The Metropolis Series #2: Quinn Beyond Bounds

AT FIRST, I rushed this book. I began writing this in May 2017, right after I posted Quinn and the Metropolis online. I had the story flowing continuously in my head, and I ended up finishing the first draft in seven months. In the original manuscript, Cassandra attacked the pool party and all the students who attended turned into monsters. As weird as this may sound, Cassandra possessed Bree, then the corruption got to Philip, and the book ended with the monsters chasing Quinn, Rachael, and Curtis down in that big ’ol house.

And that was all there was. There was no band gig for Quinn to be manager and no grace period for her to recollect herself after Cassandra’s attack at the Spanish House. Quinn doesn’t even get the dramatic new haircut, which I spoiled on my personal Facebook profile because I was so proud of how I drew it.

On top of all that, this new version allowed me to explore the dynamics between Quinn’s relationship with Cassandra, and how the mistaken identity is putting her more and more in danger. When I was writing Beyond Bounds, there was a time when I was so stressed about things I refuse to immortalize in writing, and I was afraid that people would only see my bad side. Cassandra is the personification of my negative thoughts, after all, which were quite loud in the early stages of this book.

Beyond Bounds is about Quinn rediscovering herself as her own person, or at least letting people help her do so. I revised the manuscript in 2019, and it was like the time on hiatus allowed Quinn to grow away from her association from Cassandra, knowing that she could be more than that.

The flashbacks Quinn saw of Julio and Rachael’s relationship (except for the part where Rachael jumps into the Lethe) are from old versions of the Metropolis I wrote in my teens. A young Rachael had brought banana bread to Julio’s house, and Julio had confessed to Rachael on the rooftop of her house, risking both embarrassment and a twenty-foot drop.

I tried to keep most of the words intact, maintaining the teenage innocence of the original manuscript. It was like the almighty Author had written this in her teens herself, giving an idea as to how long the Metropolis had been on a standstill.

Julio and Rachael are both older than Quinn. While Quinn was created in 2012, Julio and Rachael’s story started filling my notebooks the year before. There are many drawings of them posted on my old DeviantArt (which you can try to look up, hehe) where I showed them as a casual couple who stole kisses from each other here and there. Most of my effort went to crafting what they’d look like, designing them then redesigning them. I liked drawing them a lot, but to be honest, I didn’t have much of a story. Julio just had trouble expressing his true feelings for Rachael while everyone around him tried to give him a nudge. (Rachael herself included.)

In Tagalog, we call that torpe. That was young Julio summed up in one word.

Speaking of old characters, those from The MacGuffin and the Spanish House were also from my old manuscripts. I started writing in the third grade, so I have lots of characters who probably hate me right now; naming them all would be a nightmare.

Below are those fortunate enough to make an appearance in this book, and who they were when I wrote them:

Ms. Louise

She was a girl scout originally named Louie, but I changed her name to Louise because it sounded better. She belonged to this fantasy world I had written in third grade. She studied plants (I think) and was best friends with a pink fairy. I remember transcribing the manuscript myself on the computer, while my parents formatted it and printed it. Ms. Louise’s story still sits on my bookshelf to this day.

Takahiro

Not much was written about Takahiro when I included him in a comic version of the Metropolis I worked on in 2012. He was briefly shown in the hallways peaking through his book, watching Quinn for reasons I forgot about. I assure you that he wasn’t meant to stalk her, and I doubt he had a crush on her.) Heck he didn’t even have a name. I just gave him one for this book.

Tamara

She is one of my newer characters, coming along in my college days. The shark hat came from the many animal hats being sold at bazaars during school affairs, but I never bought one myself. She was first drawn with a raccoon hat, then a shark hat. I stuck with the shark.

She didn’t have much of a story, either; she just liked taking selfies while other characters like to photobomb them. Originally, she was drawn as a Caucasian. I imagined her to be Curtis’ cousin.

Mackenzie

Among all the characters I’ve mentioned, she was the one I stuck with the longest before I wrote about the Metropolis. Her story was my passion project in the fifth grade; she was a pop star with attitude problems, forced to be roommates with a humble fan to teach her a lesson. I remember spending hours on an unlikely software for storytelling: Microsoft PowerPoint. It was probably my earliest exposure to animation, as well, as I made graphics for the story in Microsoft Paint, imported them, and then made them move in PowerPoint.

It was one of the first times I used the computer to write a story. I usually just wrote and drew on a notebook back then. As a child, however, I had no perception of how easily electronics broke and how important it was to back up my files. I thought computers were forever, and my drawings would always be there when I booted my device up. Unfortunately, I had lost all drawings of Mackenzie, along with the story I had meticulously crafted.

The story was probably terrible, though, but I wish there was something to look back to.

—Jay, March 2020