#hellhaunt :{ danny

[weirdlypersonalrpmemes]

For the pt3 of "random shit ive thought about saying" meme- you're writing a book? What is it about?

bestie you have no idea how much this ask cheered me up; i was having such an awful day and this ask made me smile so big, so thank you so much for it! (for reference, the post being talked about is here!)

it’s hard to describe my novel succinctly, but in essence, it’s about these four characters who are trying to find a cure for a supernatural illness and... well, about everything they go through along the way. the plot of the novel operates on a very small scale, with the whole book being structured in a super interpersonal way. there’s four main characters, as i mentioned, named henry, beatrice, danny, and violet, and they all live in the same small farming village. which is cool! because going into the novel, all of them have relationships with each other. henry and beatrice are siblings, danny and henry were childhood friends turned enemies, and violet is the only maid in danny’s household. in the book, you can kind of say that henry is the main protagonist and danny is the main antagonist, with beatrice and violet being, like, the sidekick to either one of them.

the book’s really evolved since i created it at, like, ten years old where all of the characters were based on a video game i liked at the time, and now it’s less like “look what these cool people are doing!” and it has a lot more going for it thematically. a huge theme in the novel is about family, which is a big value of henry’s, but there’s also a really strong theme of letting go of things you’ve previously held dear. a lot of the characters have things they really, really want, and they’re forced to confront not being able to have those things, and moving on from that. sometimes what they want, either from another person or from life, is just completely impossible to achieve. your crush won’t always like you back, you won’t always be able to protect the people you care about, you won’t always find the answers you’re looking for. but that doesn’t mean that life is over. it just means that you have to start focusing on what you do have, and cherishing what relationships and successes you already have in your life. so, thematically, there’s a lot of that going on, too, both within the interpersonal relationships of the characters themselves and worked into the plot of the story at large.

another theme in the novel is about gender roles and how they affect people, which was... actually what i was talking about in the text itself. i was talking about how people might interpret the way i incorporate normative gender roles into the characters; for instance, with henry’s insistence on providing for his family and being “the man of the house” potentially being cast aside or emphasized in ways i don’t personally agree with. that actually happened to me once with a friend of mine, where he said “oh, my headcanon for henry is xyz” and i just... i was so upset. i didn’t say it outright but i was like, no this headcanon can’t work because it doesn’t make sense at all for his character! but obviously, like, everyone can do what they want with the characters! they’re just all so deeply personal to me that i know it’ll be painful to watch if i ever actually publish it. i probably won’t end up reading fanfics or following rp blogs of the characters, it’d be so much. too painful. i can’t imagine,

umm but to cap this off, i actually do write my ocs on an rp blog! it’s a sideblog so i won’t be able to follow back, but the url is hellhaunt! if you find yourself interested in the novel itself and want to know more about the characters, that’s where you’ll find ‘em! not all of the ocs on there are from the novel, but... you know. and of course, thank you again so much for sending this in! i love my ocs and my novel with my entire heart and literally leap at the opportunity to talk about them, so i really and truly appreciate the ask!

[aftontxt]

"give it time we'll all forget your face." (hellhaunt, from danny!)

"Good."

The response meets no hesitation, no air resistance, no treading water lightly; the plunge into nothing is given immediately, genuinely, with the kind of calmness in such judgement that it suddenly feels like calamity does not feel like a strong enough word to describe that he has seen.

Smoke swirls and drifts in air-flow dances from pale lips, bandaged hands balancing the cigarette at an exposed mouth and his fingers seem too thin in comparison, and the way he hunches like going down a U-Turn with the car you don't own seems to burden no weight ― He knows this is meant to be an insult, but his pride takes no wounds, and his hands do not shake with withheld anger, and his eyes do not leave their hazy gaze up at Danny in this stupid little parking lot probably outside of a dinky little fast-food place that has no idea that there's a corpse sitting on their bench.

— Exhaustion dictates that yes, please do forget his face, as pretty as it might've once been.

"Good," He reaffirms it, like he's tasting the sound, the indifference. "You're not the first to tell me that, kid, won't be the last."

His voice is even and smooth and slow, lower pitched, like he could have been a singer if he tried. Maybe he wanted to be. Maybe that's the purpose of his wrapped hands, wrapped knuckles. But his eyes peeking out from the brim of the cap do not seem human enough to grant that, ― too much like headlights. too little like deer ― and its too dark to see the peeking of skin around his eyes or down his face between bandages taped on, but then again, its a likely story that no one wants to see what death looks like.

"now," he starts again, shifting where he sits on the pretty wooden bench, and suddenly it dawns how much he looks like a shadow in the backdrop of recent night-fall as the sky descends into darkness and against the artificial burning light of the restaurant, he looks half like a ghost. There's a ringing barely there when he speaks, almost a buzzing. it's hard to tell if its from bad lightbulbs or him. Maybe its better you can't tell. "You gonna keep tryin' to start shit, captain, or are you gonna do whatever it was you were gonna do before you decided to pick an easy target?"