End Notes, Reflections, and Book 2 of Mecchen House
First off, the key inspiration for Mecchen House goes back to the summer of 2006. I hadn't written anything for a while. Jaime Ehlers, who worked on the English version of Mashiro's gender-bending website with MidnightAurora, gave me a pitch for a concept.
Some guys go for a walk and find themselves in a living anime world in a house with a bunch of girls (I immediately thought of Love Hina's house). They slowly turn into girls. It was to be fun and light and silly. Just something to play around with. I spent till the fall working out the story universe and the characters and eventually posted the first five chapters as a pitch for the story. I didn't get feedback until then and I could start to adapt to what was working and what wasn't. After eighteen months, I finally completed the main work on Book 1, as you see it here.
"Lorekeeper Eirien" helped me a lot with certain details like world-building but, for the most part, I wanted to keep Mecchen House independent from whatever work people online were doing about living anime girl spirits in story universes. At the very beginning, my concept was that Nana was the reincarnation of Hitomi, an anime girl spirit who was the youngest sister of Arisu, Kimi, and Keiko. She was trying to subtly hint at who they were. Over time, I preferred the idea of Nana as her own person. The conclusion was going to be very different originally. Several more characters would've straight-up died. Nina especially, but a collaborator who provided the inspiration for Nina urged me to reconsider because things were starting to get really dark.
The climax would've had Hitomi killed by the trio and before being destroyed, Hitomi would've whispered that Arisu had a daughter (who turned out to be Nana/Damon). This would've been a plot for another story. As I got closer to the end, I felt it didn't work and it evolved into what you see where Hitomi is the mom/creator and has to deal with that.
I am really bad with clothing continuity. I kept forgetting about Jamie's clothing. One thing I kinda cut was Miki liked J and K-Pop. Also, her name being a nickname was something I wanted to use as a reveal but I could never find an interesting place for it. Her name is Miko, which has a lot of different connotations if you want to read into it. The same is true with pretty much everyone. I hid so many Easter eggs in names and little moments and bits of dialogue that I can't even remember all I put in there.
The date that the three arrive at Mecchen is meant to be April 3rd, 2005. I researched and sought out a lot of philosophical perspectives. Taoism most prominently. Tara in Buddhism. Onward and onward. The Three Realms is a thing which owes back to Lorekeeper Eirien. The First Realm is the human, material world. The Second Realm is the realm of dreams and possibilities. Human dreams especially have power and can shape the First Realm. The Third Realm is a plethora of everything that can be conceived and imagined. It is said the Aeternalae originate from an area between the Second and Third Realms. A lot of this ties into Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism.
In the epilogue, I dunno if I made it clear but it's supposed to be around Arisu's birthday, April 10th. Jamie's birthday is May 17th and Nathan's is February 8th. One of the small details was their phone number was supposed to be the same as their collective birthdays. Originally, I was going to send up a variety of cliches. Kelly was the nerd, Jamie the slacker, and Nathan the jock.
Ami was going to be a ditzy and overconfident princess-like boy-crazy character with a melancholic edge. Katsumi was going to be more sporty and spunky but mainly interested in turning boys into girls from the beginning. Aneko was going to be more nature-loving, shy, and a writer. Tara was absolutely going to be like Kaolla Su from Love Hina but more of a British blond girl who doesn't realize anything but Japan exists. Mami was going to be a token, moe character who liked to manipulate people for fun. Nana was going to be a nerdy gamer who played lots of RTS titles. Without question, she owes a lot of her inspiration to Nagato Yuki from the Haruhi Suzumiya series, which made me realize I could balance fun and mind-melting storylines in an anime package. Miko (original name) was going to be a waif who got her butt kicked at sports. Sumi was going to be a tomboy more like Miki but still a perv. Reiko was going to have what turned into Nana's personality.
If I'm being entirely honest, I had no real plan for the story but I made sure whatever ideas came out of the narrative served where I wound up. Jamie nearly hit by a bus? It has to feed into the backstory. I went in with the thesis that nothing is accidental but it was a careful job to weld every piece of information I came up with into the thesis that something is going on and it's important. Brookville was always going to be Ogawa but who did it and why altered over time. Hitomi/Nana was always going to be like a crystallization of all the other girls in the house but the reason was something I had to arrive at.
Toki was born in historical Japan and actually helped to inspire the Shogunate but that's a story for another time. Book 2 is meant to be titled, "Mecchen House: Consequences" and I wanted/want the focus to be on the inter-connected families of Aeternalae like Raiko's family the Tokugawas and Minamoto Kimi...oh Kimi. One of the funniest ideas I have is that Kimi is actually princess-level royalty with a long lineage in the Aeternal families and she has been a woman for untold, universe-spanning eons. The existential jaw-drop for Jamie is just too priceless. She's also a rebel though and told her family to stuff it, so she could learn to be better from Toki.
The Unnamed, as I came to name them, are the antithesis of the Ae. The Ae is like the living force of all that is life and warmth and love and creation. The Un is the well of death and coldness and hatred and destruction/hunger. Other stories of mine pick up these opposing forces and run with it. So far as consequences, my main idea for the next book is how all the girls of Mecchen House are basically dealing with the fallout of their lives being lies and what their very existence means now. For Reiko, that's a dark undercurrent of pain which could lead to a stray Unnamed trying to pick her off. I have some ideas for Ami to appear to Kelly like an imaginary friend as they try to talk through what she wants and her humanity.
The crux of the plot of Book 2 would be like The Search for Nana and dealing with the discarded world that Hitomi used in her plans. In keeping with the Japanese Godai, where Hitomi is Wind, Arisu is Fire, Jamie is Earth, and Keiko is Water...there is also a Void/Aether character who may be Nana or Akiko. Aneko will grapple with her lingering agoraphobia and not being a real Ishida. Akiko is my favorite though. The upcoming omake "Tara's Wand" actually outlines a little of what I have planned for her but I want her to be a mostly-mute character who communicates with sign language and gestures. Mami will also be a prime candidate for an Unnamed parasite to go after her with her existential concerns. Katsumi will find figures/people she wants to be like and be enticed by the promise of the Nuhaizi Corporation. While Book 2 I saw/see as about fallout and adaptation, Book 3 would be the culmination with the human-focused Nuhaizi Corporation vs the Aeternalae and their apathy towards individuality. It would also be POV-structured like Game of Thrones, which makes me quake to even consider writing.
Art Notes
I wasn't able to fit every artwork into the story, despite there being a lot more chapters in this iteration than I expected.
Prologue - The rough illustrations of the path and Ogawa are done by Alex Yaeger/Yaegerwerkz. She doesn't seem to have an online presence anymore. She made my author icon and the Nuhaizi logo along with a lot of related designs.
Chapter 1 - Sanmo-san (also vanished from places I know to look for her) did Aneko, Katsumi, and Nana.
Chapter 2 - The late, amazing AiSAKU drew not only the cover art but so much of the integral art that represents the characters of this story. More than anything, her passing several years ago discouraged me from how I could possibly write this world without her influence on the spirit of the characters. The last story in this set, Tales of Ogawa: Bookstore, is dedicated to her. But she drew Nathan and Miki here. Once again, Sanmo-san is responsible for an iteration of Tara, Mami, and Sumi and Reiko together.
Chapter 3 - AiSAKU drew the sketchy Katsumi I used more than once. It originally said "Get well soon" but I flipped it and modified it to fit for the story. She also did a bunch of the little Aneko sketches I love. Once again, Sanmo-san did a lovely Ami.
Chapter 4 - Anirhapsodist/Alexis is one of my favorite artists all time. She goes over and above every single time and her work on another series of mine is bar none. Here she provided an adorable Tara and one of my favorite versions of Katsumi. And AiSAKU once again provided a lovely sketch work. Here is the complete page with Mami, Reiko, and Sumi especially.
Chapter 5 - Anirhapsodist/Alexis experimented with flash for this image of Katsumi, who even has a walk cycle in some test images. HandofMidaz (who is an artist you should eagerly support) drew the calendar image of Sumi. And AiSAKU's sketch of Katsumi still sits on my wall every night before I go to sleep.
Chapter 6 - Purdoy's image of Katsumi based on that sketch all cleaned up. Anirhapsodist/Alexis did a few iterations of Nana as well. But AiSAKU was the first to draw Nana.
Chapter 7 - More of AiSAKU's sketchwork of Nana. Then I used a self-made map of the area around Ogawa and an early sketch of Sanmo's work of Nana. And here's the full image of the headshots of characters AiSAKU did, which I used and modified several times throughout the chapters.
Chapter 8 - Then I had a few postings where I had no idea what images to show which fit the context of the narrative so I left a few blank until I found a place for Annalise Wren's lovely sketch of male and female Jamie.
Chapter 9 - After that, I had two designs from an entire portfolio of logos Yaegerwerkz made for me which I can share if anyone wants to see all that. And I had to showcase Anirhapsodist/Alexis's sketch work of Nana. And then there's a sketch of a Mecchen House cover and I want to say it was Alex Yaeger again. She does amazing work. And she may have also done the mockup cover which formed the bookmark.
Chapter 10 - Anirhapsodist/Alexis's first iteration of Nana made me think more of Hitomi than Nana, so I used her in some cases. And more Katsumi art by AiSAKU.
Chapter 11 - I played around with Mystic's iteration of Nana to hide some secrets. Helrous (no longer on art sites) did amazing work with cosplay Jamie and Tara and Akiko's introduction.
Chapter 13 - A few works are repeats, parts of others, or to be referenced later. AiSAKU once again made some very cute sketches of Katsumi.
Chapter 15 - HandsofMidaz made my personal favorite iteration of Reiko. And AiSAKU had a lot of fun drawing happy mirror Kelly. More amazing Katsumi artwork from Anirhapsodist/Alexis.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Chapter 16 - And more art by AiSAKU with Ami. And a great sketch of Tara by Anirhapsodist/Alexis. And once again Mystic did a few iterations of Hitomi. Some had a more green tone to them.
Chapter 17 - More cover artwork. I think this was by Alex.
Chapter 18 - Tampopo-25 made a cute scene here. The sakura blossom is just a CC0 stock image I processed to look cel-shaded. And there are a few sketchy versions of MysticSwordsman's the train yandere-esce Katsumi I can show but it was fun. Once again HandofMidaz does amazing work with my favorite Katsumi. Some friends edited Ami to look really creepy and HandofMidaz did a lovely Tara in Chapter 19.
Chapter 20 - The Katsumi art is by u-sagi on dA, who unfortunately has left and I can't find her. AiSAKU did more Katsumi sketches. And Annalise drew the zappy gun Katsumi.
Chapter 21 - Ana/SereneTears drew a commission of Tara. I just drew the elemental banner myself from a vector. And a bunch were remixes like with this.
Chapter 22 - I actually made a white banner since it's hard to get the pagination I want. I wanted to give readers that empty space to breathe and to feel what the characters are feeling.
Chapter 23/Epilogue - It might seem like a broken record but I can't find Zack for the Katsumi art. The end art is actually the first iteration of the cover art AiSAKU proposed so many years ago.
[I will edit this to add the remaining artworks but the ones I don't intend to use include...gone from the Internet unless otherwise noted]
[https://i.imgur.com/Rm7BLd5.jpg]by Aisaku
[https://i.imgur.com/Zr2yINu.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/3RwVQm2.png]
[https://i.imgur.com/Npe7xtM.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/w6VIVqs.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/41cW7g3.jpg]
Mayu and Katsumi bringing cake by MysticSwordsman
And now for the part of Book 2 that I wrote out originally.
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Mecchen House: Consequences
Prologue
Raiko
I left the others for a while when I was young. I had to get away. I needed my space. They put so many demands and expectations on me, that I felt more like their servant than their kin.
I made my way to the places of mortal humans. I walked amongst them, curious and annoyed. They were mundane and numerous. I watched them rush from one place to another. They seemed weighed by strange concerns, like idle children. They stared only straight. I felt sparks through my fingers just looking at them. But I kept my hands clenched.
I wandered their streets. I sought a single sign of promise, that the stories I’d heard about our kind sleeping in these frail forms were something more than myth. I searched. Occasionally, a gentle spirit would pass by and inquire about me. They were usually young ladies. One in particular bought food for me. I liked her.
Her name was Niu and her hair was long like a cloak but as dull as charcoal. Still, her smile calmed my charge. She worked in a tall building at the center of a human city. I always waited for her to leave the building in the evening. We’d talk. I’d tell her I was a runaway but not much more than that. She made up for it by talking about herself.
I’d rub my hand against her couch and watch the static leap between my fingers. I watched her toiling at our meal and wondered what she’d look like with spark-frosted blue hair like mine. My nails crackled a little but didn’t spark. For whatever reason, the desire wasn’t there.
Niu encouraged me to seek help to return home or find others , but I never gave her enough information. I was content to stay with her for the rest of her life. She was mine and I was hers.
Or so I thought, till that day. I was leaning against her building with my legs folded and winding contempt for the security guards who always watched me. I looked up the stairs to see Niu dart down the steps with her bags slumping around her small shoulders. She paused to adjust her load. I took the steps toward her with my usual greeting building in my mouth.
But I froze in place as I saw a tall, imposing man grab her from behind and press his face against her. She couldn’t escape his grasp. She made a sound of surprise but didn’t speak. I watched in horror.
He didn’t let her go. I lowered my head and stretched my fingers like claws. It didn’t take much effort to summon forth a blinding bolt that flashed through the strange man and dropped him to the ground.
His body curled up on itself. His clothes hung on him like a child wearing an oversized outfit. Long, bright-red hair spilled across her face. She panted in trembling horror at the flowing contours of her body. She looked so frail beside Niu.
I smiled at her crumpled shape, proud I had rescued Niu from her captor. But I staggered when Niu’s tear-stained face, straining in terror, turned to me. She screamed. I could hear bits of her words but enough to know that this man and she were connected to one another. I had hurt her.
The trembling man passed out on the pavement. The crowd around me flocked this way and that. Sounds flowed into each other. Furious words filled the air. Tall humans swarmed at me. My anger swelled.
I shot bolt after bolt till they stopped advancing and piles of confused girls dragged themselves away from me. Niu cried on what was left of her man. I trembled. We were supposed to be together. She was my friend. But she was human, frail like all the rest. She was bound by animal impulses to dilute what little influence their kind had been given by the Ae.
Columns of lightning crackled the air. I hated them. They were a step away from the darkness. I watched them run like ants, cascading over one other. I hunted them down. I dropped them in their place to flail at their soft forms. I spared not even Niu. She would have hair like mine. I made sure of it. Sour tears lashed at my cheek. She would understand what I felt. They all would!
I stormed through the streets. Man after man became vibrant girls with bright hair. And girl and woman alike found themselves liberated. I made sure they were ripped from needing a man ever again. The sweet swell of ozone touched every breath I took. None of them could escape me.
Wave after wave of girls cowered before me. It was a good start. I expected to feel worn out after taking down swarm after swarm but, rather, I felt energized. I cracked my knuckles twice and set my sights on the whole city. They would understand how they were wrong. They would understand their faults and I would shock them with the truth.
I charged another blast across the few stragglers when a hand reached behind me to lower my arm. I arced around and blasted over and over, suspecting some foul man had foolishly attempted to stop me. But the arm folding mine was soft and gentle. The face looking down at me was calm and peaceful. A woman glowed on me like a warm sun.
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Leave me alone!”
She shook her head. “Why are you doing this?”
“They deserve it! They’re just human. Who cares about humans!? They should be made better!”
She gazed at me, her eyes undimmed. “Humans have a right to exist as they wish. We have no right to change them just because we want it.”
My bolts calmed to a crackle. She was like me, like the others. But then why didn’t she want to do anything to humans?
I tightened my fists. “You’re wrong!”
She pulled me close. I arced again and again and it only seemed to tighten her grip. Her embrace didn’t hurt, instead I felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket. She reminded me of my mother. But why wouldn’t she let me spark? Why did I have to be so small?
She was so bright around me.
“Who are you?! I am Raiko of the Tokugawas! You will face the terror of my kin if you try to hurt me!”
Her face shone on me. “I go by the name Ishida Toki. I wish you no harm but I can’t let you bring suffering to these humans.”
I froze. I’d heard of ‘Toki’ in whispers. She was one of them who became one of us. I strained my neck.
“Let me go!”
But she wouldn’t. She clutched me till the fury of my bolts had settled to small static. I trembled as she released me.
I hated her.
---------
Damon
I love the dark. Enclosing, consuming, and boundless emptiness. It soothes.
But a sound slipped through the emptiness, then a growing sliver of light.
The Nurse looked down. I looked up.
“Damon…what are you doing in here?”
I watched the unchanging whiteness of the floor. I could imagine the lines vanishing into a void.
She pressed her hand in mine.
“Let’s get you back to bed.”
The Nurse slipped me into bed. I could hear the rhythmic sound of the machine behind me and the steady throbbing.
I spoke.
“Computer?”
She shook her head from one side to the other and back. “The psychologist in charge has objections about how much you’re using it.”
I leaned my head back at the ceiling. It was also white but with gray patterns at ten points.
I shut my eyes.
“I see…”
She held my left arm and squeezed a portion of flesh. “I’m sorry, Damon. I promise I’ll talk to him about giving you more computer time. But he wants you to spend time in the Common Room. Maybe if you talked to the other children, he’ll ease up on you. Could you do that, sweetie?”
I turned to the Nurse. Her eyes were brown like chocolate. My heart steadied. The throbbing behind me slowed.
The Nurse adjusted the tight band on my wrist. She brushed at my hair. She went to the end of the bed and picked up the flat computer. She tapped it a few times and wrote across the surface with a pen with no ink. I wondered again if I would ever get to write on it.
When the Nurse was done, she adjusted the white glass of the windows. She made them clearer. I could see the shadowy, etched letters, “ZIN HUAI MEDICAL CENTER”.
She turned back to me, with a smile. “We’re not supposed to turn down the windows this low but you have such a beautiful view, it’s a shame you’ve never seen it.”
I trembled. I saw lines cascading across one another. I saw strange distortions. Colors, motions. Colors, motions. Colors, motions. I whimpered and clutched my head. I moaned. The machine pulsed.
The Nurse held my shoulders. I could hear my moans against her. I could hear another voice, rough and strong.
“Is the patient having an attack?”
The Nurse turned.
“No, he’ll be fine. He’s just having a bad day.”
I heard his footsteps over my quiet moans.
“This window is adjusted below the prescribed opacity for this patient.”
The Nurse pulled away from me. I clutched the blankets around my face.
The Nurse and the Doctor spoke in whispers.
“Your job is to carry out the instructions for this patient. If you can’t follow that, then I would have no problem reassigning you.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor. I just thought he could benefit from a little exposure to the outside world.”
“We have been easing him into group therapy because cognitive therapy has been unproductive. Do you think tossing a child who is deathly-afraid of water into the deep-end of a pool will do anything but reinforce their fears?”
The Nurse’s voice became quieter and so did my moans.
“I understand. It won’t happen again. I just want to help Damon. But he’s been so isolated. I found him in the closet today.”
The Doctor gave a rough sound. “I see…And he was prescribed a computer?”
“Yes, but the lead psychologist wanted to shift him to group therapy in the Common Room.”
The Doctor gave a rougher sound, like slicing gravel. I made a loud moan.
“I disagree. He should keep the computer and it should be supplemented with a plan of slowly-increasing group therapy and other treatments. I’ll make a note for the lead psychologist. Could you get him a sedative to calm him down?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
I heard The Doctor pick up the flat computer. It slid against the edge of the bed, pressing and grinding metal. I moaned loudly. I could feel pain. The machine pulsed quickly.
“Could you hurry with that sedative, Nurse?”
“Coming, Doctor.”
The Nurse sat beside me. She pressed something against my skin.
Soon, I couldn’t urge out another moan. I gurgled. My whole body felt loose but achy. I slumped against the bed. The ceiling blurred. It all looked white.
Voices boomed above me but I heard only the throbbing of the machine in pace with my heart.
I slept.