Ruby Rivers is technically the main character of the Critter Crossing AU. An animator who worked within the in house animation studio of PlayCo. Also worked on commercials and box art. She was a pretty down to earth person but some of her co-workers believed in some weird things.
Here is some story stuff written like emails. To give some backstory. Enjoy!
From: Ruby Rivers
To: Peter Klein
Date: April 12, 1991
Time: 10:23 AM
Hey Pete,
Got your notes from yesterday’s meeting. Thanks for following up. I noticed you didn’t mention anything about your “poppy ink theory.” Maybe you realized it sounds a bit, well, out there?
You know I’m all for creative energy and inspiration—who wouldn’t be in this line of work? But this idea that our work is alive? Or that ink mixed with poppy seeds could somehow “bridge worlds”? Come on. Feels like you’ve been spending too much time watching the Twilight Zone.
Let’s not forget the real world here: poppy seeds contain weird compounds that can mess with your head. I’m pretty sure you’re not summoning spirits; you’re just getting secondhand microdosed. If anything, it’s probably giving folks mild hallucinations, not creating sentient cartoons.
Ruby
PS: Good idea switching to personal emails. I think our boss wasn't enjoying your crazy talk! No offense.
Subject: Re: Meeting Follow-Up
From: Peter Klein
To: Ruby Rivers
Date: April 12, 1991
Time: 11:09 AM
Ruby,
You’re missing the point! Sure, poppy seeds have… side effects, but this isn’t just about the ink. Have you ever thought about why characters like Dogday and Catnap feel so real? Why their stories seem to write themselves? Or why we all end up saying, “That’s exactly what Dogday would do” as if he’s deciding, not us?
I’m telling you, the ink might just be the catalyst. Look at the anomalies: the way sketches sometimes seem to shift slightly after we leave the room, or how animation frames appear more fluid than the tech should allow. Did you know Jill said she dreamed of Dogday last week, warning her not to approve a particular scene? She swears she woke up to find her storyboard reworked—better than before!
Something’s happening here, Ruby. Whether you believe it or not, you can’t deny the connection we feel with these characters.
Pete
Subject: Re: Meeting Follow-Up
From: Ruby Rivers
To: Peter Klein
Date: April 12, 1991
Time: 11:37 AM
Pete,
“Sketches shifting”? “Dream warnings”? That’s not supernatural, that’s sleep deprivation and caffeine overload. I don’t know why Jill redid her storyboard, but it wasn’t Dogday whispering in her ear. Maybe she was inspired and forgot about it—our brains are weird like that.
And yeah, we connect with the characters. We created them, after all. But they’re not real. They’re reflections of us, our ideas, and our teamwork. And a unhelpfully healthy dose of instructions from the higher ups. But anyway, That’s why they seem alive—it’s projection, not some alternate dimension leaking into the studio. Come on, Pete.
As for the ink, I’ll humor you for a second. Let’s say it does something weird. You think PlayCo would let us use it if they knew it could, I don’t know, break reality? They’d sell it as a toy themselves if it were that special.
Ruby
Subject: Re: Meeting Follow-Up
From: Peter Klein
To: Ruby Rivers
Date: April 12, 1991
Time: 12:15 PM
Ruby,
Have you looked at the new toy prototypes yet? You might be more right than you think, Ruby.
You don’t have to believe me, but don’t dismiss it entirely. You said it yourself—our characters are reflections of us. What if those reflections are more than just ideas? What if they’re connected to something bigger?
Remember the early versions of Dogday and Catnap? You told me once that you used to imagine Hot Clawffee and Snoozle Dreamhound sitting on your shoulders, like little muses. Maybe that’s closer to the truth than you think. Maybe they’re still there, influencing what you create.
I’ll leave you with this: if these characters weren’t real in some way, why would they mean so much to us?
Pete
Subject: Re: Meeting Follow-Up
From: Ruby Rivers
To: Peter Klein
Date: April 12, 1991
Time: 1:08 PM
Pete,
Hot Clawffee and Snoozle Dreamhound were my creations, and yeah, I still think about them. Sometimes when I’m stuck on a scene, I picture them sitting on my shoulders, one whispering something clever, the other reminding me to take a nap. It’s silly, but it helps. Kind of soothes my wounded pride that PlayCo wanted so many changes.
Eh Dogday is fine. But Catnap. When I see the big one walking around in that orphan city, it creeps me out like crazy. I can barely stand to look at it directly. But this is getting off topic!
All of that is just my imagination, not proof of anything supernatural. Characters are important because we pour ourselves into them, not because they’re alive. And I won’t deny that Dogday and Catnap feel like they’ve taken on lives of their own in some ways. We are working near unethical work hours in this place. Probably why we are hearing and seeing strange shit.
So no, I don’t think we’re breaking any laws of nature here. But I’ll admit this much: these characters matter. To us at least. And the kids. Not because they’re "real", but because they remind us of the best parts of ourselves. That's just how I see it.
But anyway, I've got to go turn in some animatics. See you later.
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My thoughts lately have been running at a premium, despite the existing wellspring of information and content and thought-starters and blurbs and blogs and vlogs and smogs and frogs and logs...you get it. There's so much out there. My brain can only remain so plastic. My dad has always taught me to bite off and chew the latest and greatest that the world has to offer, but I often daydream of the possibility that I might, once and for all, let my brain set in place. I imagine just x-ing out of this digital madness that I find myself drowning in.
I can see it now, some archaeologist goes digging for my brain in the near future, no doubt from the new ipad app that allows her to go scouring for early millennial brain bits from the comfort of her own couch. She (I'm imagining a female Indiana Jones...no this isn't a porno daydream, it's my neo-feminist aspiration talking) examines my brain bits through her touch screen and notices that I spent the day trying to make my company the industry's leader in social media, and once I was done with that I went to a workshop to try and learn how others are doing the same. After that, we all talked about it at length and exchanged business cards with the presupposed intention of pairing up over breakfasts and lunches and happy hours to dig, yay deeper into the lonely abyss, together. I then got home, checked into my sofa on Foursquare, re-watched an episode of Mad Men and waited for a text. She would then see that maybe it all just got to be a bit much and that's why I stole a car, drove to New Mexico and just let it all dry up while sleeping among the coyotes under the stars.Â
My point is this. I MEANT TO WRITE AN ENTIRE BLOG POST ABOUT HOW AWESOME THIS WORKSHOP WAS THAT I WENT TO TONIGHT AND HOW I'M REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO GOING TO MORE!!!! ...but I was thrown completely off track when I googled one of the speakers, Kenny Miller and this came up!
This isn't the Kenny Miller who used to work at MTV and is now trying to revolutionize the way we interact with our favorite tv shows! This is a Scottish soccer player, and now I know EVERYTHING about him. Someone held me at gunpoint and made me read every last fact, and I'm not unhappy about it. Granted, he's not my type (at least he wasn't 20 minutes ago), Â but he certainly had no problem taking ALL of my leftover Don Draper lust and turning it into 20 minutes of counterproductive bliss.Â
My conclusion is this, maybe my thoughts are at a premium lately, because I can't seem to hack my way out of the forest of hashtags that has become my prison. (Hashtags is not recognized as a real word in this spellcheck thingy? WTF!)
That said, I will try to raise my sails high enough to make it past the breakers and onto the sea of ideas I knew before my thought patterns were reduced to pre-determined algorithms, and maybe one day I'll get to write the piece I wanted about Kenny Miller of Starling.tv.
My only hope is that he googled Ruby Rivers tonight and got distracted by this.
Pam Miller, the American Quilter's Society Teacher of the Year, sponsored by Ruby River Steakhouse in Idaho Falls, ID. I'm not sure if she's related to Kenny Miller, but if she were, I'd surely be on the first train to the middle of nowhere. Click here to learn more about Pam's book, "Quilting Inside the Lines."
