Fairhaven Chapter 1 Notes
Jul. 19th, 2016 04:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinauts"It had not rained in months in the city of Fairhaven - a small city of about 70,000 on the west coast - from the center of downtown clustered around the bay, to the surrounding forest full of ancient magical currents, to the mountains that ringed the city."
Fairhaven is based off of the town I go to university in - Bellingham, Washington, which sits at the foot of Mount Baker. Fairhaven is actually the name of the old town district. It's a very nice city in the farthest reaches of the Pacific northwest; in fact, it's the northernmost city with more than 50,000 people! It's around 80,000 and I love it a lot. While the general atmosphere of the fictional Fairhaven is dominated by the urban fantasy stuff, here's a shot of the Bellingham area that encapsulates what I was going for:
"...he retrieved the ziploc bag of crushed purple calla lilies and catmint from his jacket pocket, and dabbed it on his cheeks, down the bridge of his nose, and his lips."
Calla lilies mean "overwhelming beauty," and purple ones mean passion. Catmint is a fancier name for catnip.
"'I got tipped off to a possible Siren or Vila feeding in a downtown club,' he replied, slipping on his shoes."
A siren is, in this story, a beautiful mermaid that sits on rocks and lures sailors to a watery doom. A vila (also spelled veela) is a beautiful young maiden from Slavic folklore, said to dance young men to death. She will die if you pluck a hair from her head. I combined the traditional Vila depiction with the one from Harry Potter.
"Fai uncorked his vial of lethe water as he moved toward him..."
The river Lethe, in Greek mythology, was located in the underworld. Souls would drink from it to forget their past lives. This ingredient was snatched from Harry Potter.
“'Kurogane Amamiya. Hunter.'”
Amamiya is the last name of Sakura's great-grandfather in Cardcaptor Sakura. Conveniently enough, it apparently translates to "water shrine."
Fairhaven is based off of the town I go to university in - Bellingham, Washington, which sits at the foot of Mount Baker. Fairhaven is actually the name of the old town district. It's a very nice city in the farthest reaches of the Pacific northwest; in fact, it's the northernmost city with more than 50,000 people! It's around 80,000 and I love it a lot. While the general atmosphere of the fictional Fairhaven is dominated by the urban fantasy stuff, here's a shot of the Bellingham area that encapsulates what I was going for:
"...he retrieved the ziploc bag of crushed purple calla lilies and catmint from his jacket pocket, and dabbed it on his cheeks, down the bridge of his nose, and his lips."
Calla lilies mean "overwhelming beauty," and purple ones mean passion. Catmint is a fancier name for catnip.
"'I got tipped off to a possible Siren or Vila feeding in a downtown club,' he replied, slipping on his shoes."
A siren is, in this story, a beautiful mermaid that sits on rocks and lures sailors to a watery doom. A vila (also spelled veela) is a beautiful young maiden from Slavic folklore, said to dance young men to death. She will die if you pluck a hair from her head. I combined the traditional Vila depiction with the one from Harry Potter.
"Fai uncorked his vial of lethe water as he moved toward him..."
The river Lethe, in Greek mythology, was located in the underworld. Souls would drink from it to forget their past lives. This ingredient was snatched from Harry Potter.
“'Kurogane Amamiya. Hunter.'”
Amamiya is the last name of Sakura's great-grandfather in Cardcaptor Sakura. Conveniently enough, it apparently translates to "water shrine."
