love interests don't) but both Hawke and Drasil were supposed to create a love triangle for Lily to have a unique will they/won't they dynamic among the cast.
Both where dropped from the story in favor of changing Lily's separated chapters to have her reunite with her childhood friend and Fiance, Lilac of the Dark Elves.
Before Lilac was born it was fortold that the king of the Dark elves would have a son, so to unite their people Lily, the niece of the forest elves was promised to be wed to the heir of the Dark Elves. Then Lilac was born a girl and her father died not long after. Initially the two couldn't stand each other in child hood but eventually became best friends only to have it end in a huge fight. Lily's separate chapters still got to remain unique as they were mostly the bouncing back and forth between present day and flash back, the two reconciling and by the time Lily has to leave Lilac the hint of a promise remains that when Lily's adventure is over perhaps the two could have their own adventure like old times, and elope.
