In this chapter, I was originally going to introduce a fictitious economic system in Kali’s world that showcased her mother’s financial struggle. I had plans to explore how Vianne was swallowed in debt due to her college loans and Kali’s medical bills. When I decided Vianne would be a young mother, I imagined she dropped out of school to take care of Kali and chose to live a life in a shabby cabin within the mountainside to curb her expenses. On top of the struggle with Kali’s illness, she’d show signs of shame for being unable to be a providing mother. In my mind at the time, this chapter was meant to define Vianne’s character while adding some world-building. Killing two birds with one stone.
The idea was to create a fantasy-esque financial system where civilians can pay loans through samples of their own blood. And the currency was meant to be liquid-based instead of print and metal, contained in miniature tubes in various colors called Golgooz. Yes. I know. It’s kind of silly. At the time, I thought it’d be interesting for Kali’s world to be so stripped of its resources in the past or present age that it led the world to create this form of money like its “liquid gold.” Maybe to play with the idea that humanity has run its natural resources dry without the Mannamong around to sustain nature. Or link it to Tonto’s rampage over the world in the past.
However, the more I penned future story events, the more I realized this “blood debt” system was irrelevant and decided to scrap it. Not only did I believe I could explore Vianne’s characterization in easier, believable ways, I knew I couldn’t make such a crude legislature concept work for the story I was currently writing. It felt something more akin to a dystopia-style tale, and the basic idea wasn’t fleshed out enough for it to make sense economically and humanely. And really, my primary intentions for this were to give Vianne depth to her character and role as Kali’s mother. So I concluded that I didn’t need all of this superfluous world-building, especially since I didn’t plan to bring it up again.
This is where the chapter’s storyboards follow the final draft.
I reworked around the chapter halfway to have Kali and Vianne simply drive into town instead of taking a train. The train itself was designed like a caterpillar crawling on the rail to make it look unique for the fictional Earth Kali lived in, but my drawing skill wasn’t used to elaborate scenery just yet. So I skipped the trip. Besides, I was trying too hard to make Earth surreal from our own to differentiate it for the sake of showing readers this isn’t based on real-life settings. These small fantasy-like elements were incorporated into Prism Town, with large crystals towering the area. So I haven’t completely scrapped the surrealism in Kali’s home just yet.
This chapter was written to have Kali and Vianne go into town, get separated so that Kali could run into Hawk and Galerith. I wanted Kali to meet another human who could interact with mannamong but talk with her alone from her mother since she couldn’t be a part of the conversation due to her lack of awareness towards spirits. All in all, it was a chapter for me to try and write Vianne as a well-meaning mother who has difficulty helping her when she needs it. Both with Tonto and her illness. So I wanted to write her as trying her best despite supernatural circumstances haunting her daughter, which was trickier than I thought. But it was important for Kali to realize she cannot depend on the one person who has always been there for her in this situation.
If there’s anything to take from this, it goes to show how I really was making the story up as I went at this point. Looking back, I’m glad I took the time to revise it because that economic idea was too much and unnecessary for me to focus on.
