#ah tidbits

HELLO AFTER HOURS FANS! After Hours now has a discord community server! I decided to make it for people who couldn't / don't want to use tumblr but still want to read the episodes and engage with the content, so I made a little space for updates! You can read the episodes live straight in the server as well as here! Comes with the added benefit of: Me being more active on discord... And special bits and bobs i'll drop from time to time! Come check it out!

This is a deviation of my usual posting schedule, and is something i've been mulling over today. Today is quite important in After Hours' development! Hi there! This 2nd of August, 2023, at around 7pm on the dot, I reached the end of writing Season 2 of Inside Job; After Hours. This marks the end of the plot that I've been developing since late November 2022, after seeing the second part of Season 1 of Inside Job air on Netflix. 

I have miscellaneous plots for After Hours that I may want to bring forward from here, such as a Ron-centric movie falling in between seasons, and a plot focusing on a certain shenanigan Lara’s future son Charlie gets into in his adulthood- but I have no plans to start on any of it any time soon. 

What I want to wax poetic about, however, is how After Hours has been changing and improving my life since I started dedicating my time to it. I’m going into my second year of College (British school system, so for Americans, I'm between Grade 11 and 12, and preparing for University!) And I go to a film school that has no exams, and is purely coursework assessed, and for my final for year one, I decided to develop the canon designs for Lara, Logan and Toby for the start of Season 2. If I had not chosen to work on my story the way I had, when it came time to submit our project briefs in late March, I never would’ve passed Year 1 as I did now. I owe passing one of my college years, and in the grander scheme of things, moving up in the animation industry, to After Hours for simply giving me the source materials I needed to impress my examiners. I’ve yet to receive my official grade, but according to a teacher’s verbal slip-up, I'm excited to say I'm getting a very high mark….

I’ve also used After Hours as a coping mechanism, and this last year has been a blur and a struggle, and I could always turn to After Hours in order to release some tension and fuel my creativity. I had no bounds when it came to AH. 

I even procrastinated writing the finale because of my emotional attachment to it- I started Episode 11 in April, and only now have I finished it. 

Lara, Logan, Toby- and even the rest of the crew have my life experiences gently and lovingly sewed into them, and displayed against a background of tumultuous experiences and events that test the true fabric of family and love. 

I’m incredibly moved whenever someone decides to delve into their world and honour me by accepting this offshoot of a story we all know and love.

It’s really hard for me to let go of this project, because it means closing a chapter on what has been the scariest, most productive, most tumultuous and most memorable year of my life. I’ve made so many new and incredible friends, both online and offline, whom I cherish dearly. I’ve started new chapters in love, and also in self discovery. After Hours has accompanied me through that this academic year. 

After the release of the end of Season 1 this weekend, i’ll be taking some time off in beautiful Italy, and i’ll be back with Season 2 in the new academic year come September. 

Thank you so, so much to everyone who's witnessed the development of my ideas come to life these past few weeks, and it only gets more interesting from here!

And a separate thank you to Lara Higgins. She won’t ever know me, but she’s helped me through more than you’d know. 

Stay tuned! Love ya! Thank you for sticking around!