#i originally planned to make a SUPER detailed background

[ramblerogue]

A Tiller drawing from about a year ago that I never finished. I’d love to get back into traditional work, pen/ink was always my fav :’)

[getoffthesoapbox]

[VK/M] What's In A Kaname?

Before I dive into my thoughts concerning some recent happenings in the horror show that is VK/M, I figured I'd set the stage with a preliminary dive into the skeletal structure of Kaname's narrative arc from the original VK. If this is triggering to anyone, well, take it up with Hino.

I don't know why I've never done a deep dive into the skeletal structure of Kaname's narrative arc before, but I think it's because we were always waiting for the "big reveal" of his "great plans" that never came. Instead of sitting in that mode of thinking, I've changed perspectives for this exercise--I'm now looking only at what is ACTUALLY there once you strip away the dumb things that don't matter (like the vampiric politicking that never goes anywhere with Hino because this is a love story at its heart). Going into this without preconceived notions or expectations for "narrative twists" made it easier to parse what is actually in Hino's story. And once I did that, I found a very straight-forward, simple arc for Kaname. It'll take a minute to detail first, but I'll lay it out simply at the end.

We'll start post-time skip because the first part of the story is mostly Kaname working in the background without much narrative thrust.

Night 49: Kaname obtains what he's wanted--Yuuki is now a vampire, is in a relationship with him, and is estranged from Zero. Kaname thinks that he and Yuuki will be in loving bliss from now on.

Night 49-50: Things don't go as Kaname planned. Yuuki struggles with using her fangs on him, even though he wants her to and encourages her. Initially he thinks this is due to her humanity interfering with her vampiric side (6 months into the time skip). Their relationship stagnates while she starves herself. No progress. He's stuck in the "bro zone." As far as any super plans, he has none at this time outside of Yuuki.

Night 51-52: Kaname discovers Yuuki has attempted to not only bite herself, but also take blood tablets from Aidou. This shouldn't even be a thing when Kaname is a willing blood source for her--not only does he love her, but he's a Pureblood. She shouldn't be able to resist either of those two things, not when she loves him. Whelp, unfortunately for him, she confesses her heart is still attached to that Zero guy. But that's ok because she loves Kaname too, right? Whelp, about that...Yuuki won't admit she loves Kaname either and instead acts sorry while beating around the bush about it. Their interaction ends with Kaname placing a restriction on her eating--she'll have to take blood from him and no one else.

Night 52-54: Now that Yuuki is drinking blood from him and has confessed to having feelings for Zero, Kaname needs to test the depth of those feelings. He's reassessing where their relationship stands in light of this new information. He takes Yuuki to a ball with Zero, making sure to give her ample time to interact with him. Zero fails to drive home the estrangement, and Yuuki emerges from the ball more determined than ever to help Zero.

A sub-point here is this is when Kaname's Plan A begins. This plan is never detailed explicitly in the story, but I believe his Plan A was to gather all the Pureblood bloodline strains into Zero and then transform Zero into the cure (likely by killing him).

Night 56-59: Yuuki leaves the house (with Kaname's knowledge) for the first time in order to go and do what she can to help Zero. She runs into Touma and is injured. Zero appears. Kaname watches from a distance via remote-viewing from his familiars, keeping tabs on things but letting them play out because he's still testing Yuuki's feelings for Zero.

Night 60: While injured, Yuuki nearly bites Zero. She only stops because she a.) wants to savor him and b.) snaps out of her stupor to realize that she's in the arms of the man who supposedly wants to kill her. None of her motivations are Kaname-related, but she does run back to Kaname.

Night 61: Kaname is furious with Yuuki because she basically betrayed him entirely and revealed that her feelings for Zero are stronger than her feelings for him. His recourse now is to try to force her feelings to shift toward him. The best way to do that is to break down her image of him as her brother so that she'll see him as a man.

Night 62-64: Kaname drains Yuuki to the point where she has no choice but to drink from him and then sends her down memory lane. His plan backfires, though. Rather than seeing him as a man, she sees her own feelings for Zero in his feelings for the Hooded Woman and she also sees the utter darkness in his heart.

Night 65-66: Yuuki awakens and Kaname tests her feelings to see if she has changed her mind about him. He tries to see if she was jealous about the Hooded Woman, but gets a neutral response from Yuuki. He then asks how Yuuki sees him now. The best that Yuuki can offer him is that she adored him as her brother and senpai, but that she doesn't know who he is as the ancestor, and that she'd like to start over fresh with him. This is NOT what Kaname wanted. He wanted her to see him as a man and realize she loved him romantically. The answer here becomes obvious--he needs to accelerate Plan A (Zero cure) and get rid of the "interference" in his relationship with Yuuki. But the only way he can do this is of course if Yuuki doesn't know what's going on. So he gives her one last test--stay home and wait for his return. Yuuki fails the test.

Night 67-82ish: Kaname dumps Yuuki back onto Zero after he kills Aidou's father (and yes, I do believe Aidou's father is dead--we've never seen him in VK/M, not even for Aidou's wedding, and Ruka did not seem like she was creating an illusion for Kaname at this time), and then begins to initiate Plan A. This mostly involves him letting Sara run around, drinking and attacking Purebloods, and Kaname wandering around after her cleaning up the mess. Sara is then driven into Zero's vicinity, and Kaname allows Zero to drink from her. At this time Kaname has no plans for Yuuki outside of perhaps planning to turn her human again if she doesn't take well to the Zero-dying thing.

Night 83-88: Kaname breaks into Hunter Headquarters, but he doesn't do so in order to "find" the forge--he just "discovers" the forge, which implies his Forge Plan is Plan B. When he enters headquarters, he's still operating under Plan A (which I assume is the Zero cure). Zero and Yuuki catch up to him here, and Yuuki cuts her hair to signal her determination. Kaname, upon seeing the forge again, decides to open up to the idea of Plan B (a.k.a. he becomes the forge in the Hooded Woman's stead). He releases the Hooded Woman and runs.

Night 89: Yuuki returns to Kaname after having taken Zero's memories and destroyed her relationship with him. At this point, Kaname is ready to abandon both Plan A and Plan B if Yuuki genuinely wants a real romantic relationship with him. He attempts to suss this out by sleeping with her. After all, she gave up Zero for him! Surely she loves him!

Night 90-92: Kaname realizes all's not well in paradise; Yuuki appears to still want to turn him human even after sleeping together and her reaction once they both wake up is to huddle in blankets and accusing both of them of not deserving to be in Zero's presence. Kaien "sends" Zero over to Kaname, but I suspect Kaname requested Zero as yet another test for Yuuki. Kaname tests the strength of Zero's memory loss and finds it solid; he then tests whether or not Zero has feelings for Yuuki even without his memories and whether Yuuki still loves Zero without his memories. Kaname finds both are still true, and he picks Plan B back up again. At this point he's intending to have Isaya turn Yuuki because Zero has no memories. This also still "removes" Yuuki from Zero. Unfortunately for him, Zero regains his memories.

Night 93: Kaname completes Plan B, placing his heart in the forge and unloading his last thoughts onto Yuuki. She can't even give him a final grand love confession--the best she can offer him is wishing she'd never been born. Kaname gives up at last at the idea that he held a major place in her heart and wishes her and Zero well.

VKM begins.

This long ramble was merely to demonstrate the justification for the following skeletal arc for Kaname:

Nights 49-68 (before Kaname leaves Yuuki):

Gets Yuuki, separates her from Zero, gets Zero positioned perfectly for devouring purebloods. -> Finds out Yuuki doesn't actually love him, but thinks he can overcome this because, well, he's her master and a Pureblood, and we know from his past history that this can overcome love. -> Tests the strength of Yuuki's love for Zero while setting up Sara to gather bloodlines for Zero for Plan A -> Realizes Yuuki's love for Zero is stronger than expected -> Gets butthurt and tries to salvage Yuuki's feelings for him via changing her perspective on him with his memories -> Fails. Decides to pursue Plan A to get Zero out of the way.

Nights 69-93 (after leaving Yuuki):

Follows Sara and stirs up events to get Sara to gather Pureblood lineages and take them to Zero. -> Discovers Forge location. -> Plan B now an option (become forge). -> Nearly discards both Plan A AND Plan B when Yuuki takes Zero's memories. -> Gives up on Yuuki entirely after he has sex with her and nothing changes and she still shows signs of preferring Zero. -> Goes full bore into Plan B because it's the easiest and he can still separate Yuuki from Zero via Isaya. -> Fails to separate Yuuki from Zero and accepts his fate while succeeding at Plan B.

In the shortest sense, we simply have: After the timeskip, Kaname thinks he's won Yuuki's heart and can sacrifice Zero for Plan A, the Zero Cure. He discovers he's wrong about both and, after first attempting to win Yuuki's heart one last time, ultimately changes his plan to Plan B, becoming the forge. The end.

There is nothing in Kaname's arc that suggests he ever once felt secure in Yuuki's romantic love for him, and this is the key reason he follows through with Plan B.

What this shows me is Kaname is a shit for beans planner. He just throws things against the wall to see if they stick. The reason he seems "mysterious" is that he's always changing his mind, not that he has a master plan. His main motivation is to get in Yuuki's pants, and when he can't get that it's either kill the guy she actually loves (Zero) or kill himself. It's obvious how toxic he is when you break down the structure of the story and remove all Hino's flowery language and artwork. There's just nothing positive here to work with--he's literally the villain of the story.

The reason I wanted to work through Kaname's narrative skeleton here is because the latest chapter has a hint that Plan A (kill Zero for Zero cure) really did exist. There's tons of evidence for "a" Plan A in the original story of course--Kaname letting Sara run free, Kaname silencing Aidou's dad for investigating, Kaname disliking letting Zero drink from Sara but saying it's "necessary" (necessary for what, certainly not the forge plan!), Kaname seeming to only realize where the forge even was AFTER he entered Hunter Headquarters, implying he was there for a different purpose before discovering the forge's location.

Yuuki in the story assumes Kaname was always trying to become the forge, and because she's the protagonist, we're meant to assume that too in the original story. But I think there's enough evidence to suggest Kaname had a Plan A that involved the Pureblood lineages and Zero. The most logical conclusion is that it's the Zero cure, which lines up both with his attempt to reverse the Hooded Woman's sacrifice in the past AND with his "surprise" at discovering Ichiru and Zero were Hunter twins. It also explains his early involvement with Shizuka, which hasn't been narratively resolved yet. It's still just hanging in the breeze, waiting for someone to fold it up and put it back in the closet.

This is a long-winded way of saying the Zero Cure is BACK ON THE MENU, BABIES! More contemporary thoughts later!

[halfdead-halfskeleton]

Notes:

Lilia x You. Reader knows how to sew clothing(while author does not)

Based off Suitors suit vignette. Technically it's a continuation of the story, so make sure to read the vignette before this fic

A lot of background characters, but I'm not tagging all of them

A bit non-linear storytelling?

The suit was made of magic, meaning it will disappear after a certain amount of time. The fact that such a beautiful sight is not going to stay here for long made your heart ache. And yet, you continued to smile and tried your best to memorize every tiny detail of the tuxedo. You had a plan, after all.

"Feast your eyes while you still can!" said Lilia. The tuxedo Malleus created for him was just marvelous! You and Sebek competed in who's going to complement Lilia more while his face was shining with a smile. Your face did too, it even hurt a bit to smile so much.

The next couple of months casually went by in your room, as you hunched over your secret project. If only your school life wasn't so busy and sometimes downright chaotic, you might have finished it sooner... And if the cruel thing that is perfectionism wouldn't criticize your every move.

After a few not-so-successful, to put it lightly, attempts, you finally finished recreation the suit Malleus made for Lilia back when ghosts that invaded the school for a marriage ceremony left.

Your first attempt failed because you were so obsessed with the idea of recreating the outfit you forgot to take Lilia's measurements. While the final product turned out to be quite nice, it wouldn't fit Lilia at all. Also you didn't have some accessories the original outfit had, which you noticed only at the end.

And so, you began anew, but now without the fabric you intended to use. The end result turned out too different from the tuxedo you remembered. The shade of green? Too vibrant. The pattern on the ribbon? Wrong. The pants? Actually quite nice, but that's the only part of the outfit you liked. And after your sewing machine unexpectedly broke you lost all the crumbs of motivation there were left...

Thankfully, you became a good friends with some students at NRC. While you were earning money for a new sewing machine, Vil and Kalim searched for the fabric and accessories that matched Lilia's suitor suit. Vil didn't get to witness the tuxedo, so you and Kalim had to explain how it looked like. You even showed him all the sketches you made and the first attempt suit as an example.

"Wow, your skill is really shinning here!" Kalim carefully examined the suit from all angles together with Vil. "It's really unfortunate your sewing machine broke... Are you sure you don't want me to get you a new one? It's going to be way faster than working in Mostro Lounge for a whole month."

"That's right, but I'm already asking you for help, you know. It won't be so fair if you do everything for me!" you answered and looked at Vil, who's also visibly impressed by your skills.

"The stitching is quite nice, you clearly took your time to make it the best suit it could be. I'm glad to see you actually listened to the advice I gave you during previous projects. Alright, I'll lend you a hand as well. Just remember that my schedule is tight, so it will take a while to find everything you need."

"Thank you both so, so much!" As you said that, Kalim came closer to give you a big hug. He was super excited to see how it will turn out!

After mountains and mountains of work, you left out a sign. Not out of exhaustion or frustration, but out of relief. You did it. You DID it! Finally, even when it seemed like the whole universe itself didn't want you to complete the suit, you did it!

"Good job." A sudden pat on your back woke you up from all the thoughts. It was Vil who just entered the room. After a minute or so, Kalim came here too.

"Sorry for making you wait!" He panted and leaned on the closest wall. "Oh, I got so scared when I couldn't find the Albert chain I had to call Jamil and a couple of other Scarabia students for help. We found it! It's the same one I gave Lilia that night."

"Wait, if that's the same one... Is it really okay for me to take it? You could get something similar, but..."

"But? I thought you wanted to make 1:1 recreation. Why are you backing up now?" Vil asked with a frown on the face. You pulled him closer and whispered:

"Because it costs 10 million thaumarks!" Such shocking information left Vil speechless for a minute.

"Well, I thought the original one would suit him better! So here it is." As Kalim said that, he placed the Albert chain with a bat on the outfit. You looked at your creation, the exact copy of the tuxedo Malleus has created with magic. Even though some tears appeared on your eyes, your face radiated joy. You finally did it.

It was an after-school evening when you decide to gift Lilia the suit you've been working so hard on. As you roamed around Diasomnia dorm, something poked your back. Strangely, when you looked back there was nothing and no-one. So you turned your head forward and immediately got spooked by upside-down Lilia!

"Ehehe." He smiled mischievously, yet still helped you to get back up. "It's rare to see non-Diasomnia students here at such time. Could it be that you're looking for someone?" Lilia's eyes were set on the box you carried, it was wrapped nicely, like a birthday present.

When your heartbeat calmed down, you remembered the words you prepared in your head. "Yes, there is... But I'm not sure if they'll actually like the present I made. Could you take a look?"

"Oh? A skilled dressmaker like you wishes to hear my opinion? I would be more than glad to assist you." Your heart skipped a beat. Did someone tell him about your secret project? Who could that- oh, probably Kalim, since they're in the same club. And even if Kalim didn't tell it exactly to him, but Cater instead, Lilia would still find out. But maybe Lilia doesn't actually know and said it just because?.. You're kind of known for your great sewing skills. Or... "Let's do it in my room, I was right on my way there." You brushed off the haunting thoughts away and headed to Lilia's room, trying to calm down.

His face beamed with happiness when you let him unwrap the present. Although at first he wondered if it was really okay. "It would be rather troublesome to wrap it back up when you're going to gift it to that person."

"Don't worry, I won't have to do it." A surprised gasp echoed in the room. Lilia carefully picked up the tuxedo, examining every detail. He couldn't believe his eyes. "So, what do you think?"

After a minute of silence, he smiled. "I still remember this tuxedo. I'm really proud of Malleus for coming up with such an elaborate design. And I'm really proud of you for recreating it up to every single detail." As Lilia said that, his eyes began to tear up a bit. "That night I wore a tuxedo for the first time in my life. It's hard to believe I can re-experience that moment again."

"Do you wish to wear it right now?" While you did take Lilia's and some other students'(to make it less suspicious) measurements long time ago, anxiety kept telling you you might have made a mistake at some point.

"I'm eager to wear it!" You smiled unknowingly when Lilia's gentle laugh reached your ears. In a couple of minutes you re-entered the room to see him happily dancing in the suit you made. The moment he saw you he reached for your hand. "Would you mind to dance with me for a moment? Such a delightful gift deserves a special thank-you!"

Blush painted your cheeks red, and heart began to beat faster with joy and excitement. You happily accepted Lilia's offer, taking his hand in yours. And so, you danced around the room. At one point Lilia began to hum a sweet melody. You joined him, and you both hummed in unison while dancing across the room.

You knew this moment, no matter how joyous and bright, would end eventually. So you made sure to enjoy every last bit of it, engraving it in your memory for eternity. And so did he.

[astronite13]

check it out >:D multidimensional big bang piece by yours truly

you may or may not already know, but i participated in the mdbb event, and was teamed with the wonderful writer @elevenvolcanoes and amazing beta reader @memryse! you can check out ro's awesome fic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41524974

go on, i know you wanna read it, dont be shy

as promised, ill be uploading some wips of this below the cut because oh man. this took forever

here are the character design sketches, i am not a very tidy artist

so the original plan was like this adhsjbcbs

i was just braindumping ideas onto a canvas (- -;)

THEN came the clean-ish sketch, where i had 'fun' with having to finalise where things went

(sausage and lizzie were added in later ajdhajfhs)

after that came what i dreaded most. lineart. BANE OF MY EXISTENCE I AJJDKSNC

at this point i was a solid week into this and it was barely halfway done T-T

i then worked on backgrounds and flats- funny thing, i barely ever complete pieces because i have the attention span of a goldfish, so i literally had no idea how to colour things in ┌(。Д。)┐

THIS TOOK SO FUCKING LONG

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW PAINSTAKING THIS WAS

i was literally going insane over this ahdnsndn

FINALLY i was able to move onto shading/rendering(?)/details, and via the power of bullshitting my way through things, voila

at this point i had spent every day doing nothing but drawing for two weeks, but i was SO CLOSE to being done

then suddenly, the fire nation attacked something happened dun dun dun

because i was working with around 80 layers (i needed them all trust me <-lying), ibispaintx was running abysmally slow, and at this moment, it just CRASHED

i rushed back on and got this (0_0 )

i had to wait. FOURTY FIVE MINUTES. FOR THE WHOLE THING TO REPLAY AND TRY TO RESTORE MY FILE. at this point it was 3 am a day after the deadline and panic mode was activated

BUT i think the watchers may have been, well, watching over me at that point because miraculously, i got my file back, and i added a few finishing touches before collapsing on my bed in a heap

this whole thing overall was a fantastic experience, all the mods and participants in the discord server were super entertaining and friendly, and i want to thank each and every one of you for making this event so exciting >:D especially my teammates, and of course luna for creating it <3

funny thing this was literally my version of 100 hours hardcore since my canvas tells me ive been on it for around 150 hours ajdnjahd

anyway bonus aha:

[bfiaflbox]

So this is how it starts - Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Pairing: Matty x original female character

Warnings: drinking, smoking, swearing; mentions of: misoginy, cancer (in the past), infertility

Disclaimer: some of what the ofc is experiencing is rooted in my lived reality, however I lie for plot purposes a lot. I draw inspiration from things that I read somewhere or that actually happened to me or my friends. It's not proof read and English is my second languageso there's either too many commas or not enough commas.

Further disclaimer: yes I know it's not *that* hard to wrap a pan, it's very hard however to make it look nice...

"So you and Matty hit it off last night" it's not a question.

I'm on the phone with Carly after a "call me when you get this" message she sent me at 7am the following Saturday.

"Why would you think that??"

"Adam literally showed me the group chat where Matty called you "fit"" she laughs.

"Fucking hell, that sounds like we're back in year 9" I roll my eyes although she can't see it.

"Don't avoid the subject. What happened after you guys left for the tube station" she makes it sound like a conspiracy.

"We did just that. We went to the tube station and then home"

"I feel like you're leaving out *a lot* of details and one to three major plot points"

"fiiiine" i groan but have to laugh as well "it's ridiculous. Halfway down the road we decided to get another drink. We sat in a bar and talked until we were thrown out and then we went home"

"Liar"

"Not a lie" technically.

"Come oooon, I haven't been on a date in *ages*! I live vicariously through you" I hear Adam saying something in the background that I can't quite make out and they both giggle at something.

"I have to insist that this definitely wasn't a date and it really wasn't that exciting. Anyway, like I said, halfway down the road to the tube station Matty asked if I really wanted to go home or if I was up to get a drink with him. I said yes and so we went to a pub that was kind of crowded but we managed to get a seat at the bar. We talked about ... anything really. He thought it was kind of unfair that I had a pretty much clear Idea of what he does for a living and asked about being a tattoo artist and running a shop and all that. He told me about BJJ, I told him about growing up with five siblings. We got a bit drunk and I think at some point I kind of insulted him as "the queen of juxtaposition" or something, it was good fun...I think. Did I mention that we both were quite drunk? Fuck, I swear I made a proper fool out of myself."

"Yeah, you do that when you're drunk" Carly laughs.

"Thanks, I'm mortified... Well at some point he had to go to the toilet and some bloke thought he could take Matty's seat and chat me up. Next thing I know Matty's having a row with that guy and the bartender threw us out to prevent a pub fight."

"And there I was thinking you were thrown out because they were closing and you stayed that long because the conversation was just sooooo good" Carly interjects in a slightly mocking tone.

"Yeah, well, no. We had a laugh about it and went on to the tube station. Turned out he wasn't planning on taking the tube and just wanted to bring me. But yeah, that was it."

"Have you talked since?

"It's literally been nine hours and nope. I don't even have his number" fucking idiot not getting his number.

"Well that can be arranged, wait a sec"

My phone chimes with a message from Carly who just sent me Matty's contact info.

"Excuse you? You can't just give out personal information like that?!" I'm kind of glad she did though.

"Make it a good story at your guys' wedding and we're even"

////

Do I text or call? Text or call, text or call? I kind of want to hear his voice but I don't want to disturb hin in case he's in the middle of something. But calling is more personal, however, he doesn't even know I have his number and that's super creepy. Fuck, why is this so agonizing. Fuck it, I'll text him.

Me: Hey Matty, this is Hannah from last night. You know, the tall and pretty one :P Carly gave me your number in an act of rebellion against data security, hope you don't mind. Did you get home safe?

His answer comes in a matter of minutes.

Matty: Hello! Tall and pretty indeed. I did get home safe, although I feel like I should be the one asking you this.

Me: We're both alive and well it seems.

Matty: Good. Will you go on another date with me?

Me: What do you mean "another"?

Matty: Avoiding the question!

Me: Not avoiding, clarifying! but yes, I will go on a date with you.

Matty: Another! :)

Me: Seriously, is drunk shit talking and almost getting punched by some bloke your Idea of a date? That wasn't a proper date, my friend.

Matty: Who made you the Master of Proper Dates?

Me: Not you apparently

Matty: Also I would like to clarify that I do martial arts for self defense not to get into fights with random strangers.

Me: yeah keep telling yourself that

Matty: You're sassy, you know that?

Me: yeah, I do sometimes hang out with myself.

Matty: About that date... You free Friday?

Almost one whole week? My heart sinks a tiny little bit.

Me: yes, I'm free Friday.

Matty: Then it's a date. The second one.

Me: Serisously, that's such a weird hill to die on

///

On Sunday he sends me a picture of him in a park with Adam and Baby Hann and captions it: "Is it possible we have a favorite person in common?". I know he's referring to the child but I can't help but reply "I don't like Adam *that* much??" which earns me a bunch of laughing emojis.

///

On Monday I send him a photo of my super messy kitchen after trying to cook a halfway decent meal and caption it with "if one of your future date ideas involves cooking, I'm out" to which he replies: "A woman who doesn't love to cook? you will never make a man happy :P"

///

He calls me on Tuesday evening just as I'm in the middle of wrapping Christmas presents. "What are you up to at the moment?" he asks innocently enough.

"I'm trying to not lose my mind while gift wrapping?"

"For Christmas?? It's only the beginning of December!"

"And I hate Christmas shopping so each year I make one day at the beginning of December designated Christmas-present-day where I get all the gifts I need to get so I can relax for a whole year after that. Except for the part where I need to figure out how to wrap a pan"

"A pan?"

"Yeah you know the cooking thing. It's almost like a pot but..."

"I know what a pan is, woman" he laughs.

"It sounded like you wanted an explanation. I'm not judging, there are a lot of complicated words."

"you're such a menace. I meant why are you giving away pans for Christmas? that's a bit of a... weird gift?" he's still laughing.

„Hey, it's a nice pan and my sister-in-law asked for one, I’m not weird, I promise“

"I can't believe I'm asking this but do you want help wrapping gifts?"

"You mean now?"

"Yeah, I'm still at the studio but that's not too far from where you said you lived"

"Honestly, Matty, that would save my sanity and my evening"

"Cool, then I'm coming over"

"The place is a mess and tiny so don't expect much"

"Seriously, Hannah, you don't cook, you don't clean, what ever are you doing with your time??" his tone is obviously mocking.

"Be nice, I have a pan to hit you with if you get too cheeky"

"Uuuh, maybe I'm into that??"

"Please, don't be?"

We both laugh, I give him my address and we hang up.

An hour later I open the door to an overly excited Matty holding a bottle of red wine and grinning from ear to ear.

He hands me the bottle and adds "It sounded like you could use the moral support"

"Matty, I have to confess something to you" I say in a serious tone.

His expression changes and he furrows his brow. "What is it? Is everything ok?"

"I'm afraid I'm more of a white wine girly" I say with a mocking sad expression and a pout

"Pffffff, I thought you liked that Malbec the other day just fine"

"And I felt like a proper French philosopher drinking it"

"Fucking French philosopher" he laughs.

I lead him into the living room where the epitome of the gift wrapping mess is located and get two glasses from the kitchen. He pours the wine, takes a glass and looks around.

"Cosy" he nods

"Messy" I sigh

"Did you manage to wrap the pan?"

"Not yet"

"Why don't you just put it in a box and wrap that?"

"Thought of that, but I don't have a box that fits the fucking thing"

"Ok teamwork then" He takes a sip of the wine, puts his glass down on the coffee table, claps his hands and goes "what do you need me to hold?"

And that is how Matty and I end up on my living room floor, me giving instructions and cutting tape, him holding the paper in place, until it is finally done and the fucking pan is wrapped in paper.

"You could turn it upside down, draw a face on it and sell it as a duck"

"No more experiments, I'm just happy the fucking thing is wrapped in something"

We drink some more wine and wrap some more gifts although none of them prove to be as challenging as the pan.

"Hey will you help me wrap my gifts... later in December... when I actually manage to get something?" he asks and for a second he seems kind of shy

"Only if there's wine again"

"Just tell me which wine you like"

"Pinot Grigio"

"Whatever that is"

"You're the wine nerd??"

"I never said that!" he laughs.

His phone he had placed on the coffee table, before making himself comfortable on the floor, rings. I instinctively look and see the caller ID says "Denise".

"Oh sorry, I have to get that" he takes the phone and goes to my tiny kitchen.

I try not to follow the conversation which is kind of impossible in my rather small flat. He doesn't say much but I can make out a "looking forward to seeing you tomorrow" and that he ends the call with "love you".

My heart sinks. He has a girlfriend? Of course he has. That was to be expected when I think about it. He's handsome, successful, fills arenas with girls who love him... and on top of that he's funny and lovely. What a fool am I to believe he could ever be interested in me...

Matty comes back in the living room and just says "Sorry 'bout that"

"'s alright" I mumble. Yeah good job hiding your disappointment.

"Actually I probably should get going, it's getting late and you most likely have work tomorrow?"

"I do, yeah... Thanks so much for your help and the wine" I try my best at a fake smile.

"See you Friday?" he asks and I almost answer that no we won't see each other on Friday and that the date is off since he's obviously not single and I don't date men who aren't single, but I also don't want to explain to him that I kind of listened to a private conversation of his so I just choke out a "hmm yeah, see you Friday" before closing the door behind him.

Chapter 3

[1eos]

your manager needs to calm down... in an alternate universe it would be so funny if you dragged in a rocking chair to your desk. like what is she gonna say now. its honestly a testament to your work ethic that she can only complain about your posture LMAO. sounds like she is reallyyyyy digging deep for reasons to get angry.

but onto my real question. mx kendra when you are developing your original story, what process do you go about designing characters + outlining plot, etc? is it in random bits and pieces or do you try to plan it out chronologically? im not very talented at constructing stories but i do have a few OCs and ideas, but i feel overwhelmed by the idea of planning everything out. i know i ultimately need to sit down and write but i would love some advice or insight if you have any! thank you!

her head would fucking explode if i brought in a rocking chair lmaooooooooooooooooooooooo 😭😭😭😭 and she's scraping the bottom of the barrel and she knows it bc some ppl got 1 on 1 meetings abt their vagues and she couldn't even do it to me bc it would sound so silly to tell someone to sit still

but omg planning a whole story is SO overwhelming. i developed all my stuff in bits and pieces so trying to organize everything has been so daunting BUT not too long ago i became determined to get everything down and i found some youtube videos that really got me together. im doing a comic and struggled with taking the oc lore in my head and merging it into the chronological story i want to tell. bc i have sooooooo much background on a character but that background may not come out until way later in the story u know? and then bc my lore is in prose but the final content would be visual right? so i did some digging and stumbled upon this video!

basically her process is writing everything down in a story format. like just write every detail that comes to mind then create ANOTHER document where u take your prose and start breaking it down into a script like format adding in a bunch of visuals u want and THEN you storyboard from the script. it made a lot of stuff click

and then i edited the process to work for me as someone who's super scattered w my lore. so what im doing now is taking where i want my story to start and just writing. and as each character or story detail is introduced i go to a special section of the document called notes and write out a random bit of lore associated with that. and i'll even write out future events i know i want to happen so when i get to them in the actual chronological story prose i can take what ive already written and insert it into the timeline

so for example when as im following one stream of conscious as to how i want the first chapter to open and i get to an oc's introduction i bold the oc's name and then make a section where i then dump all of the character history that bounces around in my head. and then i go back to the chronological story. and another thing that's helped is when im plotting my story when two characters have an interaction or a character has an interaction w something important that explains a bit of their character i write a breakdown on that moment in that point in time.

for the longest ive tried to do everything chronologically and only write something down once it comes up in the timeline but im accepting that it is NOT the best way for me to work 😭😭😭😭but its been soooooo nice to let myself run free. i'll write out a character's whole backstory in my random tidbit document and then sprinkle it in bit by bit in the chronological timeline document

and it really helps stave away the feelings of being overwhelmed/pressure to be perfectly organized as u write on the first go. ik my process is specifically for comics but even if ure writing a novel maybe this can be of some help 💖

[purity-town]

No update today -- next chapter's cover has had a good chunk of progress made on it, but I'm too busy tomorrow to get it finished up to post at a reasonable time. (This works out well anyhow, as I'll be moving back down for college next week, so if the current page wasn't partially finished already I may have not had the time to complete an update.) In the meantime, finally getting around to posting ask responses (below the cut)!

I'm really glad to hear you're liking it! Life's been a little crazy lately, so updates have been more scattered than I'd like, but I'm still thoroughly enjoying making this comic, so I'm you're enjoying reading it!

Looking at the timestamps, the first page was released on December 12th, 2020. So we’re just past 2 and a half years now!

The actual “development” of the story technically goes a bit further back to the time around the 1.4 update release, as I was getting really into the game lore and wrote up some worldbuilding ideas. Then in late November of 2020 I started planning a fanfic based on that, did a short 2-page comic set in that AU for fun, and then ended up expanding that original fanfic into the current, longer comic!

I’m gonna tentatively say yes! At least, one per Andrew and the Clothier each. There wouldn’t really have been a reason to make more than one of Andrew. There technically could’ve been more made of the Clothier, but one was all that was really needed.

Fortunately this current set of backgrounds outside of the dungeon is relatively simple, as I reuse the base coloring for the columns and adjust the perspective/lighting as necessary (each column is actually two pieces -- one “flat” side and one “angled” side).

I have a pretty limited capacity for doing backgrounds, so I tend to use tricks like this to reuse them where I can, haha. The first few backgrounds for an area tend to be harder, as I need to make assets and figure out how I want lighting and so on to work, but from there it usually gets easier.

It's still dependent on the background's design, of course -- backgrounds that are painted (usually outdoors) are a much different experience to work with than areas with detailed lineart and textured surfaces, such as the tavern and Andrew's kitchen. I'm slowly getting used to the perspective tools in Clip Studio Paint, though, which is helping a lot with drawing indoor spaces!

In all honesty, I was mostly focused on making it immediately recognizable even in silhouette, and that it fit well on the page, rather than focusing on making it perfectly to scale or the likes, haha.

Design-wise I find the Wall of Flesh to be super interesting -- it visually ties the “first” boss of progression (EoC) in with the last boss (Moonlord). And it’s overall very jarring, in that it’s easy to accidentally summon and turns the Underworld into an inescapable auto scroller in a way none of the other bosses do. And of course the story/lore significance, etc. etc. etc.

So when the time comes, I hope I can do it justice!

Honestly, I’m not sure! I still haven’t totally decided how that whole sequence of events will go -- some parts of it are very clearly planned out, others not so much. In a general sense, I do think that Chris’ reaction could vary significantly with the circumstances -- how much of a shock it is, and if he understands the significance of it -- but generally wouldn’t be good, in a horrified/panicking sense. 

At the current point in the comic, Chris *does* have a general idea that something weird is up with Andrew, just based on what Heather/Malik/Becca were saying (including Heather’s mention of “burns”), plus Andrew leaving in a hurry that morning and brushing it off when asked about it. He doesn’t believe that Andrew is evil, of course, just that he’s dealing with some things, and Chris is appropriately concerned.

So- yeah, finding a doll of Andrew in the Underworld- honestly, there are a lot of ways for him to take it badly.

But hey, once he has the doll, Hardmode won’t be far away, and that’ll bring a whole new host of problems for him to focus on instead!

[the-autumn-apple-artworks]

OPEN COMMISSIONS!

Sup sillies !!

I've decided to try out commissions to support me through University and gain some experience as this will probably end up being one of my main source of income (I plan to be a freelance artist + open either YouTube or Twitch or even both slay)

Since my University classes will take me occupied for most of the day (from 9am to 6pm), the waiting times will be a bit high and the slots very few (3 by default, 5 if I really manage to do it)

So pls be patient and thank you for any kind of support that you will end up providing me, I love you sillies <3 /p

‣ PERSONAL use ONLY

‣ Do NOT use it for any kind of merch or anything that would work as a source of profit. Other than that, do whatever you want with it

‣ Please CREDIT if you decide to share it around, do NOT claim it as yours

‣ As the artist I have the right to keep the credit and use your commission as future commissions' examples. The artwork will be obviously covered in watermark and you'll have the original one with the signature

‣ Please keep in mind that you will be paying the FULL PRICE FIRST, immediately after we establish all the details and the official price, I do not plan on charging for minor changes but I may think about adding a fee if the change is extremely radical and will force me to redo the entire composition from scratch (around like, $5 or something)

‣ I know this may sound very dumb but please PROVIDE DETAILS, give proper references, describe me the pose, BE CRYSTAL CLEAR about what you want. I know it's boring but it'll make my job significantly easier and will make it so that your commission will arrive much faster

I WILL draw

• Robots

• Anthro (Furries, Hollow Knight characters... y'know)

• Humans

• Object-heads

• Minor body-horror (Ex: eyes and/or mouths in places where they aren't supposed to be)

• Mild gore/violent content

• Any kind of shipping as long as it's not problematic (self-shipping, OCxOC, OCxCanon etc etc)

• Slightly suggestive stuff

I WON'T draw

• Complex robots/mecha (Ex: Transformers)

• Feral or any complex anthro (Ex: Pokemon, My little pony characters, etc)

• NSFW (Again, suggestive is fine, just not straight up smut)

• Anything offensive/problematic

• In general anything super detailed/complex/close to realism

• Heavy/Extreme gore

I'll mainly do my commissions through Artistree

Which is directly connected to my STRIPE account.

It's safe, it's user friendly and supports artists

When you request a commission with Artistree, the system will take care of the procedure step by step and it's very intuitive! The artist you commission won't have a fee when you pay and your commission will help plant a tree! How cool is that!

I don't like to use PAYPAL due to how badly it treats its users...

But, if you prefer to pay with it (which is totally fair), then my Ko-Fi is also awailable

BTW‼️

Other payments would be Robux, Steam games from my wish list, Discord Nitro, etc. For that, please contact me on DISCORD: the_autumnapple

... still I put it as an additional option cuz why not, I'm on desperate times atm and I prefer to try save money for myself instead of having to keep asking my parents for it, also cuz it could totally help me by default cuz I could have my own money that I've gained myself for eventual emergencies, you get me

Other than that, Artistree + Stripe combo is hella preferred, tho that'll be up to y'all

Before you pick: A heads up to the general ADDITIONS!

• Flat background: +$0

• Simple background/scenery: +$5

• Complex character that isn't in the "Won't draw" list (Ex: multiple limbs, heavily detailed clothing, etc): +$5

• Every new character added will cost an additional half of the total price of the selected commission (Ex: a rendered full body with an additional character will be $30 + $15 = $45)

Now on the actual commission types‼️

That's all‼️ Hope this will go well and happy commissioning ‼️

EDIT: Realized I forgot to add my Carrd with all my socials and info so WOE‼️CARRD BE UPON YE‼️‼️

[parrot-with-a-mohawk]

B the Beginning opinions and season 2 rewrite

The opinions

Recently, I rewatched B the Beginning, since I found out it had a season 2 and was like "heck yeah, I'd like to see more of those characters and that world".

Season 1 was great. 9.5/10. The plot was woven well and it was compact, the characters were adorned with small details and quirks that made them complex people rather than just characters and the animation and direction were full of character. Legendary outro song. The whole show had it's own unique feel. I don't really have any criticisms.

Season 2 was garbage. The plot was all over the place. The characters were reduced to caricatures of their former selves. The snappy dialogue and the neverending and meaningful action (even in the short quiet scenes) were replaced with neverending dialogue and short and meaningless action scenes. The animation and direction were bland and generic. The outro song was also generic. To me, it was a bore even as background noise. I quit during episode 4.

Which is why I made a rewrite of season 2 in my head. I don't claim this rewrite to be a fix, or even good. I'm sure whoever worked on season 1 would be able to write something much better than what I am about to vomit here.

The rewrite

The season starts with Keith and Lily together at a crime scene, eating freshly baked bean buns and sharing clues. They say "yeah, this is definitely a copy-cat" then the shot pans out to reveal the Killer B signature on the wall.

Cue intro, then the scene shifts to Kirisame showing up just like the original, but, instead of his "new world order" thing, his plan would have been to make Koku the king of Cremona. He was shown in season 1 to be the one most loyal to Koku. Koku would refuse, because he just wants to live peacefully with Yuna and his violin repair job, even offering Kirisame his arm back. Kirisame says no and that he'll be back.

Meanwhile, the RIS is super busy, because a big series of murders is happening: the king's heirs are being killed one by one and all of them have the "Killer B" signature on them (the crime scene at the start was also one of those heirs). Also, Keith is nowhere to be found (again). Lily is the one to have to find him (again).

Lily and Keith both know it's not Koku this time, even though the signatures look like his now. All of the crime scenes had golden ampule residue, including inside the bodies and all of the vicious wounds happened after death.

Keith is doing independent investigations and has already figured out Kirisame is involved. Then, late at night, at the heir crime scene from the beginning, Keith finds some golden ampule residue and also meets with Kirisame. The latter is like "Canopus, you have to convince Koku to claim his rightful place" and Keith, in his mind, is like "yeah, this guy is NOT the mastermind" (with a subtle close-up shot of his eyes and no inner thoughts monologue, to let the audience interpret the scene).

Anyways, there is only one heir remaining (it's the bald dude with the ginger beard) and RIS has to protect him, together with all the cops and the royal security. Meanwhile, Lily is revisiting all of the other heir crime scenes and uses her own methods to deduce the mystery. She discovers that all of them were cut with the same sharp weapon that was used to carve the Killer B signs and asks Yuna about it. Koku is also nowhere to be found. Yuna says that it was definitely done with blue steel (because maybe it leaves some kind of residue or something), so Kirisame couldn't have killed them, because he doesn't have any of that, since Koku has it as his arm. So, together they go to the library to do some research on the royal family history, to find some more leads. Lily finds out from Yuna that the royal family branched out some 1000 years ago and that the current king is from that branch, while the original bloodline fell into obscurity. Lily then wonders if Koku might be of the original bloodline, and that is why Kirisame wants him to be king that badly, but Yuna says no, the royal family are heirs of the guy who killed the first Black King (she did lots of research together with Keith).

Suddenly, Lily gets a call from Boris, who called everyone. The last heir disappeared, everyone is dead, including a bunch of armed strangers and Mario is gravely injured and unconscious. On the way to the station, Koku shows up, all beaten and bruised, but he heals while he tells them basically the same thing and that the apparent leader of that attack had a mask on his face, so he couldn't tell who it was. Then, a video transmission is put on tv. Someone is tied to a chair, with a bag on his head, in a castle room, and Kirisame's voice booms out "Let the rightful King take his place! If he doesn't claim his throne in the next 24 hours, then the person on the chair will die and we know you don't want this to happen to this particular person.".

Everyone at RIS is now in full activity. Kaela is tracking down the source of the transmission, Bran is gathering data on all medieval places, Eric is managing everyone and Boris is contacting all of the important and helpful people who are left. Lily realises that she can faintly hear waves while Kirisame is talking, so Kaela and Bran narrow it down and find out that there is a lone tower at sea, that had been around since the first king of Cremona.

Koku gets out his wings and everyone is like "What is this, what is happened, Lily explain". So Lily tells them the truth about Killer B. Everyone is conflicted and Chin-four-eyes says that he should have all three of them arrested, but they'll deal with this after the first heir is saved.

Then, Boris gets a call from the hospital. It's Mario and he tells them that they were attacked by a small army of people (who the audience knows they're all Reggies), and that Koku fought most of them off and that it's thanks to him that he's alive to tell the tale. Lily insists that Koku is a good guy, while Yuna is ready to throw hands with anyone who would touch even just the tip of one of his feathers. Everyone is conflicted, but Eric takes the lead and starts directing everyone to their priorities. Kaela gives them communication devices and sets up a tracking software (for their security, but also just in case they try to flee). Lily, Koku and Yuna get a boat and head to the King's Tower.

It's strangely empty, except for a few other boats. Koku goes bird and flies to the top. Lily and Yuna climb the stairs there (actually, does Yuna also have wings? I remember both skeletons had wings, so Yuna should be able to go bird also). They find the hostage and Lily pulls the bag from his face, but it's not the heir. It's Keith, all bruised up and unconscius. Lily tries to wake him up, but she doesn't get to do much, because Kirisame shows up and holds a monologue about Koku "finally coming to take his place as rightful ruler of this land". Keith wakes up briefly and tells Lily ina muted voice that Kirisame is not the mastermind. Koku jumps to fight Kirisame but, just then, someone comes from behind and stabs Kirisame in the back. Kirisame dies, but not before giving his last words ("Koku,... you are... our true king"). The backstabber comes in to the light and it's... the last heir guy. He manipulated Kirisame to do his bidding, so he could be the last heir and inherit the throne. Now that Kirisame is dead, everything is resolved and they can just take him back to Creona so he can be crowned. It's not like they can do anything to him, since he's crucial to the succesion and it would cause some more war, when Creona had just recovered from the previous one. Koku can't help but notice that the knife in his hand is made of blue steel ("so you were the one impersonating Killer B"). Koku tells Lily to get Keith and get away from here, to somewhere safe, then he proceeds to fight with the last heir guy. Lily gets Keith and moves to the boat, while Yuna protects them from the mini-army of Reggies that was now raiding the place.

During the fight, last heir guy tells Koku about the line of kings and the branching out and that it connects to the Jaula Blanca institute. That one of the big hands there was actually his uncle/grandfather/something, who was also a scion of the first king, therefore making Koku also a rightful heir to the throne (which would make his killing all the more satisfactory).

Finally, on the boat, after Yuna dispatched the last Reggie, Keith fully wakes up and tells them that he know who the real mastermind is. It's not the last heir guy either. Is the king himself. While Keith was imprisoned there, Kirisame told him about the new age of prosperity for the Reggies Koku would bring and that, soon, the Reggies would no longer need golden ampules to live, but that Koku needed to take the throne for that to happen. Kirisame was also dropping hints that he didn't have much left to live/keep his sanity anyway, because he was chugging golden ampules like water. Keith figured the rest out by himself.

Basically, the mastermind was someone who had an interest to have the heirs kill eachother and that the golden ampules had something to do with it. The Reggies would die without those ampules, so they clearly contain something to prolong life. Therefore, the mastermind was someone who was seeking immortality as a human and who was also rich enough to be able to invest in research to make the ampules work on normal humans, not just Reggies. And that someone could only be the king.  Lily was like "you crazy, immature, reckless, good for nothing, dumbass", while holding his face in her hands and crying. Right then, Koku, landed on the boat, carrying the unconscius and beaten up last heir guy (Kirisame's body turned to ash). They went back to the mainland.

Back at mainland, Koku, Yuna and Lily instantly get their hands cuffed, as well as last heir guy (still fainted), and they have to explain the Lohengrim prophecy thing, together with the king's conspiracy, with Keith backing them up. Kaela and Mario understand. Bran doesn't really agree with all this. Boris sees Lily as a daughter, so he looks at this with an open mind and tells Eric to do the same. Eric says that they'll see if they can confirm this when they interogate last heir guy later.

They interrogate him and confirm everything. Last heir guy was like "Father never cared about us anyway! He was always absorbed in his research and politics, that he didn't even notice his sons and nephews were dying". They also found out from him that he was the one who poisoned the other heirs with golden ampules. So now the RIS was making a plan the stage an interview with the king and somehow get him to reveal the location of the research facility. Thankfully, a big meating with the press was happening in a few days, related to the last heir's arrest.

Lily and Bran disguise themselves as reporters and go to the press meeting and ask the king about the "miracle cure he's investing in that they heard rumors about". Every other reporter becomes super interested in this and everyone starts pestering the king. That was the plan, because, while all this was happening, Kaela was hacking into the royal computers, while Mario and Boris were doing spy work, in case it was all on paper. They find some stuff about chemical recepies and also a secret schedule with a "special" meeting at one of the historical sights.

That was all the proof they needed. All of the RIS agens come out and arrest the king for crimes against humanity. The king flees to the royal chambers. The agents run after him. In the royal chamber, the king opens a drawer and drinks the golden ampule inside. The shot then pans to Koku, sitting in the window frame all menacingly. The king says, without turning "I was planning to save this for after I framed my own death. Oh, well." The king's body then starts to shift all weirdly and he becomes young again. His hair is dark red and he sprouts wings, just like Koku's. Epic aerial battle ensues. The king is very strong and nearly kills Koku, who was already tired from fighting constantly. Still, Koku wins epicly and kills the king (strikes him doooowwwnnn).

Epilogue happens. After Lily and Yuna bring genetic evidence, it is proved that Koku is a legitimate heir. Koku is crowned as king. He takes Yuna as his queen and invests in golden ampule research to make ampules that have permanent effects to make Reggies healthy and autonomous even after 20 years of age. The kings death is ruled out as a stroke from overdose. Lily and Keith are on a nice date at the newly opened cafe. Keith is blushing aggresively the entire time. The other RIS guys are shown minding their personal lives in still shots (like, Boris with his grandkids, Bran playing a detective video game, Mario with 2 cats, Kaela with a big dog, Eric with his wife and kids, stuff like that), all with a chill anime song on the background. Or the season 1 outro. Or both.

[jackiebrackettt]

Figuring Out What RV Bus Kian Would've Lived in in Galloway

okay so first of all: kian canonically lived in an RV bus when he was growing up in Galloway and i have a recently discovered special interest in RVs and decided to figure out what this thing would look like. yippee ^_^

I have 3 main options (all Flxible -> more details on that later) the 1949 (originally a bus converted into a motorhome later on -> also a little earlier than timeline suggests) the 1955 (later than i'd like but this was the same year they started making RV buses (apparently)) and the 1956 (same as 1955 just throwing it in for some floor plan variety)

(1949 Flxible Clipper: click here for more pictures)

(1955 Flxible VL100 bus: click here for more pictures)

(1956 Flxible "Vistaliner": click here for more pictures)

i was trying to aim for around 1951 but around this time anyway a lot of RVs were custom built so wrt floor plan you can kinda just mix it up. i imagine kian's bedroom would've been one of the couches with a curtain around it for privacy shrug. kian's parents would've had the bed(/beds in some models although i imagine it'd be one bed in theirs) up the back

(just giving you the pictures straight up -> keep reading for background info + how I came to this conclusion)

(spent a lot of time on this so if you think it's interesting -> reblogs appreciated!)

establishing our timeline: kian was born in 1951 (33yrs old in 1984 -> the bitb was set) LETS SAY: if his parents were around 20 when he was born then they would've been born 1931. if they moved out together at 18, they would've been looking for RVs around 1949

now around this time due to roads not being great at supporting heavier vehicles (and people who weren't super super rich wanting a car as well as an RV) most people were after RV trailers instead of RV buses -> i believe that kian's parents originally had a car + trailer set up (examples later on) and then sometime around kian was born (1951) they sold their car + trailer to get an RV bus so they'd have enough room to raise a kid (<- this is all headcanon based on the logistics of RV history)

they definitely did not ever own a house because RVs were generally mostly bought by rich ppl (especially if they were RV buses) or poor ppl who bought one instead of a house (common during the depression -> prob where they got the idea). i imagine they originally continued travelling for a bit after kian was born/with the new RV and then settled down in galloway so he could make friends etc etc

it's difficult to search up the original prices for these things so i'm not sure what the comparison on prices between custom RV bus and House in Galloway would've been. which is why i'm saying they kept travelling for a bit just to like.. be on the safe side rather than assume they got an RV bus because it was cheaper than a house

the thing that's made this kind of difficult is RV buses didn't reallyyy exist around early 1950s -> they came into popularity around late 50s. however, there were a lot of people who would custom order/custom build RVs based off of bus/truck chassis. so took me a bit but i narrowed us down to the brand Flxible (info + 1949 bus pictures) (more info) (more info 2 -> custom coach corporation)

Flxible is still a little late for my personal understanding (1955 versus 1950/51) buuut it was a popular bus brand even before selling RVs so it's likely Kian's parents could've used a Flxible bus chassis/shell and had a motorhome custom built onto it (like the 1949 model above for eg). this also means they might not have a brand new bus so here's a list of flxible buses over time so you can pick one out urself if you really want to. starliners are probably too old though

Special Bit Of Info: if you headcanon one of kian's parents to be a mechanic (i guess.. his dad in this kinda era) that makes this whole thing much more simpler bc he could've just built one himself. actually admittedly i'm not sure whether that would've been more/less/equally expensive as custom ordering one.. but whatever

Likely Kian's Parents' RV Trailer + Car Set Up:

i dearly wish i could get better quality informative pics than this/any sort of date on them.. $375 back then (1949..?) is roughly $4,595 according to some converter thing i looked up. i didn't look Too much into these because they weren't as important as the galloway RV bus but Trotwood was active in the late 1940s (<- info + source of pictures)

the 1949 Thomson Avon is another potential trailer?

however if you'd like to look at other 1940s RV trailers go here. as i said, i haven't looked through them all. please be aware that not every RV on here has pictures From the 1940s as they often span a couple of decades

What I Imagine Kian's Parents' RV Trailer + Car Set Up To Be In My Heart:

a chinook on a truck chassis (<- info + source of pictures)

i genuinely can't read this</3 so the exact layout is a little confusing to me but it seems to have the basics. but literally when i was thinking "oh they'd have had a trailer + car set up first" this rough design was what my brain gave me before i even started looking. unfortunately -> way too late for them. the earliest picture with this model that i can find is 1963 (above link)

anyway! this was a lot of fun :] i'm aware not many people might be interested enough to read through the whole thing but if you did -> thank you! i hope you enjoyed!

extra little fact: they stopped the production of RVs commercially during WWII and afterwards there was a bit of an RV boom -> kian's parents were too young to be in the war but this boom likely was what inspired them to go for an RV themselves

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Hello!! For the ask game: ✏️🖋️🖥️

(It’s nice to meet another sapphic aspec!)

Nice to meet another one too! Thanks for the ask!

I ended up writing A LOT about this ask! Super excited to share everything (thank you!!!) but it's super long so under the cut. But I did format a bit to make it hopefully easier to read.

✏️"what are your current WIPs about?"

The main WIPs that I'm currently focusing on are The Secret Portal and School of the Legends, the former of which with more focus.

The Secret Portal is about a group of preteens/teens who discover a portal to another dimension. This dimension is full of people with powers with a minority of those without. After decades of protests from the oppressed minority, tensions rose, and eventually turned into a war of two extremes.

Hard to explain how everything connects, but I appreciate the nuance and multi-perspective approach this needs, but man is it hard. So much brainpower to make this story work, but I'm proud of what I have.

Despite a young cast this is a YA series (think Stranger Things in terms of age of characters vs demographic. This is TV-14 so to speak). I focus heavily on young perspectives because a) I was a kid when writing this for the first time (see later this post) so it just happened but also b) it ended up working thematically with a level of innocence needed there. Bonus, c) being in education I'm fascinated with young minds.

Still a long way to go and currently in the beta reading stage (see pinned post), which is definitely needed given a wide range of topics and fully appreciated to those who have given me their advice.

Planned to be a five book series that's essentially a long continuation from each installment to the next.

School of the Legends is a much easier story to write even if I don't have everything planned yet. It deals with various legends, stories, fairy tales, nursery rhymes, etc. in the same universe, but My Version, aka, things are based on the above, but not a direct copy.

The titular school is an international school meant for those gifted (people born with powers), magicked (people learning magic as a skill), and cursed (people who have powers thrust upon them).

I have an outline for the overall plot of the series (four books are planned) but not super far into it.

Have more characters planned than I know what to do with but most will probably be in the background no matter how sad that makes me.

🖋️"what inspired you to write your WIPs?"

Hm... Sometimes it's just impulse but let's backtrack.

TSP was first conceived as a grade school creative writing project. I just went overboard. Let's get into it.

Went into more detail on my website and tiktok, but the short version is that it was loosely inspired by a stuffed animals game from when I was a little younger which was in turn was loosely inspired by (drumroll) The Rainbow Magic fairy series. Don't know how that happened, so I guess that was a huge influence despite no similarities now.

My friends all inspired parts of it, as most of the OCs have their roots being friend inserts (gone now but it's funny the fragments that are left over from this).

What inspired me to keep going, however, was actually a bit of pride. I was super proud of the original assignment (15 pages!!! Twice as much as the second longest!! I got a 100%!!) and was also super invested in the world I made.

Admittedly when middle school me decided to turn this into a more """"grown up"""" series, it go really cringe...but I was so ambitious this would be published some day (HA).

TSP became what it is today due to an obsessive amount of writing in eighth grade (age 14) and hitting a block in all projects and deciding to start it over, very different from previous drafts.

SOTL was a bit of a passion side project that wasn't meaning to be #2 in WIPs, but I like where we are and it has more broad areas of inspiration.

What started my love for fairy tale adaptations were the Whatever After series and The Land of Stories series, especially the latter. I wanted to make my own version, so had some ideas for characters once again based on my friends. No plot ideas.

In early seventh grade I wrote a dreadful draft that included a "princess school" which was inspired by...I don't actually know I think I read a lot of princess school books but I don't remember the titles. So inspiration from there of course.

Other fairy tale retellings just increased my love for the subgenre, and I got more passionate about making my own, though each draft is so different it's hard to draw connections. It was basically an idea I tried until it worked.

🖥️"what types of writing do you do?"

Well, there's the obvious novel writing.

I love it. It's so hard but I live for the thrill.

Novels are more my thing because I have Too Many Ideas. I wrote a lot of short stories in my creative writing class and found them too limiting. Some may become novels, some maybe novellas. We will have to see.

Fiction is my thing but especially fantasy (I'm using this as a broad term that means "not realistic fiction" including sci-fi and other branches - I'm actually bad at high fantasy).

TSP has annoying sci-fi elements (I walked into this as if this project needed to be harder!), but SOTL is a more relaxed fantasy.

I love reading realistic fiction, but for my writing RF is too real sometimes, if that makes sense. That's obvious...idk how to get across what I'm saying, but I find myself able to express myself through fantasy when I'm doing my own creative writing.

Even in my creative writing class, I'd always make a fantasy story, since we never were told anything had to be realistic fiction. Never intentionally, that's just where my brain defaulted to. I can't think of a single realistic fiction idea I haven't scrapped completely.

It's not that I don't like RF, I LOVE reading it. But it's not for me writing.

I also tend to write geared toward Young Adult. Maybe I'll go for MG or New Adult but I think YA is my ballpark.

Outside of fictional writing, I mainly write reviews or analyses of other media.

I don't post these anywhere attached to this pen name, they're mainly just for me and my friends.

I don't need the world to know my opinions, but I need my opinions on paper. I am a writer by nature, so I feel a compulsion, an itch, to write down my thoughts on everything and anything.

And when I have super strong opinions about X media...well I gotta write about it. Whether it's short form reviews of movies, complex reviews of TV shows, rants about X subject, I gotcha.

I'm working hard on a review/analysis right now, so haven't worked on TSP in over a month, which is awful, but I need to reach a stopping point for this project before going back to it. I do think it is a needed break, though, since I find marathoning writing for TSP before needing to take a step back before another marathon.

I also find analyzing media, why I like it, why I don't, what worked, what didn't, helps me in my writing. By examining other works, I realize how I can improve my craft, by either doing something or not doing something or learning from another media. They're intertwined, to me.

I do writing for school, too. Education major and am working on a case study. I actually like it?? Combining two interests is interesting who knew?

And that's the end of this super long post!! This was so much fun thank you for the ask and thank you and anyone who actually read this far!

[marchdancer]

OK so after @tired-reader-writerand @importantdestinydefendor have posted your crest for your Arslan fanfiction. I was super hyped and got my started coat of arms out again for my Oc Kayra to finally finish it. I almost completely reworked it but I'm very happy with the result.

Once as information in front away. The coat of arms does not consist of white borders. Unfortunately, since I don't have any digital drawing tools like a tablet or a pen or an app (shame on me), I tried to work on shapes and outlines. Unfortunately, I couldn't color all the outlines in white with this program and the result looked… well, not really nice. That's why the outlines are shown in black here…but you can imagine everything in white on a red background.

So the coat of arms is easily recognizable based on Shapur's coat of arms. I thought I'd go with the canon variant here, where family crests are similar.

So now to the symbolism I used in the coat of arms. I can already anticipate that not all symbols here have their origin in Arabic/Persian. I'll go into more detail on that later. I'm trying not to spoil too much here because I'm not that far into the story or haven't written it yet. However, here is some background information on Ka

The first thing you see at the top of the coat of arms is a dahlia. The dahlia is a popular flower and has a special meaning: in the language of flowers, we can use it to express "forever yours". The symbolism of this summer flower also stands for strength or as a sign of charity and gratitude. But it also stands for renewal and birth.

I found the symbolism here very appropriate as Kayra has gone through a "remake" and healing process throughout the story. This process marks her strength, for which she herself is very grateful. At this point in the process, Kayra's feelings for Shapur have fluctuated, and for a time she even hated him.

This is where the symbolism "forever yours" comes into play. Because after Kayra was reborn in a way, she realized that Shapur was too deep in her heart to simply forget him or not love him at all.

This flower is also equated with the sun in some cultures, which is very fitting because Kayra is also often compared to the sun due to her red hair and her charity. Personally, I realized back then that I always liked comparing Tahamyne to the moon. Maybe I created Kayra as a counterpoint to hers… who knows. The flower grows in many regions, but here it is meant to represent the region of Japan.

This is for the following reason and here comes again @tired-reader-writer in the game. Because Kayra has to leave Pars with the age of 21 and did not return until nine years later.

Originally I had planned to have them travel further east…so probably towards Serica and beyond. But since I'm not familiar with the culture, I changed my mind at the time and wanted to let them travel more north. But somehow I got stuck at a certain point and a lot of things didn't make sense. After me with @tired-reader-writer

I'm going back to my original plan. However, I quickly realized that Kayra was very restless at this point in her journey and would not have stayed in one place for long. I then exchanged views with a friend and she then said why not tell a story like in the novel eat, pray, love. Here, the main character travels through different countries to find himself again and that is why the dahlia is also associated with the country Japan. As a point for Kayra's journey……and that leads us straight to the branches below this flower.

These are sage leaves which represent healing and thus Kayra's ability to heal with her magic and her knowledge of the healing arts and medicinal herbs. She acquired this ability on her first stop on her journey, in a country which will be based on our Nepal (at least according to the plan).

The fox in the middle of the coat of arms stands for Kayra herself. Like the wolf for Isfan, the fox can be equated with Kayra. Not only does the color red play a role here (in relation to Kayra's hair color and the fox's fur), but also adaptability and skill. As a power animal, the fox stands for your own life! Foxes are the symbol of growth and inspiration, but also cleverness, cunning and magic. As a soul animal, the fox shows that it is time to act. Especially the area of magic inspired me in this animal. The fox is also equated with magic in almost every culture. But the aspect of action also stands out here, as Kayra prefers to tackle things directly rather than spend hours discussing them (diplomacy isn't exactly her forte either, maybe that's why she gets along so well with Kubard?.

But the fox also stands for cunning, cunning and deceit. This doesn't mean that Kayra is treacherous, but Narsus already has a hard time playing chess against her. She is also very adaptable and really excellent at hiding and disguise (who do you think Elam got the wig from when he was spying in Ecbatana as a girl).

Another aspect….have you ever heard a fox laugh? No? Should you do it… that's what Kayra's laughter sounds like. At first everyone is surprised, but this laughter is so contagious that you have to laugh along with it.

So finally we have the gladioli at the bottom of the coat of arms. These flowers are very old and were given to victorious gladiators as gifts in ancient times. The name comes from the Latin term "gladius", which stands for a Roman short sword. This flower originally comes from Africa and the Arab countries. Thus, the flower symbolizes strength, victory and pride. This meaning dates back to Roman times where gladiators literally fought for death or gladioli, for the victor of the fight was showered with gladioli. Also, the bulb of the flower is believed by some cultures to possess magical powers. But also the meaning "You pierce my heart" - (Due to its sword-like leaves) the flower was associated with infatuation. The flower can also symbolize love at first sight, sincerity, and remembrance. Which in this context stands for the connection between Shapur and Kayra as lovers.

But this flower can also be seen as a symbol for the family. Blooming in a variety of colors, the gladiolus represents the diversity and uniqueness of each member of the family, yet all are bound by a common bond. The flower also represents sincerity, honesty and integrity, values that are important in building strong and lasting family relationships.

The gladiolus is a powerful reminder of the strength, courage and diversity that exists in families. Since family is incredibly important to Kayra and she lost her parents early, this flower has a very special connection to her. She has found a new family in Shapur and Isfan who loves her more than anything and wants to protect her. However, she also sees in Arslan and the group a family that is not connected by blood but has continued to strengthen their cohesion through their strengths and abilities.

I personally think that the gladiolus reflects Kayra very well.

So I don't think I've ever written such a long post but I'm just so super happy with the end result. We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

[springsaladgaming]

Progress Update 2/1/23

I said I'd have a more comprehensive progress update before the month was out, but I'm a dirty liar! We get a February 1st update instead! In my defense, I get confused about whether my sister's birthday is on the 30th or the 31st sometimes, and that confusion made me confused about what day it actually was too.

So here's the more official first progress update of the year in which I'm going to talk about my current thoughts on Ninelives and what I will be working on for the foreseeable future.

It will be a year in March since the last official update to Ninelives, and for that I'm so sorry! Last year was a struggle in multiple ways. After such a long stint of lockdowns, quarantines, and travel restrictions (self-imposed or otherwise), people began going on vacation like crazy last year, and I was very busy with work. The work itself is not super time consuming, but the instability of it (I'm constantly driving around and sleeping in different places) certainly didn't help my focus. And then the depression hit me pretty hard the last few months of the year. It was all I could do to finish the first chapter of my other project and didn't leave me with much energy to think about Ninelives.

All that aside, I have a pretty serious helping of time blindness to go with my ADHD. Sometimes I will think it's only been a few days or weeks since I last worked on my writing, and then I turn around and realize months have passed. It's something I'm trying to be better about, but sometimes I just have to accept that I'm gonna slip up a lot.

I could sit here and make excuses and apologies all day, but I'm not going to! 🙆🏾‍♀️ I'll just finish this segment with a big ol' thank you for being patient with me! So let's continue on!

Regarding Ninelives as it currently stands, there are some things about the layout and UI that I'm not entirely happy with. There's a strong chance in the future that I will transfer all the work to a completely different template. I also think I've learned a lot more from working on my other project, so there might be general improvements to the way I've coded some things in the background. These aren't necessarily things that will be super noticeable from an outside perspective but will improve the efficiency of the choices and passages.

However, I've also been getting better about working on the drafting and coding separately. The last time I worked on Ninelives in earnest, I was performing both tasks simultaneously, and this was causing me to hit a lot of unnecessary speed bumps along the way. As such, I've been focusing on the two more separately with my other project, and I know now that's what I need to be doing for Ninelives too.

So any improvements and changes to the layout, UI, and anything coded up to this point isn't something I plan to worry about right now. The immediate priority is Chapter 3, and I want to talk a little bit about why Chapter 3 was always going to be such a big hurdle.

I've mentioned before that certain parts of Ninelives are getting rewrites from the original ChoiceScript version that I started with. Chapter 3 is going to have the most significant changes, going so far as to be a large chunk of completely new content. Some parts of the original Chapter 3 are getting carried over, but a lot of it is getting cut to make way for some events that I think will better lay out the greater plot.

To go into detail, while still keeping things mostly spoiler-free: The new Chapter 3 involves a party. This party will be an opportunity to gain more insight into what's going on with Sungjae, meet the ??? RO that I've been talking about all this time, and establish some more of the character skills a little bit earlier in the story. Oh yeah, it's also a party the MC is most definitely not supposed to be at. (How good is your MC at talking their way into a formal event?)

It's also a much-needed revamp of the inciting incident, because, let's be honest, the original inciting incident was way too random. (That's what plotting by the seat of your pants gets you.)

I think the revamped Chapter 3 is going to do a lot for the story that the original Chapter 3 simply did not do, so I'm excited to finally get it into a written draft.

So the first order of business is writing Chapter 3, no coding included. Once it's written, the process of coding it is a lot shorter. I don't have an ETA, but Ninelives is my full focus right now. I'll keep y'all posted with progress updates!

Thanks for sticking with me!

[edensundae]

OC Spiderman AU 🕷️

Spidey sketch with a writing bit by yours truly! This is my OC Spider-Man AU. It’s a mix of all three spider film franchises, the PS4 games, & the spiderverse movie… but with my own twists and OCs! It’s not meant to be comic accurate or anything special, just a bit of fun.

By no means am I a writer, this is just something I scribbled down in my notes app and wanted to share so a bit of this AU could make sense! It’s a combo mix of brief character descriptions & actual story. also NOPE I did not proofread. I’m lazy like that 🫶🏽 I plan to make storyboards with the described scenes. These are like the bare bones of it! :)

——— CW for stabbing, it’s not detailed or anything!

Background on Hannah Cooper

Hannah Cooper originally worked at Oscorp as an assistant, but quickly climbed the ranks and begun working with some of the more… dangerous projects. She was moved on to work with a lab created Symbiote of some kind, but the project was quickly shut down due to health regulations and how toxic the substance could be. Osborn (soon to be green goblin, & infected with symbiote himself) asks Hannah to take on the project outside of the company & although dangerous and illegal, he promises her extremely high pay and head of research within Oscorp. She takes on the project and slowly becomes obsessed and (literally) infected by it.

She’s a mix of Doc Ock & Symbiote, using her skills in robotics and biology, she builds robotic arms like tubes where symbiote and flow through and around them without completely losing shape. She wears a long white lab coat with dirty brass goggles & her hair tied up.

———

Background on Noah Cooper & the messy relationships (LOL)

Noah Cooper is young high school student and best friend/boyfriend of Jacob Briggs… aka Spider-Man. He’s also the little brother of (you guessed it!) Hannah. Yeah, a LOT to unpack.

As Jacob learns more and more about Oscorps sketchy secrets & connections to the most dangerous in the city, he naturally becomes curious and decides to investigate a strange lab privately funded by Osborn himself. While there, he discovers Hannah working there- and leaves as soon as he came. But unfortunately cameras in the area give her a sneaking suspicion of who he was.

Surprise! The next night Noah invites Jacob to dinner with his family, including Hannah. It gets SUPER awkward, Jacob and Hannah even get into strangely heated argument no one else at the table understands which only make her suspicions stronger.

A bit later on after Jacobs Spider-Man identity gets revealed to Noah, he tries to explain Hannah’s connection to the company and how much danger she’s in. Noah tries to defend her, but can’t help but agree she’s been acting strange lately. It ends in another heated argument of theirs which leaves them both upset at eachother for awhile

———

*imagine there is a ton of interesting filler lore that hints and the next villains and even multi-verse stuff*

———

Final battle scene;

after several minutes of fighting they both grow tired and desperate to have it end. She’s the most dangerous she’s ever been, and he’s the most vulnerable. While down, Jacob hears a familiar voice from the side but he can’t make out the words. He turns his attention to the sound and sees Noah climbing up the rubble with something in his hand. He stands proudly and raises it high as possible- a loud, horrible ring pours from the tiny device and leaves Hannah crumbling to the ground covering her ears, the symbiote begins to fall apart like kinetic sand. Noah sprints across the floor to Jacob and helps him up (also hands him some earbuds lol) Jacob begs and pleads for Noah to leave before he gets hurt, but he refuses and points to a new and improved spy-fly drone flys through the smoke and wreckage. With artificial webs, it blasts a web net over Hannah & alerts Jacob that it’d called for the NYPD’s R.A.F.T officers. The sound device begins to make a whirring sound, cutting in and out before completely shutting down. Hannah begins to recover and stand up again, Jacob tries but can barely get himself into a proper fighting position, he yells at Noah to leave again but doesn’t get a response back- he turns to him and sees him in shock. His sister towering 15 extra feet above him, wearing the same lab coat she’d come home in every day- she was so unrecognizable and familiar at the same time-it would be shocking for anybody. Jacob grabs Noah by the shoulders trying to shake him fully conscious again. They both start running for the exit once his legs start working again. A huge chunk of rubble and metal starts coming down right above Hannah, she swiftly moved out of the way, and decides to make one more shaky, blind stab towards Jacob. The combination of dust and smoke make it hard to see, but she could feel the impact. The dust falls and she sees Jacob huddled over Noah. From across the room. Distance police sirens grew louder and the surroundings flames died down. She slithered her way closer to the two. Jacob yells and cries to her, still hovering over the body. She leans down to his level and stares Jacob in the eyes with the first glimpse of remorse since this started. "I can fix him. If you let me go." She didn’t sound delusional or desperate, she was serious. Red and blue flashes filled the room and Jacob makes a promise, that if they crossed paths again, she wouldn’t make it out alive next time. As R.A.F.T officers flooded the scene, she left through the back of the building into the dark.

[carpe-diem-since-1899]

Trick or treat! 🦇

Hello hello so sorry for the late af reply (and other not replied asks, I promise I still remember them)

So!! We got these two big projects (?), The Angel and Fallen Angel Au™️ and The Joker and the King, an assassin/hitman au that I talked about forever ago. Both of them are still very much on the plotting/replotting stage ‘cause I have grown as a person/writer (also I’m just genuinely a slow writer/procrastinate a lot), and I am going to talk about their current state and some little headcanons I have for them! Keep in mind that some stuff are still super vague (yes I am aware it’s been years, I feel sad about that too) and I change my stuff all the time, and things might not aligne with my earlier posts. But yeah, here they are :)

The angel/fallen angel au

Currently state

This started off as, well, let’s call it a detour from another au, that is (You guessed it) In The Plotting Stage™️ and it has a magic/medieval/royal vibe, of which Race has a cool ability already, but I was like, hey, won’t it be cool if he also has wings

And to not Mary Sue-ify my favorite guy, I create another au, hence the angels/fallen angels au

Another thing is that I already got another au (The Joker and the King, aka TJTK) and that one focus on sprace, so this one is supposed to be about Javid, while Sprace being angsty in the background

The original plan was David trying to find a way to get back to Mayer’s boss who is neglecting worker’s right or smt

But it looks terrible and super boring after I plot it out twice, and just genuinely has quite a few plot holes since I’m shit with law stuff

I got a few options I’m playing with rn, but yeah this is what we got atm

It’s either gonna be a series with several stories from different characters’ povs and periods or it’s gonna be one long fic and with other additional stories

Headcanons/world building details

After actually reading (a tiny) part of the Bible, I have decided that this au has nothing to do with any angels or similar deities from any religion, the whole fallen angels thing is separate from again, any religion, and I’m gonna rework some background stuff to make it more clear about that. But yeah, just thought I’ll put it out here

I’ll put a post out after I fine tuned all the details

Both Jack and Race are fallen angels, Jack is older than Race and they’re friends

Jack got assigned to helping David dealing with Something, meanwhile Spot is already friend with David and got assigned to him as well

Race is aroace, and he and Spot were best friends/on their way to being in a qpr (but that label wasn’t a thing back then)

As previously mentioned by the posts under the au tag, they fell out of touch after Race’s fall, and they haven’t seen or heard from each other for centuries

So there are Dramas and I can’t wait to actually figure out the plot😭

The Joker and the King au

Current state

This started back in end of 2021/start of 2022 or smt, and I’m gonna be so honest with you, I have no idea why the fuck this drags on like this

It was darker and most of the characters are (or at least were) hitmen

Spot and David were part of this organization and they left and took some informations with them, so the boss is sending people after those two

The storyline I had didn’t make much sense and I toned it down because I feel bad for making them trying to off each other for money

But not I don’t feel bad about that anymore so I’m putting the slay and maim back into the plot

Headcanons/world building details

I’m just assigning motivation and sense of morals (?) for characters at the moment so there are not specific stuff I can give you

We got people that are raised in the business, do it for the money, forced into the deal, and I’m debating whether or not to add someone who do the contract killing thing for shits and giggles

Spot and David are no longer hitmen! But I say nothing about them being law abiding citizens

They pissed off the wrong people and Spot now have a target on his back

Again still trying to figure stuff out but that’s the gist

[courtney-deserved-better]

Hello, TD fanfic anon here! I just wanted some general competiton and ship fic advice

hi td fic anon i am so sorry it took me this long to respond 😭 but anyways here's my advice (under the cut bc it got long)

competition advice:

it really helps to plan out your elimination order before you jump into writing. you don't have to have every elimination planned but ones that are plot significant/necessary should have timing/a solid reason for elimination to make sense within the story. but don't be afraid to deviate from your plan or improvise! i was originally gonna eliminate courtney in the china chapter of slippery slopes and decided as i was writing it to finally deviate from the canon elimination order and boot duncan instead. and that totally changed the story for the better! i think the biggest thing to watch out for is having a character get eliminated with very flimsy reasoning. the reasons don't have to be dramatic, they can literally be "yeah everyone thought this one team member was annoying so bye", but as long as they're believable it helps strengthen the logic/structure of your story.

speaking of logic/structure, it's a good idea to have a concept of the tone you want to take when it comes to the competition. this is especially important for total drama fics, because there's a lot of frankly fucked up shit happening in canon that's played off for laughs or not fully delved into. and maybe you want the sharks and deadly challenges to be silly or brushed off while you explore the character dynamics/relationships as serious. or maybe you want the challenges to be scary and dark and threatening to the characters. or maybe everything, including the character relationships, is slapstick! the key is consistency. consistency doesn't mean there can't be tone shifts—maybe you start off the fic with the challenges being seen as goofy, but then as they keep going, the characters experience more and more danger and become traumatized by these challenges now seen as horrific. or maybe it's the opposite, the challenges start off as scary but over time the contestants get used to them and they fade into the background. the one thing that puts me off in fics is where the challenges are regarded as commonplace until one event needs to be emotionally heavy for the sake of plot and then that challenge is portrayed as Extremely Dangerous And Traumatizing when it hasn’t been any different than the rest of the challenges. not sure if that makes sense so i’ll just reiterate that consistency and confidence of tone is important.

when it comes to the content of the challenges: if you’re doing a rewrite and anyone who’s reading your fic has most likely seen the challenge and episode it’s based upon, err on the side of less detail. if you’re writing about the obstacle course from all stars, we don’t need an explanation on how every obstacle works if it’s not relevant to what your main character(s) is experiencing in the moment. on the flip side, if you’re making up a new challenge, be specific in how it works since it will be new to people and they will be imagining it without a reference point in canon. also, don’t be afraid to not explain things if it’s not super relevant to the main character. if a minor character beats your main character to the finish line, but your character was too focused on a conversation with another main character to care about competing, you don’t necessarily have to talk about the minor character running ahead of your character throughout the whole conversation/challenge. you can just write something like “when [main character] finally crossed the finish line, there was [minor character] panting and looking rather smug with themself” and leave it at that. if it’s not super relative to the main character’s pov, and isn’t necessarily a funny bit or enriching detail, you don’t have to write more than a single sentence about it, especially if it distracts from the main pov. it’s something that can get tricky with total drama’s ensemble cast, so you have to find the right balance for yourself.

ship advice:

when it comes to the (main) couples you’re writing about, it’s good to keep the arc you want their relationship to take throughout the fic in mind while writing, possibly tying it to specific plot points in your planning if you’re the type of person who likes to get meticulous (like myself lol). if you’re writing friends to lovers, explore their friendship and platonic dynamic before one character realizes they’re in love with the other, it gives the readers a sense of how these characters care for one another and work well together, and gives more stakes to the classic “if i tell them how i feel it’ll ruin our friendship” dilemma. if it’s enemies to lovers, explore why they dislike one another and how they push one another’s buttons and the transition from hating someone to having feelings for them. while the names for these tropes are simple, the content within the trope doesn’t have to be boiled down. using slippery slopes as an example again, alenoah in that fits into the “enemies/rivals to lovers” box. but what makes their dynamic compelling is how within their rivalry they had moments of friendship and attraction. heck, they were getting along really well in chapter 6 which made the inevitable blowup that deepens their rivalry that more impactful. so in a nutshell: have a clear idea of the arc but don’t be afraid to delve into or subvert/complicate the dynamic. the line from point a to point b doesn’t have to be a straight line.

i already talked about consistency when it comes to challenges but it’s important when it comes to ships too. if character a is mad at character b in chapter 3, but is suddenly fine with them with zero explanation in chapter 4, that’s jarring for the readers and diminishes the emotional impact of whatever happened to make character a mad in chapter 3. therefore diminishing emotional impact in future chapters if the readers know [important thing] that happened in chapter 8 could totally be glossed over when they get to chapter 9. don’t be afraid to take your time with the characters’ emotions and feelings toward one another, it doesn’t really read as natural for someone’s opinions toward another person to turn on a dime without something significant happening to cause that.

lastly, think about why these two characters work as a couple (or don’t work, if that’s the direction you want to take). what does character a admire about character b and vice versa? in what ways are they similar and in what ways are they different and how do those affect their relationship? what makes them a good couple? why are they attracted to one another? it’s harder to get invested in a fic that goes “character a and character b like each other” without elaborating on that than a fic that goes “character a likes character b because b brings stability and a soothing presence to a’s anxiety-inducing chaotic life and character b likes character a because a’s impulsivity pushes them out of their comfort zone and challenges them to be their best self when b is finding themself bored with their own life’s stasis”. this is obviously A Lot to work with if you’re writing a fluffy oneshot or something but if you’re working on a roughly season-long multichapter fic it’s good to really dive into what makes your main couple(s) click & tick.

not really related to ship or competition but: do NOT be afraid to write extremely niche stuff that you think only you have an interest in. it’s probably not gonna get written if you don’t write it, and if you do write it and put it out there, you might find other people who like that same niche stuff or didn’t like it before but like it after reading your fic. write what you wanna see!! don’t worry about who might read it, write for yourself. if you’re putting all the effort/work in to create a fic you deserve to be that fic’s number 1 fan.

i hope this was helpful, please keep in mind that i’m not trying to be a definitive authority on how to write well, i’m just “verbalizing” what helps me write fics i can be proud of and enjoy. again, im so sorry it took this long to respond! if you have any more questions feel free to send them in and i promise it won’t take me another month and half to get to them lol