#BTSing w/Juno

[juno-box]

BTSing my Fic w/Juno: DoTWD Chapters 6-9

Hey howdy! So I wanted to share a bunch of behind the scenes things with my fanfic, this time around there's A LOT. namely deleted scenes, added scenes and scrapped content! Let’s begin!

Lee’s would’ve told Ben about the messages on the answering machine

This was leftover from the original messages on the answering machine, from B.T.Sing Chapter 3. It would’ve come up in a now scrapped version of Chapter 9.

Travis would’ve attended dinner with the group.

Travis would’ve attended the infamous dinner with the group, but when I gave him Doug/Carley’s role of traveling with Lee I had him stay back with Doug, Ben and Carley.

Mark and Lee would’ve met Alfred in Episode 2

Alfred is a scrapped character that I mentioned in B.T.Sing Chapter 1-2. Alfred was originally a friend of Clementine mentioned in Episode 1, and was planned to make an appearance in a scrapped version of chapter 1. But when I scrapped that version of Chapter 1, Alfred was left in limbo.

At that point, I didn’t want to introduce Alfred from that old version of Ch.1,  but as a different character (with the same name lol). So I’d written an entire introductory chapter for him. But the problem again, like with Debbie and Oliver (see B.T.Sing Chapter 1-2) was that I had no real role for him going forward, but I was so obsessed with his chapter that I tried to make it work before I started the artwork for Chapter 6, but just couldn’t. 

Only other person I let read this version was @thecrusadercomrade lol, but if you want to see it for what it turned out to be here: [🪓]

Maybe I’ll get the chance to use him one day.

The dinner scene was extended recently

The dinner scene was originally way shorter than it is in the final draft. I extended it, inspired by cut background dialogue from Episode 2, so it feels more from the perspective of the guests rather than everyone hovering around until Lee came barrelling in.

Scrapped moment from the dinner scene:

Clementine originally went into vent instead of Rachel, and the locker room would’ve went down differently

Just as it says. Rachel was more disturbed than Clem was, visibly it appeared.

In a scrapped version of Chapter 9, Rachel would’ve managed to get away from the St. John’s before they reached the locker

Rachel would’ve freaked out and bit Andy’s hand, then rushed out of the barn, slamming the door shut. Since it was dark and raining, he couldn’t find her.

When Lee would awake, Clem would tell him that Rachel made a run for it and was out there somewhere. Lee would’ve been much more urged to escape the locker room. So when Larry had his heart attack, he would’ve helped Kenny kill him.

Meanwhile, with Rachel, she would’ve made her way up a haystack, over the fence and through the cornfield by the barn, and over a toppled over fence and made a cut through the dirt path they took to the dairy. There she would’ve run into Travis and company. We actually wouldn’t see them again until Lee escaped the barn and dealt with Danny.

The group originally took a vote to go to the dairy.

In a scrapped version of Chapter 6, the group would’ve taken a vote to go to the dairy. They would vote to go, and Lee, Travis, Ben and Mark would go. Lee was apprehensive on going. That version is missing.

However, when they meet Brenda and Mark offers for their whole group to come, Lee would interject and say they have to talk to their group first. That version of Chapter 7 is here: [🪓]

Travis and Ben had a cut argument on the way to the dairy

Instead of clicking his teeth and ignoring it, Travis would’ve turned around and asked Ben what his problem was. It was due to him thinking about what Lee had said about the answering machine earlier, along with scrapped dialogue with Travis about traveling and finding his parents. It was clunky, and once those messages were scrapped, so was this scene.

Instead of pencils it was Halloween candy

Rachel mentions Ben making her return stolen pencils, but the line was originally about Halloween candy. Not a big change, but I didn’t feel like Ben would rat her out on her birthday lol.

Margeret/Pidge, the fourth St. John

Now this  I’m excited to share with y’all because it’s been MONTHS. Get ready because this is long:

Back in early pre-DoTWD ‘production’, like I’m talking before DoTWD was even called “Dawn of The Walking Dead” (it used to be something more ‘poetic’ before being changed to ‘Dawn of the Dead’ ,and finally ‘Dawn of The Walking Dead) , characters were being drummed up in my mind and written down before being fully modeled. Yes, every original character has a biography sheet saved on my writing laptop. Most outdated but still there, nonetheless. A lot of characters were written, but most were scrapped (about 10, iirc). One 2 made it to the sketch and model stages before being cut.

One of these characters was a girl named “Margaret St. John”.

As her name implied, Margaret (nicknamed Peggy) would’ve been a member of the St. John family. She was about 14-15, and was the niece of Terry, Brenda’s late husband. 

Margaret moved to her uncle’s farm years before the apocalypse, and her dream was to become a horseback rider. After the apocalypse, and her uncle’s death, Brenda would’ve been extremely protective of her and kept her on the farm at all times.

Margaret would’ve been introduced in Chapter 7, when Lee and company arrive at the farm. Margaret head’s out the house with her aunt carrying a jug of water. Brenda introduces her as her niece, and Margaret tells them that her friends call her Peggy so go ahead and call her that. Brenda offers them the basket of bread, and Margaret accidentally mentions taking one before letting out a squeak (she had a speaking quirk, something along the lines of letting out a ‘hm!’ Whenever she was flustered, it was funny). 

She mentions Maybelle’s sickness, to which Mark blurts out they have a vet. Brenda excitedly tells them to bring their group. Margaret asks to help, and Brenda tells her to show Lee and Mark around the dairy, much to Margaret’s chagrin.

Andy asks Lee and Mark to help secure the perimeter, and warns Margaret to stay away from the fence before leaving to go fuel the generator.

Before Ben and Travis head back, Margaret tip-toes around Lee and stops in front of them. She’d ask their names and then tell them to follow her down the drive. Confused, Lee would state that Andy asked her to stay. To which Margaret would reply that Andy ain’t her dad, and wasn’t the boss of her. 

He’d ask about the tour and she’d quickly point at the barn, the generator and the fence around them before stating that there was nothing interesting to do around there and how she never gets to walk in the woods anymore.

Mark tries to say he doesn’t want her to get in trouble but she shrugs him off and tells them to cover for her if they ask. She picked up and skipped down the driveway with Ben and Travis in tow.

We would then get a perspective of them going to the inn from Ben. He has an inner dialogue about the events so far when Margaret interrupts him and asks if he was local. Ben tells her he’s from Stone Mountain, and she asks if he’d visit Macon to which he’d say sometimes but it wasn’t very interesting. Margaret mentions the woods were her favorite part out there. She’d then mentioned how she used to come out and feed the raccoons and play the guitar. But after the walkers came, she wasn’t allowed to go back into the woods or play the guitar outside.

And that was as far as I wrote for Margaret St. John.

Now here’s Pidge St. John:

Pidge (short for something else) was the second version of Margaret. Here the introduction was the same, saved for the bubbly lines, which were replaced with more mellowed ones. Pidge wasn’t as happy and energetic as Margaret, but more of a chill teenager. 

Pidge had headphones instead of a headscarf, because picking up where we left off with Margaret, since Pidge could no longer play guitar like she used to, she started listening to tapes on a walkman she claimed from the lost and found.

Ben asks if raccoons had rabies, to which Pidge shrugs and nonchalantly replies that they never bit her so she wouldn’t know. Ben would say she reminded him of Rachel, and mention that she’s obsessed with animals that can easily kill you. 

They arrive at the inn and Travis happily presents the biscuits. Pidge introduces herself as everyone digs in and would invite them for dinner, where they’d accept.

Scrapped because oh my God.

I have written and rewritten roles and characters for this project for so many months. But this character by far has had the MOST amount of back-and-forth I’ve ever seen. Ever.

First and foremost, Margaret/Pidge isn’t like Alfred 1 & 2, or Debbie and Oliver. No, Margaret actually had a bigger role in DoTWD. What had happened was that her role kept changing because moments in the story down the line kept changing. And for her to keep that role I’d written for her, I’d have to find a way to keep her with the group until the end of Season 1.

Thing is, she didn’t have a role with them in this season. If anything Pidge would’ve been an extra body until Season 2.

I can’t say what her role was because it spoils things planned for Season 2, but it did involve her being an antagonist.

Traveling back to Margaret/Pidge in Season 1 however, both of their versions were different, but the better version in my opinion was definitely Margaret.

See, Margaret was an energetic and friendly girl. But true to her namesake, Peggy was a St. John to her soul. 

In the barn, where Lee opens the kill room door, Margaret would come up behind him and shut it. Lee asks her what the hell was all that blood, and she (albeit annoyed) tells him that her cousins clean their kills since aunt Brenda doesn’t like the mess, and sometimes she has to clean the room. She mentions that she’d “Really not clean anything else for a while, so just leave it be.”

At dinner, when Lee reveals the truth. She feigns terrified about her family’s cannibalism. When her cousin Andy comes back from escorting the prisoners to the meat locker, she’s seen continuing her meal as if nothing happened. He says she got sloppy. It’s then when Margaret's facade would finally drop. She snaps back at him and says that at least she tried playing dumb, unlike his stupid ass. Andy replies that none of this would’ve happened had she just locked the door upstairs after she was done doping up Mark with morphine. She shrugs him off and says she’s still hungry and won’t let something stupid like this ruin her meal she worked hard on.

Brenda comes down and tells her (a bit nicer) that she should’ve locked the door. Margaret says “That Lee fella broke the lock to the back room before, how the hell was a lock gonna stop him anyways? If he wanted to find out, he was gonna find out. It’s done. I’m taking a walk.”

We continue the story from the motor inn group POV. But in this version, Lee would’ve killed the St. John’s (Danny and Andy). 

Clementine would tell Lee to look behind him as an enraged Margaret comes charging at the man at full speed with that pitchfork from earlier. Lilly shoots the girl in the stomach and she falls. Margaret curses Lee, screaming that everything was his fault and if he’d just minded his own business none of this would’ve happened.

Lee wouldn't bring himself to kill a child, so as she demands Lee come back so she could kill him he walks away.

Pidge, however, wasn't an antagonist. At least not immediately. She had no clue about her family's cannibalism and would’ve escaped with the motor inn group. More on that as the chapters go on, because as I said, Margaret/Pidge was written out beyond what I write here but then we’d be getting into actual spoilers, and I don’t want to do that just yet. Besides, her role was just recycled anyway.

So when the time comes, I’ll make a B.T.Sing for JUST this character.

And here’s where you can read Margaret’s introduction: [🪓]

And here’s Pidge’s introduction: [🪓]

[juno-box]

BTSing my Fic w/Juno: DoTWD - Rachel

I picked Halloween because I used to love Halloween as a kid, so I made it her birthday a few years ago.

To celebrate, here's some hilarious "B.T.Sing My Fic" for Rachel!

Rachel has had well over 10 models, plus numerous redesigns over the past year!

As I practiced and what have you, Rachel's model has changed... extremely over the span of this fic?

Since about 2014-2013, Rachel originally had pigtails. I don't know why, I liked doing my hair like that when I was younger so I passed it down to a plethora of my OCs growing up, Ray's no exception.

Here's EVERY Rachel model from start to finish, including the tests, get ready to laugh:

BOO!

Scared you bad, huh? Yeah they went from bad to decent to scrapped somewhere from Jan. to around August. Those pigtails fought DEMONS to stay in the final design just to lose lmao.

Here's where I started getting closer:

I still was bouncing between a tomboy look or not. Keep in mind, Ray's canon appearance is veryyyy close to how she was originally conceptualized in my mind space lol, save for the pigtails and the boots oddly enough, she actually just had flats.

Her favorite color was going to be red as a joke

There was a scrapped joke somewhere where Lee got her a yellow sweater between EP.1 & 2 which Rachel would go:

R: "Oh, yellow?" L: "It matches your rabbit." R: "Yeah, I know. My favorite color's red, though." L: "Red?" R: "Yeah! Red like my boots!"

Look, it was a reference to something my sister joked about as a kid lol, her favorite color was green but all she ever wore was pink. Get it?

Okay so, years ago, Rachel's end-game would been with Duck

Listen, this was 2015, I would've been at most 12. Don't believe me here's a screenshot from my old FF.Net page lmfao:

OG Clucks where y'all at lol-

Rachel used to be immune to walker bites... Yeah.

So she was going to have a whole Deus Ex Machina and be immune to the infection ala Ellie TLOU style. Look, you can GUESS why I eventually tossed that idea, okay, I was like 10-11 when I came up with it. (〜￣▽￣)〜

Rachel AND her brother were... were magic... people... from... a different... world—

Okay, OKAY SHUT UP. I was 11ish.

Harry Potter was the shit.

Percy Jackson was everywhere, we ALL loved Supernatural!

I was a HUGE nerd of Skyrim and--

QUIT BOOING ME （；´д｀）ゞ

At least y'all didn't read the fic when it was up on Wattpad years ago🙃

[juno-box]

BTSing my Fic w/Juno: DoTWD Ch.1 & 2

Hey howdy! So I wanted to share a bunch of behind the scenes things with my fanfic, this time around namely deleted scenes, added scenes and scraped content! Let’s begin!

Chapter 2

So, if you don’t know, I have a word doc that lists out potential plot points for every season from 1 to 4. I also keep a folder full of scraped characters, chapters and cut dialogue for some reason! So far this is for every episode with the most being from Episode 2, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Originally, Travis was not going to play a part in the story, and his role was split between two new characters that would’ve made an appearance in Chapter 2.

These two characters were called Olly and Debbie (both characters being a homage to a TWDG fanfic I wrote back in 2015 on Wattpad), and were two siblings that snuck into Clem’s house to help their mother, who was bitten. Unfortunately half the doc didn’t save, so I can’t upload a snippet from it, but it initially went the same, but the person sneaking about upstairs would’ve been this 11-year-old girl named Deborah, who shared a personality similar to Sarah from Season 2. She would come down stairs while Clem and Ray were hiding and call out to them. Ray would jump out and aim a spatula at her, freaking Debbie out. Oliver, a 14-year-old boy, would come downstairs and defuse the situation with a flashlight, but Ray would accuse them of being robbers. Olly would spin the accusations back on them and accuse them of being murderers, to the girls’ horror. Clem would defend them both saying that the house they were in was hers, and Olly asks her to prove it. She would then point to the art on the wall near the front door with name on it. Olly apologizes, and Ray asks why he would call them murders. Olly says it’s because there’s blood all over the place, like the kitchen and on their shoes. Ray and Clem would look down and see they tracked blood on the floor and then freak out.

Clem asks them why they broke in, and Debbie explains they were going to the store when they got jumped in the parking lot (by a walker). They got away in their car but their mom crashed a little ways down the street, and was hurt bad so they brought her inside and to the bathroom upstairs.

That’s where I scrapped the plot point. I was going to plan for their mom to replace Sandra as the walker in the house but the roadblock I ran into was that I had no plans for these characters. They weren’t even being treated like props at the bare minimum, they truly had no role or impact in the story. So I scrapped them.

The second version of Chapter 2 didn’t involve a stranger or Travis, but instead the girls would’ve ran into a walker Sandra.

This version I DO have an intact, written chapter for and will upload it to read here! Feel free to compare the differences!

This actually came AFTER I’d written the version with Travis, because at the time I had no clue if I really wanted Travis to be a part of the story at that point, so parts of Travis’ role was given to Clem instead. But what made me change my mind was that I wanted to introduce the fact that Rachel did have an older brother, and it without Travis this fact wouldn’t be brought up until way later. Additionally, and most importantly, it made Clem look as if she had to baby Ray. Even though at this point in the story, they’re both 8-years-old, it kind of came across that Clem would have to treat Ray like she’d treat AJ in the future.

Sandra was going to live until Chapter 2

I mentioned this before but I’ll elaborate. Sandra was supposed to live until Chapter 2. She would’ve been bit, of course, and getting worse. Clem suggested that they should bring her inside where it was more comfortable, but Sandra would tell them that it’s too dangerous for them to leave the treehouse. Sandra would’ve then taken the trip back inside, saying she’ll call for help and if she didn’t return, do NOT come looking for her. She would then disappear inside and not come out.

Scrapped this idea before it was written because I couldn’t really build on it, but assume it ended up similar to the “No Travis” version of this chapter.

Rachel was initially going to start the apocalypse at her house + another pivotal character

So this is interesting, around me writing Chapter 8, I had an idea to change Chapter 1 (ik how dumb, right?). This version of Chapter 1 started pre-apocalypse, about a week before and was actually during Rachel’s birthday.

The chapter started with Ray & Clem talking to each other over the radio before a flash back started. Clem and Ray would’ve been on a bus coming from summer camp. They would’ve been looking over a scrapbook when their friend (who was ANOTHER pivotal character) Alfred would’ve sat with them. The three would’ve talked about camp for a bit before being interrupted by bullies sitting behind them. They would’ve picked on Alfred for being illiterate, mainly their leader William, who would’ve been holding out his hand with something written on it. Rachel would’ve grabbed his hand and spit in it before the three jump out the bus at their stop.

Sandra would’ve been there and picked them up. She’d ask them about camp and they’d each tell her something about camp that would’ve played important later on in the fanfic.

So they arrive at Clem’s house and Ray’s mother is outside. She hugs her and asks why she hadn’t left for Savannah yet. Mom says she wanted to hang out with her babies before heading to the coast and ushers the kids to the backyard where they see a surprise birthday party set up. The kids go off to play and the adults talk.

The adults present are Ed, Diana, Emily (Ray’s mother) and Hank (Alfred’s Father). It’s implied they’re all childhood friends, by the way. Hank points out that Ray’s father didn’t show up, to which Emily would’ve said he’s busy with out of town work. Hank would be critical of this before Diana intervened and drug him inside to work on the piñata. Emily then talks to Ed about it.

Inserting a time skip, Ray’s opening presents. Emily hands Ray a gift and she opens it. This is how she would’ve gotten her stuffed rabbit, Captain Yellowbear. The flashback would’ve ended with a camera flash and picked up with the start of Chapter 2, actually. The only difference being that Ray would’ve actually been home instead of at Clem’s. Travis would find her and Ray would say they have to go save Clem because she’s all alone. Then the scene where the girls would enter the house and run into Travis would’ve happened, only difference is Clem would’ve been alone and ran into Travis and Ray.

Wait… Who the hell is Alfred?

Ah… he’s…

You’re gonna laugh.

Remember during Episode 1 in the office of the pharmacy, Clem can mention she had a friend named Alfred with a peanut allergy?

…

That’s Alfred.

I wanted to add another canon character to the fray that Clem and Ray would know. That would’ve been Alfred, a kid they went to school with. He would’ve made an appearance in Episode 2.

Yes, he had a FULLY RENDERED & RIGGED MODEL. Actually, he had THREE different versions.

A COMPLETELY WRITTEN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

The ONLY reason he was shelved was because HE was the character that made me believe I was making the world too small.

It’s the apocalypse, you’ll never know who you’ll run into.

But what are the ODDS that it happens that much? And with the amount of times people reunite in the story, it can only happen so many times before I and others assume the world is about the same size as Knox County from Project Zomboid, y’know?

Sorry, Al. You were too good for this world.

Convince me otherwise, and maybe not...?

The POV with Travis was added months after I’d already written Chapter 2

Just as the blurb says. That whole scene with Travis on the phone, and traveling to Ray’s house was added just around a month or so ago. There was a chunk that was unwritten about how exactly he got to Clem’s house but it dragged on and wasn’t important. I might actually write it as an Extra Chapter in the future because it was relatively interesting.

That’s all she wrote for now! I’ll be back for Chapter 3!

[juno-box]

BTSing my Fic w/Juno: DoTWD's Art (Slight Spoilers)

WIPs since i took a bit of a break because of my allergies

When I plan images, I color code them like so:

Green, Blue, Purple & Red. In order the represent Image 1, 2, 3 & 4. When the colors start over, it means that it's a different scene.

I got through the chapter, highlight any scene I feel should have art for it and then rough draft it as such.

Sometimes, even when I do that, images may or many not stay in the final cut. Chapter 1 is a great example because out of the 14 images made for that chapter, only 8 were used.

The rest remained unused because they really weren't the quality I prefer. Here's my fave of Rachel that I scrapped lol (also an example of that quality issue)

Also, you either didn't notice or did but Rachel didn't have a headband in 5 of those images because those were render using her old model. The only reason they stayed because (tbh i didn't feel like wasting more time and pushing off the upload because of it) they weren't as bad as the others:

See?

The first 3 renders were remade:

Version 1:

Version 2:

Here's an example of how I do renders from Chapter 3, currently unpublished as of 10/19/23, so tiny insignificant spoiler if you care:

🛑Slight Spoilers🛑

The draft won't always match the final render, but it reminds me of what I'm looking for exactly lol. It's a bit more helpful than in-game screencaps because not every angle is intended to be the same. 5/10 chances I go back and edit something anyways lmfao.

Here's the reference for these 2 renders btw: 🍎✨

[juno-box]

BTSing my Fic w/Juno: DoTWD Ch. 3

Hey howdy! So I wanted to share a bunch of behind the scenes things with my fanfic, this time around namely deleted scenes, added scenes and scraped content! Let’s begin!

Chapter 3

So, if you don’t know, I have a word doc that lists out potential plot points for every season from 1 to 4. I also keep a folder full of scraped characters, chapters and cut dialogue for some reason! Chapter 3 didn’t have too many changes, but here!

There was originally 6 messages on the answering machine, 2 of which was from Rachel’s father

So the messages in chapter were changed slightly to reflect the fact that Clem and Ray’s parents know one another. But while Ray’s mother, Emily and Clem’s parents, Ed & Diana are both in Savannah, they went down for different reasons.

But there was a relatively big difference in the recordings. Originally, Emily was going to mention Rachel’s father, and that he was out of state on business.

The first 2 messages were supposed to be Emily & Diana talking to Sandra pre-outbreak, the 3rd was Emily and Diana’s final message which was wholly different. The original final message started with Emily saying she’d been calling for hours and all the calls dropped. She then would say that her husband called a few hours prior and said something was wrong, and that they needed to get out of the city. He didn’t explain what he meant, or where he was but only said to get the girls out of Atlanta and meet him in Rutledge. She’ll then get cut off by something before the message ends.

Message 4 & 5 are from Rachel’s father. He tries to explain what’s going on the best he can to an 8-year-old. It’s heavily implied his occupation is something involved with virology. The message is cut off. It starts again in message 4 with him explaining he told her mother where to meet them. He warns her not to try and go home either, tells them they have get out of cities. The message is cut off once again.

This entire moment was rewritten & changed because holy exposition dump, Batman! Why would Lee need to know any of that so early on?? As far as Lee goes, he barely knows what’s going on at this point. Getting spoon fed critical information, albeit vaguely would eventually come up again should the topic of their parents arise and he’ll basically know to avoid cities, which if that’s relayed back to the group, then no more Savannah plotline, which means Clem would be hugely upset, along with Rachel. No closure for either of them. Dad was written out of the scene entire because of it. Besides, he doesn’t even have a role or appearance for him to be so talkative anyways lol.

Yes, this version is still intact and written.

Emily was originally in Athens

Emily was originally going to be in Athens, GA. This was changed after I scrapped the original messages because if they go to Savannah, they’ll be going further and further away from Ray’s mom. And with Rachel’s personality, she wouldn’t take that well at all.

Originally, Sandra didn’t attack Lee during the day, but at night instead

The Sandra scene didn’t happen in the original draft. Instead, Clem, Ray & Travis would climb down and meet Lee without having to save him from Sandra.

Lee would ask about the babysitter’s whereabouts, and the trio would sadly reveal she was attacked two nights prior.

Skipping to 9:00 PM, Lee would say they should leave. Rachel would say she has to go get her bag (she had a bag in this version btw) and her and Clem would go upstairs by crawling underneath a knocked over bookshelf.

Travis looks at the stairs and mentions he never put that bookcase there. Before Lee could ask what he means, the girls would scream from upstairs. Lee and Travis would heave the bookshelf from the stairs and run upstairs to see a walker banging on a door the girls have locked themselves in. Lee would yell for the walker’s attention and fight off the walker. He can’t find a weapon so he tries to heave it down stairs but he grabs him and pulls him down with him. He falls with it and kicks it down the last few steps before Clem gives him a hammer and he kills it. Rachel says they found Sandra.

Scrapped because the continuity is awful here. There’s zero shot Travis didn’t see walker Sandra upstairs the day before if her was searching for 20 minutes or something!

This version can be read here!

That’s all she wrote for now! I’ll be back for Chapter 4!