Flora
local hellion
- Pronoun
- they/he/it/neos
(Alt. title: Color Coded for Your Convenience)
Hello, everyone! This is a bit of a “warm-up” for my NaNoWriMo story, The Epic Adventures of Star Girl and Friends. They’re kinda similar, since they’re both in the Magical Girl genre, but while TEAOSGAF is a light-hearted take on the genre (“Star Girl, you can alter the time-space continuum so that no one can figure out our secret identities. You can whack people with spontaneously generated stars. Hell, you can beat them up with your bare hands! Me? I shoot slope-intercept form out of my hands.”), this is probably a deconstruction, or at least a really depressing take on it.
From my experience, the magical girl genre tends to be a bit too happy; even if the members of a team hate each other in the beginning, they all become BFFs in the end and they all live happily ever after. And that’s just not logical. So here, they start out as friends, and then it all just goes depressing. (It also has a peculiar take on transformation-trinkets, too, in case you were curious)
Also, before you ask, the bit in italics in the beginning is a bit of insight into the main character’s thoughts, in the style of a few magical girl manga (I think Cardcaptor Sakura does this in some chapters). I figured it would also serve as a bit of a recap for earlier chapters, too.
Random Fact: The Chapter names are either colors or times of day (sunrise, sunset, twilight).
My name is Rachel Gorman. I’m fifteen years old and I’m a sophomore at St. Melanie’s High School for Girls in Philadelphia. Everyone sees me as perky and happy, to the point of being annoying. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling more and more insecure, and I’m trying to make it seem like it doesn’t bother me…
“You know something, Jess?” the brown-haired girl asked her friend as they finished their lunches. “The suicide rate’s gone up a lot lately. And it’s mostly girls. I feel bad for their friends, but I have to wonder; do you think their friends could have done more to prevent that?” She had a theory about what her friend’s answer would be; she had a feeling it wouldn’t be very positive, so she tried not to look at her and focused her light blue eyes on her sandwich instead.
Jess pushed her lighter brown hair out of her face and began, “Well, Rachel, I don’t think there’s much that a friend could do. I mean, if she didn’t even tell her friends that she had depression or was thinking of killing herself, how could you expect them to do anything? If someone had left the burden all to herself, then she’s entirely to blame.” Despite the harsh tone of her words, she smiled, in an attempt to lighten the mood a little.
As Jess continued to rant about the topic, Rachel just did what she usually did when Jess Voss had an opinion; she nodded a few times and pretended to listen. It was a fairly blunt opinion, but at least it beat out that other topic of theirs, which Rachel swore came up every day.
Before this or any other topic could be discussed further, however, the bell rang, and the girls collected their belongings to go to their next class. Rachel couldn’t wait for the school day to be over, mainly because her last two classes were easy and dragged on forever.
She used her time to think about things that were bothering her; lately, her insecurities regarding her friends. I feel like every time Jess has something to talk about, she generally seems to ignore my feelings, she thought as she copied Geometry notes. I was hoping that she’d have noticed something’s up with me, but evidently she’s being oblivious and didn’t get my hinting. Of course, that’s a typical Jess reaction.
The final bell eventually rang and Rachel was ready to go home. She packed up her school books and walked home. The three-minute walk gave her the chance to think some more, and she gladly pounced on the opportunity. Honestly, she thought, if she does notice, she doesn’t seem to care. I’ve hinted at this so many times that she should’ve gotten it by now. She must be either absolutely oblivious or uncaring. She sighed as she got to her front door, ran inside and just relaxed on her bed, trying to do her Chemistry homework with little success.
Soon after night fell, Rachel heard something banging against her window. She looked outside – and saw a snake-person trying to get in. It seemed to notice her, too, as it then tried to climb into her bedroom window. Startled, she ran outside, hoping that, if she left the house, whatever that thing was would just go after her. And surely enough, it did. Terrified, Rachel found herself praying for help. God, help me get rid of this thing!
Something materialized in her hand, and, though surprised, she was grateful. Thank God! she thought as she examined the object – a blue pencil on a keychain. “How the hell is this supposed to help?” she shouted annoyedly, throwing the pencil behind her. She didn’t notice, but it never fell to the ground; in fact, it simply hovered behind her for a bit, perplexing whatever was chasing Rachel.
She was momentarily blinded by a flash of bright light, and when she could see again, something felt…different. If anything, her head felt a bit heavier than normal. She reached up, making sure some giant bug hadn’t landed on it – and felt a ribbon there. Strange, she thought. It was then that she thought to look down.
Instead of her customary blue t-shirt and jeans, she was wearing a light blue dress with white polka dots, as well as white stockings adorned with blue hearts and light blue sandals. The pencil had reappeared in her hand as well. She was confused for a bit, but this only lasted a few seconds, since words seemed to come to her head as if she should say them out loud.
“Uh, protecting the city from demonic filth, or something like that,” she said, following along with her bizarre train of thought, “Watercolor number One, Cyan!” She finished this with a loud shout, scaring the “demonic filth” out of its wits. Rachel, or, rather, Cyan, was quite pleased with herself; after all, she’d managed to scare a demon using her voice alone. Now all I need is something to kill it with, she thought.
As if cued by the thought, something else appeared in her hand. On inspection, Cyan noticed that it was an ocarina. “An ocarina,” she muttered to herself. “What am I gonna do, play it until the thing dies of boredom?” This time, she heard notes playing in her head, and figured, Well, I might as well try it. She blew into the ocarina, somehow knowing how to play it; the demon shrieked in pain, apparently at the sound or something, and tried to run off before dissipating into black smoke.
Out of the corner of her eye, Cyan noticed sparkles gathering around her, and another flash of light. Wondering if she’d transform into a frog or something, she looked down at herself; no, she had just reverted to normal old Rachel Gorman. She smiled a bit; she’d always assumed she was powerless, and this showed her that she wasn’t. It was just one more secret to keep. She knew she could handle it. After all, she’d been keeping plenty.
Hello, everyone! This is a bit of a “warm-up” for my NaNoWriMo story, The Epic Adventures of Star Girl and Friends. They’re kinda similar, since they’re both in the Magical Girl genre, but while TEAOSGAF is a light-hearted take on the genre (“Star Girl, you can alter the time-space continuum so that no one can figure out our secret identities. You can whack people with spontaneously generated stars. Hell, you can beat them up with your bare hands! Me? I shoot slope-intercept form out of my hands.”), this is probably a deconstruction, or at least a really depressing take on it.
From my experience, the magical girl genre tends to be a bit too happy; even if the members of a team hate each other in the beginning, they all become BFFs in the end and they all live happily ever after. And that’s just not logical. So here, they start out as friends, and then it all just goes depressing. (It also has a peculiar take on transformation-trinkets, too, in case you were curious)
Also, before you ask, the bit in italics in the beginning is a bit of insight into the main character’s thoughts, in the style of a few magical girl manga (I think Cardcaptor Sakura does this in some chapters). I figured it would also serve as a bit of a recap for earlier chapters, too.
Random Fact: The Chapter names are either colors or times of day (sunrise, sunset, twilight).
Chapter One: Sunrise
My name is Rachel Gorman. I’m fifteen years old and I’m a sophomore at St. Melanie’s High School for Girls in Philadelphia. Everyone sees me as perky and happy, to the point of being annoying. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling more and more insecure, and I’m trying to make it seem like it doesn’t bother me…
“You know something, Jess?” the brown-haired girl asked her friend as they finished their lunches. “The suicide rate’s gone up a lot lately. And it’s mostly girls. I feel bad for their friends, but I have to wonder; do you think their friends could have done more to prevent that?” She had a theory about what her friend’s answer would be; she had a feeling it wouldn’t be very positive, so she tried not to look at her and focused her light blue eyes on her sandwich instead.
Jess pushed her lighter brown hair out of her face and began, “Well, Rachel, I don’t think there’s much that a friend could do. I mean, if she didn’t even tell her friends that she had depression or was thinking of killing herself, how could you expect them to do anything? If someone had left the burden all to herself, then she’s entirely to blame.” Despite the harsh tone of her words, she smiled, in an attempt to lighten the mood a little.
As Jess continued to rant about the topic, Rachel just did what she usually did when Jess Voss had an opinion; she nodded a few times and pretended to listen. It was a fairly blunt opinion, but at least it beat out that other topic of theirs, which Rachel swore came up every day.
Before this or any other topic could be discussed further, however, the bell rang, and the girls collected their belongings to go to their next class. Rachel couldn’t wait for the school day to be over, mainly because her last two classes were easy and dragged on forever.
She used her time to think about things that were bothering her; lately, her insecurities regarding her friends. I feel like every time Jess has something to talk about, she generally seems to ignore my feelings, she thought as she copied Geometry notes. I was hoping that she’d have noticed something’s up with me, but evidently she’s being oblivious and didn’t get my hinting. Of course, that’s a typical Jess reaction.
The final bell eventually rang and Rachel was ready to go home. She packed up her school books and walked home. The three-minute walk gave her the chance to think some more, and she gladly pounced on the opportunity. Honestly, she thought, if she does notice, she doesn’t seem to care. I’ve hinted at this so many times that she should’ve gotten it by now. She must be either absolutely oblivious or uncaring. She sighed as she got to her front door, ran inside and just relaxed on her bed, trying to do her Chemistry homework with little success.
Soon after night fell, Rachel heard something banging against her window. She looked outside – and saw a snake-person trying to get in. It seemed to notice her, too, as it then tried to climb into her bedroom window. Startled, she ran outside, hoping that, if she left the house, whatever that thing was would just go after her. And surely enough, it did. Terrified, Rachel found herself praying for help. God, help me get rid of this thing!
Something materialized in her hand, and, though surprised, she was grateful. Thank God! she thought as she examined the object – a blue pencil on a keychain. “How the hell is this supposed to help?” she shouted annoyedly, throwing the pencil behind her. She didn’t notice, but it never fell to the ground; in fact, it simply hovered behind her for a bit, perplexing whatever was chasing Rachel.
She was momentarily blinded by a flash of bright light, and when she could see again, something felt…different. If anything, her head felt a bit heavier than normal. She reached up, making sure some giant bug hadn’t landed on it – and felt a ribbon there. Strange, she thought. It was then that she thought to look down.
Instead of her customary blue t-shirt and jeans, she was wearing a light blue dress with white polka dots, as well as white stockings adorned with blue hearts and light blue sandals. The pencil had reappeared in her hand as well. She was confused for a bit, but this only lasted a few seconds, since words seemed to come to her head as if she should say them out loud.
“Uh, protecting the city from demonic filth, or something like that,” she said, following along with her bizarre train of thought, “Watercolor number One, Cyan!” She finished this with a loud shout, scaring the “demonic filth” out of its wits. Rachel, or, rather, Cyan, was quite pleased with herself; after all, she’d managed to scare a demon using her voice alone. Now all I need is something to kill it with, she thought.
As if cued by the thought, something else appeared in her hand. On inspection, Cyan noticed that it was an ocarina. “An ocarina,” she muttered to herself. “What am I gonna do, play it until the thing dies of boredom?” This time, she heard notes playing in her head, and figured, Well, I might as well try it. She blew into the ocarina, somehow knowing how to play it; the demon shrieked in pain, apparently at the sound or something, and tried to run off before dissipating into black smoke.
Out of the corner of her eye, Cyan noticed sparkles gathering around her, and another flash of light. Wondering if she’d transform into a frog or something, she looked down at herself; no, she had just reverted to normal old Rachel Gorman. She smiled a bit; she’d always assumed she was powerless, and this showed her that she wasn’t. It was just one more secret to keep. She knew she could handle it. After all, she’d been keeping plenty.
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