Sweetgwendoline Bailey, the creator and owner of ~*Sweet Revolutions*~ and Mondi Beaumont, the creator and owner of ~*Telperion Designs*~, are also the world builders of the Faireland of Whispering Pages. Mondi answers the interview on behalf of the two, speaking of their building process, the lore and inspiration behind Whispering Pages and their shared love for books and stories.
You have built many Fairelands by now, where do you get the ideas for them? Is it a long process of testing and replacing ideas, or a moment of inspiration?
In most cases, our Sims spring from little things and tiny triggers… in the past, these have either been certain topics that interest and connect us, or certain words, images or songs. In the case of “Whispering Pages”, for Mondi it was a picture that she stumbled across by chance on the internet, and at the same time the song “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield, which provided inspiration for Gwen. As we both love books and stories, the idea for Whispering Pages was born – a place that has its own history, that connects different stories and where every visitor can contribute their own ideas and words.
In general, we never have a concrete plan as to what exactly the sim will look like in the end – it simply grows every year as we terraform and build on it like a random jigsaw puzzle, piece by piece, to form a large whole. It’s usually the case that Mondi has quite a few crazy ideas… then says to Gwen: “You, Gwen… can you actually….?” – Gwen is usually so crazy that she understands Mondi straight away, or she is given an example and then builds it accordingly – and Mondi is then allowed to distribute the artwork on the sim. Mondi also builds some little things – with a lot of heart and soul, passion and idealism but without any real building talent 😉
What are you bringing to the Faire this year?
As every year, most of the decorations for the Sim are created specifically and according to the theme. This year, it was important to us that the love of books, writing and stories was evident in all the decorations. This applies to both the look and the naming. We have small shops that combine the themes of the forest and books, the large book shops that are built like a row of books, a landing point that lies on a flying book, an old ruined library as a memorial and a role-play class that is intended to visualize the process of reading and education – the class is built into a head, or at least that’s what it looks like. The many small animal scenes also contain references to books and writings and most of the names contain alliteration.
What do you plan to do this Faire? What are your favourite things to do, the ones you wouldn’t miss out on no matter what?
We would like to explore all the Sims, participate in and watch the events and shows if possible. Mondi would like to and will certainly do her backstage paparazzi job again and try to capture impressions of the Fantasy Faire and its visitors and the FF family on pictures. We also love chatting with visitors and friends, and the quest is something we really enjoy every year.
Tell us of your Faireland. What sparked its birth, what is its inspiration? Does it have lore, secrets, stories? Tell us everything!
See question 1… some things are already mentioned there. In addition, yes, our sim is much more than just a shopping region. As every year, we try to incorporate a story, values and feelings that move and connect us. A central theme is always friendship – the one between Gwen and Mondi, which began in 2009. This year we are lucky that our good friend Kadaj is our sim – neighbour, so we have tried to make the transition from the forest to the cool, Nordic Viking land a smooth one, in which some elements created by Kadaj have already been used for decoration on our site.
Whispering Pages has many small corners, some of which are very hidden, and it is worth leaving the indicated path and exploring on your own. You can have runes read to you and take them with you, there is a small terrace with wolves that invites you to sit down – there are visible and hidden seating options all over the sim. If you look closely, you will discover that even the terrain texture already contains words and writing, the animal scenes and decorations have deliberately alliterated names.
A centrepiece is the memorial around the ruins – it is very important to us to create a space where we can remember our loved ones, keep their memory alive and share it with others. There is a lot of idealism in our decorations, we try to represent our values and beliefs. There is the tree of stories … there are various book scenes, a book tower to climb up and relax … The RP class and so many other little things – it’s best for everyone to form their own opinion and judgement… because stories can mean something completely different to each of us. We invite everyone to add their own words / stories / poems / ideas to Whispering Pages – Everyone can just put them on a notecard and send it to Mondi or Gwen..we will put it as texture on a scroll / letter and add the prim to the Sim 🙂
We look forward to your feedback and would like to say thank you, for all your kind words, feedbacks and interactions, we received by now during the Faire. We feel genuinely touched by all those precious reactions ❤
Thank you, Mondi, for taking the time to chat with us. Thank you to both for bringing us this amazing Faireland!
Fantasy Faire 