#Gerard Rafin

[robotslenderman]

I was thinking about your dark materials/masquerade au last night.

Few questions on vampire deamons-

Are vampire daemons as invulnerable to harm as vampires (ie regular bullets not too bad and survivable). Or just as vulnerable as human daemons. Are they more vulnerable to fire, sunlight and true faith etc. I think big daemons make easier targets to aim for hearts or with fire weapons too.

Do vamp daemons have Disciplines?

Can tzmisce ones vicissitude? Pretend I can spell that. Or just not settle on a form only.

If they leave their shitty attitude vamp, are the vamp still in danger if their daemon is killed or is it like severing almost, (just no dead daemon.)

With sullivan (and trans people in general)- does the daemon consider themselves trans or just sullivan/their person only?

What's caine's daemon? Or is that debated by many. Also Calebros, Cock Robin, and Gerard rafins ones? Sorry I love nos

Are werewolves (if real) wolf daemons or can be any? Laughing at raging werewolf crinos and their angry pomeranian daemon.

phoenix daemons sound really magical. Is their a masquerade in your au. As it's quite fantastical anyway. Or are Kindred still at risk of hunters?

Can you ghoul or protein form into an armoured bear?

Sorry for a million questions. It's just kindred have such interesting implications on daemons in your au. I'm really interested if you didn't know lol.

Feel free to say some are to be revealed in story. Or answer privately, so others not spoiled.

So TL;DR the HDM!AU is an AU called His Dark Masquerade that me and several friends came up with. Everyone has their own distinctive headcanon for how daemons work in this universe (I think there's even one version where vampires don't have daemons at all, which die during the Embrace, and naturally cause Masquerade problems) so please keep in mind that these answers apply strictly to my version of His Dark Masquerade. While other people are welcome to adopt these headcanons for their own versions, I do not speak for anyone else and do not presume that this applies to all versions of His Dark Masquerade.

Also I'm completely shitfaced rn so apologies in advance if/when I make zero sense.

Are vampire daemons as invulnerable to harm as vampires (ie regular bullets not too bad and survivable). Or just as vulnerable as human daemons. Are they more vulnerable to fire, sunlight and true faith etc. I think big daemons make easier targets to aim for hearts or with fire weapons too.

So in my personal continuity of HDM(asquerade), daemons basically share Disciplines with their masters (for lack of a better term). A vampire who is bulletproof with Fortitude will have a daemon who shares that same resistance.

So daemons are just as susceptible to True Faith, fire, sunlight, etc. And as you point out, larger daemons are more vulnerable to attack as they're literally a bigger target.

In this continuity, Mithras has/had a daemon called Hvare Khshaetra. Hvarexaetra is Avestan for "the rising sun," and she shares all the Disciplines that Mithras has. Mithras has been diablerised by Olivia, so his Disciplines currently range from either not affected at all to quite watered down. Timaeus is currently very influenced by Hvare Khshaetra, but as the daemon represents their person's unconscious in the original HDM Timaeus is more heavily influenced by HK than Olivia is by Mithras.

Given Mithras's background (which, as of the current chapter, hasn't been completely explored yet), Timaeus is actually less influenced by the sun than most daemons would be, but that's because of his link to Olivia (and therefore Mithras) and not because daemons are less resistant to the sun. Most daemons will burn up in the presence of sunlight. While the daemons of Cainites can freely leave the sides of their Cainite, if either of them are confronted by sunlight, both of them will burn. They might be relatively independent of each other compared to humans with their daemons, but there still is a link between them, even if it's not nearly as significant as the human/daemon connection.

So basically... even if you haven't seen your daemon in two hundred years because they fucked off and ditched you when you were a neonate, they end up in a patch of sun, you both dead.

Do vamp daemons have Disciplines?

Yup! As per above -- they share the same Disciplines. Obviously a fanfic isn't the TTRPG, but if one burns Blood during a rouse check, they both gain a hunger point, and are both sated by one of them feeding.

Can tzmisce ones vicissitude? Pretend I can spell that. Or just not settle on a form only.

If their master has Vicissitude, the Daemon can use it as well. Tzimisce daemons never resettle after Embrace, but if a non-Tzimisce daemon has access to Vicissitude, they can change their form at will. Unlike Tzimisce daemons, however, they still have a "default" form.

If they leave their shitty attitude vamp, are the vamp still in danger if their daemon is killed or is it like severing almost, (just no dead daemon.)

So it's somewhat like the severing in that they can wander far from their masters and their masters won't know where they are (beyond maybe a vague sense of direction, if the abandonment is recent), but if one is destroyed the other goes with them.

With sullivan (and trans people in general)- does the daemon consider themselves trans or just sullivan/their person only?

This is probably a question better for Philip Pullman, but in my particular continuity some daemons can be trans like their master, but others aren't even if their master is. Sullivan's daemon, Molly, is basically cis. Sullivan does not identify as female and transitioned to male, but Molly has always been female.

I personally headcanon that same sex daemons can cause assumptions, in the modern era with our queer civil rights movements and numerous bigots, that their master is queer in some way, but that doesn't mean it's actually true. In Philip Pullman's continuity there's just no explanation as to why some daemons are same sex, and I adhere to that. Sullivan's daemon was same sex and he turned out to be trans, but I also have another OC (Frida) whose daemon was same sex, but she wasn't queer (beyond perhaps being on the asexual spectrum), her daemon just happened to be female.

What's caine's daemon? Or is that debated by many.

Not something I've put thought into -- either it's in the Bible as to what his daemon is (and given he almost certainly has Vicissitude his daemon can probably take whatever form she wants), or it's not and it's hotly debated.

Also Calebros, Cock Robin, and Gerard rafins ones? Sorry I love nos

Honestly have not thought that far ahead. Wendy's is a white ferret called Sammie, and Kaiser's is a burrowing owl, but I haven't thought about the other Nos.

Are werewolves (if real) wolf daemons or can be any? Laughing at raging werewolf crinos and their angry pomeranian daemon.

Haven't put that much thought into it tho I agree a pomeranian daemon standing by while their crinos master wrecks shit is hilarious.

phoenix daemons sound really magical. Is their a masquerade in your au. As it's quite fantastical anyway. Or are Kindred still at risk of hunters?

Yep, there's still a Masquerade, and daemons can either complicate it or simplify it depending on circumstances. Imagine being a young Neonate who's just been Embraced and you run into someone you knew when you were alive -- maybe you can pull off a "yeah I totally haven't aged in fifteen years", but it's a lot harder to explain your daemon suddenly taking another form.

Can you ghoul or protein form into an armoured bear?

Do you mean the Tzimisce warform? Have not put any thought into it so can't answer at this point in time.

[dividlibro]

What does herbert and his sire think of uncle smelly, calebros and cock robin?

Because they both are stationed in Europe, they never personally met the Nosferatu of New York. Herberts sire perfers to keep a distance to the things that are of no concern to him.

Herbert did travel through the USA after he was awarded the status of Neonate though. On his journey, he heard a lot of stories about his clan siblings there, and especially of ‚Uncle Smelly‘. He came to deeply respect Gerard Rafin, not just for his crucial part in creating the ‚SchreckNET‘, but also way of working a persona. He would really like to meet him at some point in his exsistens.

[rotten-ash]

Hi, three things: 1. Is your character a prince and of where, if yes? 2. What do you think of cock robin, Gerard rafin and calebros? Cock robin is my favourite character. 3. Do you have an archive, I would like to find your art of your character? My tablet hates scrolling.

(Hello! Yes. She is originally a larp character, and in the larp when it ended she was the seneschal and the original prince left, and so I decided to give her the title when I transfered her onto here. And it was in my home town, where the larp plays out, so I am a tad secretive about it. But it’s in Sweden close to Gothenburg. 

Cock Robin is a really interesting character, and I particularly enjoy how they did his appearance! Haven’t heard of Gerard Rafin before, but looking him up it’s an interesting character as well. Calebros I am a fan of! But my favorite Nossie is Malachite from the Dark Ages novel.

I do! I tag all my art with [.thisisnowmyarttag.], and you can find the tagged posts by clicking on that, hopefully. Hope that works

[robotslenderman]

Pls do Wendy, cock robin and calebros pls

Wendy:

favorite thing about them Will Jack Sparrow her way through shit. Has poor impulse control. Ballsy. No survival instinct whatsoever. Makes her a blast to write.

least favorite thing about them This doesn't really spotlight until the RS sequel fic (although it does show up in RS), but she puts her own needs above her principles. Even though she did eventually speak up about the Kennels in RS, it took her ten years to get there, and she never once tried to strike out on her own. She's afraid of being lonely, of being on her own, of dramatic change, and in her next fic that's going to show up and test her big time. And she is going to fail that test. She angsts a lot about being a good person but, deep down, she does not want to be. In the City that Never Sleeps she joins the bad guys who murdered someone she knew. Pre-RS she never left the Warren despite the Kennels deeply distressing her, until she had something else lined up. And in the upcoming fic she's close friends with a guy who's done some pretty bad shit and... does nothing, bc she misses him when he's not there.

favorite line I honestly can't be bothered to check. XD

brOTP I love her dynamic with Thomas Arturo. Whenever I start writing them in a scene together they just bounce off each other and have the best banter. I have to cut so much of it out bc it's mostly just blatant self indulgence lmao. Gerard Rafin is a VERY close second. She'd do well as platonic life partners with either of them tbh.

OTP Despite the chemistry she has with quite a few characters there's never been a romantic connection that's really jumped out at me. I mean, I ship her and Thomas romantically too, but only because their platonic chemistry is so great. The romantic aspect takes a backseat and doesn't hold a candle to it.

nOTP I love her and Gerard and I know people ship it like hell but for some reason whenever I consider the possibility of it when writing Wendy just gets super squicked out. I don't even know why.

random headcanon In a daemon AU, she has a ferret as a daemon: absolutely batshit insane, no attention span except when she's hyperfocusing on something that will probably kill her, constantly gets into shit she shouldn't.

unpopular opinion It's not unpopular YET but she's not nearly as ethical as RS paints her to be, and ohhh boy I'm hoping I don't get too much backlash for that in the sequel fic :X

song i associate with them Clubbed to Death -- The Matrix OST

favorite picture of them Alas, there is none.

I was getting deja vu then realised it was because you'd already send CR and Calebros in before and I never finished the draft for that, so here we go:

Cock Robin

favorite thing about them

Disabled Justicar. Badass. VTM isn't exactly known for its equity.

least favorite thing about them

Obsessed with Anarchs. We all need our hobbies I guess.

favorite line

Out of the ones I wrote for him?

"[Calebros] never learned to be a real Nosferatu because he’d never learned to be human."

brOTP

I love him and his baby sister okay

OTP

@orodrethsgeek ships him with her OC Jay, the vampiric equivalent of that black bird that dances for its mate, and I love them

nOTP

Can't think of any.

random headcanon

He's either very flappable or very *un*flappable. No in between.

unpopular opinion

I barely know of any opinions on the guy

song i associate with them

There's a scene I wrote with him and Wendy in the last chapter of the fic and when I was playing it I was listening to this on repeat:

The End -- Hans Zimmer, The Dark Knight Rises OST

favorite picture of them'

Absolutely ADORE this one:

He just happens to be a normal dude whose face is Like That. I love it, I love the cigarette, I love how he looks so thoughtful with a face that can't even make facial expressions, it's so humanising.

Calebros

favorite thing about them

Not a complete dick. It's a low bar but most Kindred have shovels.

least favorite thing about them

Gerard Rafin's right, this guy does think too much and do too little.

favorite line

One I wrote, where Gerard said something in French and Calebros went, "did he tell me to shut up?"

(Yes. He did.)

brOTP

Don't have one.

OTP

Don't have one. Tho I'd be interested to plonk him in a scene with Aisling, I think they'd get along well.

nOTP

Don't have one.

random headcanon

Canon acts as if he turned out fine but the Kennels screwed him up far more than he or anyone around him realises, and is a big part of the reason he's so passive.

unpopular opinion

I find him a bit dull, but I don't think that's a bad thing for him to be as a character. I wouldn't change that about him.

song i associate with them

None in particular.

favorite picture of them

I genuinely find this one funny:

[robotslenderman]

Top 5 clan Nosferatu stuff you know/read/seen pls

Oooh, fun!

1. Nosferatu have an instinct to dig and go underground. Given the water table, I have to wonder if they have some instincts we don't know about -- did Nosferatu just dig wherever, and use trial and error and hope the water table was far beneath them? Did they have a way to sense how far down water is, so they knew exactly where to dig? Have they been just digging wherever all this time and enslaving ghouls to pump out water for as long as pumps have existed? Have they got ways of waterproofing their walls -- do they mix their vitae with dirt in some kind of mixture and paint their walls with it to keep the water out?

2. So I haven't read or seen this, but Nosferatu are probably very good at managing in places where it's completely dark.

Think about it. Electric lighting is a modern invention, so for most of history they don't have electric lights. They wouldn't have had fireplaces down there for light. They wouldn't have had windows, being underground, and no open ceilings to allow moon and starlight in. A lot of fiction with underground races has bio-luminescent mushrooms and stuff, but in reality those are extremely rare and when they do happen, the light is very dim.

They might have had candles, but historically candles were very expensive. Having multiple candles in a room would have been very impractical from an expense standpoint; if they did have the resources to use candles, chances are every Nosferatu had a personal candleholder and would use their own candle to navigate, instead of just having candles around each room. (This raises more speculation about what kind of relationship such a clan would have to fire, given Rotschreck conflicting with the need to be able to see, but I don't want to get off track.)

But it's very likely that most Warrens would have been completely and utterly pitch black. Therefore, the Nosferatu would need ways to sense their surroundings in order to navigate, or else have some compensation mechanisms. Maybe they have the same senses we do and they just used sticks and "Marco!" "Polo!" to make sure they weren't crashing into anyone. But also -- maybe Nosferatu often have whiskers or their bodies are covered in very fine hairs, and they can sense very subtle changes in air current. Maybe they can do echolocation -- Gerard Rafin's ears are described as being like a bat's, and bats use echolocation. Maybe they have some other way to "see". Given the variety of Nosferatu appearances, the most likely explanation is that each Nosferatu is unique -- some have the fine hairs, and others have the echolocation. Which would probably mean you also have some Nosferatu that are shit out of luck and are completely blind in all ways that matter when they're underground.

They probably also have something akin to Braille. They're the clan of spies, but they can't read fuck all under there, they need some way to be able to keep records and be able to read them in pitch black.

The more I think about it, the more I think it'd make sense if Nosferatu had blood magic or something, simply just so they can make glowing balls of light and stick them around the Warren. Alas.

3. There is a bloodline of Nosferatu called the Nictuku who lack the instinct to dig, and instead have a pathological need to be able to see the moon. In VTMNR, there's a Nosferatu called Dove. On the surface you might only notice she's unusual because she doesn't hang out in a Warren or seem to be involved in any kind of spy network, unlike the rest of the highly social Nosferatu, but...

At one point Lettow dictates Dove's entire lineage. If you look up the Methuselah in her lineage in the wiki, you'll see she's actually Nictuku.

And if you know that, everything else about Dove makes sense and you realise she spends the bulk of her time in places where she can easily see the moon and open sky. She's a driver, so she'd see the moon all the time on the road. But not only that -- she's Lettow Kaminsky's Seneschal/Sheriff. Lettow has an open-air Elysium. No matter which job she's doing, whether it's being a Seneschal or driving, she's got an open sky right above her.

On the other hand, I have no idea why the fuck Kyle Marquis wrote Dove's grandsire as being the complete opposite and always being underground like some kind of ugly-ass Dune worm.

4. Dove has the Vampire Mafia after her, and she almost didn't survive as a fledgling because of it.

She's noted to have a strong resemblance to an "extinct clan". She has a skull-like face; the Cappadocians have skull-like visages and were hunted near to extinction (officially extinction) by the Giovanni. AKA the Vampire Mafia. 100% chance it was these guys who wanted to fuck her up and damn Jasper Knowles must have been pretty damn powerful to get them off her back.

5. We know them as hackers, but honestly, they're probably pretty damn good engineers too.

In modern times Warrens probably have a network of pumps going 24/7 that need to be constantly maintained, like how in NYC the subway is always flooding and people don't know about it because there's a whole system of pumps taking all the water that comes in and pumping it right back out.

In all times Nosferatu have existed, they've needed to be able to dig underground through various types of rocks and dirt, but also maintain its structural integrity. They don't have to worry about dying so much, but cave-ins are probably a real pain in the ass at least, so they'd devise ways to dig that minimise risk, and also reinforce the ceilings. But it'd be pretty moist down there and wood rots -- a Warren isn't a mine, it's supposed to last centuries, if not thousands of years in some places in the world, so they probably have carpenters who are constantly, by vampire standards, maintaining ceiling beams and columns and checking for rot and decay.

[robotslenderman]

It's almost Wednesday so fuck it, have an early WIP Wednesday. Cock Robin is finally going to show up in chapter 8!

... in a flashback.

Sorry.

She could remember Cock Robin’s long beak in the darkness. Could remember others with him. Couldn’t remember when he’d turned up, or if he’d been there all along. But Calebros hadn’t been there, and neither had Cock Robin’s creepy little child interpreter. “Ssserving,” Cock Robin had rasped. And oh, how it had frightened her; Cock Robin’s disfigurement went beyond anything any Nosferatu she’d ever met before had, even among the swarms of refugees. He struggled so hard to talk, but every syllable he uttered spat nothing but venom. “Camarilla. Assss he ssshould. Loyalty. Backbone. Infected clan all around him… rot. Purge." He clenched a shaking fist and snarled, "The children…” Gerard had grabbed Wendy by the collar. “This is it,” he growled. “Run. Get the antitribu out of there. I don’t care how many Sabbat there are, have them flee into the tunnels and disappear. We know them better than they do. Whatever happens, we are one clan under two Sects. Whatever happens, whatever the fallout, we weather it together. Now get the hell out of here and warn them, and we’ll hold off Cock Sucker!”

[robotslenderman]

Blorbo meme: VTM (Radio Silence edition if you want hard mode 😈)

Fuck yeah

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

Wendy, since she's the main character. Other than her -- Alexander.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

Emily, in a sort of "adorable but could probably kill me" kind of way. I never really got to write scenes that put much depth into her, but even though she was a kid when she was ghouled, she has moments where she shows how old she really is and how much she's adapted to the World of Darkness. RS originally had an epilogue and near to the end she just. fuckign. pulled a gun on someone. no I did not intend for her to do this she just fucking did it. and at that point I was like "actually this is too ridiculous to include" because up until then she'd been either a faceless interpreter or an adorable drug addict and that particular action would have been way out of left field. So. Yeah.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

Patricia Erikson. She was the viewpoint character in the epilogue and it was going to be a whole Thing about how she was a foil to Wendy buuuut then Emily showed up with the gun and I was like "actually, fuck this."

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

Every time Noah shows up I get really sad because his dynamic with Alexander gets really silly but there's no way they'd let it show completely in front of other Kindred, so I always had to either cut it out in the edits or really tone it down. But basically every time he appeared I pictured him showing up fifteen minutes late with starbucks and shutter shades with eyebrows raised making dry comments to Alexander until he eventually provokes him enough into scuffling with him because he may have been Alexander's ghoul for most of his life, but he's been a little brother for all of it. Much like Emily it's a friggen tragedy I didn't get to show that.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

This is yet another case of "because of Wendy's limited POV I never got to show the depths of this character" but -- it's not controversial because most readers loved him anyway, but Gerard Rafin. I'm counting him on account of the whole Trump-esque levels of child abuse. Really sad I didn't get to really show the rest of his nasty side in general ("Uncle Smelly", whom we didn't really see because although he's caustic with his Warrenmates he canonically turns the Uncle Smelly thing down around them, and it's basically nonexistent around Wendy. also he has a very cunning side that didn't show up at all in the story. Cock Robin hinted at it in the last chapter and if I ever write that RS sequel idea I have maybe it'll show up then, I don't know). In reality nobody really hated any particular character so...

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

I love Francesca to pieces but there's always at least one character in my stories who has to go through the horse plinko and in RS it was her. First there's the Warren, and then there's the headcanon @orodrethsgeek and I made about that swan that got made Primogen of the new Baltimore Warren (long story. well, no, it's not, but you have to say "long story" whenever you say outlandish shit like that) that keeps trying to seduce her... Yeah I really need to write that sequel. Or at least publish that scene I wrote about the Primogen.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

I genuinely don't have one.

[robotslenderman]

I'm just like, wondering if I can get away with Wendy outright saying in the exposition that she loves her sire without readers assuming she means romantically.

[robotslenderman]

Kaiser: Can we talk about the message you sent the Camarilla earlier?

Gerard: It was a critical update.

Kaiser: It just said "we're back on our bullshit."

Gerard: People needed to know.

[robotslenderman]

Actual WIP Wednesday

RS-adjacent, but not part of the fic itself.

In the midst of the SchreckNET crisis, Nastasya gets a phone call from the last person she expects -- the creator of SchreckNET himself.

He offers her a deal.

A French accent came out through the speaker. “You still there, Vykos?”

“I’m here.” Nastasya uncovered the mouthpiece.

“My colleagues said you’re good for your word,” said Uncle Smelly. “You have Athanasios turn up at the Statue of Liberty in an hour at most, and we’ll deliver payment — everything we’ve got on Athanasios — immediately. It’ll be unorganised because of the short notice, so you’ll have to sift through the raw data yourself. Oh, and it’s his email archives. Hope that won’t be a problem.”

“Not this time,” said Nastasya. “This may count as a need anyway.”

“The most important one will be the report I’ll lay on top,” said Uncle Smelly. “I wrote that one myself after the fledgling met Athanasios five years ago.”

“Five years ago? The plot thickens.”

“Like I said, you’ll want to see it,” said Uncle Smelly. “We have a deal?”

“We have a deal.”

“Then you better be able to follow through, Vykos,” said Uncle Smelly. “Hope you know what to say to get him there in an hour.”

She didn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. If it fell through, then she’d find some way to make it up to the Nosferatu. She had no intention of burning any bridges and the ones she was used to interacting with generally trusted her. Well, as far as any Kindred could trust another. “I’ll handle it. Honour to speak with you, Uncle Smelly. You can leave the package at — “

“Don’t worry,” said Smelly, “I know your address.”

“Well, now I am worried, thank you — “

Smelly hung up without another word.

“Well, great," said Nastasya. "The Nosferatu know where we live."

Norm sighed. “Good thing we’re moving soon.”

[robotslenderman]

The City that Never Sleeps is  now COMPLETE!

Title: The City that Never Sleeps

Fandom: VTM: Coteries of New York

Chapters: 5/5

Total words: 26K

Story summary: Mitnick wasn’t the first Nosferatu that came to the clan through infiltrating SchreckNet, and nor would he be the last. He was only following in the footsteps of Wendy Taylor, the half-Australian cybersecurity expert who decided fucking with apparent gangster-cultist druglords on their own server was a good idea.

Spoiler warning: fucking with gangster-cultist druglords is a never good idea.

Mitnick didn’t get out alive. Neither did Wendy. The only question was, how long could she last before the Nosferatu caught up to her?

Chapter Summary: It’s over.

Or is it?

(We all know it’s not. This isn’t how it ends. It’s never how it ends. Now it’s time for Wendy to learn about new beginnings.)

Read chapter 5 here!

[robotslenderman]

Chapter 4 is up!

Title: The City that Never Sleeps

Fandom: VTM: Coteries of New York

Chapters: 4/5.

Story summary: Mitnick wasn’t the first Nosferatu that came to the clan through infiltrating SchreckNet, and nor would he be the last. He was only following in the footsteps of Wendy Taylor, the half-Australian cybersecurity expert who decided fucking with apparent gangster-cultist druglords on their own server was a good idea.

Spoiler warning: fucking with gangster-cultist druglords is a never good idea.

Mitnick didn’t get out alive. Neither did Wendy. The only question was, how long could she last before the Nosferatu caught up to her?

Chapter Summary: Knowledge is power, so Wendy checks on her enemies before she makes her next move.

Read chapter 4 here!

[robotslenderman]

Gerard: The plan is this. *Holds up binder*

Gerard: Wendy sent it along and it spent most of our trip just printing out. It's very comprehensive.

Radcliffe with Teeth: It's a pretty thick binder.

Gerard: In fact, I'm still just getting through the --

Radcliffe with Teeth: Beat Cock Robin to death with the binder! Got it!

[robotslenderman]

Tell me call headcannon about Gerard and robin? Also which character (oc or not) in your au would consider owning a dwarf bunny? I have nethies, so just curious!!!

Robin --

He wasn’t Petrodon’s biological childe, but was a very dear friend of his. I haven’t hammered out the details yet, but his headcanon background is different to his canon background, which is just what he allows the Nosferatu and Camarilla to believe is his background.

Gerard --

He has a mean streak a mile wide, but generally he’s a very good sire and thought of fondly by his childer. He takes his role as sire very, very seriously. It’s canon that he’s dedicated to the Nosferatu above anything else, but it extends to this headcanon as well -- he wants his childer to be productive members of Nosferatu society, and he believes the best way to make sure they are is to give them a firm foundation in their relationship with him in their childehood.

Generally it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

NYbN implies he has several childer which helped him build SchreckNET; I think he tends to scatter them far and wide across North America to help with the infrastructure. Most are electricians and specialise in maintaining the wires of the Warren they’re in; Wendy’s the first with substantial programming knowledge.

Who would own a dwarf bunny --

Wendy would probably love to have one theoretically, not as a ghoul but just as a pet, but lack of sunlight is probably bad for bunnies so I think she’d refrain. She might have had ideas for bringing down sunlamps and so on, but SchreckNET keeps her so busy she never really had time to put them into action.

[robotslenderman]

Director's commentary on Wendy Makes Poor Life Choices: The Fic? :D

(The City that Never Sleeps is here!)

You asked for her character development. I’m gonna go with “development as a character”, and not “character development over the fic”, since the fic isn’t finished yet.

Well, she came about when I was writing one of Olivia’s fics and I was just thinking about how Kaiser needed spies in order for Hope and Qadir to end up finding Arturo’s haven. And, well, a Nosferatu with Animalism... a female Nosferatu came to mind, one with an army of rats, who could watch over all of New York City through a thousand eyes.

(Not, thankfully, the Nossie that carked it in one of the Olivia fics. I still don’t know who that is lol.)

And that was Wendy.

We don’t see her with her army of rats, and her role as a Kindred has continued to develop even as I edit my fic (which we don’t see), but in the beginning I was just gonna write a fic about a woman who pulls a Mitnick, spends the rest of the fic shitting herself, and then eventually gets caught and Embraced.

We were always going to see the Nossie emails in the original fic, but their purpose was for Wendy to keep an eye on her stalkers and be able to plan her next move from there. The only characters that were going to be front and centre were Wendy herself, and Kaiser.

Before I knew it, though, the Nossies were making fun of each other, bickering, squabbling, and so on among each other. John showed up; he was originally a woman named Trixie. Calebros made a brief cameo, then got even more involved. Originally, all he did was tell everyone to get off the internet, and then disappeared again except for mentions here and there. Gerard was the worst offender -- he was just supposed to be the admin pissed off that Kaiser kept getting SchreckNET hacked, but he also took a bigger and bigger role until he, totally against my wishes, played a major role in chapter 5 (still not up) that I NEVER meant for him to do. He didn’t do it in the first draft, but he went and did the thing in the second so I was like “welp I may as well roll with that.”

The Nossies also became more distinct over the course of several drafts. In the beginning, Kaiser cursed a lot, but other than that the three of them were pretty indistinguishable from each other. Then when I edited chapter five (back when it was chapter four), Calebros insisted on showing up in it, and turned out to be quite calm, so I edited his emails to reflect a more mature, level-headed leader. Gerard zig-zagged -- he got along just fine with Calebros in the first draft but then I remembered that in canon he’s supposed to have issues with Calebros, so in the edit I reflected that. Which ended up leading to him growing legs and running off. He’s gone from faceless Nossie that maybe cursed a little like Calebros originally did, to an exasperated administrator who’s trying to do his best for the Nosferatu but worries that the lack of support for his administration of SchreckNET could lead to a worse disaster than Wendy later on.

And for those who play V5... well, he wasn’t wrong. I was actually really proud of how it spontaneously came out at one point in the fic that he was worried about the future of SchreckNET, and that he feared he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the programming development of humans due to lack of support from the Primogen and isolation from human society. I really didn’t plan that, he came alive and said that himself. And I think that the fact that the fic happened at all shows that while Uncle Smelly is the God of SchreckNET and responsible for all the communication that happens between all the Warrens... in reality he’s pretty out of his depth as administrator of a website he has to keep secret from all of humanity, and he’s starting to get really worried about how he’s going to keep that up.

I know this was about Wendy but like... Wendy has pretty much stayed exactly the same throughout the conception and writing of this story. She’s just a lady shitting herself who occasionally can’t resist trolling. It’s the Nossies who really grew and changed as I went from the first draft to the second and third.

It started out as a fic about a human dealing with being stalked by vampires, and ended as a fic about vampires trying to deal with a huge Masquerade breach, from the perspective of the breacher.

[robotslenderman]

Getting started on the second draft...

The first draft isn't finished, but I thought I'd get started on the second anyway lol. Sharing this before I go play Minecraft with @intimidatethevoid!

“The Camarilla have decided they want you detained after all,” said Calebros. “You and Wendy. If you’re not back soon, there will be a Blood Hunt declared.” “And what, you’re just going to fucking roll over for them?!” “I’m not your fucking Primogen any more, Gerard!" “You fucking should be, we don’t have anyone up there at all now!” said Gerard. Out came the angry French curses again, the raised voice again. “We needed you, we don’t have anyone else here cut out for the job. You should be our Prince, but you threw it away instead of helping our clan! All you can think about is your damned self!” He whirled on Wendy. “You’re going to Baltimore early. Leave, now.” “I need to print these first!” Wendy hit ctrl+P, clicked a few more options, and rushed over to the printer. “We need a way to stay in touch instantaneously while I’m in Baltimore with Kaiser.” “The Camarilla are not going to approve of live communication right now,” said Calebros. There was a hint of scolding in his voice that never used to be there when talking to Wendy. He kept the sneers and the snark for outsiders, but more and more, since he’d become Prince, it had been creeping in when he talked to his fellows. “Tais-toi, Cal!” snapped Gerard. “Did he just tell me to shut up?” said Calebros. Another angry stream of French answered him.