H/C: The Novel. OR: "That-Scary-Book-About-Toys-Puri-is-Writing."
"Dolls should be put in their place... shelved or trashed." ~Dr. Medlock
In NaNoWriMo 2010, I started a story about Living Toys. A deconstruction of Living Toys, inspired by two movies I'd seen several months before... Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure and Toy Story 3. The former is a trippy mindscrew that flopped in theaters with an interesting history and an alarming amount of sexual undertones. The latter... let's say I was its target college-aged audience that had grown up with the first two movies, and dealt with some thought-provoking themes. Namely, what happens when the kid "grows up" and it's up to the toy to "move on."
I'm a sucker for nostalgia and reliving childhood memories. I still own a lot of my old stuffed animals, Polly Pockets, and Beanie Babies, and nowadays I buy a lot of Pokemon plushies and keep the Mane 6 cast of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (plus a pony called Cupcake) on my desk. As you might guess, I'm also fascinated with Nightmare Fuel, particularly in children's animated movies. I liked discovering how freaky and violent and adult-like fairy-tales could be, and how something so fluffy and innocuous on the surface could be so... disturbing.
Raggedy Ann's origin particularly got to me. Shortly after her creator, Johnny Gruelle, patented her and she became the world's most famous ragdoll, his daughter Marcella had been given a second smallpox vaccination by her school without the family's permission. Because medicine in the early 1900s was nowhere near as developed as it is today, the needle turned out to be contaminated, and Marcella passed away when she was only 13. Every Raggedy Ann book Johnny Gruelle has written since then was dedicated to his daughter's memory. Don't believe me? You can read the answers to all the myths surrounding the doll here.
So what's the plot of my book? What started as a deconstruction of Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (and in a way still is) became this:
Raggedy Ann & Andy, two sibling ragdolls created out of the same cloth, have recently been donated to the Nostalgia House, a bizarre museum home to thousands of toys and antiques. How bizarre? House-on-the-Rock-meets-Willy-Wonka bizarre. Raggedy Ann is kidnapped mysteriously, leaving Raggedy Andy to fend for himself and go looking for her. Her captor is a nutcracker surgeon named Dr. Medlock, who cuts out her candy heart to prevent her escape.
There are two simultaneous storylines: Andy is the "adventure" part, while Ann is the "mystery." Raggedy Andy wanders about the museum, making friends who join him on his quest while discovering other toys have gone missing as well. Trapped in Medlock's lab, Raggedy Ann tries to figure out her brother's whereabouts so she could guide him to her rescue, and learn why Dr. Medlock had kidnapped her in the first place... and the real reason he needed her candy heart.
Raggedy Andy is haunted by a marionette (more on him later) who uses magic tricks to slow him down and claims to know something about the lost toys. Raggedy Ann realizes that she herself is in mortal danger, for as long as she's without her candy heart, she may not live to see her brother again...
You know how Watership Down is about rabbits? You remember how scary that book was? Now, apply the same principle, but with toys and dolls. This is NOT Toy Story.
While the novel still has plenty of heartwarming moments in spite of the mindfuckery, it does NOT pretend to be cute. Raggedy Ann & Andy experience and witness a ton of disturbing things, via psychological horror (including Uncanny Valley) While the book itself is bloodless, it's still violent and gruesome from a toy's perspective. This book is NOT for kids.
Replace the blonde chick above with Andy. This is the kind of shit he deals with while looking for Ann, and this is tame compared to this clip and the other stuff we're gonna mention.
But who gives a damn about plot and suffering without characterization? Let's talk a little about our main cast. :o
Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy--the novel's Ann & Andy, that is--were discovered in an attic by a young autistic girl (who is totally based off me as a kid) and adopted into her household of stuffed animals. They lived a 1990s childhood, growing up with NES games and Disney movies in the company of Tamagotchi and G1 My Little Ponies. As their owner grew older and played with them less, Ann & Andy would sneak into the backyard and into the woods, where they played together and explored under a time limit.
While not the "original" Ann & Andy created by Gruelle (nor did they know anything of their "popularity" or "history" before being sent to the museum, assuming they were regular homemade ragdolls), they shared many of the same characteristics. Ann & Andy are kind-hearted dolls with boundless curiosity and optimism: Ann is intelligent and patient with a gift for reaching out to others. Bolder and more mischievous, Andy is clever in his own way, but rash and stubborn in comparison to his older sister.
Where am I going with this? Public domain lets me get away with anything. Take two childhood characters--Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy--place them in a dark "adult" setting, and develop them while remaining faithful to their original personalities. 'Cause it's no fun just turning them into homicidal killers or making them "goth." I think that's stupid. :P On the other hand, I'm interested in how normally cheerful and "innocent" dolls would be able to act under pressure. Both Raggedys ended up being stronger than I gave them credit for. I ended up empathizing and genuinely caring about them, which I thought I'd never say about Raggedy Ann & Andy. :o
But you can only tell a hero's worth through their antagonist. Are you ready for Late Arrival Spoilers?
Dr. Medlock is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who once upon a time had a family and a loving owner... until they were lost to a large fire. Grieving for their deaths, he pondered "sentience," aka what allows a toy to "come to life." So he had a brilliant idea; if humans could create sentient toys, why couldn't he do the same? Set on "reviving" his family through one life-form, Dr. Medlock began to collect the parts of dead toys and perform various experiments.
But it wasn't enough... he needed live specimens. "Chimeras" were his first successful projects, but they had a short life-span. As Dr. Medlock tried to figure out why, their life expectancy increased, enabling him to send the newer chimeras across the museum to find and gather toys for him. Around this time, Dr. Medlock figured out what would make his pet project immortal... Raggedy Ann's "invincible" candy heart.
Aside from his hoard of Barrel O' Monkeys, Dr. Medlock relied on one assistant to conceal lab activities... an illusionist named Marius. Discovering the marionette had been raped and left to die in a fireplace, Dr. Medlock brought him back to the lab and performed life-saving surgery upon his body, replacing his original strings with wire ones. Having nowhere else to go, Marius agreed to help the nutcracker with his experiments, sneaking into forbidden rooms and monitoring the chimeras to bring the toys he needed, including hunting down Raggedy Andy...
The frequent confrontations with Andy, followed by a chance meeting with Raggedy Ann, caused Marius to question his motives. By the time he finally captured Andy and his friends and brought them to the lab, then being ordered by Dr. Medlock to kill Andy, he couldn't do it. Nevertheless, Dr. Medlock feeds the candy heart to his finished experiment, birthing an eldritch abomination that scatters our heroes. Raggedy Ann is slated to die by the novel's end. And we're not even half-way done with the book yet!
Welcome to Halfway Plot Switch! Part 2 begins with Raggedy Andy and Marius having escaped, the former hitting a BSOD (aka heroic breakdown) over being unable to save Ann. With Marius seeking redemption and Andy refusing to leave his sister behind, they agree to work together to stop Dr. Medlock and prevent the feeding of toys to his ravenous experiment. Meanwhile, Ann slowly comes to terms with her eventual death, while finding ways to rescue kidnapped toys and foiling Dr. Medlock's plans with her remaining energy, hanging on in hopes of seeing her brother again...
Andy and Marius get close to each other while reuniting with the former's friends. In short, they fall in love. After Andy confesses his feelings, Marius slowly opens up to him, eventually revealing his troubled past. The blossoming relationship with its ups and downs keeps them sane for the upcoming trials ahead, serving as a humongous bright spot after the horrific events of Part 1.
Canon BL? In my novel? FUCK YEAH.
I should also mention before the Final Battle with Dr. Medlock in the last chapters, Raggedy Andy and Marius have poignant sex.
WAIT AUDIENCE, COME BACK. I CAN EXPLAIN.
A. Andy and Marius are a ragdoll and marionette, respectively. That means they have no genitalia whatsoever. To arouse another, let's say they've got the power of frottage and stringsex.
B. No Magical Healing Cock. While the sex is overall emotionally satisfying, it's far from perfect, and Marius did not have a happy experience before meeting Andy. It's more h/c wibbliness and comforting and holding than gooey sparkles if anything else.
I'm tired of the western Brokeback Mountain-esque tragedies where one or both partners died and wallowed in constant self-pity and angst, and series like Okane Ga Nai with horrendous Seme/Uke stereotypes and treating rape as Twu Wuv, so Andy/Marius is an antidote for that. :o Their relationship is providing the most squee as I write my novel, so... I end up talking about them a lot. <.<;;;
This writing snippet gives an idea what those two are like. :o
There's a TON more to my novel (like Raggedy Ann befriending a R.O.B., an arcade room inspired by creepypasta, etc.) but I don't want to give too much away. I'm dueling Writer's Block constantly, but it's my dream that one day, I'll finish this story and get it published. ;;
Puri's Novel in a Nutshell: Adventure. Love. Nostalgia. Death. The bond between two siblings. Hope in the face of horror.
No Crying Until the Ending.