User blog:Trocyte V./The Blovlower Retrospective, or How I Learned to Stop Sweating and Love the Silly

When I initially announced my desire to join Plant in working on the soft reboot, I briefly mentioned trying to rewrite the series as a fanfic. However, I've never actually fully explained what it actually was and how I tried to accomplish it.

Simply put, I wanted a more "coherent" narrative while also expanding on Sunflower and Blover's relationship and making it occur much sooner, as soon as the story proper starts. There were two problems with this:
 * In my quest to make things more "coherent," I wound up creating a narrative genocide of tons of characters and comics because they were slapstick. By the time I reviewed all of season 1, everything but issues 1 (which wouldn't even be a faithful adaptation of the issue), 8, 10, and maybe 12 were super dead. All of season 2 had the same fate, and I tried to adapt "That Chat" but failed from lack of motivation. Luckily, all the characters I had to eliminate for sure were mostly flat characters.
 * The relationship with Sunflower and Blover proved to be a massive tether for the narrative. I wrote ~17 full-length, 12-point font pages dedicated entirely to an adaptation of the narrative of the Sunflower trilogy, excluding issue 9 and replacing it with a darker tone (something I'll get into more detail later on), and another two or so pages focused on them outside of that particular arc. Everything else combined could not exceed that. Ultimately, it turned out to be a unique case of wish fulfillment for me - namely, the portrayal of Sunflower as an adorable, innocent, and energetic little girl, and the idea that if they were in a relationship, they'd see everything they'd do together as nothing more than playful-yet-romantic gestures (up to and including sleeping in one bed. Yes, I went there.) For the record, I still think the former should definitely be the case, but the latter should probably be dialed back to some extent.

"Darkness advances..."
Remember my aside about how I abandoned Issue 9 in favor of just going full-blast on a darker tone? That's where this comes in.

I tried to explain Blover not being in the house in Issue 8 by him getting distracted by something completely unrelated, only to realize his mistake and come running like mad over. Then, he'd come in, but notice the eerie silence, save for some whimpering coming from somewhere within the house. He'd then find Sunflower's bleeding body, surrounded by her sister and friends, and only be able to share a few brief, tear-filled moments before she dies.

Ouch.

This simply went downhill from then on. TL;DR - Blover contracts middle-functioning depression (able to do absolutely necessary tasks and sustain himself, but literally nothing else, and can't keep up a facade), winds up dragging his friends down, and becomes suicidal. If I could draw, I'd be breaking the content policy I set for this place. Just so you all know.

Then, right as Blover starts to climb his way out, he gets a visit from Sunflower's ghost. Turns out dying young will leave you completely isolated in the afterlife, unable to cope with the lasting effects of your death and begging for everyone to do something as little as staying alive. Thus, she's little more than a broken, sobbing wreck just trying to make amends, to which her boyfriend tries to cheer her up and solemnly swear to never make her cry again. It works.

At this point, my take on Issue 10 comes in. Another TL;DR: Sunflower, through sheer force of will and the implication that a genius loci inhabits the afterlife, comes back and joyfully reunites with her boyfriend, and they elect to (in a completely innocent manner, I swear) spend the night together and live happily ever after. The end, until whatever the next arc was supposed to be; I can't remember.

If you're wondering "the hell did I just read?",... yeah, I willingly ignored CC00's executive order to just drop the whole thing about depression and suicide with regards to the events of issue 8.

Walking Right Into a Pitfall
More specifically, the pitfall of stories consisting of predominately children excluding or isolating adults. The regular Gatling Pea was the only adult in my interpretation of the neighborhood. Yes, this means that everyone lives alone. At first, it was just a way to explain why some of the children lived with their parents while the vast majority didn't have any... and I took the idea and ran.

At this point, I fell into another pitfall - using origin stories to increase the degree of freedom for the protagonist and therefore permitting them to go on wilder adventures. In other words, Blover... was an orphan. It had something to do with the science of letting a clover sprig grow up without ever sprouting the actual flower of the Trifolium genus (in other words, they're sterile). I'd rather not elaborate.

Retrospective
In hindsight, this probably wasn't a good idea. The original premise was quickly hijacked by romance and heavy tones, and my own approach to writing meant I was meandering without doing much to go forward. I feel that this wiki is, somewhat ironically, a better approach than mine because of how we're currently handling things. Even though we're currently fatigued, I feel this place'll become far bigger than what I alone could've accomplished.