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cestcirque · 3 years

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🎉 12.12.21! 🎉

In honor of one year since starting Aperture (and this lil ol’ blog 🥺) I’ve compiled some of the countless behind-the-scenes stuff I never revealed about my SMAUs

This serves no other purpose but to be a nice walk down memory lane for me and the nostalgia is sO real—LET’S GOOOO!!!

Check out the previous post about the secrets of Aperture!

I was adamant about using my own art for visuals bc I constantly see fanart go uncredited on SMAUs (and other works of writing). 🙄 Any art in The Cardinal Set that isn’t mine, Furudate-sensei’s, or free-use imagery is properly credited

Much less thought in The Cardinal Set bc entirely too much needed to happen 😅

1. The 3 Y/Ns and their personalities came to me immediately after finishing Aperture, since requests for different routes were so strong. But I very quickly disregarded them bc creating these characters just to give people a happy ending felt too indulgent and I’m not about that

It wasn’t until I came up w the switch months later that I was sold. The lesson Aperture failed to teach—you can try as hard as you can to “build” love but sometimes you simply can’t hit all the right points and that’s okay. Suddenly the character dynamics I already created fit perfectly when paired with a different partner

2. These are the wallpapers on the Y/Ns’ lockscreens!

By Burnt Toast Creative, one of my favorite illustrators, who makes a ton of great wallpapers free to use (check him out!!!!)

Trompe l’œil:

3. Y/N’s paintings are actually meant to tie in the banners, but the concept is only half developed bc I decided it wasn’t important to the story. Polaroids from Aperture, one-line drawings from Screentone, typography from Extrema, and from Trompe-l’œil, color. Semi reveals he has a purple Rothko print in movement x, and Y/N’s first painting, Komorebi, is green (having fully grasped the concept of intimacy). Ikigai should have been blue (companionate, it wasn’t 😅) but we bring it back around when she asks Terushima for pink and red for koi no yokan (romance)

4. Akaashi’s favorite poem (#40, the one he was saving for a rainy day) and the poem Y/N posts the next day (#41) are companion pieces! It is said that they were put against each other in a poetry competition but could not be ranked one over the other. Formally, #40 is listed as the winner

…I can’t reveal what I was really trying to imply w poem #80, lest Akaashi stans get mad at me again… just know there’s a reason Konoha replies the way that he does 💩

Screentone:

5. Y/N’s sketches are my sketches from actual drawing classes (yes, even Semi’s figure study)

And yes, I did look up the names and stroke orders of all the muscles / bones in Japanese

6. This notebook page at the café where Y/N works w Akaashi is already eying Atsumu, very blatantly might I add

7. In any group chat w Saeko and Akiteru, Y/N calls Udai by “Udai-sensei” or “Udai-san.” When she speaks privately w him (and even when she mentions him to Semi), she calls him “Tenma”

This is something I don’t expect anyone to pick up on, but it’s very telling in Japanese when someone uses keigo (respectful language) vs. tameguchi (casual language). The fact that there’s a difference in address when she’s in front of certain people would immediately indicate a secret relationship. But by Layer 22, she’s addressing him as “Tenma” in front of everyone! No more hiding!

Extrema:

8. This is something I actually hand-lettered

The quote really is one of my accidental life mottos, said in passing by a guest lecturer for my college film class (I have searched and searched but I still have no idea who to attribute it to)

9. Atsumu’s journey and the V.League coup is based on Miyano Mamoru, who happens to be Atsumu’s voice actor and even shares the Kanji in his name (宮, “miya”)! Some years ago, fan outbursts forced Mamo to hold a press conference, which ended in him bowing and begging his fans to let him marry his then girlfriend. Out of fear for their safety, he has never revealed the names of his wife and son

Much like the Natsume Sōseki analogy, Atsumu’s decision to not reveal his partner’s name was something I decided a week or so before posting the chapter, bc I stumbled upon said press conference. 😅 And yet it made so much sense, I hated that it wasn’t my plan from the beginning—even the fact that the interview chapter happened to land in Extrema, where Screentone Y/N couldn’t be named anyway!

10. Traditionally, Heian period kossori dating started first w poems (in this case texts/tweets), then progressed to secret meetings, then after the third meeting, the couple was considered official and allowed to be seen in daylight. Secret meetings all depended on women unlocking their doors—if men sent their poems but the door was still locked, they’d be out of luck. So much of the story’s movement comes from whether or not the Y/Ns have “unlocked their doors”

I also tried to make each storyline have exactly 3 secret meetings, but Semi ended up w four by Page 20, so Y/N had to tweet about it to make it public 🤭

Originally, Extrema’s banner was going to change right after Y/N met Semi (i.e. unlocking her door). I thought people would start getting it by Page 13, but… ya didn’t. All the banners were set to change, but I decided literally that day that the “kossori” arc would include keeping it secret from readers as well. 🙃 How fitting that the true banners would not be seen in daylight until the couples were official

THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT

#cardinal set smau #cardinal set extras #haikyuu smau

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