#impostors

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This thing took fucking forever XD

My first finished animatic reel~ It is super non-canon, mostly, and not 100% in-character, either. I just had certain voices in mind for Ghost and Shio, and everything sort of spiraled into madness from there. As for Qīng, he doesn't normally sound like Richard Horvitz, but he's conveniently sick in these, so it's fine. 🤭

If you're interested in reading the story these dorks are from, registered Ao3 users can read Breach right here. Meanwhile, if you also want extra chapters and bonus AUs and lots of silly art, there's also the Discord server~

Summary:

Qīng Summers had never imagined himself as a cosmic diplomat, much less an astronaut. In fact, he never even expected to find himself working in janitorial on a prestigious research vessel. But when a terrible tragedy befalls the crew of Prometheus, and Qīng is dragged from what he knows and straight into enemy territory, he finds that he might be more uniquely equipped for interspecies diplomacy than he thought. Although, that might be because the alien security officer he’s staying with is incredibly attractive…

There's lots of neurodivergent and/or queer characters, and while it's chiefly a romantic dramedy/space opera, be warned that it gets Pretty Dark in places.

There's also tons of smut in the AUs. XD

James, Everett, and Adam all belong to @crinklytinfoil, and are used in Breach with permission. Greg, meanwhile, belongs to Zerorita on Ao3, and is also going to be used in Breach with permission. :3c

Audio credits: Helluva Boss, Sungwon Cho/ProZD, and K-Pop Demon Hunters. I edited a few clips here and there as needed.

One of the main reasons I wanted to re-read it however is how I remembered the futuristic glamour of this book when I read it as a kid and I realized now that several aspects of the “reputation economy” as it’s called here are an interesting prediction of YouTube and the influencer sphere. Some of the phrases he discussed like “wisdom of the crowd” have stuck with me for life!

(Also now that I’m more familiar with anime/manga tropes I wanted to look at it from that angle too)

The fact that Aya wants to be essentially a YouTuber, her brother’s moderately famous in the same way the Green brothers rose to prominence, and they discuss rage-bait without using any of those words is fascinating! YouTube would have just started in 2007, when this book was published, with several aspects regarding fame and monetization having not yet manifested in our world.

I think it’s also interesting some of the leads I spotted leading into Impostors.

I was somewhat disappointed when Impostors wrapped up that Aya and her friends never had a cameo of any kind as I think she would have been fairly easy to write in.

But Extras was critical in setting up Impostors. There’s a mention of “true AI” being illegal in reference to Moggle, Aya’s camera-bot. The sentient AIs are a huge part of Impostors especially in the series’ back half.

Not to ignore too how Extras was the first exploration of more serious aspects of the Mind-Rain and exploring the economy, return of religion, and other similar social phenomena.