Honk Honk! So as a thank you to the people who have been with me this far into this work, I wanted to do a fun little Q&A, fun facts about the characters and the setting! If you have any questions you wanted me to answer please leave a comment below and I'll add it to this doc!

Where did you get the idea for this story?

I was actually listening to Hozier's self-titled album while having horrible kidney stones for 4 days. Prior to the kidney stone attack I had been playing stardew valley religiously and wanted to write something involving Shane because after stalking his wiki article I really felt connected to the character and his struggle with depression, anxiety and addiction. In a pain Induced hallucination I dreamed up him and a man dying slowly in a field of flowers while kissing to "Like Real People Do" played in the background.

How did you come up with Mars?

I had known I had wanted to write a vampire centered story ever since twilight came out. I hated it, I hated everything about it and wanted to give my own take on vampires and make a character that (and I know how cheesy this sounds) wasn't like the vampires I had read about before. I read twilight, skimmed through and watched many analyses on the series. I've read Stephen King Salem's Lot, books about the origin of vampires and A multitude of films about vampires, the only real thing I didn't indulge in was Bram Strokers Dracula (the novel).

Ann Rice cannot be left out when it comes to the modernization of vampires in literature, and rightly so, she revolutionized how we see vampires in modern media. I wasn't able to read her vampire chronicles series but had a friend who had that I bounced ideas off of and could tell me in a nutshell plot points of her novels that really helped shape what I wanted out of my vampires.

I'm giving this background info because without it, it's really hard to explain how I came up with Mars. I liked the idea of a vampire falling in love with a human (twilight). I also wanted them to be terrifying.(Stephen King) but I also wanted them to be approachable, a true monster of the night. (Ann Rice)

I needed a wolf in sheep's clothing, that the audience could fall in love with, root for, but also remember this is a monster who feeds on the blood of the living.

I needed his actions to be reasonably, and understandably evil.

Mars isn't a monster by choice, he's a monster because this is what he needs to be to survive.

Mars' physical appearance really didn't come to me until my friend sent me a TikTok and the person in the video had me saying, this is Mars, and I rolled with it.

Fun facts about Mars

Things you might not know about him (because it's not necessary/ I couldn't add it in to the plot)

He is Jewish (well at least as a human)

He enjoys modern pop/radio music, and likes to sing in the car (mostly to annoy Shane)

Has dated a Prince before

Used to enjoy gambling as a human

I wish I could put more in here but I'm afraid of revealing too much!

Why Shane?

This has to be one of my favorite questions! Shane is by far one of the best characters I have EVER ran across as far as character development and the fact that recovery is not linear.

As I went through Shane's heart events (which mind you I only befriended him for the blue chickens) I just found so much to resonate with. I think I ugly cried on his four heart event (The one where he breaks down in his room) because I have been there, I've had friends be there, and I was like no this is my favorite character I really NEED to write a story about him.

I thought a lot about his character in general, peaking in highschool how it feels like everything is collapsing around you and his suicidal ideations.

(I will always pull my girl in here, my friend Tailia has an amazing fic going into this link here)

I also thought about the horror of living forever with his mindset. As the story goes on I hope to show more on how he is forced almost to figure out ways to cope, not just because of his own well being but others.

Why vampires?

Like I said I've been wanting to write a vampire story since Twilight, and honestly I wanted this story to stay pretty simple. At first I wanted it where Mars was this Alien aesthetic fairy kind of like the junimos but he would feed off the life force of humans. I decided against it because it just really wasn't worth it and honestly I like this version better.

Where did your passion for horror come from?

I just really enjoy the feeling I get setting up a good scare or scene that's creepy! Some of my earliest influences were the old school Silent Hill games, which I watched a ton of walkthroughs when growing up. I think the passion really came from sitting in my friends basement with the lights off watching him play these video games and him making funny jokes about it but both of us knowing we'd be shitting our pants if we didn't have each other to lean on when pyramid head would come out and try to kill the protag. I want to make other people feel the same feeling I did when I was sitting with my friend.

Thank you so much! Here is the playlist I use for writing and also my pinterest for this story! If you have any questions I didn't cover please comment below and I'll be happy to answer them!

Playlist - playlist/3Anjyxp9p7dllIg6LVLam9?si=5e61b131c4cc4d65

Pinterest- /UnH09ud