Night Vale Summer Literature Camp au
(Dpxdc w/ a dash of wtnv)
Brief plot setup / background: Danny and Damian are twins, they were both trained to be co leaders of the loa. Danny and Damian had a very rocky relationship before coming to live with the Wanyes because of the fact that Danny had "specialized training", which was really Danny being experiment on with Lazarus water. During these experiments Danny and Respawn met, Danny for a long time considered Respawn as more of a brother to him than Damian, they still consider each other brothers but now Danny actually considers Damian a brother. One of the experiments done on Danny was an attempt to replace his blood with Lazarus water which made him need to drink a shit ton of Lazarus water for his body to keep producing blood, which is also how he managed to survive the portal accident of this au. On the summer of their 14th birthday (I headcannon their birthdays to be during the summer) Danny had begged their father to let him to go to a literature summer camp in a small town called Night Vale with his friends, Sam and Tucker, a program which lasts the entire summer. Bruce is reluctant to let him go because of the whole Lazarus water thing and so is Damian because it would be the first time they would be without each other for longer than a few days, but eventually other members of the family and other leaguers convince Bruce to let him go because Danny might develop an unhealthy dependency on them if they don't let him be independent.
As it turns out a whole class from a school called Casper High would be attending the camp as well. Chaos insues when Danny, Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Jazz's cousin, Pearl, find an ancient portal underneath the town accidentally turning it on causing Danny who was standing in it to turn into a halfa, now the portal is premently turned on letting all kinds of creatures through.
(Sidenote: I have yet to listen to the actual Welcome to Night Vale podcast, the portal underneath the town came from me. I'm thinking about changing the town to Amity or just let it be a random ass town because of this. No WTNV characters will appear Night Vale is just the setting.)
Here's some fake tweets to go with this.
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Is it okay to ask what where the inspiration for the characters of Dream along?
Of course! I'm always dying to talk about their creation and inspiration but worry about getting too wordy/annoying about it, so I hardly talk about it unless asked (please ask me about my brainrot heeheehee). I can only fit so much on an Instagram Story or a Tweet, so I'm glad you asked here. I guess this will be the master reference for them. Sorry in advance that this is wordy!!
I made these characters spanning the past 14-15 years, with their story only being worked on about 10+ years ago, give or take. I will mention that they were made with Earl as a starting point while I was working at the cool puppet place; the show I was interning on wasn't scratching the creative itch I had, so it was recommended to me to make the project that I wish I was working on. :oD
The Muppets, Sesame Street, Osamu Tezuka's works, and Moomin were some animated/puppet media off the top of my head that always stuck with me my whole life and have influenced my retro inspired work the most. They all had such sweetness and charm to them, and all felt like a found family :o) My favorite trope. Puppets were also just deeply meaningful to me because they were physical forms of creativity and childlike wonder you could hold and play with! I thought whenever you made one, you put a little bit of your heart and soul into them.
I wanted the Dreamalong Gang to have the charm of Jim Henson's and Tove Jansson's characters, but I wanted them to have the humor and intrigue of Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, and Welcome to Night Vale. DHMIS and Night Vale actually inspired the story the most because they were both a really nice mix of absurdist humor and horror! Sleep Paralysis Demons were a point of intrigue for me that I thought were perfect for a Dreamscape setting, so I started working on including those.
The Dreamalong Gang has little bits and pieces of friends that I had loved, but I leaned into the group dynamics more for them. They're composed of friends I wished I had growing up!
Visually, I'd think of a fun/dream adjacent theme for the characters to tie them all together thematically. I know people tend to bark at me when they see what I'm inspired by but, I don't like to copy directly from my inspiration sources. They're just there to inspire you, ya know?
Archie's theme was Wishing Stars and Bedtime Stories; Hunson Abadeer from Adventure Time used to be on here, but I moved away from anything that might've made Archie spooky. I forgot to include Peter Pan and his Shadow on here, but they inspired him as well!
When it came to palettes, sometimes I'd have something in mind for them already like with Roy G Biv, Archie, and Mae-- Roy has his kidcore rainbow/SMPTE bars, Archie had some of my favorite blues and creams with a pastel minimal rainbow, Mae's were based off the colors of a golden hour rainstorm I had seen on my travels. Other times I had to play around with what color I hadn't used much of yet. I wonder if you can tell which colors are my least favorite and which ones I like a lot hahaha :'o)
I would also think about stories and songs that went with the characters thematically and use those to shape their character a little further, like looking to The Impossible Dream from the 1972 Man of la Mancha and Moon River for Archie, as well as old Ole Lukoje fairytales. He used to draw inspiration from Hijo de la Luna, but I wanted his story to be more upbeat on surface level with hidden tones of sadness instead of dramatic.
I don't want this to get tooooo long, so I'm going to put a pin in it there. If people want to know more in depth inspiration sources for specific characters feel free to ask! I like being open about my inspiration sources and my process since so many other artists gatekeep stuff. I hope this was a nice read!! :o)
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[Image id: A tweet from Sat ★ WELCOME BACK, EMPLOYEE 427!! (@/satsfallingdown) posted on June 14th 2022. It reads "gravity falls and welcome to night vale BOTH premiering on June 15th 2012 is just a neat piece of trivia until the 10 year anniversary hits and suddenly everyone has to deal with the anniversary content for both". End ID]
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Hey there! If you consider yourself a fan of fiction horror podcasts, then I have a recommendation for you!
Spirit Box Radio is about Sam Enfield, who finds himself replacing renowned psychic the Illustrious Madame Marie as host of the Advice and Community Segment, a show for witches, arcanists, and the magically-inclined. However, Sam seems to have no penchant for the Arcane Arts, and in his struggles to be a good host he finds out that the show may be haunted not by ghosts, but by secrets.
The show has the creeping sense of unease of The Magnus Archives, the weird whimsy of Welcome to Night Vale and the LGBTQ+ representation of Hello from the Hallowoods!
If this sounds like something you'd like, then I have good news for you: The show has completed two whole seasons and a third (and final!) one is in the works, but it needs your help!
The show is trying to raise £6500 by October 28th to pay everyone who works on it, like it was able to do in its second season thanks to the previous crowdfunder. Please consider supporting if you've got the means!
Other ways you can support are reblogging this post and/or this post, retweeting this tweet and, of course, listening to the show on your podcatcher of choice!
EDIT: The crowdfunder has now closed, a huge thank you to everyone who supported it!! I still highly recommend you give this pod a listen.
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