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BlackenWhiteCat and Nightandstarsandmoon as well as 6 guests left kudos on this work!

1. Account Deleted on Chapter 9 Sun 31 May 2020 01:57AM UTC

   awww but neah hey i know you exist at least??? don't die

   So I know a couple of things. 1. There are people in this verse, 2. Neah is bb, I love him, 3. Sami is ur main character & he's just great, 4. You feel like ur characters are real ppl & they can spill out onto the page to interact with you & I Vibe With That. Also we're buddies in the whole "come up with elaborate plotlines & worlds & love the heck out of your deep-as-ocean characters but then never actually write more than two pages of the actual story if that". But I'm interested in this verse if you ever do write something more substantial in their canon verse!! I'm Intrigued by the magic eyes your tags hinted at??

   Also you're flipping amazing & I love you!! <3 <3 <3

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2. 1. StorytellerSecrets on Chapter 9 Thu 04 Jun 2020 03:43PM UTC

      

      So, I also know a couple of things:

      1. There are, in fact, people in this 'verse.
      2. Neah is, in fact, baby. He is also my bastard son. It varies, depending on the 'verse.
      3. Sami was not, in fact, the original main character, and in most of the actual works is but a sweet side character of which I love.
      4. I love you.
      5. Beware if you want to read further, I may have nerded out a little.

      Now, to clarify on the "different 'verses" thing and also to nerd out on the substantial world(s)building I have done for no particular reason, here's how Chapters pans out:

      1. The original story was an idea I started at the beginning of middle school where Shiro was the main character and revolved around him going to high school. He had magic eyes. No magic powers, they just changed colors randomly. This was something that was just a source of uwu?Intrigue? but largely just happened because I Could Not for the life of me figure out what colour eyes to give him.

      2. I filled in the original story's (i.e. the magic eyes) cast by transferring characters over from another rather flexible story I had going on, which centered around a family known as the Nagimi's. Few were related and I had a diverse cast going in so I had a horde of wildly various characters to choose from.

      3. A big problem I had with the Magic Eyes 'verse was that I'd write out all of the characters, but give them no growth room, or I'd develop them without the help of other people relevant to the story, which meant that there would just be a bunch of characters just...there, for no reason. The cast was just a bunch of random people. Not to mention there was zero plot. Like, none. It was just a bunch of people in high school being edgy.

      4. I realized then that I didn't know who my characters were. Like, I could write it out, but that didn't mean anything. They were just words, not characters. So I needed to develop them, and a pretty effective way to do that was to throw them into other worlds. At first, this just meant having all of them be OC inserts into fandom worlds for every kind of media I consumed.

      5. Then my sophomore year came around. First, art class. Every assignment I could get away with was about them. And then came the time where we made 'zines, or 6-page short illustrative stories. Now, I finished my earlier projects fast, so I had some time to think about ideas for my 'zine. A LOT of ideas. Since I saved all my notebooks from that year, I know that my second idea was for the Magic Eyes. The rest were of other stories I'd had in the making.

      6. However, I couldn't use any of these ideas, because my teacher forgot to tell me that they were supposed to be fractured fairy tales, or fairy tales with a twist. Now, mind you, I'd actually already had a side-story somewhat written out about the Magic Eyes' cast making stories about fractured fairy tales, but I guess I forgot about it because I made a new one up instead. Thus came the Capes 'verse, which was a story about Little Red Riding Hood discussing the era's class system and how at the time, traveling slaves were signified by red capes (which is a real thing btw). Now, for whatever reason the story itself did NOT want to be written, so I struggled with it for about a week before I dropped it.

      7. I ended up using a short monologue I wrote on a whim, which was perhaps a paragraph long and went like this:

      "There used to be this rumor about a house that was the talk of the town for awhile. An urban legend, really: the house on Hattern Hill.
      We'd never really considered o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ survivors before. So, it took us a long time to finally send scouts up there.
      We should have sent them sooner.
      They found him in the living room*. He was just...sitting there, covered in blood.
      (*'Living room.' Funny, considering that's where the family died.)
      Most of it wasn't his."

      8. This spawned the next but perhaps most thought-out 'verse: The Birchwood Apocalypse, which is still a story I'm actually working on. There is...SO much stuff to cover for that 'verse but the idea is that I decided that if the Zombie Virus was actually a virus, then that would mean that people would get better eventually, and I was playing on that idea. Add people looking for immortality, isolation from the rest of the world, an Evil Science Corporation, strange and possibly feral children and lying main characters, and there was a lot going on. A LOT. So much that it took several folders of frantic writing to get down, and I'm still not done with the outlines. This is definitely my most expansive 'verse, and it has the most written material about it too.

      9. The next 'verse I wrote on a whim because I was bored, known as the Capperton Daily Report. This was another high-school-centered idea, but there characters had actually developed dynamics and personalities at this point. This story was of a high school radio club, who sent out announcements and the like. All the while, the school is plagued by supernatural phenomenon, which is battled by nihilism and sarcasm. And Harold. Harold was the club's pet, known colloquially as the "Void's Mall Cop." Harold took many different forms, and I still don't know what was Up with that dude.

      10. Now, after that I worked on a bunch of different stories, but then I received my final assignment for a mythology class, which entailed that I create a world and a working mythos of that world. I got...a little carried away, and thus Dauldermize 'verse was born. Now, you have to understand, in middle school Shiro was the main character. I just Vibed with him the most. I have no idea what happened freshman year but during most of my sophomore year in high school, Sami was my DUDE. He was my little Pain Bby, the son that I hurt for fun, my little broski. A lot of the 'verses reflected that, and that's only recently begun to shift, but for Dauldermize 'verse, Sami was important, but Neah was the main character.

      11. Now, in Dauldermize 'verse, Neah was not the sweet little baby you see in the chat. He was my Bastard Son, and frankly I wanted to punch him a lot. He starts out as a Not Great Guy, and he's definitely morally skewed, and he's doing Bad Things that his society says are okay, and then he's in charge of a couple of children and he Fucks Up Real Bad, and then he Fucks Up Worse and kidnaps those children, and then he has to save the world, and then he gets a brother, and then and then and then but the point is he was a Bastard with a captial B and I didn't shy away from him being a jackass, because that would minimize the change he undergo's. Honestly, he's like the Mandalorian if the Mandalorian were meaner. (And yes, I wrote out his plotline a year before I ever heard of the Mandalorian, narrative similarities aside.)

      12. Now, I wrote a TON of lore and worldbuilding for this world itself, and I've got so much more that's not written yet, but the point is I have a lot of different worlds. I love them all, but the Magic Eyes was my first (if my most poorly developed).

      13. Sidenote: The cast has changed A LOT but the characters that've lasted since the beginning are Shiro, Sami, Luna, Neah, and Allen

      14. FuCK I'M REALLY SORRY I WROTE SO MUCH. I THINK YOU'RE GREAT AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMMENTING.

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   2. 1. Account Deleted on Chapter 9 Sat 01 Aug 2020 08:26PM UTC

         So I got like 2/3 of the way done with a long reply to this & it deleted (this was a While ago) so,,, sorry ;;-;;

         I,,, 1 is so valid. Best reason to make a mostly normal setting magical for one (1) v niche thing & 1 character: eyes?? color?? Having to choose between them?? yuck

         Re: 3. Okay but just having lots of people there to Be Characters & have readers fall in love with them is so valid?? I wish there were lots more realistic high school stories with a huge cast of characters. If I can't have an awesome, large friend group, then I can at least read a story where someone else has one, right?? ^^; Plus plot is overrated. Chat fics with zero plot is where it's at, that's how I found you!!

         Re: 4. Valiiid!! Inserting them into every universe ever is Such a writer thing. I think or really does help to develop character too!

         5. Nice! Do you still make comics? How interested in art/comics are you, especially compared to writing?

         8. Birchwood sounds amazing. (Also kinda ironic considering the virus thing-- thank goodness it's not a real zombie virus)

         9. "battled by nihilism and sarcasm. And Harold"
         Amazing. Standing ovation. I'll read that. Harold, as far as I can tell in the 2 sentences I've known him, is a chaotic neutral eldritch abomination who takes amusement in high school kids thinking he's a pet, whatever shape he takes at the moment, and a vindictive satisfaction in protecting the students when they went to the mall (& making some people question their sanity bc shapeshifting).

         10/11. I am Living for this Lore about your connection with your characters. I wanna see Neah's journey.

         14. yIKES I'M REALLY SORRY THAT I WROTE SO LITTLE IN RESPONSE TO THIS WONDERFUL ESSAY YOU'VE GIFTED ME ;;-;; long things like this are a lil tiring for new to respond to, bc just so much, but I love them. Love them. & you, ofc ^^ THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EXISTING & WRITING & POSTING & REPLYING!! take care!!

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      2. 1. StorytellerSecrets on Chapter 9 Sun 02 Aug 2020 03:57AM UTC

            

            Lmao don't worry fam I gotchu!

            Look man middle school me didn't know how to make decisions so instead I made elaborate plans to get around making those decisions and tbh I still do (i.e. writing a report about writing reports so I don't have to pick a topic, making a science experiment for the science fair about science experiments and their correlation with other statistics, writing a one-act play about the struggles of writing a one-act play, giving characters reasons for having such dynamic features so I didn't have to settle down, etc.)

            To be fair, my main problem with the Magic Eyes 'verse wasn't that I disliked any of the characters, but that it was a reflection of my school experience and that meant that it had a LOT of people in it, no clear bad guys (though with the Magic Eyes 'verse most of the enemies were internal/also your friends), and no real narrative story. There were people, there was a place, but the story was that they went to school and Shiro's eyes changed color for some reason and this caused some Problems occasionally.

            And "writing chat fics with no plot" was not the cross I originally expected to bear, but it is the one I was given.

            As for the character-inserts, yeah. I got a little obsessive with it, honestly, because EVERY time I'd watch a show or read a book or comic and go, "Okay, and where does CHAPTERS fit into this?" It was a lot of fun and honestly helped me a LOT with developing my characters. While it did mean that I'd lose characters occasionally (i.e. I'd kill them in one character-insert 'verse and then realize that things just fit easier without them), it also meant that the characters I kept had meaning.

            I still TRY to make comics, though honestly most of everything I do is half-finished WIPS sitting in folders screaming at me. I love art, and I love writing! Both are incredibly important to me, and also probably some of the hardest things I'll ever do. There's a lot of Brain Power necessary for me to do either, but I love creating things in both forms. (Tidbit: I'm actually going to be taking an Intro to Writing class at my local community college this year, so I'll see how that goes!)

            Birchwood is my enemy. I hate it with such a passion because it's not just one story, it's a million little stories that want to be told and it Just. Won't. Stop. Evolving. But god do I love the things that hurt me, and Birchwood is my number one. I've invested a lot of thought into the narrative that's going to be told, now all I need to do is sit down and actually MAKE it.

            I love Harold so much! I know he's were capable of changing forms, and definately is an eldritch abomination. The thing about Harold is he's not really a "pet." No one really calls him that except for people who haven't Seen Things (i.e. spent more than ten minutes with him). I think Harold would definitely protect students if they ever ended UP in the Void, but for the most part his real job is mitigating WHAT is allowed to come out of the Void. Harold is very particular and while he has a moral compass that's probably a roulette wheel, he definitely does his job well. Now, actually EXPLAINING that narrative when Harold is largely seen as some form of animal and talks twice in the History of Ever is the real trick. (And god, the shapeshifting! No one ever SEES he does it, but you can tell it's Harold in every form he takes. Firstly, he'll only ever respond to the name Harold, but most of his behaviors cross over between forms.)

            ///DAULDERMIZE RANT FEEL FREE TO IGNORE///

            Oh God the Dauldermize lore. Oh God, oh God. There is So Much. In the most simplest of terms, Dauldermize takes place on a planet with many different species. There is WAY too much to cover on even the planet's origin but understand that the making of it wasn't natural and that due to a Motherfucker of a God the universe itself is a facsimile of what it was supposed to be and is, in many ways, inverted. Due to this inversion, the natural planes of the universe that relied on each other and existed in harmony were separated and/or decimated altogether. Asyr (the land of the Gods) was Enir before the alteration happened, which had been ruled by eight amazing Gods who I love with every particle of my body. Then drama occured, some Asshole Gods were mean and caused a betrayal in those eight gods. This betrayal started the spiral of Enir's system, and ended with one of the eight gods being killed. The betrayer, the killed gods lover, had betrayed the gods to keep his lover safe, and when that didn't work (because Daelius done died fam) he struck a deal with previously mentioned Motherfucker and as per the deal said Motherfucker shredded Enir and used the shredded remains to make Asyr. But because Enir was the base plane for the entire fucking Universe, the rest of the planes were now being corroded, shredded, or had been included in the alterations and were now, essentially, entirely different places.

            This meant that the world as was previously known was changed, and due to all the shredding holes were created in the planes that seeped through to Lithos (the name of the planet), but where holes WEREN'T there was a suspicious lack of interaction between planes. Essentially, one plane got fucked and the rest went down like dominoes. Eventually, the corroded planes would become fully shredded and recreate themselves, but this would largely mean death for anything inside the planes.

            Now, here's Neah, living on current Lithos. The planet is segregated firstly by geography, where as a general rule people of a specific race tend towards one place (this isn't a natural occurrence, this happened after years of careful planning from Another Asshole who's basically Hitler but Fantasy and who ends up secretly controlling the world. The ONLY areas where the segregation of species is not applicable and heavily reinforced are areas without Temples, that One Country that won't talk to any of it's genocidal neighbors, and that One Other Country that's an island and isn't safely reachable (ocean went feral).

            (Now, to clarify on THAT note, this religion that all the temples are for were created by Another Asshole and were specifically designed to reinforce the separation of people and also the slave trade, which wasn't a commonly organized thing before this fuckass showed up. Another Asshole is killed about nine hundred years before Neah is born, but his body remains for another hundred (tl;dr for that one) before he is tossed into the sea and his corpse causes trouble there.)

            So, Neah's born to a mother and a father and lives a simple life. He lives in a heavily restricted area with lots of Temples, and in grows up poor and uneducated. He does what everyone else who lives in his country does - becomes a farmer or a trench worker. He goes trench, and that means that it's his job to hunt the miles-wide trench that separates the country he lives in from the rest of the connected world. As a devout Ashistic (name of secret Hitler religion that's overtaken the world), he goes to his temple regularly in-between jobs. To clarify, he's hunting runaway slaves, who use the cover and danger of the trenches to escape their masters and hunters. Living on the other side of the trenches from most, Neah knows well how to navigate the trenches.

            This story starts with him capturing a group, bringing them to the country on the other side of the trench, collecting his pay, and going for his next job. Of this group, there are both adults and children, and while he isn't outright cruel to them he IS still dragging them back to a lifetime of forced servitude (and, with runaways, which are all he hunts, likely execution). He shrugs and leaves for his next job, which leads him through one of the more dangerous sections of the trenches. The hunt lasts a long time, because it's clear it's not a sole slave (though the job description was relatively vague, and he was required to bring whoever he found alive). Turns out it's a couple of fucking children, which Neah doesn't really give a shit about but probably should.

            A large majority of the beginning story is him dragging these two kids through the trenches and then halfway through a country he's only kind of been in. Through it all there's a lot of danger and harrowing events but the focus is on the slow-burn internal struggle that builds as Neah (who, to clarify, is maybe twenty-three) starts to genuinely care about these children (I should've probably said that this is Sami and Luna) as he drags them back to what he knows is essentially their deaths. Every single time a complication, of which there are a lot, in the plan to return these kids arises it serves as a chance for Neah to Stop and Think, but he continues leading them back to Dolya, the city of their origin.

            Again, it's a slow burn struggle, and he doesn't care about these kids at all in the beginning, so a lot of relatively messed up shit occurs (Luna please stop getting your arm broken and I swear if Neah kicks Sami in the face again I will commit a MuRdEr), but the struggle is front and center by the time they reach Dolya and he gets hit front face and center with the magnitude of what he's doing. Still, he returns both Sami and Luna, and is paid and goes to leave. And then these kids are about the be killed in front of him, and it's no longer passive murder. It's active, and the last switch clicks into place.

            ...cont.

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         2. 1. StorytellerSecrets on Chapter 9 Sun 02 Aug 2020 04:04AM UTC

               

               He grabs Luna, the rebellious freedom-fighting daughter of a noble, and Sami, ???, kills some assholes, and fucking runs of the hills. And, of course, that mythos that we mentioned earlier? It's about to kick his ass. Instead of learning to raise a couple of kids in a screwed up society, he has to do that AND try and save Lithos from becoming too corroded and shredding its very existence.

               Additionally, he accidentally becomes a diplomat, spy, and freedom-fighter, has to fight a god, and repeatedly face those tears in the plane which cause some Weird Shit to leak through, Sami's definitely not human and is slowly becoming an eldritch form of Satan and becomes permanently half-possessed by an immortal who used to be friends with the hitler guy, has to fight society and a bunch of villains that aren't really villains but also might be, his to dismantle a religious empire with his bare hands, accidentally enters the one country that's not talking to the genocidal neighbors and starts a war and also discovers a twin brother he didn't but now does have, reestablished some ancient magic, fights more fights and ends up in the sea, accidentally becomes Columbus and finds a country every knew about but might have forgotten about during all the murder, builds a magic bridge, has to cross planes to convince Giants that they really don't actually want the end of the world to happen, and has to convince the actual hero of the story to do anything about the sad state of the universe.

               All in all, it's a Fucking Story, and it took a long time to work through and has A Lot of information I left out.

               And don't worry about long replies or anything, I know they can be a Monster to deal with. Thank you so much and have a great day!

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