#brairwitched

[artistfingers]

What was the biggest inspo for things that bleed?

Oh, anon. I am so glad you asked.

Hands down, our first and biggest inspiration was the fic series Of Madness and Mammals by Brairwitched. Specifically, we cite the fic Dysthymia in the first chapter of Things That Bleed.

Mammals is the very fic series I'd landed on after my AR novel reread—back when it was still updating, mind you!—and I was pretty much losing my mind just rattling the bars of my cage all alone. It was very, very much Mammals that gave me the setting and framework for my initial TTB proposal: that Alex, while on the run with Yassen someplace through the US, should run into SCP!Danny.

So I inflicted it upon Kei and Kkachi. They actually both read Mammals before any canon AR content, so a lot of our early TTB brainstorming referenced Mammals before we overhauled it and took a closer look at the books themselves, as well as the Alex Rider show. (...and then decided we have selective hearing and did our own thing HJKAGSD)

I asked Kei and Kkachi if they wanted to pitch in on answering this ask, so here's a little more from them!

@dp-belongs-in-a-hoodie said:

This fic was also inspired by Shadow of a Doubt! The whole "Danny on the run from a dark and traumatic past, helped out by unlikely strangers" is a genre that I honestly can't get enough of. The secrets!!!! A boy clearly haunted and rough around the edges but still gentle and kind. What's not to love??

We were also "inspired" I guess you could say, by my own fic Something's Wrong With Danny Fenton! At least in the sense that we used many of my hcs that I established for it! It gave us a really good jumping off point for pushing Danny even further into the the horror territory needed for a fic like this that crosses over into the SCP!verse.

@kkachis said:

devil and the deep blue sea inspired some of the more granular and darker elements in the alex rider part of TTB! some parts and characters of TTB are heavily influenced by the tone, manipulative strategies, and political machinations that you can observe in DatDBS. we won't claim to be as good as pongnosis at manipulating those threads, nor will an endgame like DatDBS be our end goal, but as the story develops and as we uncover more of alex's past, you'll be able to see more of its influence seeping through.

Thank you for reading and asking, anon! (o゜▽゜)o☆

for anyone who's curious, you can find TTB over on Ao3 and @thingsthatbleedfic 🖤

#honestly i'm sure we could drum up a hundred other non-fic inspirations as well but those are the most direct ones i think!! #things that bleed #danny phantom #alex rider #scp foundation #dp-belongs-in-a-hoodie #kkachis #ask #anon

[artistfingers]

"He was angry. That was part of the reason. But Alex knew it was more than that. Mr Bray might have given him the excuse, but there was a part of him that needed to investigate, to uncover the answers. That part had been deliberately cultivated by MI6 nd his uncle - Ian Rider.

Using him wasn't enough. First, they turned him into someone who wanted to be used."

-

aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAA

(no wonder alex is going through an identity crisis. who is he really, indeed.)

UWGHAAAAAAA THE PAIN. PAINPAINPAIN. a really good line to (re)discover in your readthrough because this REALLY does get at the core of what's going on for Alex. Certainly keep it in mind when you get to read Mammals, btw. I think Brairwitched handles this aspect of Alex's cache of issues very, very well. (And for Yassen too, when it gets around to that.)

#making me want to reread mammals I CAN'T I CAN'T RIGHT NOW AUGHHHH #ask #abrielarnold #alex rider

[artistfingers]

Of Madness and Mammals, in a nutshell.

what better way to celebrate 100 chapters of Comorbidity than with memes? (no better way, that's how)

also, here's my two favorite bits of the animatic.... sunshine son and grumpy mum:

#alex rider #yassen gregorovich #of madness and mammals #brairwitched #art scribbles #video #my mental landscape of memes is not nearly big enough to have pulled this off alone so please please please thank kkachi and kei asdfhaksjl #kkachi suggested both the boogie woogie and dollar store kush ones and the other one is from kei's huge brain #these two are the real MVPs i said hey u should read mammals and they just did and now we're all feral sjdhakljfhdasl #anyways. <3 dadsassin and spyson here they are i love them to pieces #mammals!verse alex and yassen are something than can be so special— #ar fanart

[artistfingers]

Yassen always knew Hunter's stupid orphan was going to get him killed.

... Destiny is fucking with him again. It's fine. He'll fix it.

for maybe a month now, I've been neck-deep in Of Madness and Mammals by Brairwitched, and so, of course I had to channel all that excess energy somewhere ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ The first three sketches are character studies based off Alex and Yassen's appearances in the novels plus the Mammals twist, and the last two are scenes from Comorbidity (chapters 92 and 93, respectively).

#alex rider #yassen gregorovich #of madness and mammals #brairwitched #alex rider fanart #excuse me sir thats his dad (i lay down and cry heavily for several hours) #art scribbles #i also finished rereading all the novels right around when i started in on of madness and mammals #i started rereading them from the start sometime in 2020 because i learned there'd been more books published since when i read the series #i'd only read through scorpia rising in middle school and honestly thought thats how the series ended #BUT IT IS NOT #so yeah rereading them all was such a treat theyre such fun books #and honestly we are utterly spoiled by the fanfic too #like seriously... utterly spoiled i can't even believe it #i'm already on my second readthrough of mammals akjhsdfjhsd #anyways yeah if youve wondered what ive been up to lately. its this #Art's Fic Recs #ar fanart