this is the first of 2 asks, feel free to publish this one publicly or privately. hi, we recently read your comic for the first time, and it honestly inspired a lot of ideas within us, to the point where we would like to make a fancomic to your fancomic. however, the ideas we have are distinctly more sour and strong than the flavors present on the surface level of the original work. we have noticed that your work seems to get a lot of heat, and a lot of it is just for making something "twee" or "cringe." we think that's really dumb. we want to be very clear that all of our concepts are arising from a love of the original work, especially for the aspects of it that we have not seen people discuss at length that, in our opinion, deserve a level of depth and focus not provided to them by people taking one look, calling it cringe, and then walking in the other direction.
we will send a second ask right after this one with some specific examples of what we're talking about and what inspired us (separate so that if we do go ahead with this, no one is spoiled on what our starting concepts are), but the short version is that if viewed through a slightly different lens, there is essentially a perfect setup for a horror comic right underneath the surface. we would love to dig that up and play in that space.
we want to promise a thousand times over that our inspiration for this is out of a genuine love and interest in the characters and setting. i will be blunt in saying that this is a distinctly more sour take on them, the warheads candy of it all, or to use the epilogues metaphor, the meat to csau's candy. while drafting a lot of our ideas, we sat in your shoes and thought about how we would feel if someone came and dropped something like this entirely out of the blue, and we would feel fucking awful. your comic has received a good amount of (unfounded) hate for just being a fix-it fic, so despite you saying in the past you were very happy for people to make csau fanfics, and wanting to see them, we wanted to ask you first, and get your blessing for making a somewhat darker take on this. we do not want this to feel like bullying, or a hit piece, or an attempt to "fix" csau by making in edgy. we are just very, very proud of the stuff we've written so far, and want your approval to make it a reality, because it would honestly be a shame to shelve some of the concepts we're working with.
but more than anything, we don't want to add to your stress. our honest and true goal is that we want to play in your sandbox with you, and make a scary sand castle. we would be writing An epilogue, but i do not want it to step on the toes of yours, or overshadow it in any way. we do not want this to be The epilogue to your comic. that's yours to make. we want this to be an au of your au. and we are very interested in seeing what you do with yours! you had mentioned there being some kind of heist sequence, and we've been wondering what on earth would need to be heisted. we're really looking forward to seeing that.
it honestly does not matter to us if you link to the comic or talk about it when it's out, or even if you read it in the first place. we just don't want to blindside you with it. we will reiterate many times in our work and on our blog that we are not intending to replace you, or fix your comic. we just want to explore the depths of where this story could go. we will tell people to make sure to read yours as well.
i hope we've shown that we do not want this to be an attack on you in any way, shape, or form. we understand how it would feel like that if we dropped this, totally unannounced and unauthorized, into the world. so, i wanted to ask, is this a comic you would be ok with us making? please let us know. if you have any questions about anything please reach out and we'll do our best to answer. thank you for reading.
Hi! Thank you so much for taking your time to write me and explain your ideas to me. You totally have my blessing to write a Meat take on CSAU's Candy.
I made CSAU very cheesy because it brought me comfort during some difficult times, but the universe it's made on has the potential for a lot of horror, to be honest, I just chose not to exploit it during the comic back then. Though I will lean a little bit more into it during the epilogues (that's connected to the heist).
I love the metaphor about playing in my sandbox together, because that's basically what fandoms are and that was actually the point of the AU. I took the story someone else made and changed the events for fun to see what happens, and someone else can take mine and do the same.
Don't worry, I totally get this is not trying to overwrite my comic but add to it and explore untouched ideas; I love that.
As for the examples you sent on the second message that inspired you to make your own comic and that you want to expand on, those are all topics I'll touch on during the epilogue, but probably not as in-depth as a meat route would, so you're free to explore those concepts as much as you'd like.
So yeah, go ahead, have fun! And tag me when you post the first one. I'd like to see what you make.
