#eremika vampire au

[quillsandblades]

So anyone who's read our Vampire AU knows Levi was pronounced dead in this chapter. And afterwards @sunflowersunite and I joked that when he goes out next, he's gonna stand in some shadowy corner during his 'funeral' and watch.

And when everyone's preparing to leave Levi will stand still and wait until most of the people are gone, pick a random passerby and say, with his hat pulled low and hiding half his face, "Thanks for attending my funeral" in a completely serious tone. And he raises the hat and gives the other man the scare of his life.

The man runs home, hides under the blankets and clings to his wife all night. He has nightmares about Captain Levi breaking out of his grave zombie style for two weeks.

And that is how Levi entertains himself in the boring world of mortals.

[sunflowersunite]

@quillsandblades and I have returned for another behind the scenes post of our dear vampire AU! Though there's the hiatus, we'll take the opportunity to look into previous chapters and share backstage footage from there, so I'm positive it'll be like we never left. Because it's definitely not gonna leave our minds.

This one's for chapter 22, so beware of spoilers and click the pictures for better quality.

[previous part] [next part]

For context, "empurple" is Mina's favourite word so I saw this one and took the opportunity

Keeping up with Mike-- a lot has happened, he's in the depths of despair but he still ships Levihan. Thank you for your service soldier.

Remember how in a previous post Swordslinger mentioned how this fic has taught us stuff deeper than just storywriting? It offered us a chance to think of our philosophies as well.

I love it when stories address the damage the main characters inflict around them while fighting the villains (like in aot S1 ending) and I love it when they keep dwelling on that, choking in their guilt. It's something we both relish in, so you bet we included it in our story as well 🙃

Now moving on to dramatic Eren, straight out of a Shakespearean tragedy. Had aot ended with Mikasa being the main villain and dying, Eren would've joined her, mark my words.

Also, an unexpected mention of my Levihan enemies to lovers AU! Titled "to live", it's been on a long hiatus but it's meant much to me. (Also hey its birthday is coming up!)

Some writer's routine below

and some of my favourite couple tropes

(certainly expect some Levihan fighting in sync in the following arc 😉)

The next parts will follow soon!

[quillsandblades]

Heya everyone! @sunflowersunite and I are here for part 2 of behind the scenes for chapter 22 of Where My Monsters Like to Hide. Heads up for spoilers and click for better quality

Starting off with the setting: Sunny and I both agree a shootout between the police and some thugs ain't fun unless there's some disco lights in the room 🪩

And so we had the iceburst stone fill in for the role

Continuing with the action, we have an aggressive banana, Kenny's childhood dream coming true, among other things

So yeah it took Hange almost dying for her and Levi to get back to normal... I mean, it's us writing so of course that would happen

And some random stuff :P

All in all, this was one of the most eventful chapters for us to write. A LOT happened and we managed to wrap it up before the hiatus soo I hope y'all had just as much fun reading this too!

⚔️🌻

(previous part)

[sunflowersunite]

Update & Announcement 📣

It's not letting me post the link normally so read the chapter

HERE

@quillsandblades and I have returned with yet another chapter! (and an important announcement)

Allow me to present to you a rollercoaster of tattered morals and overwhelming emotions, a chance for two authors to go berserk and have fun with it as the Underground arc is wrapped up all nicely, with a bow on top ❤️

Without further ado, let's jump right into:

"if you can't afford the wrath of the elements, homemade is fine" 🌊

portrayals of betrayal

a brother's final (?) stand

a genius plan, its consequences and a live bait

Kenny's childhood dream coming true (unfortunately, for everyone involved)

Synopsis:

Crimson shot in the air, he smelt it before he saw it. Another pinch added to the tidal wave of scents hitting his nose. Blood was the strongest, always had been. When he was a kid and cried at the sight of it, when he stepped into the field for the first time and puked at the horrid, raw stench hitting his nose during a messy operation, and even now. Always the blood. Like the dead were reminding him of their tragedy, like those on the brink of it were reminding him that he gets to live while they die. Thugs and policemen mixed, their wounds leaking the same blood as every single person out there. Mike hated them so much, these criminals who made his people bleed.

Alright, another important thing we wanted to talk about. Mina and I are taking a small break from the updates. Real life has been catching up for a while now, we've been trying our best to continue posting through the accumulating responsibilities, and I think we did a great job of presenting a compelling story so far. But here's the thing: the next arc is going to require much more work, and our attention needs to be focused elsewhere for now. If we continued with the updates we'd get confused and lost in the details, thus the quality of the story would eventually decrease. That's clearly the last thing we want. We love this story too much to let this happen to it.

Therefore, "Where My Monsters Like To Hide" will be on hiatus until early June, when we'll both be more free to continue working on it and give it our full attention.

Meanwhile we'll post our backstage content for the rest of the chapters here on Tumblr and we'll take advantage of the time we'll have ahead of us to structure our next arc, so that in June we'll be ready to present you with the continuation!

Both of us would like to thank you all so much for following this story, and for your patience. See you in June! 😉

🌻⚔️

[sunflowersunite]

Hello friends, foes, arch nemeses and everything in between! 😉 @quillsandblades and I are back with the behind the scenes of the vampire fic! Specifically from chapter 21. You know the drill, spoilers ahead, click on the images for better quality.

[part 1, part 2, part 3]

below you'll see examples of not only us but also the characters being chaotic messes

Erwin pretends to be chill while Levi pretends not to be in love, good job both of you 👍

Here you'll see the rare sight of us reaping the fruits of our delay to begin writing this chapter until five days before the deadline (I find it really funny because we agreed we'd write 5k words for this one, take it easy, and then we outlined it, took a look at it, looked at each other and decided "...we're speedrunning this aren't we" "yep")

but we're responsible people i promise

and here the adventures of Armin

In case you're wondering how writers choose names for random characters, in our case we scout aot wiki and wholeheartedly wish the options don't end quickly because we sure have a lot of chapters ahead

of course, the results often look like this:

And here evidence that writers scream at their screens too as well as readers. Armin manipulated Mina into writing his dialogue and we were left staring at a scene where Hange was full of doubts about her friend while Armin smiles like nothing happened.

Stay tuned! 😃

[quillsandblades]

@sunflowersunite and I are back with another episode of behind the scenes of our beloved vampire au!! Here's a glimpse into the backstage of chapter 20 (beware of spoilers - click the pictures for better quality)

Starting off with the potential candidates for the chapter name - we decided to settle on the first one in the end

And then confirming if we're serious about the Riordan titles or not

So turns out, this fic hasn't been all fluff and thrill for us. It's taught us a great deal of stuff, from historical battle strategies to calculations about blood flow. And now you've got some pretty good relationship advice from two single people right here. Being a writer changes you in so many ways

When we're both tackling different scenes (of different nature) in the chapter at the same time, something like this happens:

Then some chaos...

...and more chaos

Part two is out!

(and here are similar posts for the previous chapter - 1, 2)

[quillsandblades]

Heya! Since the vampire fic was updated on the seventeenth, which is a Friday and an irregular day, when will you be planning to post the next chapter? Just a rough estimate would be really helpful ;)

Hi there!!

So uh @sunflowersunite and I are planning to update by this sunday, sticking to the usual schedule. For now that's the plan but if we do change anything in the future (since progress is kinda slow these days) we'll let y'all know as usual

Hope that helped! ⚔️🌻

[sunflowersunite]

So we know that nothing can tear a vampire away from who it’s currently feeding on (at least that’s what we think), though the only exceptions are Hange and Eren’s cases.

Regarding the solution Hange extracted from Levi’s fangs, its objective is to thin the blood and produce more for the vampire to feast on. Which is likely the reason they can go so long without a meal. So now I’m curious: how much of the solution would you need to make the person implode? And can the vampire control the amount?

Another point: what if you somehow manage to stop a vampire from feeding halfway through? Would the person’s death still be inevitable if the solution is still working? It’s not like excess blood will leak out from the punctures, since the vampire Hange killed had plenty of deep wounds.

It makes me think that the concentration largely depends on the subconscious urges of the vampire. Whether or not they want more to feast on. After all, Levi drew blood from Hange in a controlled test. While both she and Eren experienced an energy surge every time they were bitten, they didn’t have the drawbacks of the anemic rat or vampire in the alley.

First off... you're actually interested in the science behind this?? Thank you so much for asking! We're so excited, we were already planning on explaining it on a separate post (which we will). But until then and after a small meeting with @quillsandblades (who absolutely loves explaining biology related stuff) here's your answer!

(Spoilers ahead for any newcomers)

For starters, the solution extracted from Levi's fangs has two properties: one being that it contains an anticoagulant which prevents the blood from clotting to allow a smoother feeding, and the other is that it stimulates more blood production on the human's side. However, that is not in order for the vampire to drink more, since it's pretty much sated with a 4.5 lt blood meal (the amount of blood an average person has) and can last for weeks with just that, without needing more. That certain effect kicks in a few minutes after the feeding and serves the purpose of compensating for the human's blood loss (though a normal person always dies of blood loss before the chemical starts working)

Moving on to an important factor. As Hange suspected on chapter 15 when she conducted her experiments (cue drumroll 🥁)... a bond is formed between a vampire and one certain person. Because of it, that particular person (Hange for Levi, Eren for Mikasa) survives after the vampire feeds on them whereas a non-bonded human wouldn't. What's more, Levi and Mikasa can now control themselves while feeding (on Hange and Eren only, that's why they survived the first feeding on chapter 8-9), therefore it keeps a vampire linked to their humanity as well! Lastly as Hange noticed, even 1 litre from the bonded human is enough to sate them whereas as stated before, they needed about 5 litres of a regular person's blood to be full.

Now, whenever a vampire bites someone, they release a fixed amount of that chemical and don't have a way of controlling its quantity. There's not really a way to make them stop if they're out of control until they completely drain a person (bonded humans are an exception), but let's say it was possible. The results would be:

To a non-bonded human, that fixed quantity of the solution causes production of about 2-3 extra litres of blood. That isn't enough to make them burst but it causes internal bleeding, organ rupture, swelling and hemorrhages. If they're not taken to the hospital immediately they could die from a stroke or pulmonary edema.

Hange and Eren survive because due to the bond, their body produces just 1 litre of blood, the exact amount that they lost, and no more than that. So they come out of it just nice and dandy and unscathed.

A vampire's system already produces such a chemical of their own. When another's chemical enters their bloodstream, something akin to an allergic reaction starts developing, causing the production of much bigger quantities of blood (6-7 litres), much quicker. That causes severe damage, the skin ruptures and the organs spill out as seen on chapter 20.

(The results are the same if the chemical is externally administered as we see Hange doing on chapter 20 with the knife, because it still enters the bloodstream and starts acting)

*the bond mentioned is not at all related to or inspired by the theory of the Ackerbond, since that one was disproven by canon and since both Min and I dislike it

Once again, thank you so much for asking, this was a delight. Feel free to send us any more questions you might have!!

[quillsandblades]

Everything reminds me of them 🧍🏼‍♀️

You're not alone lol @sunflowersunite and I go feral over such posts daily 😂 we've started to see vampires and aot everywhere at this point

[sunflowersunite]

Here's part 2 of the backstage footage from the Vampire AU by @quillsandblades and I! Some more comments from chapter 20 of "Where My Monsters Like to Hide". Heads up, spoilers ahead for the chapter 🙃

part 1 of the "behind the scenes"

warning: me going insane under the cut

(we love some sappiness every now and again 😁)

a random hc I have: Eren commissions Jean to make a portrait of Mikasa but stands in the room the entire time. To watch over Jean, just in case.

bonus: in case y'all are getting impatient with the slow burn and you want them to be together already... so do we

[quillsandblades]

Sooo @sunflowersunite and I have decided to post something like a "behind the scenes" of the writing and planning of our Vampire AU since there's so many things sitting in our docs and chats that deserve to see the light of day lol

Here's the unhinged nonsense behind chapter 20 of Where My Monsters Like to Hide, it contains spoilers so better read the chapter first :)

(The comments on the sides are about the parts highlighted in yellow - click to see the whole picture)

Yes I had way too much fun writing all the gore, I guess it shows too

And a little thinking we did over deciding the name of the chapter

Here's part two of this!

[quillsandblades]

@sunflowersunite and I are finally back with a new chapter!! 😁 Phew it's been long. This one has A LOT of stuff going on, including:

A family sparring match and a lecture

Some grounded teenagers

A bit of mysterious poetry

An angry Shadis and an even angrier Hange

An extremely unexpected birthday surprise

Kidnapping attempt (?)

Synopsis:

The letter had been rather easy to decipher and fifteen minutes later Hange found herself looking at a poem of all things. After the agony she went through with Eren and Mikasa, Hange had thought that all that travail would lead to the final clue to the second establishment’s location. Or at least the key to the final part of the journal that they couldn’t read. But no, all the risks those stupid kids took were for a fucking poem.

Happy reading!! 🌻⚔️

[sunflowersunite]

I guess you won't publish the story now it's been 4 weeks

Hey anon! No, there won't be an update today I'm afraid.

Those days both @quillsandblades and I have been handed quite a load of real life responsibilities each, and even through those we still try to work hard on the chapter. We try our best, but we can't write as quickly as before because of the aforementioned responsibilities.

That doesn't mean we have abandoned the story though. We're flattered to know that you guys are waiting for the update but we ask for a little patience because we're already doing our best. The support is appreciated but please no pressure. A month is an average update gap for a fanfic, many writers take more than that. It doesn't mean we're abandoning it.

[sunflowersunite]

Hello to all readers of "where my monsters like to hide"!! ✌️ Just wanted to inform you that although it's been three weeks since the last update and @quillsandblades and I did say that we're shifting to a three week update schedule, we need some time more for this next chapter. That is because 1. we did take some days off for holidays (quite refreshing), 2. we were busy with the Levihan secret Santa exchange (it was awesome) and 3. some pressing responsibilities outside the Internet.

Rest assured, we're working on the following chapter and we're having fun with it. We're just asking for a little time to present you with the best results possible and you will be informed once we've released it into the wild!

Have a good one and thanks for being here! 😉

[quillsandblades]

Me and @sunflowersunite talk for ten minutes and we get a whole new arc planned out and several backstories made for "Where my monsters like to hide." This vampire au that was supposed to be some 25 chapters long has climbed up to 40

And as Sunny said, "from vampire-human moments between levihan we made this into a conspiracy war fic."

Life couldn't get better

[sunflowersunite]

It is coming 🧛🏻‍♂️ isn't it?

Hello anon! Always a pleasure to hear from you. @quillsandblades and I are working on it and I trust it will arrive soon! 😉

(just in case, if at some point we miss the update by a day or two, rest assured that we haven't neglected the story. It's just that our responsibilities irl might have required more time from us, and we'd rather present a polished chapter than a draft, so we would push the update)