CRYSTAL PALACE
continues to evolve
I had a long thought about it the other day.
I just wanted to write a reminder for some ideas I've been having. It's going under another transformation, perhaps the biggest.

The ideas are as follows:
-- Encorporate more of Tragic Kingdom, not just the song, but the album, into the story. More visual/metaphorical/allusional themes to the band. I want this to become a story dedicated to No Doubt, since I feel sure now they're my favorite band.

-- While the ice theme is extremely important, if it's the only element, it'll be too overdone. I want to find some way to add more color and more elements to the mood besides the cold factor. (this ties in with idea 1)

-- The story will become even more...medieval. There was too much thought and mercy in the Crystal King's decisions. I want him to be a strong seemingly level-headed king with no hesitance to make hasty even brutal decisions to keep his head above water.

-- I was inspired by Teller's perception of the Shakespeare play MacBeth, which I originally hated to death, but his passionate ramblings on the subject that I've been reading make me reconsider reading and understanding it. I'm slowly starting to think that I want this to be something similar to MacBeth, but clearly, instead of in the POV of the king who has destroyed his own future, the POV of everyone else who has to suffer because of his choices. Mainly Akira, of course, the forced hier of his thrown.

-- Akira will no longer be the only character whose point of view is talked about. It might become something split between Akira, his mother, and every blue moon, Cosmo. Other people, I'm not so sure yet, because there aren't so many main characters, and Bow is off limits.

-- I've finally become a bit comfortable with the idea of transforming Lady Bow, the last part of the equation that connects it with Paper Mario, into her own person, so that Crystal Palace can finally become an original story that will have nothing to do with the Mushroom Kingdom or Mario defeating him, because let's face it, that idea is absurd and silly. She will still be dead, still have her connections with the king, and still be of some kind of chinese royal ancestry. But I'd like her, even if she's still seductive and occasionally childish, to be more morbid and eerie.

-- Cosmo needs to be ellaborated, in some ways. I still prefer him to be more of a watcher without feelings that can be interpreted well, but with hints here and there about where he came from and his greivances in that area. He's also clearly jealous of Akira, even if it doesn't dictate his behavior. He's a gentleman, after all.

-- I want the queen to start going......not well. Not nuts, just clearly having lost her poise and cover-up. I mean after all, she's married someone that ruined everyone's life and people want her head just as much as his. I might even have her killed.

-- Cosmo's family and many of the servants are murdered during their evacuation. This plays into the ruthless behavior of the king, the fact that I want it to be more of a brutal story, and I like the idea of bloody snow and frozen dead people. Why does Cosmo survive? Well........... I need to keep this timeline, despite the fact that my comic and Disney script are somewhat AU, consistant with them. While the king and queen and many of the servants are gone, and it's just Akira having escaped the castle by the time my comic starts, and continues into the script, Cosmo is still around and witnesses Crystallina's birth (XD). If I had never taken these characters beyond Crystal Palace, I might've decided to off Cosmo too, but it's too late now.

-- Uhhh...anything else? Oh! I was thinking that since all of this murder and mayhem, and crumbling of an entire monarchy is happening in a palace that is extremely weird, you know, with the ice walls and the mirrors... it might be interesting if events were somewhat...incoherantly presented. I'm used to writing as if I'm doing a script...explaining all visual elements chronologically, with actual dialogue for an entire conversation instead of summarizing. It places the reader in a tense place when reading about people that're somewhere that confuses their emotions, which even then they cannot even share because of how cold and broken off everybody is from each other, and all interpretations are different and even skewed. Fear is another element that skews interpretation. People evolve when they have instincts that say they must save themselves from something horrible, ya know?

-- That said, Lady Bow (new name still not decided), is the really strange part of the story, being the one that arrives uncalled and haunts their courtyard etc. She has an understanding that Akira must get his hands on, and wants to offer something that doesn't make any sense. I guess if there's any part of MacBeth that she represents, it's clearly the Weird Sisters, but...mm...not really. But still.

This is all I can think about right now. But what I'm getting at is that I don't want it to be such a calm story about some angsty guy. I want it to be completely exciting. About something much larger than everybody, turning ugly, and all their individual efforts to stop it from crushing them.

To you, this must not make any sense.
I'm the only one that knows the design, theme, point XD, climax, and ending of this story. But I can only tell so much before I ruin it, despite the fact that I still don't know when it'll be written. But I'm ok with planning it until it's just right. I have my whole life to get it right and when I eventually write the last page, and when I shoot the last shot of the movie, I'll be overcome with the best feeling ever. Similar to Teller, finally realizing his dream at 60. Whooo!

Yes, who knows. Maybe I'll be 60 when it's published.