#rif responds
memory prompts
simple
- Send[ blue ] for a sad memory.
- Send[ yellow ] for a happy memory.
- Send[ red ] for an angry or aggressive memory.
- Send [ green ] for a guilty or jealous memory.
- Send[ pink ] for a sweet memory.
- Send [ orange ] for a funny or silly memory.
- Send [ purple ] for a melancholy memory.
- Send[ grey ] for a neutral memory.
complex
- Send[ rose ] for a lovesick memory.
- Send[ indigo ] for a bittersweet memory.
- Send[ charcoal ] for a mysterious memory.
- Send[ mahogany ] for a materialistic memory.
- Send [ ginger ] for a nostalgic memory.
- Send [ umber ] for a repressed memory.
- Send [ obsidian ] for a traumatic memory.
- Send [ rainbow ] for a LGBT+ related memory.
- Send[ fuchsia ] for a blissful memory.
- Send [ ivory ] for a memory from a dream.
Indulge me please with a colour and a character? (You can also sent me a number between 1-80 + colour)
In which I answer some of the questions that you guys left for me in the Google form I opened (almost a year ago!). Thank you for the feedback! I greatly appreciate it! Questions and process are below the cut! If you still want to ask questions, or leave feedback; my inbox is open!
Q: Where did you catch that wormhole?
A: It all started sometime February 2020, I had just finished a huge project and said goodbye to all of the interns and forced hugs by colleagues and as is tradition when I leave a place, I did some overtime. Got nearly locked into the office building, but luckily slipped out early enough to repeat that awkwardness on my last day. I was outside, looked up at the sky and noticed a full moon. Silly little me had no clue what the future was to bring, so I walked home without any clue other than that I now wish that the night had swallowed me up. Whether it was the stone over which I tripped, or a truck coming from the left, or whatever, two weeks later Covid struck and we were all doomed longing for some rabbit hole to jump down from and meet handsome men.
But that wasn’t a real answer to the question. Just wishful thinking.
Q: How did you plan out the route and did you stick to said plan?
A: LOL I started out with an excel sheet:
But I ended up diverting pretty hard and only loosely following whatever I had in the sheet. Partly because the chapters aren’t all that long, so I have to be selective with what I add and cut. But also because the original idea didn’t appeal to me anymore, or because my brain had other plans. I’m a pantser at heart.
Q: Fanon Kyubei or the real burly, tall, dark, handsome Kyubei with blue eyes hmmm?
A: Idk what the difference is, the only Kyubei I know is tall, dark and handsome with blue eyes and long hair. Was there a difference? Is there anything else?
Q: Do you still feel about Kyubei now as you did about him before? Or has your opinions or general feelings for the man changed?
A: It started as a sympathy/passion project because the poor man was turning into a second love interest in the rp I have with @shaken-veil. I had to make it up to the man.
Now he actually feels like a character of my own. Like fully. Not a character I adapted from a game, or wanted to write fanfiction on, or that is just a version of many.
Q: Did you have as much fun writing his route as we did reading?
A: Glad you enjoyed reading it! I definitely enjoyed writing it. It was something, an experience. Definitely a style I hadn’t tried before!
Would I do it again? Lol maybe in another format. I had to watch and correct myself so many times. I’m not a fan of the first person pov and I’m definitely not a fan of the way the dialogue had to be formatted.
Q: How did you come up with the inspiration for the interactions?
A: Partly real life, partly influenced by everything I read and watch. I’m a creepy people watcher. Most of it comes from my own self-indulgence of wanting to introduce certain headcanons, but also my favourite romantic tropes stemming from a childhood love of historical dramas!
Process
Man, the writing process of Kyubei’s route was something. As one can judge from the earlier screenshot I had an excel sheet with general notes of what I wanted to happen and what direction I wanted to go into. But first I had to write a few notes for myself.
The first note I had to make was what sort of man I wanted Kyubei to be. The type of suitor I wanted him to be. This one was fairly easy because of the roleplay I had with Mama @shaken-veil, in which I had already introduced Kyubei as a character (not a love interest unfortunately). It started with the idea of what he is represented as in the game: devoted, loyal, but a little cheeky. But I needed more. Why was he loyal? Why is he so devoted? I ended up writing a whole background for him, setting up his whole character development as a person from childhood to adulthood and how he came to the employ of the Akechi. I wanted to give Kyubei a reason to be so devoted, yet to be so hidden and my only shame in that is that those details were never revealed in his route. But for that we have events, not?
Next I had to figure out his pet, because every suitor has a pet and he couldn’t be excluded. It had to be something that fit him and for what he stood, but also something that wasn’t taken already. Some may have noted how I nicknamed Kyubei ‘foxling’, but I wanted him to be independent from his lord. Kyubei deserves that. The crow came to mind. Resilient, adaptive and ever-present but rarely noticed. The imagery of the crow was perfect in my mind as I remember the walks to my office in the early morning, the only living company being the crows in the trees as if they were guarding over me. It gave me a feeling of security, despite the doom and gloom most associate with the crow. It was that symbolism and that feeling that I wished to convey through Kyubei as well.
And then came the planning. I had to set up several documents for Kyubei’s route so that I could organise everything. I also had to decide on a general ‘length’ per chapter. For that I actually counted the lines of one daily chapter in a route, which amounted to +/- three pages. Not all chapters ended up three pages, most of them ended up around four to five pages, but that’s alright! More is good, right? Less would cause a riot, but I definitely did write less at some points.
