#Cpdwip

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Fun fact for those who weren't here before: Althaea's actual "trope" is "Cursed Princess, Evil Queen"

She is the question "what if the cursed princess never got rescued and had to pick up the slack alone?"

Though her outcome in Glory Upon the Wretched is far less darker than in her original/origins wip, Can't Play Dead

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Decided to to a reading for past, present and future of the main cast in Can't Play Dead, tho I feel the cards point to the climax of the story in particular as the present

In order: Althaea, Jaehyun, Alessandro and Max

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Song came on shuffle and a random tidbit of dialogue for Can't Play Dead Max came to my brain like

"Three months of some whore are all it takes for you to abandon everything in this family?"

"No. My lifetime in this family is what it takes for me to abandon it."

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Sorry for reblogging this again to talk about my stuff,

But, yes, imaginary follower with vague familiarity with my wips, these traits of evil queen/Althaea are present in her original wip (Can't Play Dead), tho the green ordeal only manifests in grave magic sickness

To which you have Max and Jaehyun worried about her, and Alessandro calling her "my little head of lettuce 😔🥺" (these 3 guys are part of the polycule she's in when in CPD/CFT)

Question for the masses: What are your favorite things to see in a Beauty and the Beast type story? What elements do you look forward to? What moments would you hate to see left out?

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

A moment of thought for stories haunted by a dead woman and how Althaea kinda counts as that, and how I could possibly make the most of it in Can't Play Dead

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Am strugglingTM these days with depression, so decided to try to imagine how the polycule could come together in a fairy tale au (because I have a fairy tale sorts of wip where Althaea is an evil queen), and it's entertaining me

Like, Max back to being a witch hunter, getting face to face with this evil queen with visible, dark green veins under her pale skin, besides some magical tattoos, odd blood seeping from her eyes, her mouth, staining her lips, his blade to her throat,

And after a very long moment, he pulls the dagger away and goes: "you're beautiful"

It takes everything for Althaea to not go a much worse and much unkinder version of "what's wrong with you?" at that

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Every single one of these characters killed multiple people in Can't Play Dead

I mean, maybe Alessandro is obvious, I gave him a knife, but yeah - all of them killed multiple people. Althaea, the first, killed maybe around 300 even on the course of 15 years.

I made the picrews for the Can't Fake This vibes, but just to give a notion of the original origins of the cast: lots of lines crossed, lots of dances with death

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Context:

Just, the cursed princess that has no alternative to becoming an evil queen, and even when she wins, when she breaks the cycle, when everything she was supposed to be is destroyed, she's not allowed to die because in overlooking how much she had been loved by some people late in the game, she did not prepare to prevent them from taking a turn at ressurecting her

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Me, finally going to bed after forgetting I was going to go to sleep for 2 hours: (remembers when I started writing an au for Zhihui and Althaea)

Me: 😴😴

Me: 😴

Me:...

Me: 👁️👄👁️

Me: SHE'S SUPPOSED TO HAUNT THE NARRATIVE AS THE VERY GHOST FORCED TO INHABIT THE WALLS OF THE ONLY HOME SHE EVER KNEW, THE LANDS DRENCHED IN THE BLOOD SPILLED BY HER ANCESTORS, AND THE BORDERS SHE CAN NEVER CROSS-

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Another presentation! ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜) Can you tell I’m crumbling to keep my mind occupied with nice thoughts?

This is the wip that originated Can’t Fake This!

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Something I wish I will manage to do with Can't Play Dead, is have Althaea kind of haunt the narrative, cause while being haunted herself by her ancestors, what happens in the narrative depends a lot of how well she's able to maintain the border between the living and the dead, and Greenwood and the rest of the world

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Relistening solely to the core 5 songs playlist for Can't Play Dead to the tunes of which I hallucinated the initial plot along the years, and then I'll write down what that initial plot was

> Sublime with Rome - Take it or leave it

> The Heavy - How you like me now

> Gin Wigmore - Black Sheep

> The Heavy - Can't Play Dead

> Gin Wigmore - Man like that

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Went back to the Can't Play Dead main notebook wip and redid the title page

At this point is like I pick the stamps that match the themes and imagery of the wip, and just go apeshit till I have something like a frame

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Am remembering that like, in Can't Play Dead

Althaea: no actual character arc, her essential development came before the novels timeline, being instead a catalyst of the change in the other characters

Jaehyun: negative character arc

Alessandro: positive character arc, but he has to regress at the end of the story

Max: negative character arc

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

Stopped to think through Althaea's past in the original canon of Can't Play Dead and ended up having a crying session

Like in theory I knew it was bad, but as actually detailed in my mind the path that shapes her into the woman at the start of the story, I just want to hug her

[karolinarodrigueswrites]

CPD like

Hunter: ha! Witch, your magic has no effect on me! Your plans will not-

Althaea, who never intended to waste her magic on this: [pulls out a gun]